Poking fun at heroes: American war and the death of the military comedy

2020 ◽  
pp. 175063522092227
Author(s):  
Andrew C Sparks
Keyword(s):  
Political Development ◽  
Film Studies ◽  
American Political Development ◽  
The United States ◽  
September 11 ◽  
Political Consequences ◽  
American Cinema ◽  
Marked Decline ◽  
Military Draft ◽  
The Military

Since the attacks of September 11 2001, there has been a marked decline in the number of military comedy films in American cinema. Films like Buffalo Soldiers, a film made prior to September 11 but released in 2003, show how this change first started. Whereas, prior to 2001, military comedies were generally accepted and even profitable, after 2001 the genre effectively disappeared and still to this day has not re-emerged despite military non-comedy films making a clear resurgence after 2008. In this article, the author explores how and why military comedies have declined over time by making comparisons of how popular both military comedy and non-comedy films were in prior periods and today. The purpose of this is to show how the decline of military comedies since 2001 is a symptom of a greater political trend within American political development, specifically the civil–military divide. As this divide has grown in the post-military draft period in the United States, an event like September 11 seems to have ruptured the general acceptability of laughing at the military, which remains improper in cinema to this day. Finally, he examines some of the political consequences of this lack of laughter at the military within the greater political and film studies literature, which include growing tacit support for the military and how the narratives within some of these films leave little room for American civilians to comedically view the military that defends them.

scholarly journals The Militarization of Law Enforcement: Evidence from Latin America

2019 ◽  
pp. 1-20 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gustavo A. Flores-Macías ◽  
Jessica Zarkin
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
Law Enforcement ◽  
Armed Forces ◽  
The United States ◽  
Law Enforcement Agencies ◽  
Police Reform ◽  
Political Consequences ◽  
Democratic Regimes ◽  
Military Law ◽  
The Military

What are the political consequences of militarizing law enforcement? Across the world, law enforcement has become increasingly militarized over the last three decades, with civilian police operating more like armed forces and soldiers replacing civilian police in law enforcement tasks. Scholarly, policy, and journalistic attention has mostly focused on the first type, but has neglected the study of three main areas toward which we seek to contribute: 1) the constabularization of the military—i.e., when the armed forces take on the responsibilities of civilian law enforcement agencies, 2) the extent to which this process has taken place outside of the United States, and 3) its political consequences. Toward this end, we unpack the concept of militarized law enforcement, develop theoretical expectations about its political consequences, take stock of militarization in Latin America, and evaluate whether expectations have played out in the region. We show that the distinction between civilian and military law enforcement typical of democratic regimes has been severely blurred in the region. Further, we argue that the constabularization of the military has had important consequences for the quality of democracy in the region by undermining citizen security, human rights, police reform, and the legal order.

Democracy and The Federalist: A Reconsideration of the Framers' Intent

1959 ◽  
Vol 53 (1) ◽  
pp. 52-68 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin Diamond
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
Political Development ◽  
American Political Development ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Political ◽  
Founding Fathers ◽  
The Federalist ◽  
Contrary View ◽  
Democratic Principles ◽  
Political Principles

It has been a common teaching among modern historians of the guiding ideas in the foundation of our government that the Constitution of the United States embodied a reaction against the democratic principles espoused in the Declaration of Independence. This view has largely been accepted by political scientists and has therefore had important consequences for the way American political development has been studied. I shall present here a contrary view of the political theory of the Framers and examine some of its consequences.What is the relevance of the political thought of the Founding Fathers to an understanding of contemporary problems of liberty and justice? Four possible ways of looking at the Founding Fathers immediately suggest themselves. First, it may be that they possessed wisdom, a set of political principles still inherently adequate, and needing only to be supplemented by skill in their proper contemporary application. Second, it may be that, while the Founding Fathers' principles are still sound, they are applicable only to a part of our problems, but not to that part which is peculiarly modern; and thus new principles are needed to be joined together with the old ones. Third, it may be that the Founding Fathers have simply become; they dealt with bygone problems and their principles were relevant only to those old problems. Fourth, they may have been wrong or radically inadequate even for their own time.

