Search

This paper argues that, in conjunction with relative power, ideational changes in US nationalism explain long-term variation in American democracy promotion strategy, including its most recent iteration in the Bush administration. The paper concludes by using this perspective to critique the neoconservative approach to extending liberal values and instituions in the international system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Income inequality in the U.S. has increased over the past thirty years after declining since the turn of the century. Although inequality creates real economic, social and political costs, conservatives have developed an elaborate philosophical argument that defends inequality. This paper challenges the conservative defense by arguing that the long term consequences of income inequality are non-sustainable. Policy supported by conservative ideology ultimately will result in the destruction of the very values that conservatives purport to uphold. The paper concludes by showing that by challenging the conservative argument, liberalism can help clarify its own objectives and agenda. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues against certain features of one prominent account (by John Rawls) of democratic legitimacy, justice, and rights. The paper also argues for an alternative account. Rawls argues in his later writings (well after A Theory of Justice) that to set out some basic conditions for constitutional democratic legitimacy, we need an account of justice appropriate for the "domain of the political", we need "an overlapping consensus" of "reasonable comprehensive doctrines" about what is just, we need need citizen endorsement of "constitutional essentials" as described in the account of justice. On a Rawlsian view, religious, philosophical, or moral comprehensive doctrines that try to say what is generally valuable in human life cannot be enforced without the oppressive exercise of state power. I argue that a better philosophy would be more qualified about comprehensive doctrines, more empirical and disconfirmable, not so Kantian. Rawls is right that the legal enforcement of religion is likely to require the oppressive exercise of state power but wrong to say that enforcing philosophical and moral comprehensive doctrines can be ruled out across the board as involving the oppressive exercise of state power. This depends on the "comprehensive doctrine". I question Rawls’s rejection of what he calls "comprehensive doctrines’ that would enforce the ideal of autonomy (e.g., some of Joseph Raz’s views). Only if we defend the possibility of some philosophical and moral doctrines being used in correcting the societal consensus on "constitutional essentials", and effectively advocating constitutional reform, can we avoid political dogmatism about the nature of democratic legitimacy, justice, and rights. I offer some empirical and political confirmation of my view by drawing on what Cass Sunstein argues about socioeconomic rights embedded in the South African Constitution among many others, an arrangement that could be drawn on to criticize the American Constitution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article describes a paper presented at the 42nd annual meeting of the Northeastern Political Science Association. It informs that this paper uncovers the Anti-Federalist's underlying political philosophy in context with the classical republicanism versus liberalism debate over the U.S. founding. It mentions that the political philosophy of the Anti-Federalists to be based on the close examination.

The ideal of liberal individualism still exerts a powerful hold on the American political and cultural imagination, one that is evident in the popularity of both continued academic debates in and around liberalism and neo-Walden-esque representations of liberal individuals such as Into the Wild, both the book by Jon Krakauer and the film by Sean Penn. Admirable as these expressions of liberal individuality may be, such texts can however work to re-inscribe a seductively misleading representation of freedom and individuality, one that is starkly de-contextualized and free of power insofar as it urges escape over negotiation, indulging the fantasy of independence rather than cultivating a recognition of interdependence. In this paper, I bring the post-structural critique of the liberal subject to bear on this popular representation of American individualism to reveal both the power and the limits of liberal individualism, tracking the confirmation and subversion of liberal ideals. Through a close reading of Into the Wild together with key texts in liberal theory and post-structuralist theory, this paper reveals the extent to which the liberal individualâ??even the one who seems most free, living in the woods apart from societyâ??is still a part of society and thus a subject, like others, who is always already acting in unchosen contexts that precede and exceed him or her. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The United States has been transformed from its original constitutional status as federal union of small republics into its current de facto existence as a liberal unitary regime. In this new regime, liberal freedom is secured by curtailing (if not terminating) local republican self-rule. This has been the victory of Hobbesian liberalism over Republican localism. Although the major implications of this were delayed until Progressive, New Deal, and Great Society periods, such centralizing events would not have been possible without the antecedent of Lincoln crushing the Southern States’ sovereignty, which included their right to secede from the Union and engage in independent republican self-rule. Without the triumph of Lincolnian-Leviathan, the threat of State nullification and secession would have continued to check the centralizing-ambitions of politicians in the federal government. In addition to relevant historiography, this paper will employ theorists such as Aristotle, Hobbes, Montesquieu, the Federalists, the Anti-Federalists, Lincoln, Lord Acton, and other relevant authors. Also, this paper will consider the normative problems that have been resolved and created by this regime transformation (e.g., race and empire issues). ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper addresses G. John Ikenberry’s model of constitutional order creation after great conflicts and proposes an additional explanation about the characteristics of the institutional arrangements adopted by the US after World War II. Actors use institutional arrangements to sustain a variety of international orders, but the question here regards why US foreign policy opted for specific kinds of institutions with embedded liberal values. To explain these developments, the paper establishes a dialogue with the consensus paradigm within the discipline of American History and its concept of an ‘American liberal tradition’ developed in the 1950s. The concept ‘American liberal tradition’ expresses the inexistence of a conservative tradition in US politics and a widespread belief in a set of shared liberal principles and values, summarized in the concepts of individualism, a free economy, and an open political system. The liberal tradition works as a framework that enables and constrains politics within the US. In this sense, the principles and values of the ‘American liberal tradition’ would play a decisive role in shaping US foreign policy towards international institutions. The analysis rests on US foreign policy towards the creation of the UN, NATO and Bretton Woods institutions. Focusing on the liberal tradition of American politics brings two main additions to this debate: the understanding of domestic and ideational influences on US foreign policy, and the exposure of the liberal character of the institutions of the contemporary international order, the possibilities that exist within them, and their intrinsic limits. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While the content of Alexis de Tocqueville's political categories has been voluminously studied, his use of religious categories in moral argument are only occasionally noted and almost never explained. In this paper I argue that Tocqueville's use of the category of Providence in Democracy in America I is best understood in relation to the history and practices of Jansenism. Secondly, I argue that Tocqueville's use of the idea of Providence points to his use of other Jansenist categories as well, especially the idea of an 'order of justification.' Tocqueville's use of this concept allows him to defend the democratic social state as a set of political and social relations independent from the world of religion while maintaining that the ultimate ethical justification of the democratic social state is that it is, in fact, an expression of divine will. The approach I follow in this paper is closest to that of Jean-Louis Benoit in Tocqueville Moraliste because I view Democracy in America I as moralist work, intended to move the reader emotionally and provoke action. Tocqueville's use of Jansenist categories owes the most to his reading of Pascal but Pascal is by no means the only Jansenist in Tocqueville's intellectual genealogy. Without an understanding the connections between Pascal's religious and political ideas, our understanding of the influence of Pascal on Tocqueville remains incomplete. The advantage of using the history and ideas of Jansenism is that it gives a mechanism of transmission and a hierarchy of ideas that more robustly explains the influence of Pascal on Tocqueville. Moreover, it is certain that Tocqueville knew Pascal was a Jansenist. In the next section of this paper I explain the basic philosophical substance of Jansenism with a special focus on Pascal's use of Jansenist categories of the hidden God, an 'order of justification.', and Providence. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Is the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit more liberal than other circuits? This paper looks at three possible definitions of judicial liberalism and tests whether the Ninth Circuit is more liberal, using data from the U.S. Courts of Appeals database and Giles et al. Common Space scores. First, the paper compares overall the proportions of liberal decisions in different circuits and finds that the Ninth Circuit is more liberal than most circuits, but with a fairly low probability. Second, the paper looks at the probabilities that a randomly chosen panel in the Ninth Circuit has a more liberal median than a randomly chosen panel in another circuit. Again, while the Ninth Circuit is likely to be more liberal than most other circuits, the probabilities are fairly low. Third, the paper presents estimation results from a hierarchical Bayesian model that compares the influence of judicial ideology on judicial outcomes in different circuits; it finds that this influence is lowest in the Ninth Circuit. As a result, the paper is not able to explain why the Ninth Circuit is singled out as a particularly ideological circuit. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Public opinion research has identified the central importance of racial attitudes in shaping opinions towards welfare (Gilens, 1999). As well, a number of prominent analyses of the 1996 welfare reform legislation, and its subsequent implementation over the last decade, have found that racial dynamics are a pervasive aspect of the politics of welfare (Soss, Schram, and Fording, eds., 2003). American Political Development studies of social policy have tended to focus on the New Deal programs and their precursors (Lieberman, 1998), but several important studies have documented the ways in which racial politics affected federal anti-poverty and welfare policies during and following the civil rights movement (Quadagno, 1994; Brown, 1999). This paper offers insight into the social construction of this politically important relationship between federal policies for the poor and race. It investigates the impact of the explosive racial politics of the mid-1960s on President Johnson's War on Poverty, identifying in internal administration documents a growing sensitivity of the president and his leading domestic policy advisors to the political pressures of escalating racial conflict in urban areas. The paper describes the strategic response of the administration to the rapidly shifting dynamics of race and its growing importance for their War on Poverty, and argues that the administration's efforts to grapple with the political challenges these changes created led to an establishment of a new political framework emphasizing race in subsequent policymaking initiatives addressing welfare and/or poverty. In responding to these racial politics dynamics, the paper argues that President Johnson was forced to abandon his initial intentions to promote his War on Poverty in universalist terms, as a continuation of the New Deal. Instead, his administration succumbed to the inescapable linkages between anti-poverty policies and race, and responded by redefining New Deal liberal social policy principles within a new context of strident racial liberalism. This racially charged framework led to concrete policy shifts, and held important implications for subsequent policymaking ventures in the arena of welfare or poverty. Most importantly for the long-term, Johnson's strategic political and policy responses undermined the original universalist foundations of the War on Poverty, and limited the potential for universalist social policy approaches through the present. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The issue outlined in this paper is that U.S. democracy promotion in Africa occurs only when it is convenient for the superpower from the West. Analyzing the countries that comprise the Gulf of Guinea – which share commonalities of recently discovered oil reserves, marginally democratic or nondemocratic regimes, and friendly relations with the U.S. - this paper illustrates how U.S. foreign policy continues to be shaped more by motives of self-interest than by real concern for the promotion of democracy and constitutional liberalism. The gap that exists between political rhetoric and policy is especially noteworthy in the wake of the September 11 attacks and the increased focus of the U.S. on democracy promotion in the Middle East. Given the renewed efforts to thwart terrorism by pressuring authoritarian regimes to open up politically and increase human liberties, the ongoing friendly relations between the U.S. and authoritarian regimes in arenas outside the Middle East border on hypocrisy. Despite recent rhetoric by U.S. policymakers concerning freedom and human rights advancements in Africa, actual U.S. policy in the Gulf of Guinea region belies the fact that U.S. economic interests still subvert the professed desire to see democracy succeed on a global scale. United States involvement in the Gulf of Guinea has important implications for the ability of individual countries in the region to avoid the ‘resource curse’ and to establish viable institutions. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the field of International Political Economy, there is a focus on the role of tariffs and tariff structures in international trade. Within this literature, there is an emerging analysis of international trade disputes, and their role as a form of foreign economic policy. This study addresses tariff policy, the role of operational code in Presidential decision making, and the foreign economic policy of the United States. The main focus is why Presidents initiate NAFTA trade disputes, yet have such a poor success rate. The main argument of this study is that the poor record of presidential dispute initiation is the result of the Executive Branch trying to please two opposing constituencies simultaneously: free traders and economic protectionists. In addition, I argue that the degree to which they pursue such strategies, however, is a function of the belief systems of individual Presidents. Using statistical modeling analysis, this paper shows that Presidents react to changes in the electoral cycle by initiating trade disputes with NAFTA partners. How they do this, I argue, is a function of two factors: the need for electoral support, and their internal beliefs, as expressed in their outlook towards free-trade liberalism. This paper will use operational code analysis to measure the belief systems of Presidents during this period to explain differing levels of commitment to free-trade liberalism among presidents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

