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This study focuses on the political advocacy of human service administrators following implementation of a highly restrictive state immigration law. It tests hypotheses to assess whether factors associated with the political advocacy of human service administrators generally are also associated with advocacy at a time of policy crisis. Findings suggest that few human service administrators engaged in immigration-related advocacy, and that those who did advocate were those most likely to perceive organizational benefit for doing so. The findings raise questions about the conditions under which human service administrators will advocate for social benefit in an organizational or individual role. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers information on paper terrorism, a neologism to refer to the use of false liens. Topics discussed include origins of the sovereign citizen movement, sovereign citizens' diverse beliefs and ideologies, and strategies for preventing sovereign citizens' harassment of public officials.

The article focuses on the specification of models of campaign finance and comments on papers which address the specific issues related to specification problems within a general model of Congressional voting in the U.S. The appropriate model within which to address the issues concerning the said papers is one which deals with the relationship between the voting behavior of Congressional representatives, the voting behavior of the constituents and the contributions of donors to campaigns.

This and the next two issues of LegisIative Studies Quarterly will publish a group of articles based on papers presented at the 1988 G. E. Hendricks Symposium on the United States Senate. Held on the campus of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in October 1988, this symposium brought together leading students of the U.S. Congress. Their articles fall into three large categories, and these categories will be used to divide the articles among the three issues (see Appendix). Following this introduction, three historically oriented articles will appear in this issue. The August issue d l contain five articles on the organization and operation of the Senate, and the November issue will present six articles relating to Senate elections. Collectively, these articles constitute an impressive portrait of current research on the Senate. Why is it important to obtain such a portrait? Of what value was our symposium and the papers it produced? What did we hope to accomplish, and did we do it? In this brief introduction to the Hendricks Symposium studies, we address these and related questions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Starting a newspaper in the nineteenth century was a risky business, and this was especially true in the Civil War South where invading armies, spiraling inflation, and conscription laws were constant threats to physical facilities, financial success, and manpower Despite this, North Carolina Governor Zebulon B. Vance and the state's Conservative political party found the money and the will to establish a new daily to support the his re-election bid in 1864. Campaign papers were common in the 1800s, but while most shut down following an election, the Conservative continued to publish after Vance won. Records and archives document how it was financed, equipped, and staffed, providing an unprecedented glimpse into what it took to start a newspaper not only in the nineteenth century but during America's bloodiest war. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Civil religion has been described as the "common elements of religious orientation that the great majority of Americans share". In an age of partisan division, there have been calls for a revitalized civil religion, but the idea that civil religion can be unifying has been debated. In this paper, we investigate whether civil religion can be unifying, or is it fractured by partisanship? To address this, we use two strategies. First, we created a civil religion battery and deployed it on two different cross-sectional surveys. The results indicate that there are two dimensions to civil religion. These dimensions are distinct from Christian nationalism and structured along partisan lines. Second, we developed two survey experiments to understand the dimensions of civil religion and improve on the causal mechanisms that link civil religion to political behavior. Results indicate that, rather than promoting unity, civil religion is interpreted through partisan lenses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rural areas are becoming more and more concerned about their aging population and perceived loss of youth. Analysts see the older members of communities as a burden, and focus their development strategies on attracting and retaining the young. In doing so, they may be missing the value that elders' civic engagement can provide to rural community development. This qualitative study, based on interviews with 40 elders in mostly rural areas of Wisconsin, in the United States, shows the benefits that their civic engagement brings to rural areas. They have biographical availability, political and economic freedom, and life-long experience to offer. They do face some challenges, including occasional health issues, lack of technological agility, and change-resistant peers. The paper concludes by considering how communities can better access and honour elder civic engagement, including understanding elders' motivations and skills for civic engagement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The contemporary Religious Left (RL) in the United States has proven to be somewhat of an enigma, both for academics and for the activists and voters who desire such a movement to thrive. In this paper, I look at one piece of the puzzle: is the RL able to mobilize supporters to political activity? Combining data from both the individual and movement level, this paper tests whether activity at the movement level of the RL can translate into individual supporters' political activity. Using existing data for 2008 and newly collected data on the RL in the 2016 election cycle, I find that the movement was successful in mobilizing constituents in 2008, but not in 2016. This can be linked to the Democrats' effort to engage religious voters in 2008, and its inability to do so in 2016. