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92. International Influence, Domestic Activism, and Gay Rights in Argentina
- Author:
- Omar G. Encarnacion
- Publication Date:
- 02-2014
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Political Science Quarterly
- Institution:
- Academy of Political Science
- Abstract:
- IN JULY 2010, ARGENTINA BECAME THE FIRST NATION in Latin America, and only the second one in the developing world after South Africa, to pass a law legalizing same-sex marriage; shortly thereafter, the country enacted what is arguably the most progressive transgender law of any country in the world. It allows for a change of gender without under-going surgery or receiving authorization from a doctor or a judge. Both laws have put Argentina in a select group of nations regarded as being on the cutting edge of gay rights and atop international rankings of countries most open to issues of concern to the lesbian/gay/bisexual/transgender (LGBT) community, such as the recently developed "Gay Friendliness Index." Neither societal factors nor political conditions could have predicted this cascade of gay rights advances.
- Political Geography:
- Argentina
93. The India Lobby and the Nuclear Agreement with India
- Author:
- Dinshaw Mistry
- Publication Date:
- 02-2014
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Political Science Quarterly
- Institution:
- Academy of Political Science
- Abstract:
- DINSHAW MISTRY discusses the campaign of Indian-American lobbying for a civilian nuclear agreement with India. He argues that Indian Americans were part of a broader “India lobby” which helped advance legislation on the civilian nuclear agreement through Congress. - See more at: http://www.psqonline.org/article.cfm?IDArticle=19167#sthash.M88rbr7G.dpuf
- Political Geography:
- America and India
94. The Postcolonial State in Africa: Fifty Years of Independence, 1960-2010, Crawford Young
- Author:
- Gretchen Bauer
- Publication Date:
- 02-2014
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Political Science Quarterly
- Institution:
- Academy of Political Science
- Abstract:
- To use one of Crawford Young's favorite words, his latest book, is "masterful." The Postcolonial State in Africa: Fifty Years of Independence, 1960-2010 provides a rare retrospective on the first 50 years of African independence from one whose own distinguished career in teaching and learning African politics coincided completely with those years. The book's stated aim is to capture the unfolding dynamic of African politics across five decades. Young suggests striking similarities in the trajectories of many African states between independence and the early 1990s, followed by "itineraries [that have] diverged sharply" since, resulting in a range of outcomes (p. 8). Overall, Young identifies three cycles in the first 50 years of independence, fluctuating between "high optimism, even euphoria, followed by disappointment, even a despairing 'Afropessimism,' in the first two and a mingling of hope, even audacious, and skeptical uncertainty in the current stage, reflecting sharply divergent itineraries" (p. 9). The cycles of hope and disappointment are elaborated in Part Two of the book in chapters on decolonization, independence, and the colonial legacy; the road to autocracy; state crisis; and democratization and its limits. Young is in his prime in his thematic chapter in Part Three on Africanism, nationalism, and ethnicity and the critical roles they have played in defining the political itineraries of African states. The book is refreshing in its steadfast treatment of the entire African continent, not just sub-Saharan Africa, as is usually the case in our discussions of "African" politics.
- Topic:
- Nationalism
- Political Geography:
- Africa
95. The Undeserving Rich: American Beliefs about Inequality, Opportunity, and Redistribution.
- Author:
- Robert Y. Shapiro
- Publication Date:
- 02-2014
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Political Science Quarterly
- Institution:
- Academy of Political Science
- Abstract:
- Income inequality was a major issue in the 2012 presidential election. While the Occupy Wall Street movement may fade into history, the substantial media coverage it received drew national attention to the unequal distribution of income between the top 1 percent versus the bottom 99 percent of Americans after years of increasing inequality. This and the Republican nomination of Mitt Romney, the poster child for the top 1 percent (even before the videotape of him claiming that 47 percent of Barack Obama\'s base of support were people who paid no taxes and believed that the government should take care of them), enabled Obama to use inequality—and redistribution—as a major campaign issue. He used it along with an array of other domestic issues that divided the parties in an election in which the Democrats focused on mobilizing their ideological partisan base, abandoning a centrist campaign. In the context of existing public opinion and other research, the resonance of the income inequality issue was in fact surprising—a puzzle. Although completed and drawing on data well before the 2012 election, The Undeserving Rich—and with its title—provides an explanation.
