Popular Support for Constitutional Rights Violations

2020 ◽  
pp. 207-226
Author(s):  
Adam S. Chilton ◽  
Mila Versteeg
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Free Speech ◽  
The United States ◽  
Constitutional Rights ◽  
Policy Changes ◽  
Popular Opinion ◽  
Popular Support ◽  
Survey Experiments ◽  
Formal Organizations ◽  
The Face

This chapter presents findings from two survey experiments that explore popular support for individual rights: one focused on free speech in Turkey and one focused on torture in the United States. For both countries, we designed a survey experiment to gauge whether people’s support for a policy changes when they are informed that this policy violates the constitution, and whether people are willing to mobilize to protect their constitutional rights in the face of violations. The goal of the survey experiments was to explore the mechanisms through which rights mobilization can occur and, specifically, whether constitutional violations change people’s positions or motivate them to take action. Both experiments found that being informed that a certain policy violates the constitution does not change popular opinion, which might be one of the reasons why constitutional rights are hard to enforce in the absence of formal organizations.

How Constitutional Rights Matter

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adam Chilton ◽  
Mila Versteeg
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Political Parties ◽  
Free Speech ◽  
Trade Unions ◽  
Religious Freedom ◽  
The United States ◽  
Constitutional Rights ◽  
Religious Groups ◽  
Survey Experiments ◽  
The Government

How Constitutional Rights Matter explores whether constitutionalizing rights improves respect for those rights in practice. Drawing on global statistical analyses, case studies in Colombia, Myanmar, Poland, Russia, and Tunisia, and survey experiments in Turkey and the United States, this book advances three claims. First, enshrining rights in constitutions does not automatically ensure that those rights will be respected in practice. For rights to matter, rights violations need to be politically costly, which can happen when citizens mobilize against governments that encroach upon their rights. Successfully resisting the government, however, is no small feat for unconnected groups of citizens, and governments can often get away with constitutional rights violations. Second, some rights are more likely to be enforced than others. The reason is that some rights come with natural constituencies that are able to mobilize for their enforcement. This is the case for rights that are practiced by and within organizations, or “organizational rights,” such as the rights to religious freedom, unionize, and form political parties. Because religious groups, trade unions, and political parties are highly organized, they are well equipped to use the constitution to resist rights violations. Indeed, we find that these organizational rights are systematically associated with better practices. By contrast, rights that are practiced on an individual basis, such as free speech or the prohibition of torture, usually lack constituencies to enforce them, which makes it easier for governments to violate them. Third, even highly organized groups armed with the constitution face an uphill battle. Although such groups may be able to successfully resist repressive practices, they often can only delay governments that are truly dedicated to rights repression.

Ethnicity, Race, and Religion beyond Protestant, Catholic, and Jewish Whites

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. Stephen Warner
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Latin American ◽  
Minority Groups ◽  
Middle Eastern ◽  
The United States ◽  
Constitutional Rights ◽  
African Countries ◽  
Secular Culture ◽  
The Face ◽  
Cultural Status

As argued by Will Herberg in the 1950s, religion remains a key to the incorporation of minority groups in America, notwithstanding—indeed, precisely because of—the fact that post-1965 immigrants to the United States have been overwhelmingly nonwhites of non-European origin. In contrast to the increasingly secular culture of Europe, the cultures of the Asian, Middle Eastern, Latin American, and African countries of origin of most of today’s immigrants remain highly religious (with the exception of China). In the face of racial prejudice, Hindus from India; Muslims from South Asia, the Middle East, and elsewhere; Protestants from Korea; and Catholics from Mexico are among the minorities who avail themselves of the constitutional rights and cultural status accorded to religious (more than to racial or ethnic) identities specifically in the United States to become accepted members of the community.

Verán ustedes las chozas más humildes. El discurso de pobreza en la diplomacia pública cardenista dirigida a Estados Unidos

2019 ◽  
Vol 35 (2) ◽  
pp. 255-281
Author(s):  
Sylvia Dümmer Scheel
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
New Deal ◽  
Public Diplomacy ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Poor ◽  
The Face ◽  
The Government ◽  
Lazaro Cardenas ◽  
The New Deal

El artículo analiza la diplomacia pública del gobierno de Lázaro Cárdenas centrándose en su opción por publicitar la pobreza nacional en el extranjero, especialmente en Estados Unidos. Se plantea que se trató de una estrategia inédita, que accedió a poner en riesgo el “prestigio nacional” con el fin de justificar ante la opinión pública estadounidense la necesidad de implementar las reformas contenidas en el Plan Sexenal. Aprovechando la inusual empatía hacia los pobres en tiempos del New Deal, se construyó una imagen específica de pobreza que fuera higiénica y redimible. Ésta, sin embargo, no generó consenso entre los mexicanos. This article analyzes the public diplomacy of the government of Lázaro Cárdenas, focusing on the administration’s decision to publicize the nation’s poverty internationally, especially in the United States. This study suggests that this was an unprecedented strategy, putting “national prestige” at risk in order to explain the importance of implementing the reforms contained in the Six Year Plan, in the face of public opinion in the United States. Taking advantage of the increased empathy felt towards the poor during the New Deal, a specific image of hygienic and redeemable poverty was constructed. However, this strategy did not generate agreement among Mexicans.