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Cuestiones Políticas is the property of Revista Cuestiones Politicas and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This Paper argues that to protect at-risk communities — and all Americans — from the deadly effects of environmental racism, Congress must pass the Environmental Justice for All Act. The Act is intended to "restore, reaffirm, and reconcile environmental justice and civil rights." It does so by restoring an individual's right to sue in federal court for discrimination based on race, ethnicity, or national origin regardless of intent under the Civil Rights Act of 1964, strengthening the National Environmental Policy Act, and providing economic incentives focused on environmental justice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Understanding of the alcohol industry's means of influencing public policy is increasingly well established. Less is known, however, about the specific organisations that lead the political strategies of the alcohol industry. To fill this gap, this paper explores the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States (DISCUS), a key trade association in the United States (US), which also operates internationally. Methods: This study explores how DISCUS is organised and the main political activities it pursues to advance its policy interests. The study triangulates data from several sources, including DISCUS documents, as well as federal lobbying and election expenditure data. Results: This study demonstrates that DISCUS is a key political actor in the US and global alcohol policymaking context. There are identifiable strategies used by DISCUS to shape alcohol policy debates, including framing and lobbying. We also find key synergies between these strategies and identify their operation at varying levels of policy decision-making. Conclusions: Generating more secure inferences about the nature of the alcohol industry's efforts to advance its interests, and with what success and at what cost, requires researchers to investigate other trade associations in different contexts, and use other data sources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We examine the relative performance of voting technologies by studying presidential, gubernatorial, and senatorial election returns across hundreds of counties in the United States from 1988 to 2000. Relying on a fixed-effects regression applied to an unbalanced panel of counties, we find that in presidential elections, traditional paper ballots produce the lowest rates of uncounted votes (i.e.,“residual votes”), followed by optically scanned ballots, mechanical lever machines, direct register electronic machines (DREs), and punch cards. In gubernatorial and senatorial races, paper, optical scan ballots, and DREs are significantly better in minimizing the residual vote rate than mechanical lever machines and punch cards. If all jurisdictions in the United States that used punch cards in 2000 had used optically scanned ballots instead, we estimate that approximately 500,000 more votes would have been attributed to presidential candidates nationwide. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This innovation project seeks to provide an example of practical application of the development of critical thinking skills in the Humanities and specifically, in the Degree of English Studies. It is framed in the research group Studies on Intermediality and Intercultural Mediation (SIIM) of Complutense University of Madrid and it aims at responding to the current emphasis in the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) on competences for lifelong learning able to guarantee employability, social inclusion and citizen's participation in a globalized and changing world, a world suffering from systematic inequalities and social divisions. Many of these social and ethnic confrontations (for example, the systematic racism in the United States against the African American population which has generated the global movement "Black Lives Matter") have their origin in historical and literary periods that are covered in the curricular contents of the subjects in which this project is implemented. Thus, by bringing awareness into the functionality and relevance the subject curricula have in order to understand the historical and literary roots of many social problems, this project promotes the acquisition of critical thinking skills to contribute to these social debates by providing an objective and contrasted discussion on the origin of these social divisions. Moreover, by putting their academic knowledge at the service of an informed societal conversation, through their own learning outcomes (verified infographics, podcasts, and academic papers), students become active agents of social transformation, contributing in the fight against the disinformation, manipulation, and ignorance that so deeply harms us today as a global community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Party elite cues are among the most well-established influences on citizens' political opinions. Yet, there is substantial