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5832. American Politicians Confront the Court: Opposition Politics and Changing Responses to Judicial Power
- Author:
- Katy Harriger
- Publication Date:
- 08-2012
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Political Science Quarterly
- Institution:
- Academy of Political Science
- Abstract:
- The reconciliation of judicial power with democracy has preoccupied American scholars and politicians since the Founding era. The counter-majoritarian difficulty of life-tenured judges overturning the work of the democratic branches has sometimes been justified as essential to a written constitution that aims to limit the power of government and control majority tyranny. Others have criticized the exercise of judicial power as undemocratic and illegitimate. Over the centuries, presidents, candidates for the presidency, and members of Congress have used various tools at their disposal to challenge the Supreme Court and its exercise of power. And yet, despite this persistent questioning of the Courtʼs legitimacy, its place in the American political system appears more fixed and more important than it has ever been. How should we understand this seemingly contradictory development?
- Political Geography:
- America
5833. Decision Making by the Modern Supreme Court
- Author:
- Jeffrey Budziak
- Publication Date:
- 08-2012
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Political Science Quarterly
- Institution:
- Academy of Political Science
- Abstract:
- Social science researchers face the challenge of balancing the competing demands of parsimony and comprehensiveness when attempting to explain human behavior. In the study of Supreme Court decision making, scholars have generally chosen the former, creating models of decision making that prioritize one factor at the expense of other considerations. In Decision Making by the Modern Supreme Court, Richard Pacelle, Brett Curry, and Bryan Marshall opt for the latter, rejecting the notion that any of the three dominant models (attitudinal, legal, and strategic) of Supreme Court decision making exhaustively explains the Courtʼs collective decisions. Rather, the authors construct an integrative model of Supreme Court decision making predicated on two theses. First, each model has something to contribute to our understanding of Court decision making. Second, the varying conditions faced by the Court will affect how each of these models impacts the Court ʼ s decisions. The authors argue that case con- text (constitutional vs. statutory review) and salience (civil rights vs. economic) structures when each model is likely to impact Court decision making. In the case of constitutional civil rights cases, attitudinal factors are predicted to dominate. For statutory economic decisions, legal factors are hypothesized to be most important. When the Court hears statutory civil rights cases or constitutional economic cases, strategic considerations are expected to play a central role (p. 52).
- Topic:
- Disaster Relief
5834. Digitally Enabled Social Change: Activism in the Internet Age
- Author:
- Jackie Smith
- Publication Date:
- 08-2012
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Political Science Quarterly
- Institution:
- Academy of Political Science
- Abstract:
- In this fascinating new book, Jennifer Earl and Katrina Kimport take up the compelling question of whether Internet-based mobilization simply allows activists to “supersize” their efforts by enhancing the scope and speed of organizing, or whether it signals fundamental changes in the social processes related to political mobilization. Digitally Enabled Social Change draws from a systematic analysis of a random sample of Web sites promoting electronic tactics (e-tactics) and e-mobilization to test whether the Internet has transformed activists ʼ “repertoire of contention” (p.16 – 17) and other dynamics relatedto political organizing. Their quantitative study is supplemented with interviews of Web site organizers.
5835. Mass Informed Consent: Evidence on Upgrading Democracy with Polls and New Media
- Author:
- Howard Schuman
- Publication Date:
- 08-2012
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Political Science Quarterly
- Institution:
- Academy of Political Science
- Abstract:
- Adam F. Simon believes that “sample surveys are the finest democratic technology yet devised ...” (p. 1). If pollsters faithfully convey an issue and present alternatives for the public to judge, we can have “mass informed consent,” the title and key phrase of the book. Polls provide, in the authorʼs view, one person one vote, unlike most other forms of influence on government policies.
5836. Niche News: The Politics of News Choice
- Author:
- James T. Hamilton
- Publication Date:
- 08-2012
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Political Science Quarterly
- Institution:
- Academy of Political Science
- Abstract:
- Discussions by politicians and cable pundits about the existence and impact of media bias are fleeting, fevered, and often fact-free. Natalie Stroudʼs Niche News: The Politics of News Choice offers something completely different — a carefully reasoned and documented analysis of the relationships among political preferences, media choices, and political actions and opinions. By examining what she terms partisan selective exposure, the tendency of people to choose news sources whose content matches their own political views, Stroud provides a reader with an excellent overview of what research in political science today suggests about the operation and impact of partisan media sources.
