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631. Is Terrorism Still a Democratic Phenomenon?

Author:
Erica Chenoweth
Publication Date:
01-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Uluslararasi Iliskiler
Institution:
Uluslararasi Iliskiler
Abstract:
In recent years, multiple studies have confirmed that terrorism occurs in democracies more often than in nondemocratic regimes. There are five primary groups of explanations for this phenomenon, including the openness of democratic systems, organizational pressures resulting from democratic competition, the problem of underreporting in authoritarian regimes, gridlock resulting from multiparty institutions, and the coercive effectiveness of terrorism against democracies. Most of these studies, however, examine the relationship only through 1997. In this article, I explore whether terrorism has continued to occur more in democratic countries through 2010. I find that while terrorism is still prevalent in democracies, it has increased in “anocracies,” countries that policymakers would often describe as “weak” or “failed” states. I offer a potential reason for this increase: the American-led occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan. I conclude by offering some insights into how the rise of terrorism in anocracies affects the typical explanations for terrorism and democracy, and I suggest a few ways to improve on our current understanding.
Political Geography:
Afghanistan, Iraq, and America

632. Silver Bullet or Time Suck? Revisiting the Role of Interagency Coordination in Complex Operations

Author:
Andrea Barbara Baumann
Publication Date:
06-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
PRISM
Institution:
Institute for National Strategic Studies (INSS), National Defense University
Abstract:
American-led interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan are drawing to an end and the political climate inside the Beltway has turned decidedly hostile toward large deployments of U.S. troops and civilians overseas. Consequently, stability operations have dropped off the radar for many analysts and commentators. The policy community that once feverishly tackled questions over how to stabilize foreign countries through the extended deployment of military and civilian capabilities under various labels (most prominently state- or nation-building and/or population- centric counterinsurgency) is shifting its gaze elsewhere. With growing hindsight, the entire endeavor is often declared as flawed from the start. In addition to this sense of strategic failure, a drop in political attention now heightens the risk of losing hard-earned insights from these operations. This is therefore a crucial time to evaluate the institutional developments that operations in Iraq and Afghanistan have spurred.
Political Geography:
Afghanistan, United States, Iraq, and America

633. The Opportunity Cost of Security

Author:
Dov S. Zakheim
Publication Date:
06-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
PRISM
Institution:
Institute for National Strategic Studies (INSS), National Defense University
Abstract:
The United States has been fighting wars, to a greater or lesser extent, for the better part of the past 20 years. Indeed, hardly a year has passed during that period in which American forces were not involved in combat somewhere in the world. At the same time, the extent to which the United States and its military should be involved in nation-building, which increasingly was tied to the outcome of American military operations, became a major issue during the 1990s. In fact, there were two aspects to this issue, both of which were, and still are, hotly debated.
Political Geography:
United States and America

634. The China Card: Playing Politics with Sino-American Relations

Author:
Peter Trubowitz and Jungkun Seo
Publication Date:
08-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Political Science Quarterly
Institution:
Academy of Political Science
Abstract:
Perhaps no country will figure more prominently in America's future than China. China's rapid ascent is already an issue on Capitol Hill, and with over 50 percent of Americans worried about the implications of China's rise for the United States, relations with China are a hot-button electoral issue. Indeed, the 2010 midterm election campaign witnessed a flurry of anti-Chinese television ads, linking America's economic troubles to China's emergence as an economic powerhouse. The most memorable of these was the so-called Chinese Professor ad, which depicted a China-dominated future in which confident Chinese intellectuals chuckle over America's relative decline. Alarmed by the spread of "Sinophobia," China responded in early 2011 by launching its own media blitz in the United States, hoping to soften its image among American voters.
Political Geography:
United States, China, and America

635. American Public Opinion and Health Care

Author:
Robert Shapiro
Publication Date:
08-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Political Science Quarterly
Institution:
Academy of Political Science
Abstract:
There are two especially central problems that the authors cannot over- come. First, the authors' tendency to favor abstractions over specifics leads them to overlook or downplay evidence that executive power has been limited by the rule of law. The Supreme Court blocked the Harry Truman administration from seizing steel factories during the Korean War (the Truman administration made essentially the same argument to the District Court about executive power that the authors endorse); the Court and Congress used legal allegations and conclusions to effectively force Richard Nixon out of office; the Court compelled Bill Clinton to sit for a deposition. The authors do not precisely date the alleged demise of the rule of law, but even more-recent examples of the rule of law's continued relevance exist. In 2004, Department of Justice attorneys forced the George W. Bush administration to modify a secret surveillance program after the attorneys, who believed the program was illegal, threatened to resign.
Topic:
Health and Public Opinion
Political Geography:
America

636. Adrift: Charting Our Course Back to a Great Nation

Author:
Raymond A. Smith
Publication Date:
08-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Political Science Quarterly
Institution:
Academy of Political Science
Abstract:
The “big picture” political book has become a staple of political campaigns, in which high-profile politicians diagnose the full range of problems besetting the country and present their broad agenda for change; Barack Obamaʼs The Audacity of Hope is perhaps only the best known of these volumes. Authors without such a preexisting audience tend to either rely on a single “big idea” to tie together their books or else provide original data with detailed policy analysis in order to persuade readers. Thomas L. Friedmanʼs various concept-driven books fit into the prior category, while the work of most rank-and-file social scientists falls into the latter mode.
Political Geography:
America

637. Power, Politics, and Universal Health Care: The Inside Story of a Century-Long Battle

Author:
Daniel Skinner
Publication Date:
08-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Political Science Quarterly
Institution:
Academy of Political Science
Abstract:
While the impact of Barack Obamaʼs 2010 health care initiative will not be known for some time, Stuart Altman and David Shactman make clear that it was a long time coming. Altman himself was directly involved in the reform efforts of Obama and Richard Nixon, and was bitter for having been sidelined by Bill Clinton. The book reads as a recounting of lessons learned during the Nixon administration, anger for Clinton ʼ s refusal to heed those lessons, and ultimate redemption with the passage of health care reform under Obama, when Altman was brought back into the fold. At its best, the book recounts the twists and turns of a longstanding quest for a better American health care system.
Topic:
Health
Political Geography:
America

638. Politics and Strategy: Partisan Ambition and American Statecraft

Author:
Meena Bose
Publication Date:
08-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Political Science Quarterly
Institution:
Academy of Political Science
Abstract:
In the twenty-first century, the numerous and diverse challenges — security, economic, political — that the United States faces in a highly interdependent internationalsystempointtotheneedforanoverarchinggrandstrategytoguide foreign policy making. But the obstacles to developing such a strategy can be daunting, both substantively, in identifying long-term interests and the resources to achieve them, and politically, in building support for a doctrine to reshape policy priorities and choices. Peter Trubowitzʼs ambitious undertaking to examine the development of grand strategy from the origins of the American Republic to the present significantly advances prospects for achieving such far-reaching goals.
Topic:
Security
Political Geography:
United States and America

639. American Neoconservatism: The Politics and Culture of a Reactionary Idealism

Author:
Jonathan D. Caverley
Publication Date:
08-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Political Science Quarterly
Institution:
Academy of Political Science
Abstract:
In attacking neoconservatism, this book does not launch a broadside so much as unleash the Samson option. Like Israelʼs all-azimuth nuclear doctrine, it scores many hits at the cost of the precision required for the offensive. Rather, its battering of concepts only partially linked to neoconservatism — Neoliberalism, the “American Right,” theconceptofpolyarchy — makes American Neoconser- vatism adefenseof “progressive politics” (p. 3) against a multitude of forces threatening to overrun it.
Political Geography:
America and Israel

640. 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