Congress and the President in Times of War

2017 ◽  
Vol 45 (5) ◽  
pp. 840-865 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susanne Schorpp ◽  
Charles J. Finocchiaro
Keyword(s):  
Political Institutions ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
Balance Of Power ◽  
The United States ◽  
Constitutional Design ◽  
Military Conflict ◽  
Major Aspect ◽  
Playing Field ◽  
Binary Approach ◽  
And Function

The increasingly common involvement of the United States in military conflict resonates throughout American political institutions and affects the balance of power in important ways. We examine one particular aspect of executive augmentation of power in times of war—legislative deference—and move beyond a binary approach to the effect of war. Instead, we contend that executive advantage depends on the salience and severity of the conflict. Matters of war often drive upward the prevalence of security concerns in public discourse. Although this can leave the president to compete with Congress on a much more friendly playing field, perceptions of the war’s development can turn the tide. We empirically test our hypotheses with data spanning a 50-year period and find that the salience and severity of war matter, though not equally for both chambers of Congress. The findings hold implications for how we understand the institutional balance of power within and across conflicts, which represents a major aspect of American constitutional design and function.

Mobilizing the Invisible: Power and Marginality in the Black LGBTQ Community

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ravi K. Perry ◽  
Aaron D. Camp
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Political Institutions ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
White Supremacy ◽  
Body Politic ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Body ◽  
Coalition Building ◽  
Structural Inequities ◽  
The Impact

Symbolic and structural inequities that seek to maintain White supremacy have sought to render Black LGBTQ Americans invisible in the body politic of powerful institutions that govern society. In the face of centuries-long oppression at the hands of the state, Black LGBTQ Americans have effectively mobilized to establish visibility on the national policymaking agenda. Members of this community have demonstrated a fierce resilience while confronting a violent anti-Black and anti-LGBTQ mainstream agenda narrative in media and politics. This sociopolitical marginalization—from members of their shared demographic, or not, is often framed in partisan or ideological terms in public discourse and in the halls of American political institutions. Secondary marginalization theory and opinion polling frame how personal identity and social experience shape the Black LGBTQ political movement’s expression of what participation in politics in the United States ought to earn them in return. Double-consciousness theory contextualizes the development of Black LGBTQ sociopolitical marginalization in the United States and the community’s responsive mobilization over time—revealing the impact of coalition building and self-identification toward establishing political visibility necessary to improve the lived conditions of the multiply oppressed.

Postwar Feelings

2020 ◽  
pp. 3-22
Author(s):  
Lisa M. Corrigan
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Political Institutions ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
The United States ◽  
Postwar Period ◽  
Political Equality ◽  
Black Struggle

This chapter discusses the Kennedy administration’s emotional repertoire since it set the tone for youth dissent for the decade. Corrigan examines the co-constitutive nature of hope and despair in the postwar period to understand how these competing political feelings expressed generational and racialized disputes about the nature of the polis, the uses and abuses of power, the role of political institutions in guaranteeing social and political equality, and the role of dissent as an emotional sphere of public discourse. Using John Kennedy’s speeches, Arthur Schlesinger’s writings on Kennedy, and Norman Mailer’s responses, Corrigan suggests that much of the black struggle in the United States has been aimed at producing new political feelings that worked both in tandem and against those being cultivated by the white establishment during the Kennedy years.

scholarly journals Academic and Artistic Freedom and the Israel-Palestine Conflict: Towards a Canadian Pedagogy of the Suppressed

2011 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Len Findlay
Keyword(s):  
War On Terror ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
Bush Administration ◽  
The United States ◽  
Playing Field ◽  
Power Resources ◽  
Anti Semitism ◽  
Chilly Climate ◽  
Artistic Freedom ◽  
Asymmetrical Power

In this essay I argue that the suppression and discouragement of teaching and discussion relating to the Israel-Palestine conflict can and should be countered by a pedagogy rooted in the most robust traditions of academic freedom and inspired by the most challenging practices and products of artistic freedom. Freedom of inquiry, imagination, and exchange are essential to the analysis of current realities and the capacity to envisage them otherwise.  This is especially true in the current chilly climate where the asymmetries of power, resources, and communicative clout are most pronounced--or, to put it more colloquially, in situations where the playing field is least level and where academic and artistic freedom are most needed and most at risk.  Such asymmetrical power relations are especially evident (as well as subtly coded) in the playing out and playing off of the Israel-Palestine conflict in the United States and Canada, thanks to the intimidation, amnesia, and gross simplifications that have strengthened their hold on public discourse in both countries since 9/11 2001. The unconditional support extended to Israel by the George W. Bush administration as a key part of the so-called “war on terror” has been eagerly imitated by Stephen Harper’s government and disappointingly reinforced in November 2010 in the so-called Ottawa Protocol on Combating Anti-Semitism (O’Malley, 2010).