5837. The Internet Generation: Engaged Citizens or Political Dropouts
- Author:
- Casey A. Klofstad
- Publication Date:
- 08-2012
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Political Science Quarterly
- Institution:
- Academy of Political Science
- Abstract:
- Over the past half-century, Americans have withdrawn from numerous forms of civic participation, from voting, to voluntarism, and everything else in between. A standard explanation for this phenomenon is generational replacement; each generation since the World War II “Greatest Generation” has been less civically active. Henry Milner enters this dialogue by examining the coming-of-age “Internet Generation.” Using data sources from different countries, Milner argues that this generation is woefully inactive in politics. He worries that this high frequency of “political dropouts” leaves the Internet Generation unprepared to battle the political challenges they will face over their lifetimes.
- Topic:
- War
- Political Geography:
- America
5838. The Legislative Legacy of Congressional Campaigns
- Author:
- Eric McGhee
- Publication Date:
- 08-2012
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Political Science Quarterly
- Institution:
- Academy of Political Science
- Abstract:
- The question of representation has long been central to research on the U.S. Congress. Do members of Congress effectively represent their constituents? Does Congress effectively represent the United States as a whole? How do we define good representation, and how do we know it when we see it? Most of the research on these questions examines roll call votes and election returns. Tracy Sulkin's book, The Legislative Legacy of Congressional Campaigns , focuses instead on how legislators choose to spend their time and effort, as measured by bill introductions and cosponsorships. Sulkin connects these activities to the issues that were mentioned in campaign advertisements, to see how often legislators keep their promises and work on issues they said they would.
- Political Geography:
- United States
5839. The Luck of the Draw: The Role of Lotteries in Decision Making
- Author:
- Stephen Broomell
- Publication Date:
- 08-2012
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Political Science Quarterly
- Institution:
- Academy of Political Science
- Abstract:
- Most people are familiar with making decisions based on the flip of a coin or the roll of a die, random processes that work as examples for Peter Stone's definition of a lottery. The curious paradox about lotteries is that most people can agree to their usefulness in many everyday circumstances, but nevertheless find applying them to similar contexts that involve economically or politically important goods (or positions) to be unsettling. Stone drives right to the heart of this issue to provide a precise definition of what lotteries have to offer for public decision making. This argument takes us beyond the feeling that lotteries are absurd when making critically important decisions by making a distinction between good and bad reasons for making a choice. Stone identifies certain circumstances, for example which patient receives an organ transplant, in which it benefits society as a whole for bias (or bad reasons) to be eliminated after all good reasons have been exhausted. Stone provides a variety of these situations that are more or less ideal for lottery usage. The inherent value of a lottery is in the unpredictable nature of the decision and that the decision is made with no reasons at all. This principle is easily applied to many circumstances, and the ethical, practical, and moral dilemmas that Stone illuminates help guide the reader through his discussion of a concept of lotteries that reveals a myriad of philosophical complexities.
- Topic:
- Disaster Relief
5840. One Nation Under Surveillance: A New Social Contract to Defend Freedom Without Sacrificing Liberty
- Author:
- Priscilla M. Regan
- Publication Date:
- 08-2012
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Political Science Quarterly
- Institution:
- Academy of Political Science
- Abstract:
- The debate about the balance between privacy and security has intrigued scholars for decades and has become of increased relevance in our post-September 11 era. Simon Chesterman approaches this issue from a perspective yielding some very interesting insights. He argues that the traditional distinction between foreign and domestic intelligence has eroded due to the nature of terrorist threats, globalization, and innovations in communications and information technologies. The focus of Chesterman's analysis is on domestic intelligence activities, especially those of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Britain's Security Service (MI5). His conclusion is that in democratic societies, a new "social contract" is emerging by which individuals give government and private institutions information in exchange for security and convenience. Chesterman's analysis of the changes in domestic surveillance activities is carefully researched, thoughtfully organized, and well-supported; however, his conclusions regarding this new social contract need to be more fully developed.
- Topic:
- Globalization
- Political Geography:
- United States and United Nations