WOOYEAL PAIK and RICHARD BAUM argue that a growing number of Chinese feel frustrated by and alienated from local government agencies. They argue that clientelist alliances constitute a growing threat to the stability of the Chinese Communist party. - See more at: http://www.psqonline.org/article.cfm?IDArticle=19317#sthash.m3LZzRfU.dpuf
Christina Gerken makes a critical contribution to our knowledge of the debate over immigration reform in the recent past. Her detailed and richly documented analysis of the content and social implications of the debate that led to critical changes to the American immigration system provides the most¬detailed discussion to date of the immigration reform discourse of the mid-1990s. Through the lens of critical-race theory and neoliberalism, Gerken analyzes how the passage of the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act, the Personal Responsibility Act, and the Illegal Immigration and Immigrant Responsibility Act during the administration of Bill Clinton profoundly reshaped the rights and responsibilities of immigrants in the United States. - See more at: http://www.psqonline.org/article.cfm?IDArticle=19330#sthash.F2iED60M.dpuf
Most empirical research on campaign finance reform attempts to identify the effects of reform using large quantities of data. These studies are useful, but do not present a complete picture of how reform influences electoral dynamics, because they lack information on underlying causal mechanisms. Michael Miller's research, based on surveys and interviews of state legislative candidates, is a welcome addition to the literature and nicely complements existing research by examining how public financing, and in particular the “clean elections” regimes in Arizona, Maine, and Connecticut, affect the behavior of candidates and voters. - See more at: http://www.psqonline.org/article.cfm?IDArticle=19334#sthash.KJh7ywlR.dpuf
In this ambitious book, Daniel S. Goldberg begins with the claim that the income tax is “broken beyond repair” (p. 3). Some of these problems, like the proliferation of tax provisions that benefit special interests, are a matter of design. Others, like the inconsistent taxation of economic gains, are endemic to any tax on income. In the first half of The Death of the Income Tax, the author painstakingly details these and many other problems with our current tax system. - See more at: http://www.psqonline.org/article.cfm?IDArticle=19335#sthash.7vGZLJKC.dpuf
Jeffrey Henig's new book is about the changing governance of the public schools and why it matters. Henig's central theme is that local, single‐purpose governance-a hallmark that has made education "exceptional" by comparison to other realms of public policy-has been giving way to general-purpose governance, sometimes through mayoral control, but mainly through a shift to state and national decision arenas. With this ongoing shift in governance, he argues, education is being plunged into the same governance mix with other public policies, and this change has consequences for power, politics, and reform.
Caroline J. Tolbert, Amanda Keller, and Todd Donovan
Publication Date:
09-2010
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Political Science Quarterly
Institution:
Academy of Political Science
Abstract:
CAROLINE J. TOLBERT, AMANDA KELLER, and TODD DONOVAN examine public opinion data on proposals to reform the presidential nominating process. They argue that one way to preserve a role for grassroots politics and the sequential process that is critical for candidate quality is to combine rotating state primaries and caucuses in a dozen small-population states with a national primary in which voters from all states would cast ballots.
AMY B. ZEGART examines the failures to reform U.S. intelligence agencies before the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks. She finds that during the 1990s, intelligence officials and policy makers understood the rising terrorist threat and the urgent need for reform, but failed to address critical organizational deficiencies.
Topic:
Intelligence, National Security, Terrorism, Reform, and 9/11
DEMETRIOS JAMES CARALEY summarizes the political and social dynamics that brought about the repeal of Aid to Families of Dependent Children (AFDC) and analyzes the effects of the new Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program over its first four years. He considers possibilities for further changes in cash assistance for poor families during the program’s necessary reauthorization in 2002.
Topic:
Reform, Domestic Politics, Public Policy, Welfare, and Social Services
R. DOUGLAS ARNOLD analyzes the political difficulties in reforming Social Security in the absence of a short-term crisis. He argues that the chief political problem is to find a way to impose short-term costs on current taxpayers when the benefits of advance funding are exclusively long-term for future retires.
ARLINE T. GERONIMUS examines widely-shared assumptions about teen childbearing that informed the welfare reform debate. She argues that the scientific basis for these assumptions is equivocal and questions the belief that teen childbearing always represents irrationality and the abdication of personal responsibility.
Topic:
Reform, Youth, Welfare, Social Responsibility, and Parenthood