From Soldiers to Students: The Tests of General Educational Development (GED) as Diplomatic Measurement

2017 ◽  
Vol 41 (4) ◽  
pp. 731-755 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ethan L. Hutt ◽  
Mitchell L. Stevens
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Political Development ◽  
Primary Source ◽  
American Political Development ◽  
College Attendance ◽  
World War ◽  
Evaluation Problem ◽  
Historical Moment ◽  
The Military ◽  
High School Diplomas

The GI Bill's college-attendance provisions posed an evaluation problem. How would returning veterans, most of whom were without high school diplomas, be judged fit for college? Drawing from a variety of primary source material from the years surrounding the close of World War II, we show how leaders in government, the military, and academia cooperated to produce a measure of college fitness that would deem virtually all veterans fit for college entry. We use this historical moment to develop a novel theoretical insight. Measurement is diplomatic when it facilitates transactions across institutional distinctions while recognizing and honoring those distinctions. This insight has broad utility for students of American political development.

Comparing America: Reflections on Democracy across Subfields

2019 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 788-800 ◽  
Author(s):  
Didi Kuo
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Comparative Politics ◽  
Political Development ◽  
Ethnic Politics ◽  
American Political Development ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Public ◽  
Contemporary Politics ◽  
The Public Sphere

Is America in a period of democratic decline? I argue that there is an urgent need to consider the United States in comparative perspective, and that doing so is necessary to contextualize and understand the quality of American democracy. I describe two approaches to comparing the United States: the first shows how the United States stacks up to other countries, while the second uses the theories and tools of comparative politics to examine relationships between institutions, actors, and democratic outcomes. I then draw on research in three literatures—clientelism and corruption, capitalism and redistribution, and race and ethnic politics and American Political Development—to lay out a research agenda for closing the gap between the subfields of American and comparative politics. In doing so, I also argue for richer engagement between academics and the public sphere, as opportunities for scholars to provide commentary and analysis about contemporary politics continue to expand.

Letting the Exception Prove the Rule

2003 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 9-16 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Byers
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
International Law ◽  
The United States ◽  
September 11 ◽  
Terrorist Attacks ◽  
Military Force ◽  
Department Of State ◽  
Military Campaigns ◽  
The Military ◽  
The U.S

It is unlikely that George W. Bush feels constrained by international law when deciding whether to use military force abroad. Nevertheless, many of the United States' allies are reluctant to cooperate with and participate in military actions that cannot reasonably be justified under international law. And supportive allies, while perhaps not strictly necessary to the United States in its recent and foreseeable military campaigns, do make the military option easier to pursue. A war against Iraq would be difficult without access to bases and airspace in countries as diverse as Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Germany, and Canada. For this reason, at least, it would seem to be worth the president's while to adhere to international law where possible and, where this is not possible, to seek to change the rules.International lawyers in the Department of State, together with lawyers in other parts of the U.S. government, have excelled in shaping the law to accommodate the interests of the United States. One example, though by no means the only one, concerns the response to the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

AUTOBIOGRAPHY, POLITICAL HOPE, RACIAL JUSTICE

2014 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 159-175 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Gooding-Williams
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Political Development ◽  
Jim Crow ◽  
American Political Development ◽  
The United States ◽  
Racial Justice ◽  
Philosophical Work ◽  
Progressive Politics ◽  
Black President ◽  
American Political Science

AbstractAfter the overthrow of Jim Crow and the reelection of our first Black president, how should we conceptualize the tasks of a racially progressive politics in the United States? I address this question through (1) the lens of recent philosophical work on the relation between narrative and the justification of political hope and (2) a comparison of two autobiographies, Barack Obama’s Dreams of My Father and W. E. B. Du Bois’s Dusk of Dawn. In light of this comparison, the paper also evaluates some recent contributions to the American Political Science subfield of American Political Development.

scholarly journals I Tano’ i Chamorro/Chamorro Land

2018 ◽  
pp. 222-245
Author(s):  
Michael Lujan Bevacqua ◽  
Isa Ua Ceallaigh Bowman
Keyword(s):  
Local Community ◽  
The United States ◽  
Indigenous Populations ◽  
Critical Position ◽  
Environmental Impact Statements ◽  
Military Presence ◽  
Media Reports ◽  
Military Draft ◽  
The Military ◽  
The U.S

