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4051. The Timeline of Presidential Elections: How Campaigns Do (and Do Not) Matter

Author:
Michael C. Herron
Publication Date:
10-2013
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Political Science Quarterly
Institution:
Academy of Political Science
Abstract:
Every four years, the country is treated to a spectacle wherein presidential candidates engage in year�long efforts to convince voters of their suitability to occupy the White House. Even though many voters may find presidential campaigns to be excessive, regarding both length and the expenses that they regularly entail, these campaigns provide opportunities for voters to see candidates in varied situations. During campaigns, presidential candidates are regularly on the stump; they confront their competitors directly in debates and indirectly through the media; and they are forced to display management skills as heads of complicated and costly operations.

4052. The Role of Villain: Iran and U.S. Foreign Policy

Author:
Paul R. Pillar
Publication Date:
10-2013
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Political Science Quarterly
Institution:
Academy of Political Science
Abstract:
THE ISLAMIC REPUBLIC OF IRAN HAS BECOME, in two senses, an extraordinary preoccupation of the United States. One sense is that Iran is the subject of a strikingly large proportion of discourse about U.S. foreign policy. American pundits and politicians repeatedly mention Iran, usually with specific reference to its nuclear program, as among the biggest threats the United States faces. Republican nominee Mitt Romney, when asked in the last presidential debate of the 2012 campaign what was the single greatest future threat to U.S. national security, replied "a nuclear Iran." For politicians of both major U.S. political parties, expressions of concern about Iran and of the need to confront it have become a required catechism. The U.S. Congress has spent much time on such expressions and on imposing with lopsided votes ever broader economic sanctions on Iran. Frequent and evidently serious references are made to launching a military attack against Iran, even though such an attack- an act of aggression-would probably mean a war with heavy costs and damage to U.S. interests and probably would stimulate the very development of an Iranian nuclear weapon that it ostensibly would be designed to preclude.
Topic:
Foreign Policy
Political Geography:
United States and Iran

4053. Becoming a Candidate: Political Ambition and the Decision to Run for Office

Author:
Samuel H. Fisher III
Publication Date:
10-2013
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Political Science Quarterly
Institution:
Academy of Political Science
Abstract:
Elections in a democratic system depend upon the willingness of citizens to put themselves forward for political office with no assurance of success. If the pool of possible candidates becomes too self�limiting, then the quality of representation is imperiled. Political ambition or progressive ambition, the driving force that differentiates office seekers from everyone else, has been the focus of extensive study by political scientists. Jennifer Lawless takes the tack that the decision to even consider running for office, nascent ambition, is a subject in need of greater understanding.

4054. Warlords: Strong-Arm Brokers in Weak States

Author:
Jesse Driscoll
Publication Date:
10-2013
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Political Science Quarterly
Institution:
Academy of Political Science
Abstract:
Some countries do not have effective domestic sovereignty. In these "weak states," the central government lacks the will or capacity to enforce contracts, punish criminals, or deter terrorists in all parts of the internationally recognized territory. Kimberly Marten's new book, Warlords: Strong�Arm Brokers in Weak States, chronicles how order is subcontracted. Marten defines warlords as "individuals who control small pieces of territory using a combination of force and patronage" and who "rule in defiance of genuine state sovereignty but through the complicity of state leaders" (p. 3). What exactly is meant by "complicity of state leaders" varies substantially by context, but at base, Marten employs an extended delegation metaphor: "the principal actor (the state) relies on an agent (the warlord) to fulfill assigned tasks" (p. 30). The empirical chapters then take the reader on a sweeping tour of the peripheries of Iraq, Russia, Georgia, and Pakistan. Warlords demonstrates that in all of these places, state officials can be either hoodwinked or coerced into letting charismatic local authorities build their own invisible patronage networks. Though the theoretical insights are neither new nor controversial to students of comparative politics, the particulars of why resources are funneled to local violence entrepreneurs at the periphery of empire make for a compelling read.
Political Geography:
Pakistan, Russia, Iraq, and Georgia