The 1978 Spanish Constitutional Design

2020 ◽  
pp. 170-189
Author(s):  
Josep M. Vallès
Keyword(s):  
Political Institutions ◽  
Social Issues ◽  
Balance Of Power ◽  
Political Arena ◽  
The West ◽  
Constitutional Design ◽  
Territorial Conflict ◽  
Prospective Development ◽  
Spanish Constitution ◽  
European Welfare State

Forty years after its making, the 1978 Spanish Constitution is now subject to growing criticism and demands for reform. This chapter examines first the context in which this constitutional design developed, and the main influences it received: the West European welfare state model, external economic and geostrategic constraints and a tight balance of power between the most significant actors in the Spanish political arena. It then points to the key founding bargains achieved during the democratic transition over traditional and new political and social issues. Finally, it assesses the constitutional design performance and looks at its prospective development. Having exceeded all its historical precedents in time and efficiency, the 1978 Constitution is now challenged by a deep social and economic unrest, a recurrent national-territorial conflict and public distrust of political institutions

Telecommunications Reform in Mexico from a Comparative Perspective

2004 ◽  
Vol 46 (03) ◽  
pp. 83-114 ◽  
Author(s):  
Judith Mariscal
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Political Institutions ◽  
The United States ◽  
Policy Outcomes ◽  
The Political ◽  
Theoretical Argument ◽  
Telecommunications Reform ◽  
Playing Field ◽  
Policy Responses ◽  
Policy Context

Abstract This paper examines the process of reform in the Mexican telecommunications sector and makes comparisons with similar processes in the United States, New Zealand, and Brazil. Differences in policy responses are explained by the structure of the political institutions and the policy context in any given country. The policy lessons to be drawn from the regulatory experiences examined are that the sequence and the pace of reform influence policy outcomes. The speed with which the Mexican reform was carried out led to a lack of the institutional and legal support necessary to create a level competitive playing field. The permanence of a vertically integrated firm in the Mexican market, moreover, introduced consequential costs to the regulation of the industry. The results of this paper support the theoretical argument that privatization, in itself, does not guarantee the development of the sector and point to the need to attain a more effective regulation of competition in telecommunications.

Civil sphere and democracy in Latin America

2020 ◽  
pp. 23-40
Author(s):  
Jeffrey Ch. Alexander ◽  
Carlo Tognato
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
Political Institutions ◽  
The United States ◽  
Way Of Life ◽  
Global Context ◽  
Fine Grained ◽  
Class Stratification ◽  
Civil Sphere ◽  
The Everyday

The purpose of the article is to demonstrate that the civil spheres of Latin America remain in force, even when under threat, and to expand the method of theorizing democracy, understanding it not only as a state form, but also as a way of life. Moreover, the task of the authors goes beyond the purely application of the theory of the civil sphere in order to emphasize the relevance not only in practice, but also in the theory of democratic culture and institutions of Latin America. This task requires decolonizing the arrogant attitude of North theorists towards democratic processes outside the United States and Europe. The peculiarities of civil spheres in Latin America are emphasized. It is argued that over the course of the nineteenth century the non-civil institutions and value spheres that surrounded civil spheres deeply compromised them. The problems of development that pockmarked Latin America — lagging economies, racial and ethnic and class stratification, religious strife — were invariably filtered through the cultural aspirations and institutional patterns of civil spheres. The appeal of the theory of the civil sphere to the experience of Latin America reveals the ambitious nature of civil society and democracy on new and stronger foundations. Civil spheres had extended significantly as citizens confronted uncomfortable facts, collectively searched for solutions, and envisioned new courses of collective action. However when populism and authoritarianism advance, civil understandings of legitimacy come under pressure from alternative, anti-democratic conceptions of motives, social relations, and political institutions. In these times, a fine-grained understanding of the competitive dynamics between civil, non-civil, and anti-civil becomes particularly critical. Such a vision is constructively applied not only to the realities of Latin America, but also in a wider global context. The authors argue that in order to understand the realities and the limits of populism and polarization, civil sphere scholars need to dive straight into the everyday life of civil communities, setting the civil sphere theory (CST) in a more ethnographic, “anthropological” mode.

Terrified

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher A. Bail
Keyword(s):  
Public Discourse ◽  
The United States ◽  
September 11 ◽  
Theoretical Argument ◽  
Muslim Americans ◽  
Media Messages ◽  
American Media ◽  
The Face ◽  
September 11 Attacks ◽  
The Public Sphere