variation in effect sizes across studies, constraining the generalizability and theoretical development of party elite cues research. Understanding the causes of variation in party elite cue effects is thus a priority for advancing the field. In this paper, I estimate the variation in party elite cue effects that is caused simply by heterogeneity in the policy issues being examined, through a reanalysis of data from existing research combined with an original survey experiment comprising 34 contemporary American policy issues. My estimate of the between-issue variation in effects is substantively large, plausibly equal to somewhere between one-third and two-thirds the size of the between- study variation observed in the existing literature. This result has important implications for our understanding of party elite influence on public opinion and for the methodological practices of party elite cues research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper assesses the influence of racial outreach on Black political participation in the context of United States electoral politics. We argue that racial appeals should inspire higher levels of Black voter enthusiasm because they, in part, improve perceptions of empathy from politicians. However, we expect that racial outreach will matter more when it comes from non-descriptive representatives because Black representatives are perceived as empathetic regardless of their actions. We test these hypotheses using two separate experiments. We find that Black Americans are more politically active when non-Black politicians discuss their intentions to advance Black political interest. We also find that racial appeals provided by descriptive representatives is not a significant predictor of Black voter turnout. Our analysis demonstrates that under certain conditions racial outreach plays an important role in mobilizing underrepresented groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Polarization and participation are often connected in the political science literature, though sometimes the causality runs participation to polarization and sometimes the causality runs in the reverse direction. In some accounts there is an expectation that increasing participation and increasing polarization generate an ongoing spiral effect. In this paper we evaluate the over-time relationships between polarization and participation by assessing evidence in existing panel and aggregate data. We find that people with more extreme attitudes are more likely to participate in politics. However, only one particular form of participation—persuading others—appears to predict later levels of polarization. Therefore, only persuasion has the necessary correlation and temporal ordering for a feedback loop with more extreme ideology. The implication is that the discipline should pay more attention to interpersonal persuasion as a form of participation in American politics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Explores the socialist roots of the War Resisters League by examining the philosophy of its founder Jessie Wallace Hughan. Factors which shaped the pacifist ideology and activism of Hughan; Discussion of Hughan's theory of war resistance; Challenge of radical pacifism.

We use new data on entries and exits of US daily newspapers from 1869 to 2004 to estimate effects on political participation, party vote shares, and electoral competitiveness. Our identification strategy exploits the precise timing of these events and allows for the possibility of confounding trends. We focus our analysis on the years 1869- 1928, and we use the remaining years of data to look at changes over time. We find that newspapers have a robust positive effect on political participation, with one additional newspaper increasing both presidential and congressional turnout by approximately 0.3 percentage points. Newspaper competition is not a key driver of turnout: our effect is driven mainly by the first newspaper in a market, and the effect of a second or third paper is significantly smaller. The effect on presidential turnout diminishes after the introduction of radio and television, while the estimated effect on congressional turnout remains similar up to recent years. We find no evidence that partisan newspapers affect party vote shares, with confidence intervals that rule out even moderate-sized effects. We find no clear evidence that newspapers systematically help or hurt incumbents. (JEL D72, L11, L82, N41, N42, N81, N82) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

From its beginnings in the 1820s, African-American newspapers have always been a strong and vocal ally for the rights of blacks throughout the United States. This article delineates how and why these papers from the mid-1830s to the Civil War became important as platforms of political agency for those who were denied conventional means of political participation in the government. In particular, this study focuses on four avenues through which the newspapers were utilized to afford political agency to Africans Americans: the material and rhetorical support of black suffrage; the promotion and facilitation of public protest; the promotion of material and moral elevation; and the creation and promotion of a black national and historical identity. The success of the black press in these areas set a precedent for all subsequent African-American political struggles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Profiles revolutionary Jane Franklin Mecom. Description of her life in Boston, Massachusetts; Comparison between Mecom and other revolutionary women authors; Significance of her writings to the study of women's literature during the founding era of the U.S.; Information on the political activities of Mecom.