The New Economic Populism and the Future of Inequality in the United States

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
William W. Franko ◽  
Christopher Witko
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Federal Government ◽  
Labor Unions ◽  
Republican Party ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Public ◽  
Empirical Results ◽  
Income Disparities ◽  
The Face ◽  
Over Time

The authors conclude the book by recapping their arguments and empirical results, and discussing the possibilities for the “new economic populism” to promote egalitarian economic outcomes in the face of continuing gridlock and the dominance of Washington, DC’s policymaking institutions by business and the wealthy, and a conservative Republican Party. Many states are actually addressing inequality now, and these policies are working. Admittedly, many states also continue to embrace the policies that have contributed to growing inequality, such as tax cuts for the wealthy or attempting to weaken labor unions. But as the public grows more concerned about inequality, the authors argue, policies that help to address these income disparities will become more popular, and policies that exacerbate inequality will become less so. Over time, if history is a guide, more egalitarian policies will spread across the states, and ultimately to the federal government.

Ban Ki-moon, 2007–2016

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Gowan
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Decision Making ◽  
Security Council ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Central African Republic ◽  
The United States ◽  
Cautious Approach ◽  
Peacekeeping Operations ◽  
Council Decision ◽  
The Face

During Ban Ki-moon’s tenure, the Security Council was shaken by P5 divisions over Kosovo, Georgia, Libya, Syria, and Ukraine. Yet it also continued to mandate and sustain large-scale peacekeeping operations in Africa, placing major burdens on the UN Secretariat. The chapter will argue that Ban initially took a cautious approach to controversies with the Council, and earned a reputation for excessive passivity in the face of crisis and deference to the United States. The second half of the chapter suggests that Ban shifted to a more activist pressure as his tenure went on, pressing the Council to act in cases including Côte d’Ivoire, Libya, and Syria. The chapter will argue that Ban had only a marginal impact on Council decision-making, even though he made a creditable effort to speak truth to power over cases such as the Central African Republic (CAR), challenging Council members to live up to their responsibilities.

Toward Jerusalem: A journey of the eternal now (A Sermon)

2021 ◽  
Vol 118 (1) ◽  
pp. 102-107
Author(s):  
Richard Francis Wilson
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Social Justice ◽  
Martin Luther ◽  
The United States ◽  
Paul Tillich ◽  
Dietrich Bonhoeffer ◽  
As I Lay Dying ◽  
The World ◽  
The Face ◽  
Martin Luther King

This article is a theological-ethical Lenten sermon that attempts to discern the transcendent themes in the narrative of Luke 9-19 with an especial focus upon “setting the face toward Jerusalem” and the subsequent weeping over Jerusalem. The sermon moves from a passage from William Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying through a series of hermeneutical turns that rely upon insights from Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Martin Luther King, Jr., Will Campbell, Augustine, and Paul Tillich with the hope of illuminating what setting of the face on Jerusalem might mean. Tillich’s “eternal now” theme elaborates Augustine’s insight that memory and time reduce the present as, to paraphrase the Saint, that all we have is a present: a present remembered, a present experienced, and a present anticipated. The Gospel is a timeless message applicable to every moment in time and history. The sermon seeks to connect with recent events in the United States and the world that focus upon challenges to the ideals of social justice and political tyranny.

European Strategic Autonomy: The Test Case of Iran

2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 443-477
Author(s):  
Sascha Lohmann
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
The United States ◽  
Test Case ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Special Purpose Vehicle ◽  
The Face ◽  
Global Peace ◽  
Security Actor ◽  
Strategic Autonomy

Abstract The ideal of the European Union (EU) as a global peace and security actor is increasingly clashing with the reality of a multipolar world defined by militarised conflict, and a loosening of the formerly close trans-Atlantic relationship with the United States. European policy-makers have identified strategic autonomy as a possible remedy in the face of a growing number of internal and external security threats. This paper adds to the conceptualisation of strategic autonomy by contextualising its current usage and political genealogy. Empirically, European strategic autonomy is examined concerning the efforts to preserve the Iranian nuclear deal after the Trump administration had ceased US participation in May 2018. In particular, the paper assesses the European response to counter the re-imposed unilateral United States (US) sanctions against European individuals and entities by updating the so-called blocking regulation, and setting up a special purpose vehicle (spv) for facilitating trade with Iran. The results show that the European struggle toward achieving strategic autonomy has largely failed, but that it holds valuable lessons to approximate this ideal in the future.

Democratic Resilience

2021 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Political Behavior ◽  
Political Legitimacy ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Elites ◽  
Checks And Balances ◽  
The Face ◽  
Distinguished Group

Politics in the United States has become increasingly polarized in recent decades. Both political elites and everyday citizens are divided into rival and mutually antagonistic partisan camps, with each camp questioning the political legitimacy and democratic commitments of the other side. Does this polarization pose threats to democracy itself? What can make some democratic institutions resilient in the face of such challenges? Democratic Resilience brings together a distinguished group of specialists to examine how polarization affects the performance of institutional checks and balances as well as the political behavior of voters, civil society actors, and political elites. The volume bridges the conventional divide between institutional and behavioral approaches to the study of American politics and incorporates historical and comparative insights to explain the nature of contemporary challenges to democracy. It also breaks new ground to identify the institutional and societal sources of democratic resilience.

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