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5841. Scandalous Politics: Child Welfare Policy in the States

Author:
Mary Elizabeth Collins
Publication Date:
08-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Political Science Quarterly
Institution:
Academy of Political Science
Abstract:
To the detriment of the field of child welfare, there have been few serious treatments of the political aspects of policymaking in this area. Unlike welfare policy, health care policy, and aging policy, which all receive substantial attention from scholars utilizing various theoretical models and a range of methodological approaches, child welfare policy has lacked this same level of serious analytical sophistication. Scandalous Politics, therefore, is a particularly welcome addition to an understanding of the politics of child welfare policy. In the tradition of Barbara Nelson's Making an Issue of Child Abuse, Juliet Gainsborough successfully applies an analytical lens to the heavily value-laden domain of policymaking for abused and neglected children.
Topic:
Health

5842. Challenges of Ordinary Democracy: A Case Study in Deliberation and Dissent

Author:
Albert W. Dzur
Publication Date:
08-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Political Science Quarterly
Institution:
Academy of Political Science
Abstract:
This close-range study of democratic decision making focuses on school board meetings in Boulder, Colorado. "Ordinary democracy" refers to the kind of speech that occurs in such meetings as citizens and officials talk with each other. Karen Tracy's perceptive analysis stays at the ground level; "ordinary" means "local" and "observable" speech that reflects routine concerns—speech that aims to do a solid day's work in the public world. Though more than a few of her observations and analyses are relevant to normative political theory, she explicitly steers clear of ongoing debates in political theory between liberalism and critical theory, for example, or between deliberative and participatory democratic theory. Her central goal is simply to describe and make sense of the ordinary democratic talk of local government, something as understudied as it is celebrated in political theory.
Topic:
Political Theory
Political Geography:
New Zealand

5843. Empire of Humanity: A History of Humanitarianism

Author:
Melissa Labonte
Publication Date:
08-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Political Science Quarterly
Institution:
Academy of Political Science
Abstract:
At first glance, pairing a study of global humanitarianism with the concept of empire may seem an unlikely strategy for advancing knowledge. Hardly so. Not only is it an honest and forthright approach, it is also a much-needed corrective to enhance our understandings of the humanitarian system and the way in which its key actors understand both themselves and the impact that their actions have on others.
Political Geography:
Kosovo and Somalia

5844. Feminist Policymaking in Chile

Author:
Gwynn Thomas
Publication Date:
08-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Political Science Quarterly
Institution:
Academy of Political Science
Abstract:
Chile provides a puzzle for scholars of public policy. While Chile possesses a number of factors identified as providing a positive political climate for feminist policymaking (a large women's movement, a supportive center-left government, and strong women's policy machinery) and has passed important legislation improving women's status, Chile has also often lagged behind its neighbors in passing laws designed to foster women's equality (abortion remains illegal, divorce was legalized in 2004, and electoral quotas have been rejected). Liesl Haas thus turns to the Chilean case to examine the factors that either promote or hinder the passage of legislation designed to promote gender equality. Haas argues that to understand the complexity of Chile's mixed record on gender equality legislation, we must pay attention to the dynamic nature of all policymaking, and particularly the role of key actors. On the basis of 10 years of research, Haas convincingly documents the fundamental importance of the role of political learning by key political activists in understanding how, why, and when feminist policymaking succeeds or fails. Through an in-depth case study of the legislative process around the attempts to reform the laws governing domestic violence, abortion, and divorce, Haas shows how feminist activists both inside and outside of the state learned to navigate the complex interactions of actors, ideas, and institutions within a context of democratization and consolidation.

5845. Immigration and Citizenship in Japan

Author:
Deborah J. Milly
Publication Date:
08-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Political Science Quarterly
Institution:
Academy of Political Science
Abstract:
This book will become a classic on the politics of citizenship in Japan. It is a meticulous study that demonstrates how Korean residents whose families immigrated before the end of World War II have negotiated citizenship in Japan, especially at the local level. Erin Aeran Chung reaches the paradoxical conclusion that their decision not to take Japanese nationality has been a strategic choice to achieve visible citizenship. The author further traces how Koreans' movements have had a profound impact on other foreign residents in Japan.
Topic:
War
Political Geography:
Japan, South Korea, and Korea