4055. Obama and China's Rise: An Insider's Account of America's Asia Strategy

Author:
Peter Trubowitz
Publication Date:
10-2013
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Political Science Quarterly
Institution:
Academy of Political Science
Abstract:
In this crisply written account of U.S. foreign policy toward Asia, Jeffrey Bader gives the reader an insider's view of policymaking in the administration of Barack Obama. Bader served as the senior director for East Asian Affairs on the National Security Council from January 2009 to April 2011. He is well placed to discuss policy deliberations on Asia�Pacific matters, and he ably chronicles many of the challenges that Obama faced during the period from the diplomatic crisis sparked by the North Korean sinking of the South Korean ship Cheonan in March 2010, to the tensions between China and its Asian neighbors over maritime rights and territory in the South China Seas, to the Fukushima nuclear meltdown triggered by the massive earthquake and tsunami that walloped Japan in March 2011.
Topic:
Foreign Policy
Political Geography:
China, America, and Asia

4056. California Crucible: The Forging of Modern American Liberalism

Author:
Adam Carrington
Publication Date:
10-2013
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Political Science Quarterly
Institution:
Academy of Political Science
Abstract:
Jonathan Bell' s book tells the story of how the Golden State became the heart of the modern Democratic Party' s liberal wing. Bell' s narrative stretches from the end of World War II until 1980, tracing out the grassroots and party movements that constructed a distinctly leftist coalition of labor, gays, racial minorities, and middle-to-upper-class liberals.
Political Geography:
California

4057. Syria: A Wicked Problem for All

Author:
Bryan C. Price
Publication Date:
08-2013
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
CTC Sentinel
Institution:
The Combating Terrorism Center at West Point
Abstract:
On august 26, 2013, Secretary of State John Kerry called the recent use of chemical weapons outside of Damascus “undeniable” and a “moral obscenity.” This is the latest chapter in an already complex civil war in Syria, a crisis that Kerry's predecessor called a “wicked problem” for the U.S. foreign policy establishment. That term was introduced 40 years ago by two professors of urban planning who were trying to identify what differentiated hard but relatively ordinary problems from those that were truly “wicked.” In their interpretation, wicked problems feature innumerable causes, are tough to adequately describe, and by definition have no “right” answers. In fact, solutions to wicked problems are impossible to objectively evaluate; rather, it is better to evaluate solutions to these problems as being shades of good and bad.
Political Geography:
Syria

4058. The Roots of the IRS Scandal

Author:
Steve Simpson
Publication Date:
10-2013
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The Objective Standard
Institution:
The Objective Standard
Abstract:
The revelation in May of this year that the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) was systematically targeting Tea Party and other conservative groups for special scrutiny under the laws governing nonprofit organizations shocked the nation and triggered one of the Obama administration's biggest scandals to date. According to a Treasury inspector general's report, in May of 2010, agents in the IRS's Cincinnati office began singling out applications for nonprofit status from groups with terms such as "Tea Party" or "patriot" in their names. The agents conducted lengthy investigations of the groups to determine whether they intended to spend too much of their money on political activities that are prohibited to most nonprofits.1 The IRS required some groups to answer long lists of questions about their intentions, it demanded donor lists from others, and it even examined Facebook and Internet posts.2 Some groups simply gave up and withdrew their applications. Others spent two years waiting for a decision that never came.3 When Congress investigated the scandal, Lois Lerner, the former head of the office that oversees nonprofit organizations, invoked her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination and refused to testify. Later, hearings revealed that Douglas Shulman, the former head of the IRS, was cleared to visit the White House at least 157 times during his tenure and that IRS chief counsel William Wilkins, who was one of two Obama appointees at the IRS, helped develop the agency's guidelines for investigating the Tea Party groups.4 As a result, critics of the IRS have good reason to think that the scandal reaches the highest levels of our government. The public's outrage over this scandal is, of course, entirely appropriate. If the government can enforce laws based on nothing more than one's political views, then both freedom of speech and the rule of law are dead. But the outrage over the IRS's focus on conservative groups obscures a far more important question: Why was the IRS investigating the political activities of any group? The answer to that question is more troubling than the possibility of rogue IRS agents, biased law enforcement, or even abuses of power at the highest levels. As bad as all of those things are, the bigger threat to freedom is a legal regime that requires scrutiny of Americans' political activities and a political and intellectual culture that applauds such scrutiny and openly calls for more of it. This is the situation in America today. Our tax and campaign finance laws impose a host of regulations on Americans based on how much time, effort, and money they spend on political speech, and many opinion leaders agitate for even more laws and investigations every day. Against this backdrop, the IRS scandal should not surprise us. Our politicians and intellectuals demanded regulation of some of the loudest voices in our political debates, and the IRS delivered. Unfortunately, far too many critics of the IRS have accepted the premise that our laws should distinguish between groups that spend money on political activities and groups that do not. Expressing this view, Washington Post columnist Ezra Klein has argued that the real scandal was that the IRS did not treat all nonprofits as harshly as it treated the Tea Party groups.5 Using the same reasoning, congressional Democrats have attempted to blunt the scandal by claiming that the IRS also investigated some groups on the left.6 It appears that these claims are untrue, but the message is clear: As long as the government is scrutinizing everyone's speech equally, then there is no scandal. But this is the opposite lesson to learn from the IRS scandal. For anyone who cares about freedom of speech, the real scandal is that the government regulates Americans' campaign spending at all. So long as laws remain on the books that do so, scandals such as this one-and far worse-are inevitable. But to understand why that is so requires a deeper understanding of the premises on which the laws are based and how the laws operate in practice. . . .
Topic:
Government
Political Geography:
America and Washington