- Political Geography:
- Germany
96. Fighting for the Speakership: The House and the Rise of Party Government, Jeffrey A. Jenkins and Charles Stewart III
- Author:
- Chris Den Hartog
- Publication Date:
- 02-2014
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Political Science Quarterly
- Institution:
- Academy of Political Science
- Abstract:
- When the House of Representatives elects its Speaker—one of the most-powerful positions in government—each party nominates a candidate. Most representatives vote for their Pparty's nominee, and the majority Party candidate always wins. Similarly, the majority controls committee chairs and other positions. It was not always so—early Speakers had limited power, and there was no such "organizational cartel" to guarantee majority control of key positions. Jeffrey Jenkins and Charles Stewart tell the story of the cartel's emergence.
- Topic:
- Government
97. Global Health and International Relations
- Author:
- Christopher H. Foreman, Jr.
- Publication Date:
- 02-2014
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Political Science Quarterly
- Institution:
- Academy of Political Science
- Abstract:
- I began exploring public health policy and politics 25 years ago in a world quite different from the one thoughtfully assessed in this analytically penetrating volume. Back then “health” uttered by a political scientist or economist nearly always meant “health care” construed as domestic public and private arrangements that delivered or financed the delivery of defined categories of services by doctors and hospitals. Questions of cost and access loomed large, as now, but primarily as concerns of individual national governments and with “public health” considered, if at all, as a decidedly secondary domain, especially in nations developed enough to have middle classes that took matters like immunizations and basic sanitation largely for granted. Analysts barely spoke of “global” anything, much less “global health,” and international relations had only recently begun to blossom beyond its traditional terrain of state‐centered security and diplomacy. As Colin McInnes and Kelley Lee recall, “Orthodox International Relations… created little space for the consideration of health issues. In particular, health appeared to International Relations scholars as a domestic concern largely unrelated to matters of international security”.
- Topic:
- Health and Human Rights
98. Pakistani Opposition to American Drone Strikes
- Author:
- C. Christine Fair, Karl Kaltenhaler, and William Miller
- Publication Date:
- 04-2014
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Political Science Quarterly
- Institution:
- Academy of Political Science
- Abstract:
- AMERICA'S EMPLOYMENT OF WEAPONIZED unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), popularly known as "drones," to kill alleged terrorists in Pakistan's federally administered tribal areas (FATA) fuels sustained controversy in Pakistan. Pakistani outrage has steadily deepened since 2008, when the United States increased the frequency of the strikes. The increasing use of "signature strikes" has been particularly controversial in (and beyond) Pakistan, because such strikes are targeted at "men believed to be militants associated with terrorist groups, but whose identities aren't always known." Whereas personality strikes require the operator to develop a high level of certainty about the target's identity and location, based on multiple sources such as "imagery, cell phone intercepts and informants on the ground," operators may "initiate a signature strike after observing certain patterns of behavior." When conducting signature strikes, the United States assesses that the individuals in question exhibit behaviors that match a pre-identified "signature" (for example, pattern of observable activities and/or personal networks) that suggests that they are associated with al Qaeda and/or the Pakistani or Afghan Taliban organizations. Because the identity of the target is unknown, even during the strike, it is possible that these persons are innocent civilians, a possibility that both current and former U.S. government officials concede. While the George W. Bush administration employed both personality strikes from 2004 and signature strikes from 2008 in Pakistan, the administration of Barack Obama has redoubled the use of both types. This has ignited public protests against the drones in Pakistan, particularly in Pakistan's urban areas—far removed from the tribal areas where drones are employed. It has also galvanized a vigorous debate within Pakistan's National Assembly, which tried, but ultimately failed, to curtail the strikes.
- Political Geography:
- Pakistan and America
99. Did History End? Assessing the Fukuyama Thesis
- Author:
- John Mueller
- Publication Date:
- 04-2014
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Political Science Quarterly
- Institution:
- Academy of Political Science
- Abstract:
- John Mueller reflects on Francis Fukuyama's 1989 essay that advanced the notion that history had come to an end in the sense that “liberalism, democracy and market capitalism” had triumphed as an ideology and that effective future challenges were unlikely to prevail. He concludes that Fukuyama seems to have had it fundamentally right and that his celebration of the “autonomous power of ideas” is justified.
100. Contesting the U.S. Constitution through State Amendments: The 2011 and 2012 Elections
- Author:
- Sean Beienburg
- Publication Date:
- 04-2014
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Political Science Quarterly
- Institution:
- Academy of Political Science
- Abstract:
- SEAN BEIENBURG examines attempts at amending state constitutions in the 2011 and 2012 elections and finds that they were efforts to influence the interpretation of the U.S. Constitution. He argues that some elected state officials see themselves as legitimate challengers of Supreme Court decisions. In addition, he finds that national interest groups use state constitutions as platforms for federal constitutional politics, and that such efforts were predominantly, though not exclusively, conservative in the last two election cycles.
- Topic:
- Politics
- Political Geography:
- United States