This article explores the role that organized labor played in the landmark presidential election of 2008. In particular, it explores the work of the American Federation of Labor–Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL–CIO), which ran its biggest ever election campaign in 2008, spending upwards of $250 million. While there is a vibrant emerging literature on the election, particularly from political scientists and former reporters, labor’s role in the story has been largely overlooked. Drawing on new parts of the AFL–CIO’s papers, as well as interviews with key staffers and federation leaders, this article highlights the important – and overlooked – role that labor played in putting Barack Obama into the White House. Especially important were its extensive efforts to educate – and pressure – white members, many of whom had backed other candidates during the Democratic primaries, to support Obama. Indeed, theWashington Postasserted that union members played a ‘pivotal role’ in Obama’s victory, especially in terms of delivering the white vote. It was a conclusion largely supported by exit polls, which showed that white union members were much more likely to support Obama than whites who were not in unions. The article highlights that despite the decline in union density – by this time only about 12% of American workers belonged to unions, compared to 35% in the 1950s – the labor movement retained considerable political influence, chiefly because of reforms carried out by AFL–CIO President John J. Sweeney. While Obama was unable to fulfill many of the expectations generated by his campaign, the story of labor and the 2008 election is an important one in its own right, showing that contemporary labor could still be a powerful and constructive force. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

A tremendous amount is known about individual civic and political participation. Those who participate are more educated, more affluent and easier to mobilize. Yet, the social value of participation lies not in its individual impact but in democratically meaningful units such as local governments. Little is known about why some communities display vibrant patterns of participation while others are characterized by disengagement. This paper furthers this understanding by examining what corporate, political and nonprofit leaders in 10 America's cities see as fostering their civic life. This study finds that institutional factors unite those cities with the highest levels of participation. These include a strong corporate presence, mechanisms for mobilization, a strong community identity, public spaces, good government and investment in youth. This serves as a basis for fostering pro-civic policies. This is a practitioner-oriented paper that while grounded in research is designed to foster policy solutions rather than prove casual mechanisms. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on the implementation of workfare in the US, with the aim of understanding the passive response of the unions and other progressive groups to the restructuring and retrenchment of the American welfare system. In particular, it considers the disparate efforts to organise welfare recipients and low-wage workers around the restructuring of social benefits towards work in the District of Columbia. Although the convergence of welfare recipients and low-wage workers through 'work-first' initiatives has the potential to spur political mobilisation and protest against the reform of welfare, it is found that at the local level campaigns against workfare are diverse and changeable, producing very little - it could be argued - in terms of long-term resistance. Identifying forms of dissidence in Washington DC as constitutive of the broader liberal regime of governance and re-regulation, this paper probes the forms, possibilities and problems of organising workfare subjects. This allows for consideration of the extent to which workfare programmes are being re-inscribed within emerging patterns of political-economic development and the potential for future action. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the value of firm political connections using a regression discontinuity design in a sample of close, off-cycle U.S. congressional elections. I compare firms donating to winning candidates and firms donating to losing candidates and find that postelection abnormal equity returns are 3% higher for firms donating to winning candidates. Connections to politicians serving on powerful congressional committees, such as appropriations and taxation, are especially valuable and impact contributing firms sales. Firms'campaign contributions are correlated with other political activities such as lobbying and hiring former government employees, suggesting that firms take coordinated actions to build political networks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Policy Studies Journal is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

