scholarly journals Suboptimal Selective Service: An Analysis of the Obstacles to Selective Service Reform in American Political Institutions

2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 74-88
Author(s):  
Max Margulies ◽  
Leah Foodman
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Political Institutions ◽  
The United States ◽  
Selective Service ◽  
The Public ◽  
Recent Recommendation ◽  
Congressional Representation ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
Recent Trends ◽  
The Military

Expanding mandatory selective service registration in the United States to include women would seem to be good public policy that increases national security and reduces gender bias. Despite the recent recommendation of a congressionally-mandated commission, recent efforts to implement this important reform have repeatedly stalled. Why? In this article, we explain the failure of selective service reform through the lens of American political institutions. Neither the composition of the Supreme Court, nor the institutional incentives facing legislators, are conducive to movement on this issue. Building on the legislative entrepreneurship literature, we argue that recent trends in congressional representation and the adoption of new issue framings are the most likely factors that will increase the probability of selective service reform. The absence of selective service reform in the United States reveals important facts about agenda-setting in defense policy and how political institutions shape the relationship between the public and the military.

Constitutional Law in 1959–1960

1961 ◽  
Vol 55 (1) ◽  
pp. 112-135
Author(s):  
David Fellman
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Gulf Of Mexico ◽  
Supreme Court ◽  
The United States ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Important Place ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Pacific ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
The Pacific Ocean

The personnel of the Supreme Court remained unchanged during the 1959 Term. From the point of view of the decisions rendered in the public law field, this was an undistinguished Term. Few of the constitutional cases are likely to hold an important place among the precedents, and a considerable number of well-argued decisions turned entirely upon private law questions. But there was no dearth of writing, during the period under review, about the Court as an institution and about the Justices who sit there.Note may be made at this point of the latest chapter in the long dispute over the so-called tidelands. In 1947 the Supreme Court had ruled that, as against the claims of California, the United States possessed paramount rights in lands underlying the Pacific Ocean seaward from the low-water mark. Similar rulings were made in 1950 as regards the claims of Louisiana and Texas in the Gulf of Mexico. But with the enactment in 1953 of the Submerged Lands Act, the United States relinquished to the coastal states all of its rights in all lands beneath navigable waters within the three-mile limit, and in excess of that limit within state boundaries as they existed at the time a state became a member of the Union, or as theretofore approved by Congress. The limit of the grant was three leagues (about ten and one-half miles) in the Gulf of Mexico and three geographical miles in the Atlantic and Pacific. The actual extent of the claims of the coastal states involved in the question was therefore left to be settled by litigation.

scholarly journals Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association: The American Labor Relations System in Jeopardy

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ann C. Hodges
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Public Sector ◽  
Labor Relations ◽  
The United States ◽  
Court Decisions ◽  
Union Security ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
History Of ◽  
American Labor

The petitioners in Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association seek to overturn longstanding law relating to union security in the public sector. A decision in favor of the petitioners will invalidate provisions in thousands of collective bargaining agreements covering millions of workers. Additionally, it has the potential to upend the labor relations system in the United States. To understand how this might be the case, this Issue Brief will review the history of union security and the Supreme Court decisions that upheld union security agreements in the public sector. The Issue Brief will then look at the Friedrichs case itself, engaging in an analysis of the case which concludes that the Court should reach the same result as in prior cases.

scholarly journals Crisis in Burma

2008 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 57-60
Author(s):  
Edward Bong Geul Joo
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Economic Loss ◽  
The United States ◽  
Food Prices ◽  
The Other ◽  
Military Junta ◽  
The Public ◽  
Foreign Countries ◽  
The Military ◽  
Peace And Development

On September 24, 2007, the conflict in Burma, also known as Myanmar, between the public and the military junta, officially known as the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC), reached a serious point. The military junta, which represented the Burmese government, had raised the price of oil through its monopoly, which subsequently elevated food prices. In response, the public, including 1000 monks, protested against the tyrannical rule of the junta. The junta reacted by killing thousands of people and arresting democratic leaders such as U Gambira, the leader of the protesting monks. Amidst this turmoil, many foreign countries intervened to try to find a solution. Keck and Sikkink suggest that these are voluntary and angel states coming to the aid of others. On the other hand, Kaufmann and Pape argue that these are states masking their acts as aid while looking for gains for themselves. They add that these political gains are made at the costly price of economic loss. By examining how the United States has been involved in the crisis in Burma, Kaufmann and Pape’s view on these states appears to be more correct than that of Keck and Sikkink, who believe in the existence of voluntary states.

The Military and the Politics of Change in Guyana

1991 ◽  
Vol 33 (2) ◽  
pp. 141-174 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ivelaw L. Griffith
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Public Sector ◽  
International Monetary Fund ◽  
The United States ◽  
Jimmy Carter ◽  
The Public ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
International Pressures ◽  
The Military ◽  
The International Monetary Fund

The death of forbes burnham in August 1985 and the passing of power to Hugh Desmond Hoyte have produced dramatic changes in Guyana, South America's only English-speaking republic. Some of these have involved: (1) privatization of the public sector, (2) abolition of overseas voting, (3) negotiations with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), (4) rapprochement with the United States, plus (5) an agreement that observers — including former President Jimmy Carter and representatives from the London-based Commonwealth Secretariat—are being invited to oversee the upcoming elections scheduled for either August or September 1991.Precipitated by domestic and international pressures, these changes have taken place within the context of a change in regimes as well, in which one dominant leader, Forbes Burnham, has been succeeded by another equally dominant, Desmond Hoyte.