4059. Nuclear Energy: The Safe, Clean, Cost-Effective Alternative

Author:
Thomas J. Eiden
Publication Date:
10-2013
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The Objective Standard
Institution:
The Objective Standard
Abstract:
Contrary to claims by opponents of nuclear energy that it is "unsafe," "unclean," and thus "unacceptable," nuclear energy is the safest, cleanest, and among the most practical forms of power generation today. Unfortunately, opponents of this wonderful source of power are succeeding in their efforts to deceive people about it; and the deceived, in turn, are fueling legislation and regulations that shackle the nuclear industry. It is time to set the record straight and to defend this life-serving industry. Let us begin with a summary of the nature of nuclear energy. Nuclear power is generated by a controlled chain reaction involving the splitting of atoms. A modern nuclear power plant uses the intense heat created by this reaction to heat water and create steam, which turns a turbine and generates electricity. Whereas a coal-fired plant heats water by burning coal, a nuclear plant heats it by splitting atoms. This process is called nuclear fission. Nuclear fission, in simple terms, occurs when an atom splits in two, releasing a massive amount of energy and several subatomic particles called neutrons. These neutrons, in turn, hit and split other atoms, beginning and sustaining the chain reaction. Reactor operators control this reaction in a variety of ways and thus regulate the amount of heat generated and energy produced. The raw fuel for this process is the metal uranium, which must be enriched before it can be used for producing energy in commercial reactors. Enrichment is necessary because mined uranium ore is around 99.3 percent uranium-238, which, in today's commercial power plants, does not readily split upon exposure to neutrons from the fission chain reaction, and thus makes poor fuel. The other 0.7 percent of mined uranium is uranium-235, which makes excellent fuel. The number refers to the atomic mass, or the total mass of protons and neutrons that make up the atomic nucleus. This difference in mass of the same element makes them two different isotopes of uranium. The enrichment process consists essentially of increasing the percentage of uranium-235 by decreasing the percentage (via removal) of uranium-238. The fuel manufacturing process ultimately yields black, pinky-sized pellets of usable nuclear fuel. These pellets are stacked in tubes of a special metal alloy, and thousands of these fuel rods are placed in a reactor core. The rods are arranged in a very specific geometric configuration to enable a sustained nuclear reaction to occur. The nuclear fission reaction is controlled by inserting or removing a separate set of rods made of neutron-absorbing metal or by adding neutron-absorbing chemicals to the water that cools the reactor. All methods of producing energy involve risk, and nuclear fission is no exception. Historically, however, nuclear power has been by far the safest form of energy production among reliable and scalable energy sources. Nuclear power is safer than other forms of energy for several reasons. To begin with, . . .
Topic:
Nuclear Power

4060. Dr. Josh Umbehr on the Concierge Medicine Revolution

Author:
Ari Armstrong
Publication Date:
10-2013
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The Objective Standard
Institution:
The Objective Standard
Abstract:
Americans are rightly concerned about the rising costs of health care and the monstrosity known as ObamaCare. As patients are looking for better ways to manage their health care, doctors are seeking innovative ways to offer their services. One type of medical practice growing in the marketplace is “concierge medicine,” in which patients pay a doctor or group of doctors a set fee (usually paid annually or monthly) in exchange for a defined package of care.
Political Geography:
America