During the 1980s, the United States initiated an explicit policy of democracy promotion throughout the world. William Robinson (1996) more accurately described this initiative as "promoting polyarchy," whereby the United States supported moderate elite actors that promoted neoliberal economic policies to displace both right-wing and communist despots, such as General Augusto Pinochet in Chile and Soviet rulers in Eastern Europe. While much of Latin America remained characterized by polyarchies throughout the late 20th Century, Latin American citizens began to reject these political arrangements and to elect anti-neoliberal candidates that promoted participatory democracy by the turn of the 21st Century, particularly in Bolivia, Ecuador, Nicaragua, and Venezuela. How has the United States changed its democracy promotion strategies to respond to these new dynamics? The purpose of this paper is to illustrate how the U.S. government, through agencies such as the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and USAID, has altered the main thrust of its foreign policy in Latin America, from promoting polyarchy and displacing despotic leaders, to supporting opposition actors to unseat democratically-elected far leftist leaders that promote participatory democracy. This paper deploys a case study method involving recent U.S. foreign policy in Bolivia, Nicaragua, and Venezuela, and it utilizes both U.S. diplomatic cables and interviews with U.S. state elites to illustrate this shift. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Policy Studies Journal is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Gender differences in political knowledge are a well-known empirical finding in public opinion research. Scholars working in this area have proposed various explanations for this phenomenon, often focusing on issues regarding the format and content of factual knowledge batteries. Yet, there are surprisingly few works that focus on how scholars might diversify the content of political knowledge measures to develop items that are less biased toward male areas of expertise. In this paper, we propose an inductive framework to develop more gender-balanced knowledge batteries by including political issues that are of particular relevance to women and women's lives. Employing gender-balanced measures of political knowledge reveal instances where women and men demonstrate equivalent levels of political knowledge and higher levels of political interest and efficacy among women—engagement that is often masked by conventional measures of knowledge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article assesses the American Federation of Labor-Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) during the presidency of John J. Sweeney, which lasted from 1995 until 2009. Drawing on a wide range of sources, including press accounts and the AFL-CIO's own papers, it provides one of the first scholarly assessments of the entire Sweeney presidency. Sweeney won office in the first contested election in the AFL-CIO's history, and he came into power promising to revitalize the Federation, which is the largest labor federation in the Western world. Under Sweeney, the AFL-CIO invested an unprecedented amount of resources into both organizing and political mobilization, two key areas. In the early years of his presidency, Sweeney oversaw some important gains, particularly in the organizing arena, but the 2000 presidential election proved to be a turning point. After 2000, Sweeney's reforms were undermined primarily by external factors, particularly mounting corporate opposition, deindustrialization, and a hostile political climate, although internal resistance and division also played a role. As a result, a major campaign to secure labor law reform fell short, and union density continued to decline, yet the rate of decline was slower than it had been in the 1980s and early 1990s. Overall, although the results of Sweeney’s efforts were mixed, the important role that the AFL-CIO played in electing Barack Obama partly justified Sweeney’s emphasis on political mobilization. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Copyright of Teoría de la Educación. Revista Interuniversitaria is the property of Ediciones Universidad de Salamanca and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

While it is well documented that political participation is stratified by socioeconomic characteristics, it is an open question how this finding bears on the evaluation of the democratic process with respect to its fairness. In this paper, we draw on the analytical tools developed in the equality‐of‐opportunity literature to answer this question. We investigate to what extent differential political participation is determined by factors that lie beyond individual control (circumstances) rather than being the result of individual effort. Using rich panel data from the United States, we indeed find a lack of political opportunity for the types with the most disadvantaged circumstances. Opportunity shortages tend to complement each other across different forms of participation and persist over time. Family characteristics and psychological conditions during childhood emanate as the strongest determinants of political opportunities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

American employers are increasingly engaging their workers in the political process. Drawing on original surveys of firms and workers, this paper examines the extent to which employers act as political machines, channeling their employees into politics in ways intended to support corporate interests. I show that employer political requests greatly increased the likelihood that employees would report participating in politics around the 2014 election and employer requests were roughly as effective as those from unions and political parties. I also find that employer mobilization was most effective when employers used warnings of job loss to motivate participation and when employers could monitor the behavior of their employees, suggesting that employers are indeed acting as a type of political machine. My results shed light on the ways that American firms recruit workers into politics and show that employer mobilization of workers may be an important source of political power for business. