Abstract Responding to renewed interest in political rhetoric among contemporary International Relations (IR)–realists, this article advances three main claims. First, it suggests that tragedy—the dominant aesthetic-narrative mode to which these realists have turned in their rhetorical considerations—is ill-suited to the contemporary political moment. In the context of a late-modern “nuclear condition,” the turn to classical tragedy seems set to reproduce the resentful, anti-realist hubris that its promulgators hope to dispel or disenchant. Second, it suggests that late modern politics is […]
Read More from “After Tragedy: Melodrama and the Rhetoric of Realism.”
Abstract Last month, the Trump administration reopened its effort to allow Kentucky to require low-income citizens to work in exchange for health-care coverage — part of its larger goal of imposing work requirements nationwide for all kinds of benefits, including assistance buying food. The Kentucky effort has run afoul of at least one federal judge, who wrote that the administration “never adequately considered whether Kentucky HEALTH would in fact help the state furnish medical assistance to its citizens, a central […]
Read More from “Do work requirements for federal assistance help people escape poverty? No. Here’s what really happens.”
Abstract This paper analyzes the demographic attributes of people with views indicating support for explicit white identity politics, finding that there is a strong correlation between these attitudes and income and education levels.
Read More from “The Demography of the Alt-Right”
Abstract Fearful talk surrounding ISIS discloses two ‘public secrets’ that collectively define the dilemma of late modern politics. The first is a transition from politics that is experienced and narrated chiefly as tragedy to one that is experienced chiefly as melodrama. The second is a motivated wish to shed the moral burden which tragedy places on the contemporary political subject. ISIS, then, is terrifying not because it represents a throwback to premodern forms of charismatic domination or political […]
Read More from “Threat inflation as political melodrama: ISIS and the politics of late modern fear.”
Daniel J. Levine (University of Alabama) & David M. McCourt (University of California, Davis) Abstract Pluralism has become a buzzword in International Relations. It has emerged in a number of linked literatures and has drawn the support of an unusual coalition of scholars: advocates of greater methodological diversity; those who feel that IR has degenerated into a clash of paradigmatic “-isms”; those who favor a closer relationship between academics and policy-makers; and those who wish to see greater reflexivity […]
Read More from “Why Does Pluralism Matter when We Study Politics? A View from Contemporary International Relations.”
Abstract In response to the ‘non-manifesto’ penned by David Chandler, Stephen Hobden and Erika Cudworth, we advance five points in the coming pages. First, we deal with questions of nomenclature. We grapple with what is at stake in using the term ‘the Anthropocene’ and in bringing human politics into geological processes and timescales. Second, we counter Chandler et al.’s erroneous claim that ‘Planet Politics’ advances an occult liberal-imperialist agenda. Third, we refute their charge that our work smuggles in transcendentalism […]
Read More from “Defending Planet Politics: A Response to Our Critics”
Abstract Vote misreporting is a major concern for studies of electoral participation. Concern over nonvoters in surveys who claim to vote is especially relevant for black turnout studies in the U.S., because blacks misreport voting more than others. This research tests theories that black Americans feel special pressure to vote that increases misreporting and causes turnout studies to overestimate the influence of participation in black churches, racial group consciousness, and other factors. Tests comparing results from self-reported and validated […]
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Abstract Is kneeling during the national anthem disrespectful to the American flag, and by extension, to the U.S. military? That’s the charge President Trump recently leveled at NFL players who began “taking a knee,” to use the athletes’ language, to protest police brutality against people of color. But underneath that charge is an unexamined assumption that veterans and service members would not share the athletes’ views — and are white. We examine that underlying assumption to shed light on what […]
Read More from “Plenty of service members are likely to sympathize with #TakeAKnee .” Blog Post
Abstract Street-Level Sovereignty: The Intersection of Space and Law is a collection of scholarship that considers the experience of law that is subject to social interpretation for its meaning and importance within the constitutive legal framework of race, deviance, property, and the communal investiture in health and happiness. This book examines the intersection of spatiality and law, through the construction of place, and how law is materially framed.
Read More from “Haircuts and Power: Sovereignty and the Military.”
Abstract We examine gender bias in political institutions through a novel lens: oral arguments at the US Supreme Court. We ask whether female lawyers are afforded less speaking time during oral arguments compared to male lawyers. We posit that justices, while highly educated and more aware than most of laws requiring equal treatment, may be influenced by gender schemas that result in unconscious biased treatment of male and female lawyers. Applying automated content analysis to the transcripts of 3,583 […]
Read More from “Lawyer, Interrupted: Gender Bias in Oral Arguments at the US Supreme Court.”
Abstract Violence against civilians is portrayed as an antecedent of civil war, a cause, or both. Civil war creates opportune environments for planning and carrying out these acts that in turn can have detrimental effects on peace processes. Since not all civil war factions will see peace as beneficial, some actors may use violence to undermine the peace talks. The rebels may use indiscriminate violence to demonstrate their ability to exact costs on the government thus forcing the latter to […]
Read More from “Civil War Mediation and Rebel Use of Violence Against Civilians.”