5846. Islamist Terrorism and Democracy in the Middle East

Author:
Elena Mastors
Publication Date:
08-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Political Science Quarterly
Institution:
Academy of Political Science
Abstract:
Democracy will save the Middle East. This perspective was promulgated for eight years by the administration of George W. Bush, and because of it, the United States became embroiled in two long-term conflicts in the Middle East and South Asia, spent billions of dollars on the war on terrorism, restructured the intelligence and homeland security communities, and passed legislation at home that many believe negatively impacted our civil liberties. Because of this, we want to believe that it was worth the lives lost and the flagrant spending that had a significant impact on our economic situation today. In her scholarly book, Islamist Terrorism and Democracy in the Middle East,Katerina Dalacoura asks whether "a convincing case can be made that Islamist terrorism in the Middle East has political causes stemming from non-democratic or authoritarian structures" (p. 23). The author presents a convincing argument that political causes are not the strongest explanation for Islamist terrorism.
Political Geography:
United States, South Asia, and Middle East

5847. Rural Protest and the Making of Modern Democracy in Mexico, 1968–2000

Author:
Juan D. Lindau
Publication Date:
08-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Political Science Quarterly
Institution:
Academy of Political Science
Abstract:
This book explores how rural activism in Mexico, fostered in part by the repression of the 1968 student movement, and of the Mexican Communist Party during the subsequent decade, promoted the eventual democratization of the polity. While many have analyzed the impacts of the 1968 student movement, identifying it as the beginning of the erosion of the regime's legitimacy, this book is the most-systematic treatment, to date, of one of its central consequences. The author argues that state repression radicalized student leaders and local communist cadres, leading them to engage with, and organize, nonviolent peasant movements across the country. This peasant agitation, in turn, activated landed interests to create organizations in order to defend their interests. The interplay between these conflicting organizations nurtured the growth of both the left and the right. Moreover, the political activation of the landed business class and the peasantry undermined longstanding arrangements between the state, peasants, and the business elite. All of this debilitated Mexican corporatist structures and the ruling party (the PRI-Party of the Institutionalized Revolution) while revitalizing the PAN (National Action Party), on the right, and the PRD (Party of the Democratic Revolution), on the left.
Political Geography:
Mexico

5848. The Transformation of the Workers' Party in Brazil, 1989–2009

Author:
Peter Kingstone
Publication Date:
08-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Political Science Quarterly
Institution:
Academy of Political Science
Abstract:
The victory of Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and the Workers' Party (PT) in Brazil's 2002 presidential election was both a watershed in Brazilian history and an important puzzle for political science. The prospect of electing Lula and his disciplined socialist party roiled financial markets and provoked a near crisis in the months leading up to the election. But instead of socialism, Lula delivered a moderate government that melded pragmatic market reform with progressive social policy. Indeed, the PT has become the model of successful leftist government in the region. But, in government, the PT has also transformed in important and distinctive ways, including installing one of the largest corruption schemes in the history of Brazil.
Political Geography:
Brazil

5849. Where Romanticism was Female

Author:
Gisela Imgrund
Publication Date:
12-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Bilgi
Institution:
Değişim Yayınları
Abstract:
Universal texts have the potential to provide findings for the reader from any perspective at any period of time. So does the written heritage of Early Romanticism. Nevertheless, to understand the spiritual awakening in the 18th century in Germany, an outline of a social and political environment as prerequisites is here given. Several “departures” led to the movement of the Early Romantics at the end of the century. In its center were women. Early Romanticism has always been a challenge for each existing social order, a social disruption, demanding the whole human being in all his and her possibilities. For in the history of reception of Romanticism, those of the late phase have been more easily comprehended. They are happy by nature, Catholic, and they can be categorized, while the Early Romantics usually are dismissed as “crazy” and “confused”.
Topic:
Gender Issues, Religion, Women, and Spiritualism
Political Geography:
Europe and Germany

5850. Is the Twin Deficits Hypothesis Valid in the case of Turkey?

Author:
Fuat Sekmen and Unsal Ozan Kahraman
Publication Date:
12-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Bilgi
Institution:
Değişim Yayınları
Abstract:
This study deals with the relationship between the current account deficit and the budget deficit in Turkey. Artificial Neural Networks are employed to investigate this relationship. According to the results of the application the twin deficits hypothesis which indicates a positive correlation between the two deficits isn’t valid in Turkey. As this paper tries to analyze the factors accounting for the absence of this kind of correlation, it develops a flexible understanding which doesn’t refuse a hypothesis or a theory (the twin deficits hypothesis) completely, on the contrary, emphasizes the importance of investigating the conditions in which a hypothesis, theory or a model is valid.
Topic:
Economics, Budget, Finance, and Deficit
Political Geography:
Europe, Turkey, and Asia