NEW ORLEANS IS NOT THE EXCEPTION: Re-politicizing the Study of Racial Inequality

2006 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 37-57 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Frymer ◽  
Dara Z. Strolovitch ◽  
Dorian T. Warren
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Hurricane Katrina ◽  
New Orleans ◽  
Political Institutions ◽  
Racial Inequality ◽  
The United States ◽  
Color Line ◽  
American Democracy ◽  
Normal Functioning ◽  
The Public

Although political science provides many useful tools for analyzing the effects of natural and social catastrophes such as Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath, the scenes of devastation and inequality in New Orleans suggest an urgent need to adjust our lenses and reorient our research in ways that will help us to uncover and unpack the roots of this national travesty. Treated merely as exceptions to the “normal” functioning of society, dramatic events such as Katrina ought instead to serve as crucial reminders to scholars and the public that the quest for racial equality is only a work in progress. New Orleans, we argue, was not exceptional; it was the product of broader and very typical elements of American democracy—its ideology, attitudes, and institutions. At the dawn of the century after “the century of the color-line,” the hurricane and its aftermath highlight salient features of inequality in the United States that demand broader inquiry and that should be incorporated into the analytic frameworks through which American politics is commonly studied and understood. To this end, we suggest several ways in which the study of racial and other forms of inequality might inform the study of U.S. politics writ large, as well as offer a few ideas about ways in which the study of race might be re-politicized. To bring race back into the study of politics, we argue for greater attention to the ways that race intersects with other forms of inequality, greater attention to political institutions as they embody and reproduce these inequalities, and a return to the study of power, particularly its role in the maintenance of ascriptive hierarchies.

scholarly journals Glimpses of Marshall in the Military

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kevin C. Walsh
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
The United States ◽  
Federal Courts ◽  
John Adams ◽  
Quarter Century ◽  
State Legislator ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
Life Lessons ◽  
The Military ◽  
John Marshall

Before President John Adams appointed him as Chief Justice of the United States in 1801, John Marshall was a soldier, a state legislator, a federal legislator, an envoy to France, and the Secretary of State. He also maintained a thriving practice in Virginia and federal courts, occasionally teaming up with political rival and personal friend Patrick Henry. Forty-five years old at the time of his appointment to the Supreme Court, Marshall has been serving his state and his country for a quarter century before he took judicial office. Marshall is an exemplar of professional excellence for all lawyers and judges. But one looking for life lessons in the law from the life of John Marshall should not neglect his time as a soldier, before he became a lawyer.

scholarly journals Trump and the Image of the United States in Latin America

2021 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 58-85
Author(s):  
Michael Haman ◽  
Milan Školník
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Latin America ◽  
Public Opinion ◽  
Political Institutions ◽  
Political Ideology ◽  
Free Market ◽  
The United States ◽  
First Year ◽  
Left Wing ◽  
The Public

In our research, we focus on the image of the United States in Latin America. We use mainly data from Latinobarómetro, and we analyse Obama’s last year and Trump’s first year in the presidency in 18 countries in Latin America. We use logistic regression to reach conclusions. We also analyse Trump’s tweets to see his Twitter rhetoric. We find that Trump’s election has strongly worsened the image of the United States in the public opinion of Latin America. However, we find that people that believe more in democracy, the free market and national political institutions are more likely to have a positive opinion of the United States. Also, we find that the more left-wing citizens are, the more likely they have a bad opinion of the United States. This article contributes to the theory of trust and research on the public opinion across nations. Also, this article offers insights into the topical research agenda concerning the influence of political ideology on public opinion.

The Social Origins of Property

1993 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 217-248 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joseph William Singer ◽  
Jack M. Beermann
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Private Property ◽  
Foreign Minister ◽  
The United States ◽  
United States Constitution ◽  
The Public ◽  
Core Property ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
Takings Clause

It was easier to make a revolution than to write 600 to 800 laws to create a market economy.Jiri Dienstbier, Foreign Minister of Czechoslovakia (1990)[I]t would be as absurd to argue that the distribution of property must never be modified by law as it would be to argue that the distribution of political power must never bechanged.Morris Cohen (1927)The takings clause of the United States Constitution requires government to pay compensation when private property is taken for public use. When government regulates, but does not physically seize, property, the Supreme Court of the United States has had trouble defining when individuals have been deprived of property rights so as to give them a right to compensation. The takings clause serves “to bar Government from forcing some people alone to bear public burdens that, in all fairness and justice, should be borne by the public as a whole.” To determine when a regulation amounts to a “taking” of property requiring compensation, the Court has rightly stated that the ultimate question is whether the burden of regulation has been unfairly placed on a small class of individuals rather than the public at large. To answer this question, the Court has identified a variety of factors to consider, including the character of the governmental action, (whether the regulation effects a permanent physical invasion, destroys a core property right, or is intended to prevent public harm), whether the regulation interferes with reasonable investment-backed expectations, and the extent of the diminution in value of the property (particularly whether the regulation deprives the owner of any economically viable use of the property).

8. The Court and the world

2020 ◽  
pp. 92-98
Author(s):  
Linda Greenhouse
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Supreme Court ◽  
The United States ◽  
Specific Knowledge ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
The World ◽  
Public Imagination ◽  
The U.S

When the Framers set the Supreme Court in motion, they had no template for what they were about to create. “The court and the world” demonstrates that other countries were able to use the Supreme Court for inspiration, and many have done so. What they have chosen to take and leave from the Court’s example is instructive. Lifetime tenure is less common outside the United States, with most European courts preferring nine- or ten-year appointments and aiming for unanimity rather than majority. While specific knowledge about the Court is limited, the U.S. Supreme Court still holds a place in the public imagination.

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