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes patterns of industrial structure and party competition in the 2012 presidential election. The analysis rests on a new and more comprehensive database that catches more of the myriad ways in which businesses and major investors make political contributions than previous studies do. By drawing on this unified database, the paper is able to show that both major parties depend on very large donors to a greater extent than past studies have estimated. The paper outlines the firm and sectoral bases of support for the major party nominees, as well as for Republican candidates who competed for their party's presidential nomination. The paper shows that President Barack Obama's support by big business was broader than hitherto recognized. A central conclusion is that the sectors most involved in the recent controversies over surveillance were among the president's strongest supporters. The paper also analyzes patterns of business support for the Tea Party in Congress, showing that certain parts of the business community are more supportive of Tea Party candidates than others. The role of climate change, financial regulation, and other issues in the election is discussed at length. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Learning through social communication is promoted when citizens are able to identify which of their associates is likely to possess the necessary political information. This paper examines the factors that influence individuals' evaluations of political expertise. Actual political expertise plays a large role in perceived expertise, but mistakes are made. These are largely the result of assuming that those engaged in politics must also be knowledgeable about politics. This paper uses the 1996 Indianapolis-St. Louis Study and the 2000 National Election Study to identify factors that bias levels of perceived political knowledge. The paper concludes by demonstrating that perceived expertise plays a larger role than actual expertise in the social influence process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is an anatomy of an inquisition. It examines the Cold War persecution of Edwin Berry Burgum, a university professor and literary theorist. Whilst his professional competence was consistently applauded, his academic career was abruptly destroyed. His 'fitness to teach' was determined by his political beliefs: he was a member of the American Communist Party. The paper argues that New York University, an institution that embodied liberal values, collaborated with McCarthyism. Using previously overlooked or unavailable sources, it reveals cooperation between NYU's executive officers and the FBI, HUAC and the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee. Though its focus on one individual, the paper illuminates larger themes of the vulnerability of academic freedom and the bureaucratic processes of political repression. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that we should revisit the common assumptions in the administrative presidency literature about political appointments. Specifically, it contests the notions that presidential politicization of the executive branch is intended only to enhance political control of the bureaucracy and is successful at doing so. Instead, the author argues that politicization choices are driven by patronage concerns, and politicization of the bureaucracy ultimately can make it harder for presidents to control the bureaucracy. The paper illustrates how one might theorize more generally about patronage politics in the White House and the impact of appointments on performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social workers are challenged by the profession's Code of Ethics to engage in social and political action to create social change, and social work education is challenged by our Code and accreditation standards to prepare students for this challenge. Social policy instructors often need to adapt teaching methods in order to account for differences in the political and social context within which they are teaching. This study uses the Civic Participation Model [CPM] to assess the regional differences in a political social work training offered in two strikingly different locations in the Eastern and Western United States. This paper describes a case example of an adaptation of a political social work training to a new context that varies significantly in a number of ways from the one in which it was created, including geography, ideology, density, and political structure. Outcomes are discussed, and the article proposes research questions for a larger follow-up study of political social work trainings in a series of diverse geographic areas of the country. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Few prior studies have examined the extent to which the behavior and characteristics of political extremists are related to their position within radical groups. In this paper we concentrate on one of the most fundamental distinctions in groups: That between leaders and followers. Our main goal is to investigate the comparative propensity of leaders and followers to engage in political violence. In a sample of individuals who have committed ideologically motivated political crimes in the United States (N = 1,331). we found that even though leaders were more ideologically committed to the group's goals and ideologies, they were at the same time less likely to engage in violent acts. Moreover, we found that leaders in radical criminal organizations shared many characteristics with leaders in noncriminal organizations. Specifically, in comparison to followers, they were more often male, older, and they were more likely to belong to an ethnic majority. We consider implications for future research and policy of the fundamental conclusion that compared to leaders, followers in terrorist organizations