In July 2010, Terry Jones, the pastor of a small fundamentalist church in Florida, announced plans to burn two hundred Qur'ans on the anniversary of the September 11 attacks. Though he ended up canceling the stunt in the face of widespread public backlash, his threat sparked violent protests across the Muslim world that left at least twenty people dead. This book demonstrates how the beliefs of fanatics like Jones are inspired by a rapidly expanding network of anti-Muslim organizations that exert profound influence on American understanding of Islam. The book traces how the anti-Muslim narrative of the political fringe has captivated large segments of the American media, government, and general public, validating the views of extremists who argue that the United States is at war with Islam and marginalizing mainstream Muslim-Americans who are uniquely positioned to discredit such claims. Drawing on cultural sociology, social network theory, and social psychology, the book shows how anti-Muslim organizations gained visibility in the public sphere, commandeered a sense of legitimacy, and redefined the contours of contemporary debate, shifting it ever outward toward the fringe. The book illustrates the author's pioneering theoretical argument through a big-data analysis of more than one hundred organizations struggling to shape public discourse about Islam, tracing their impact on hundreds of thousands of newspaper articles, television transcripts, legislative debates, and social media messages produced since the September 11 attacks. The book also features in-depth interviews with the leaders of these organizations, providing a rare look at how anti-Muslim organizations entered the American mainstream.

After Victory

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
G. John Ikenberry
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Politics ◽  
World Order ◽  
Balance Of Power ◽  
The United States ◽  
Big Bang ◽  
World Politics ◽  
Napoleonic Wars ◽  
Power Politics ◽  
The Cold War

The end of the Cold War was a “big bang” reminiscent of earlier moments after major wars, such as the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815 and the end of the world wars in 1919 and 1945. But what do states that win wars do with their newfound power, and how do they use it to build order? This book examines postwar settlements in modern history, arguing that powerful countries do seek to build stable and cooperative relations, but the type of order that emerges hinges on their ability to make commitments and restrain power. The book explains that only with the spread of democracy in the twentieth century and the innovative use of international institutions—both linked to the emergence of the United States as a world power—has order been created that goes beyond balance of power politics to exhibit “constitutional” characteristics. Blending comparative politics with international relations, and history with theory, the book will be of interest to anyone concerned with the organization of world order, the role of institutions in world politics, and the lessons of past postwar settlements for today.

scholarly journals Spring Freeze Damage of Pecan Bloom: A Review

Horticulturae ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (4) ◽  
pp. 82
Author(s):  
Amandeep Kaur ◽  
Louise Ferguson ◽  
Niels Maness ◽  
Becky Carroll ◽  
William Reid ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Tree Height ◽  
The United States ◽  
Reproductive Organs ◽  
Tree Age ◽  
The Us ◽  
Nut Production ◽  
Freeze Damage ◽  
Terminal Buds ◽  
And Function ◽  
The Impact

Pecan is native to the United States. The US is the world’s largest pecan producer with an average yearly production of 250 to 300 million pounds; 80 percent of the world’s supply. Georgia, New Mexico, Texas, Arizona, Oklahoma, California, Louisiana, and Florida are the major US pecan producing states. Pecan trees frequently suffer from spring freeze at bud break and bloom as the buds are quite sensitive to freeze damage. This leads to poor flower and nut production. This review focuses on the impact of spring freeze during bud differentiation and flower development. Spring freeze kills the primary terminal buds, the pecan tree has a second chance for growth and flowering through secondary buds. Unfortunately, secondary buds have less bloom potential than primary buds and nut yield is reduced. Spring freeze damage depends on severity of the freeze, bud growth stage, cultivar type and tree age, tree height and tree vigor. This review discusses the impact of temperature on structure and function of male and female reproductive organs. It also summarizes carbohydrate relations as another factor that may play an important role in spring growth and transition of primary and secondary buds to flowers.

scholarly journals Sports, Transgender Rights and the Bodily Politics of Cisgender Supremacy

Laws ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 63
Author(s):  
Elizabeth A. Sharrow
Keyword(s):  
Civil Rights ◽  
Political Institutions ◽  
State Legislatures ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Political ◽  
Sports Teams ◽  
Political Interests ◽  
Legislative Proposals ◽  
Gendered Bodies ◽  
Political Right

Between 2020 and 2021, one hundred and ten bills in state legislatures across the United States suggested banning the participation of transgender athletes on sports teams for girls and women. As of July 2021, ten such bills have become state law. This paper tracks the political shift towards targeting transgender athletes. Conservative political interests now seek laws that suture biological determinist arguments to civil rights of bodies. Although narrow binary definitions of sex have long operated in the background as a means for policy implementation under Title IX, Republican lawmakers now aim to reframe sex non-discrimination policies as means of gendered exclusion. The content of proposals reveal the centrality of ideas about bodily immutability, and body politics more generally, in shaping the future of American gender politics. My analysis of bills from 2021 argues that legislative proposals advance a logic of “cisgender supremacy” inhering in political claims about normatively gendered bodies. Political institutions are another site for advancing, enshrining, and normalizing cis-supremacist gender orders, explicitly joining cause with medical authorities as arbiters of gender normativity. Characteristics of bodies and their alleged role in evidencing sex itself have fueled the tactics of anti-transgender activists on the political Right. However, the target of their aims is not mere policy change but a state-sanctioned return to a narrowly cis- and heteropatriarchal gender order.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document