Why Teach About Congress

1984 ◽  
Vol 42 ◽  
pp. 12-14
Author(s):  
Roger Davidson

Political scientists' long-standing love affair with the United States Congress no doubt baffles people outside the profession. By the same token, the popularity of courses on Congress is not fully understood. Articles and monographs on the subject pour out at a phenomenal rate, and students receive unique benefits from courses on the subject year after year. Still the question is posed: Why so much attention to the U.S. Congress?Much of the puzzlement arises from Congress's persistent image problem. The other branches of government have nothing quite like the comic image of Senator Snort, the florid and incompetent windbag, or Congressman Bob Forehead, the bland and media-driven founder of the "JFK Look-Alike Caucus." Pundits and humorists — from Mark Twain and Will Rogers to Johnny Carson, from Thomas Nast to Garry Trudeau — find Congress an inexhaustible source of raw material. Running down Congress, it seems, is a leading national pastime.

Polar Record ◽  
2009 ◽  
Vol 45 (3) ◽  
pp. 237-241
Author(s):  
Janice Cavell ◽  
Jeff Noakes

ABSTRACTConfusion has long existed on the subject of Vilhjalmur Stefansson's citizenship. A Canadian (that is, a British subject) by birth, Stefansson was brought up and educated in the United States. When his father became an American citizen in 1887, according to the laws of the time Stefansson too became an American. Dual citizenship was not then permitted by either the British or the American laws. Therefore, Stefansson was no longer a British subject. After he took command of the government sponsored Canadian Arctic Expedition in 1913, Stefansson was careful to give the impression that his status had never changed. Although Stefansson swore an oath of allegiance to King George V in May 1913, he did not take the other steps that would have been required to restore him to being Canadian. But, by an American act passed in 1907, this oath meant the loss of Stefansson's American citizenship. In the 1930s American officials informed Stefansson that he must apply for naturalisation in order to regain it. From 1913 until he received his American citizenship papers in 1937, Stefansson was a man without a country.


1991 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. 4-13
Author(s):  
David S. Wiley

Linking scholars to the Congress is difficult primarily because of the weakness of Congressional interest in Africa, but also due to the low levels of interest among academics in both Congress and its Africa foreign policy and the poor resources of African studies in the U.S. to build a foundation of knowledge useful to the Congress.


2017 ◽  
Vol 47 (1) ◽  
pp. 98-106
Author(s):  
Khaled Elgindy

This essay looks at the hearing held by the Foreign Affairs Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives in April 1922 on the subject of a Jewish National Home in Palestine, as well as the broader congressional debate over the Balfour Declaration at that crucial time. The landmark hearing, which took place against the backdrop of growing unrest in Palestine and just prior to the League of Nations' formal approval of Britain's Mandate over Palestine, offers a glimpse into the cultural and political mindset underpinning U.S. support for the Zionist project at the time as well as the ways in which the political discourse in the United States has, or has not, changed since then. Despite the overwhelming support for the Zionist project in Congress, which unanimously endorsed Balfour in September 1922, the hearing examined all aspects of the issue and included a remarkably diverse array of viewpoints, including both anti-Zionist Jewish and Palestinian Arab voices.


2016 ◽  
Vol 1 (18) ◽  
pp. 71
Author(s):  
Ana María Zorrilla Noriega

Diverse structural reforms were enacted in Mexico during 2013 and 2014. Since these reforms were made on the constitutional level, they must be translated into specific laws and regulations; and more importantly, they must be implemented in an efficient manner. As Mexico is experiencing this transformation, its relations with United States are also evolving. This transition will probably imply new challenges with regard to different aspects of the bilateral relationship. Considering that the U.S. Congress plays a significant role in shaping those relations, the purpose of this article is to analyze some significant issues that have received or are likely to receive special attention in the U.S. Congress. This article is divided into seven sections. The first one presents an analysis of the complexity of U.S.-Mexico relations. The second part includes an explanation regarding Mexican reforms of 2013 and 2014, as well as the resulted transition in the bilateral relationship. The next four sections address significant pillars of this relationship: security, economy, migration, and energy. Each of these parts comprises a general overview of the U.S.-Mexico relations in that specific matter; a description of the views of the Mexican government and reforms of its constitutional and legal framework; and an analysis of the most relevant legislative actions that have recently taken place or are likely to receive attention in the U.S. Congress. The seventh section addresses other relevant aspects that should be taken into account in the policyand law-making processes.