Abstract Civil war peace agreements are prone to collapse. While some research suggests that multiple layers of power-sharing provisions lead to more viable agreements, others have suggested that negotiated settlements are not only more likely to return to violence, but that those cases will be more deadly as a result. We suggest here that previous research has failed to address the various ways that peace agreements emerge and that this context is crucial in explaining peace agreement viability. In some […]
Read More from “The Viability of Civil War Peace Agreements.”
Abstract The post-civil war agreement phase is vulnerable to credible commitment problems, a lack of government capacity to implement, and/or mutual vulnerability to retribution from violating the agreement. This study’s main contribution is to demonstrate the combined utility of mediation and UN peacekeeping. Mediation builds trust and confidence and works with the parties to design an efficacious agreement conducive to, among other features, tamping down post-agreement violence. Peacekeeping stems violence and facilitates the implementation of the agreement. Agreements that are […]
Read More from “Mediation, Peacekeeping and Civil War Peace Agreements.”
Abstract Across African democracies, maintaining popular trust in electoral management bodies (EMBs) is vital to enhancing election integrity and, ultimately, regime legitimacy. However, scholars have largely sidestepped any systematic analysis of how citizens formulate their attitudes towards EMBs and how these attitudes vary over time. To address these gaps in the literature, we focus on Kenyan EMBs, which have experienced fluctuating popular support since the ruinous 2007 elections and subsequent institutional reforms. Using primary election reports and original survey and […]
Read More from “The local mwananchi has lost trust’: design, transition and legitimacy in Kenyan election management.”
Abstract This article addresses the puzzle of electoral support for corrupt politicians in emerging democracies by examining citizens’ varying attitudes toward political corruption. We make an important theoretical distinction between perceptions of and tolerance for corruption, and argue that these different attitudes vary across individuals depending on whether they are political insiders or outsiders. We test our theory using Afrobarometer survey data from 18 sub-Saharan African countries and find that individuals included within clientelistic networks simultaneously perceive corruption as ubiquitous […]
Read More from “An Insider–Outsider Theory of Popular Tolerance for Corrupt Politicians .”
Abstract Why do religious organizations facilitate secular political activism in some settings but not others? I contend that where religious institutions are characterized by decentralized local governance, they are more likely to facilitate political activism. Drawing on nine months of field research and 60 interviews, I conduct a qualitative comparison between the Mexican states of Chiapas and Yucatán. I argue Chiapas exhibits highly decentralized governance by the Catholic Church whereas Yucatán exhibits centralized clerical management. This difference accounts for […]
Read More from “Religious Institutions and Collective Action: The Catholic Church and Political Activism in Indigenous Chiapas and Yucatán.”
Abstract Although many countries have ethnic kin on the “wrong side” of their borders, few seek to annex foreign territories on the basis of ethnicity. This article examines why some states pursue irredentism, whereas others exhibit restraint. It focuses on the triadic structure of the kin group in the irredentist state, its coethnic enclave, and the host state, and provides new data on all actual and potential irredentist cases from 1946 to 2014. The results indicate that irredentism is more […]
Read More from “Inside Irredentism: A Global Empirical Analysis.”
Abstract Why are some parties more likely than others to keep the promises they made during previous election campaigns? This study provides the first large-scale comparative analysis of pledge fulfillment with common definitions. We study the fulfillment of over 20,000 pledges made in 57 election campaigns in 12 countries, and our findings challenge the common view of parties as promise breakers. Many parties that enter government executives are highly likely to fulfill their pledges, and significantly more so than parties […]
Read More from “The Fulfillment of Parties’ Election Pledges: A Comparative Study on the Impact of Power Sharing.”
Abstract Eco-labels are designed to help consumers identify environmentally superior products and services, however, they are not all created equal. Some eco-labels have strong rules that promote environmental improvements, while others have weaker rules that permit free-riding. Since information about eco-label design and rule strength is typically not readily available at the point of purchase, consumers struggle to differentiate stronger eco-labels from weaker ones. We investigate whether eco-label sponsorship is a signal that can help consumers distinguish among eco-labels according […]
Read More from “The Institutional Design of Eco-labels: Sponsorship Signals Rule Strength.”
Abstract While local governments often implement equivalent numbers of sustainability programmes, they likely utilize different strategies to design them. We posit that some local governments pursue more of an exploration strategy, by experimenting with a broad range of sustainability issues and policy instruments to address them, while others pursue a more exploitation strategy, by focusing on a limited range of sustainability issues and policy instruments. We assess these distinctions across 70 local governments and offer evidence that governments indeed vary […]
Read More from “All Are Not Created Equal: Assessing Local Governments’ Strategic Approaches Towards Sustainability.”