In 2009, the U.S. Department of Defense announced its intention to drastically increase their military presence on the island of Guam. Although this “military buildup” was predicted to cause severe damage to the island in environmental, social and economic terms, discourse from island leaders and media reports focused primarily on this increase as being the key to future “sustainability” for the island. This chapter argues that the notion of the military build-up as being “sustainable” was tied to historical militarization and colonization of the indigenous Chamorro people of the western Pacific over centuries, during which the United States has been elevated to the stature of a liberator and socioeconomic savior. This chapter surveys the scholarly literature on the effects of U.S. military "Draft Environmental Impact Statements" on indigenous populations, with particular regard to effects on the indigenous Chamorro people. This chapter also discusses the ways in which demilitarization and decolonization activists from local indigenous Chamorro groups such as Nasion Chamoru used the public comment period for the U.S. military’s plans in order to disrupt the fantasy of the build-up’s sustainability and help the local community develop a more critical position in relation to the military's own stated environmental impacts.

scholarly journals Ironies of State Building: A Comparative Perspective on the American State

2009 ◽  
Vol 61 (3) ◽  
pp. 547-588 ◽  
Author(s):  
Desmond King ◽  
Robert C. Lieberman
Keyword(s):  
Political Development ◽  
American Political Development ◽  
The United States ◽  
State Building ◽  
The State ◽  
Institutional Capacity ◽  
New Directions ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Shed Light ◽  
American State

This review of new directions in the American and comparative literatures on the state reveals important intellectual trends that parallel each other quite closely. Both comparativists and Americanists address similar questions about the sources of state authority, and both propose similar answers. Collectively, these scholars and others are retheorizing the state—developing a suppler, multidimensional picture of the state's origins, structure, and consequences—to shed light on the reasons for the state's stubborn refusal to cede the stage. The emerging understanding of the state that the authors describe provides a framework not only for revisiting the state in the international realm but also, in dialogue with recent Americanist studies, for revising and deepening the understanding of the state's paradoxical role in American political development and finally setting aside the assumption of the United States as stateless. In this emerging view, American state building, strength, and institutional capacity form through links with society, not necessarily through autonomy from society. But such distinctive patterns provide insights for comparative studies, too, for instance, in respect to the relationship between the state and welfare policy across nations.

The Political Effects of Policy Drift: Policy Stalemate and American Political Development

2020 ◽  
Vol 34 (2) ◽  
pp. 216-238 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel J. Galvin ◽  
Jacob S. Hacker
Keyword(s):  
Political Development ◽  
Group Formation ◽  
American Political Development ◽  
The Political ◽  
Feedback Effects ◽  
Political Consequences ◽  
Political Effects ◽  
Formal Policy ◽  
New Policies ◽  
Major Progress

In recent years, scholars have made major progress in understanding the dynamics of “policy drift”—the transformation of a policy's outcomes due to the failure to update its rules or structures to reflect changing circumstances. Drift is a ubiquitous mode of policy change in America's gridlock-prone polity, and its causes are now well understood. Yet surprisingly little attention has been paid to the political consequences of drift—to the ways in which drift, like the adoption of new policies, may generate its own feedback effects. In this article, we seek to fill this gap. We first outline a set of theoretical expectations about how drift should affect downstream politics. We then examine these dynamics in the context of four policy domains: labor law, health care, welfare, and disability insurance. In each, drift is revealed to be both mobilizing and constraining: While it increases demands for policy innovation, group adaptation, and new group formation, it also delimits the range of possible paths forward. These reactions to drift, in turn, generate new problems, cleavages, and interest alignments that alter subsequent political trajectories. Whether formal policy revision or further stalemate results, these processes reveal key mechanisms through which American politics and policy develop.

Anxious and Active: Muslim Perception of Discrimination and Treatment and its Political Consequences in the Post-September 11, 2001 United States

2010 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 71-107 ◽  
Author(s):  
Farida Jalalzai
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
The United States ◽  
September 11 ◽  
The Political ◽  
Religious Discrimination ◽  
Muslim Americans ◽  
Political Consequences ◽  
Religious Salience ◽  
Personal Experiences ◽  
Post September 11

AbstractUtilizing both quantitative and qualitative analysis, this article assesses discrimination and anxiety among Muslims in the post-September 11, 2001 United States. Substantial portions of Muslim-Americans are indeed anxious and report personal and group discrimination. However, this is guided by many factors including religious salience, age, education, political attentiveness, native born status, and years lived in the United States. Respondents who are more anxious and know victims of religious discrimination are also more active in politics. However, personal experiences with discrimination are unrelated to political participation. Overall, in spite of or perhaps because of anxiety over their present status, Muslim-Americans are highly functional in the political sphere. Many are now more active in politics than prior to September 11, 2001.

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