2017 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 124-143 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joseph Kern

Abstract The present study analyzes the use of quotatives in Spanish among twenty-four Spanish-English bilinguals from Southern Arizona and assesses the possible influence of English contact in their use. Cameron (1998) defines the envelope of variation of quotatives in Spanish as verbs of direct report, bare-noun phrases, and null quotatives. This study identifies a fourth strategy of quotative discourse markers. A detailed qualitative and quantitative analysis of the linguistic conditioning of these four strategies of direct quotation according to content of the quote and grammatical person points to the fact that quotative discourse markers appear to be conditioned differently than the other three strategies, but contact with English does not play a decisive role in their use. These results contribute to our knowledge of Spanish in the United States and variation in quotative systems by expanding on Cameron’s (1998) study to explore the quotative system of the Spanish of the U.S. Southwest and adding an analysis of quotative discourse markers.


2019 ◽  
Vol 35 (3) ◽  
pp. 331-345
Author(s):  
David J Stute

Abstract Since the 1948 enactment of 28 USC § 1782 in the United States, no consensus has emerged as to the availability of federal court discovery to parties in private foreign or international arbitral proceedings. This year, within months of one another, six federal courts have issued rulings that are widely inconsistent on the availability of section 1782 discovery. The courts have ruled that a proceeding before a private international arbitral tribunal is eligible for section 1782 discovery; that, categorically, no such discovery is available; that the definition of private arbitral tribunal applies to CIETAC; and that discovery is available by virtue of a party’s parallel pursuit of discovery through foreign civil proceedings. As these cases demonstrate, recent US court decisions have brought no predictability, let alone certainty, to the subject. Congress, on the other hand, could and should amend the statute so as to include private tribunals in the scope of section 1782. This article discusses the case law’s state of disarray; proposes a legislative solution; considers the proposed amendment’s merits; and advocates for Congress to act.


2019 ◽  
Vol 58 (4) ◽  
pp. 738-822
Author(s):  
Rosa Celorio

On October 5, 2018, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR or Commission) issued its long-awaited decision in the case of José Isabel Salas Galindo and Others concerning the United States. The case is related to the U.S. military intervention in Panama on December 20, 1989, which resulted in the ouster of General Manuel Noriega Moreno, the country's ruler at the time. This U.S. military operation—better known as “Operation Just Cause”—has been the subject of extensive commentary historically and wide reflection on the number of casualties, effects, legality, and scope.


1977 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 347-358 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adolf Sprudzs

Among the many old and new actors on the international stage of nations the United States is one of the most active and most important. The U.S. is a member of most existing intergovernmental organizations, participates in hundreds upon hundreds of international conferences and meetings every year and, in conducting her bilateral and multilateral relations with the other members of the community of nations, contributes very substantially to the development of contemporary international law. The Government of the United States has a policy of promptly informing the public about developments in its relations with other countries through a number of documentary publication, issued by the Department of State


2000 ◽  
Vol 87 (1) ◽  
pp. 347-350 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charles N. Weaver

Analysis of the responses of Asian American ( n = 178), African American ( n = 1,026), and European American ( n = 8,118) full-time workers to 21 nationwide surveys representative of the U.S. labor force from 1972 through 1996 showed the job satisfaction of Asian Americans compared to that of the other two groups was affected by whether subjects were born in the United States. In addition, there were no gender differences in job satisfaction among African Americans and European Americans who were and were not born in the U.S., but there were such differences among Asian Americans.


Design Issues ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 33 (2) ◽  
pp. 31-42
Author(s):  
Pedro Ignacio Alonso ◽  
Hugo Palmarola

In 1957 as part of the Minitrack Network, the U.S. Army installed a satellite-tracking station in Peldehue, Chile, intended to track radio signals from what was then the United States’ Vanguard project. With the creation of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) in 1958, the station came under its new administration, becoming the subject of a process of rebranding that included the monumental installation of the agency insignia, a rounded slab made in concrete and tiles. By examining this object from a design and archaeological perspective - as it nowadays lays abandoned nearby its original location - this paper attempts to advance our understanding of the Chilean station in terms of its place within a much larger global network by analyzing it within the intersection of design, military economies, technologies, ideologies, and cultural and geospatial considerations.


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