John Locke and Thomas Hobbes saw eye to eye when it came to the superiority of the state over the church for the promotion of the public good. While Hobbes demoted organized religion to a level of impotence within the state, Locke championed toleration as an antidote to the sectarian infighting and religious persecution rampant in his day. The relevance of their words on our contemporary international situation is indeed great, perhaps more instructive than ever. This paper outlines and evaluates the role of religion in classical liberal thought, and relates it to current issues surrounding the role of religion in politics in terms of current cultural and policy challenges facing a post-September 11th United States. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Is the military and economic rise of China a threat to powers such as Japan and the United States? This paper examines this question using the theoretical predictions of realist theories (classical realism, neo-realism, and power transition theory), liberal theories (classical liberalism and neo-liberalism), and constructivist theory. While the qualitative analysis of Chinese, American, and Japanese behavior indicates some support for each theory, classical liberalism and constructivism are most strongly supported by the data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Neo-liberal policies and practices which impugn state policies as artificial interferences in the smooth operation of markets are at work globally, nationally and locally. Based on research about the Justice for Janitors in California, this paper examines the experience of the campaigns in San Jose and Sacramento. The paper is organized around a tension between two issues about markets that are explained by Karl Polanyi: their social reality as complex political constructions and the ideological justification for disembedding markets, aka the "Liberal Creed". In both campaigns the Justice for Janitors exposed the embeddedness of employers. On the other hand, in the ideological construction of their campaigns, the Justice for Janitors have not clearly confronted the "liberal creed" that justifies neo-liberal market practices. The JfJ campaigns have been successful at creating accountability for employers and politicians by revealing the concrete social relations within which markets are embedded, though they have largely failed to articulate an oppositional ideology to the liberal creed. At a minimum confronting this creed would place the state as central to the construction of market practices. The successes at instituting accountability of employers to democratic communities and the centrality of the state in securing that accountability will be undermined unless JfJ exposes the flaws of the liberal creed and clearly explains the importance of the state in securing the justice they seek. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the critical role that families play in the lives of citizens and the health of the polity, little attention has been paid to the role that the state should adopt with respect them. Instead, dominant versions of liberal political theory generally focus on individuals conceived apart from their relationships with others. Insofar as they consider families at all, these theories treat them as part of citizens' private lives, an area from which the state should properly remain aloof. This conception of the family-state relationship has contributed to a family policy in the United States that fails to support families and the goods associated with them. Recent revisionist versions of liberal theory, however, have begun to set the stage for rethinking the relationship between the state and the family. In focusing attention on the strong relationship between what William Galston calls the "moral culture of liberal society" and the health of a liberal polity (1991: 6), these discussions suggest (although they don't often explicitly recognize) the importance of the family's role. And in moving the discussion from seeking an impossible-to-attain neutral position for the state toward a position that makes no pretense toward neutrality yet ensures individuals considerable autonomy, these debates open the field for new conceptions of the family-state relationship. They also move the ground of debate away from simple consideration of the value of liberty toward recognition of a wider range of goods and a richer conception of human flourishing. In this paper, I begin the project of developing a sustained theory of the family-state relationship on this new terrain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We live in an age of a revivified direct democracy. The initiative, which allows citizens both to propose and to vote on laws, has been used more and more in the 23 states permitting direct legislation by voters. In California, for example, nine voter initiatives made it to the ballot in the 1960s; 22 made it in the 1970s; 45 in the 1980s; and 62 in the 1990s. In the 1996 general election, Americans voted on more than 90 statewide initiatives, along with an estimated 200 local initiatives and referenda on environmental and land-use issues. Classical liberalism and direct democracy are not necessarily friends. Classical liberalism affirms the freedom of the individual and argues for just enough government to protect that freedom from enemies abroad and criminals at home. Direct democracy means the rule of a majority of those eligible to vote. If a majority of the people turns out to be thieves, liberalism and democracy fall out and a nation can fall into civil war. James Madison told such a story in Federalist No. 10, a story of passionate factions, democratic decline, and civil war. The paper addresses the question whether Madison would approve of our revival of direct democracy. I conclude that the use of the initiative in American politics supports Madisonian liberalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Globalization’s onset inspired predictions about convergence of diverse capitalist economies to American-style liberalism (Kurzer 1994; Frieden & Rogowski 1996). Even dissenters (Garrett 1998; Boix 1998; Hall & Soskice 2001; Kitschelt, Lange, Marks & Stephens 1999), who insisted on the persistence of different capitalist models, agreed on liberalism’s comparative advantages: fewer regulations, less