are more likely to engage in violent acts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The boundaries of what constitutes "sufficient" health have always been open and, as such, health care has proven to be an opportune area for profit growth. In the United States, the allure of health as a market commodity has proven very strong, but even here it cannot be a mere spontaneous product of the market. It requires government to foster and develop public policy that effectively promotes and maintains health care delivery across the population. Historically, U.S. public policy has veered away from anything akin to universal care, and it has typically been understood as an outlier among advanced industrial states. But, simultaneously, it is also the largest health care market in the world, soon to engulf a full fifth of its GDP. In this paper, I argue that the complicated dynamic between a growing market in health delivery and a patchwork of political reforms has encouraged "adaptive accumulation," a process whereby capital secures optimized accumulation outcomes from enhanced government intervention, deriving extra-market benefits along the way. To make this argument, I explore critical components of the health system, including Medicare Advantage, Medicare Part D, as well as the Affordable Care Act and its aftermath. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that the label Arab American as it is framed by Arab-American organizations and used in research on Arab Americans is in essence a political category (speaking to political activism), and that there are significant consequences to the Arab-American identity and community in terms of its narrow social construction. The definition of Arab American, as exhibited in most research and writing about Arab Americans which was formed in the aftermath of the 1967 Arab-Israeli War, has essentially marginalized and rendered significant portions of the Arab-American community invisible, primarily those who do not exhibit readily observable cultural traits (such as Arabic language proficiency) as well as a lack of political activism around specific causes (such as Palestine and the invasion of Iraq). This marginalization within a marginalized community is what I refer to as double marginalization. This paper argues that this invisibility and diminished authenticity has resulted in a significantly skewed understanding of the Arab-American community. Political activism, while a potential source of creating unity in a diverse ethnic community, can also be source of unity and disunity, as it has been in the Arab-American community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Deliberative democratic theorists and public participation scholars have become increasingly interested in institutionalized forms of citizen discourse with the state, including those facilitated by information technology. However, there have been very few empirical studies of the claims that the Internet will make public participation more inclusive and deliberative. We report the results of an exploratory survey of 1,556 citizen participants in regulatory public comment processes in the United States. Our analysis focuses on the differences in deliberative indicators between those who submitted their comments using newly available electronic tools and those who postal mailed or faxed letters on paper. We also examine differences between those who submitted an original letter and those who submitted a version of a mass-mailed form letter. Overall, the data found modest evidence of the presence of deliberative democratic practices. More interesting are the apparently fundamental differences between citizens who submit original comments and those who submit form letters. We discuss the implications of these findings as they relate to the use of information technology to increase government-citizen deliberation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides a critique of attempts in the field of political communication to explain apparent voter apathy and declining electoral turnout. The response of many commentators is either to blame the media for the problem or to see the media as the solution to any problem that might exist. First, the paper examines the 'blame the media' school of thought -- as exemplified by liberal commentators in the UK and the USA. Secondly, the paper focuses on the 'optimists' who argue that the spin/ media nexus is either morally neutral or may actually be improving citizen involvement. The paper argues that both approaches are flawed at the level of conceptualisation and of methodology. The narrow conceptualisation of the field means that even in the unusual cases where scholars look beyond the question of elections, the research agenda is still fixed at the level of media power and not on how the media fit into a wider system of power relations. Most obviously, the field tends to avoid the question of political and economic outcomes. The paper ends by suggesting that the problem of disengagement from formal politics is a response to the crisis of legitimacy in the institutions of democracy in the USA and UK. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores a missed opportunity for serious conversation or even alliance between some adherents of socialism and Mormonism. The Americanization of Mormons and Utah around 100 years ago opened Mormons up to broader alliances than had been possible during most of the 19th century. A few Mormons and socialists thought that intersections between the two groups’ egalitarian ideologies could be fruitfully explored. However, this potential evaporated as Mormonism and socialism were culturally constructed as antithetical within regional life. Through this case, the paper comments on alliance-building strategies within radical politics and the practice of critical human geography. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines Reformed clergy across two different settings - the United States and Scotland in an effort to determine how theological orthodoxy is related to political participation. The paper demonstrates that (1) clergy in both settings tend to be politically active (2) the level of clergy political activity tends to be greater in the United States than in Scotland (3) the relationship between orthodoxy and political activity is complex, varying by the specific type of activity examined and (4) while theological orthodoxy and modernist clergy tend to differ in the nature of their political activities, there is no longer a major "gap" in level of political activity between the two groups of ministers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The McFadden Act of 1927 was one of the most hotly contested pieces of legislation in U.S. banking history, and its influence was felt over half a century later. This paper studies the congressional voting behavior surrounding the act's passage. We find that congressmen in districts in which landholdings were concentrated and credit was costlier were significantly more likely to oppose the act. The evidence suggests that whereas the law and the overall regulatory structure can shape the financial system far into the future, they themselves are likely to be shaped by elites, even in countries with benign political institutions. This paper was accepted by Amit Seru, finance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to bring into conversation two apparently disparate debates in the fields of politics and International Relations. The first is a debate over celebrity humanitarianism that is divided between optimistic scholars, who see in it an enhancement of democracy, and pessimistic scholars, who link it to capitalist imperialism or a throwback to older colonial tropes. The second is a debate over a (new) American empire which has prompted scholars in IR to redress IR’s historic ‘elision’ of empire and to offer new network theories of empire. The paper argues that these two debates each address the shortcomings in the other and offers speculation on what celebrity humanitarianism might have to do with empire by bridging the connections between structuralist political theories of empire and the cultural accounts offered by postcolonial theory. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article examines the Respect for Marriage Act (RFMA) and its connection to abortion rights and religious freedom in the United States. The RFMA was passed in response to Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas's concurring opinion to the Dobbs v. Jackson case which revoked federal abortion rights and suggested the Supreme Court reevaluate similar decisions based on due process, like Obergefell which guaranteed the federal right to same-sex marriage. This article showcases how the passage of the RFMA is a masterclass in U.S. policymaking and discusses the implications of the RFMA as well as considerations should Obergefell go the way of Dobbs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using the Latino National Political Survey, this paper tests the hypothesis that military service serves to stimulate electoral and nonelectoral political participation by Latinos. The results are compared with those for Anglos (non-Hispanic whites). The data show that Latino veterans, and particularly draftees, exhibited higher levels of voting and low-intensity nonelectoral political activities. Anglo veterans did not increase their participation to the same extent. Service in the volunteer army was a much less important explanatory factor of both Latino and Anglo political participation. Military experience therefore has a greater impact on Latinos than Anglos, and the draft experience was more important than volunteer service. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Citizens' Initiative Review (CIR) is a deliberative process that has been used in the United States to involve panels of citizens in producing balanced and easily understandable accounts of proposed ballot measures and their potential effects. The goal of this paper is to demonstrate how the CIR process is shaped by evaluative framing in which the rational component cannot be clearly separated from the emotive base of assigning responsibility. We analyze the argumentative dynamic of advocates' presentations during the 2010 CIR on Measure 73 and discuss emotional claims as products of narrative structures that define problem situations. We explore how the distinction between manipulative and valid emotional claims within the context of public deliberation can be made with the help of three categories of analysis: Themes, Ideals, and Scenarios. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Common narratives about the mid-century American medical profession's stunning rise forget a key element: political repression. During the 1940s and 1950s, the American Medical Association (AMA) and its allies sought to eliminate those who questioned American medicine's status quo, in particular opposition to national health insurance (NHI) and condoning of racism within its ranks. One casualty was the Association for Internes and Medical Students (AIMS), which into the 1940s, was the most prominent vehicle for medical student and trainee political organizing in the United Status. This article tells the story of its rapid demise in the era of McCarthyism at the hands of an AMA campaign to besmirch AIMS's name, and in the process, destroy it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]