particularistic policy-making, and swift asset redeployment. Rather than inspiring hands-off government, however, increased international competition has often been accompanied by industry-specific tax cuts and credits, subsidies, and import relief. Neither the convergence school nor its critics, can explain when and why the liberal market economies (LMEs) in the UK, US, and Canada stray from laissez-faire. This paper argues that political institutions explain divergence among LMEs. My argument is that the key variable distinguishing between the UK and US is the weakness of party discipline in the United States and its strong presence in the UK. The most important distinction in scholarly work, by contrast, has been between majoritarianism and proportional representation electoral systems (Rogowski 1987). Political party discipline influences politicians? incentives to adopt universalistic versus particularistic policies toward business in the aggregate, as well as policies regarding specific sectors. The policy result of weak party discipline is different from the result of federalism. In systems with weak party discipline, businesses can invest in particular favors from individual legislators. In federal systems, by contrast, the only industrial particularism is inter-state bids for mobile industries capable of making credible exit threats. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is an extended summary account of my recently completed book manuscript on the history of democratic theory in American political science. The focus is on the internal discursive evolution of the democratic vision in the discipline and on the concepts of state, pluralism, and liberalism as the axis of paradigmatic transformations in that vision. The primary emphasis is on the period from the early nineteenth century to World War Two, but an Epilogue considers later developments and casts contemporary democratic theory against this historical background. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a conference paper regarding hysteria associated with the practice of wearing the veil by Muslim women in the U.S., to be presented in the U.S. Western Political Science Association held in Oregon as of February 2012. Topics include a debate on whether wearing a burqa is a testimony to liberal tolerance or a challenge to the liberal fiction of cultural neutrality, the state sanctioned public hysteria against veiling, and obstruction of sociality by veil wearing.

Few transformations have been as important in American political history as the incorporation of African Americans into the Democratic Party coalition over the course of the 1930s-60s and the embrace of racial conservatism on the part of many Republicans. This paper, which is part of a broader book project, focuses on changes in mass opinion among Democratic and Republican partisans from the late 1930s through the 1960s. It traces, over time, the relationship between New Deal economic liberalism and racial liberalism, and between economic policy conservatism and racial conservatism. A key initial finding is that by the late 1930s, economically-liberal northern white Democratic voters were especially pro-civil rights, while economicallyconservative northern Republican voters were particularly hostile. This suggests that there was a connection between attitudes towards the economic programs of the New Deal and racial liberalism early on. One of the goals of the book will be to understand where that connection came from, along with its implications for subsequent developments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper will assess one particular angle from which one may adjudicate the seemingly intractable struggle between liberalism and republicanism, namely American citizenship, specifically as witnessed in Section One of the Fourteenth Amendment. The question that inspires this essay, then, is this: Is the American conception of citizenship, as defined by the Fourteenth Amendment, a liberal one or a republican one? In short, the liberal conception subsumes the republican conception ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The search for religious moderates preoccupies analysts of both American and international politics. However, much of this analysis is deeply flawed, seeking religious leaders from Kansas to Karachi who fit comfortably into a liberal-democratic mold. This paper examines the amorphous concept of the “religious moderate,” and distinguishes distinct forms of moderation that one could seek from religious civil society groups. Such a nuanced look at religious moderation is an important step in increasing social science’s grasp of the dynamics of religion in contemporary international politics. Religious moderation is heavily influenced by national-level variables, especially a state's tradition of religion-state relations. Thus, attempts to export "religious moderation" should be undertaken with great care. The distinct treatment of Muslim civic assocations in France and the United States demonstrates two quite different takes on moderation, and the implications that conceptions of moderation have on the make-up of religious civil society. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Perhaps the greatest advocate of American independence, Thomas Paine eventually emerged as a harsh critic of the Constitution of 1789. In this paper, I shall examine Paine's critique of the American constitution in order to discern the strength of his critique and clarify his competing vision of proper republican governance. Paine's mature opinions on the proper organization of government reveal him to be a harsh critic of the founders' vision: Paine disagrees substantially with the Founders on the nature--and in some cases, the necessity--of the legislative, executive, and judicial branches of government. Ultimately, I argue that these disagreements boil down to an argument as to whether human nature needs to be restrained or liberated. Paine's familiar devotion to equality and human reason and his habitual mistrust of the wealthy lead him to endorse a constitutional vision that is in perfect accord with his general political thought, and forms the basis of a powerful, but problematic, critique of the American system that suggests that it is inconsistent with liberalism's guiding principles; particularly compelling is Paine's critique of executive authority as tyrannical in nature. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A number of prominent political scientists have recently argued that stronger, more unified, and more disciplined political parties have developed in the US, and that this has been detrimental for American liberalism. Conservative Republicans have been capable of using party discipline to push public policy in a conservative direction that is not supported by mass political preferences. Although liberals, far more than conservatives, have advocated doctrines of responsible party government, the truth is that party government has been far more advantageous for Republicans. This paper challenges such claims, and defends the model of responsible party government developed by mid-twentieth century political scientists. Party government, it will be argued, is still more advantageous for liberals than conservatives, and those who argue otherwise have over-generalized on the basis of the experience with GOP governance in the early 2000s. Developments after 2006 suggest that new trends towards party government in the United States will facilitate liberal policy outcomes, much as its early proponents believed. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In keeping with the overall theme for the 2009 Convention this paper very briefly reviews the violent historical excesses of liberalism and argues that the range of currently plausible, and future foreseeable configurations of global politics will render it not so much surplus to the imperatives which will be asserted, but quite possibly an anachronistic way of thinking and acting, even anathema. It does so by proposing that an inversion has taken place in the political character of the United States - an inversion which, while being evident to the point of being almost overpoweringly obvious in the recent Bush administration, was in the ascendant long before 2001. Thus, it will be argued that the increasing willingness of successive Administrations to adopt prerogatives inimical to a republic and more closely identified with the worst excesses of the romanita - the confessional imperialism of Rome - by legislation, admonition, and fiat -- sustained throughout by magisterium, auctoritas, potestas -- the office, the authority, and the power to use them both. In terms of a broader political and social understanding, however, it is a form of atavism, a re-inscription of an ancient habit of "prescribing a juridical solution to every human dilemma, and then stamping every solution with a sacred character under the seal of the magisterium." One example of considerable concern is the way in which contemporary prisoners of war, defined by the US as "illegal combatants" are the objects of "extraordinary rendition" - a practice remarkably resonant of the "relaxation of prisoners under the Spanish Inquisition. Accordingly, it is argues that, by any comprehension, it is a return to rule by a form of political absolutism. Accordingly, it raises questions of the most serious nature for contemporary and future global political dynamics because the present now significantly corresponds with the Tridentine age - when the corruption of the established order, and the refusal and inability to reform it most notable under the Renaissance Popes - provoked the secession which became the Protestant Reformation, and in turn, the Catholic Counter-Reformation, and changed forever the contours of world politics. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What are the policy implications of accepting an exclusionary versus a more liberal conception of Americanism among Whites? Many scholars argue that a strong sense of identification with and attachment to the nation is a mechanism through which people come to understand and navigate the political world. Others argue that Americans must know who they are before their political interests can be clearly identified. These scholars posit that the ability of Americans to define themselves both politically and culturally is important for understanding the dynamics of interethnic relationships in the United States. Through the lens of social identity theory, this paper uses the 2006 Congressional Election Survey to explore the correlates of American liberalism and ethnocultural conceptions of national identity. Our goal is to explain how these positions translate into policies aimed at immigrant populations residing in the United States. Our analysis reveals some interesting similarities as well as differences from previous research. More specifically, in contrast to previous research, we find that the indicators of Americanism cluster along three dimensions and are highly correlated with one's ideological position on a number of policy relevant positions. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that voters with liberal values are likely to support economic openness. The heart of analysis here lies in identifying a correlation between the proportion of liberal voters and pro-free trade votes cast by the members of Congress. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]