State Legislative Process

This chapter explores the history and operation of state legislatures. The urban-rural divide characterizes stark political and social differences that fuel legislative behavior. The content of public policies across the United States is influenced by these divisions and contributes to either the support of or opposition to social change. State legislators are on the front lines of these geographic ideological divides. These variations by region contribute to the increase in single-party control and have generated pronounced policy differences.

Faith and Politics at the State Level

This chapter describes legislator faith beliefs based on their evangelical or liberal multilayered moral worldviews. These views are not merely tools that are used but symbolic boundaries by which preferences are molded, values are shaped, and political perspectives are informed. Contributing to these ideological differences is the changing religious landscape in America. These opposing visions represent deep cultural divisions that influence state legislative decision-making, especially for members of the LGBTQ community.

Shapes Determine Elections

When we elect representatives to the U.S. House of Representatives (or to state legislative bodies, or even the school board), we do so by dividing people into districts, and having each district elect one representative. The districts we draw as shapes on maps can affect the outcome of the elections. As a result, the process of creating or changing districts and the shapes we draw to create them are important. After every census, each state must construct a new district map. When they do that unfairly, it can give an unfair advantage to one of the political parties. This is called gerrymandering. By looking at the shapes of districts and examining their compactness, we can start to detect fair and unfair district maps.

Changes in the life of Germans in St. Petersburg in the late 19th – early 20th century

The subject of this paper is an overview of changes in the material and spiritual life of Germans living in St. Petersburg in the late 19th – early 20th century. The overview of various facets of life of German population of St. Petersburg makes it possible to comprehensively address the problem of transformation of the State nationalities policy toward the largest ethnic diaspora in the Imperial Capital. The research work of Russian and foreign scholars became the theoretical framework for the article that enabled to ensure continuity of historical analysis. This study used a problematic and chronological approach to review the dynamics of state legislative initiatives related to in relation to the German community of St. Petersburg. The legislative acts issued in the Russian Empire during the period under study to toughen up the legal regulations governing the life of Russian Germans served as the factual basis of the overview. The conclusions drawn in the paper give a better idea of general trends in the nationalities policy of the Russian state in the midst of the most important domestic and international events of the late 19th and early 20th century.

Humanitarian Law Compliance

Ensuring humanitarian law compliance and repression of its violations receives constant reiteration but to mixed effect. While international judicial, jurisprudential and investigatory modalities have advanced, requisite State level competencies exhibit marked variability. This paper devotes most attention to disadvantaged States – those that, for whatever reason, lack the judicial, institutional or administrative capacity to ensure humanitarian law compliance and repression of its violations. Here a profile of 46 States is selected for review, 20 of which are identified as impacted by previous or continuing forms of armed conflict. Data from the World Justice Project’s 2020 Rule of Law Index is utilised. Chosen indicators assess individual State legislative, judicial, due process, and criminal investigatory capacities as perceived and recorded by local publics and individual experts. A comparative evaluation of this data reveals differences within profiles of disadvantaged States. They are investigated to better comprehend humanitarian law compliance challenges facing such States. They include international cooperation, utilisation of amnesties, and the conduct of armed non-state actors. The paper’s central thesis is that humanitarian law compliance, and repression of its violations, remains inadequate without remediation of the capacity impediments evident in disadvantaged States.

Suppression by Stealth: The Partisan Response to Protest in State Legislatures

Many scholars have investigated the relationship between protest and repression. Less often examined is the legislative suppression of protest by elites seeking to make protest more costly to protesters. Because state legislatures are largely invisible to the public, this “wholesale” suppression of protest is less likely to trigger public opposition than repression by the police. This study explains the sharp increase in the number and the severity of state legislative bills to repress the right to protest both before and after the election of Donald Trump. In particular, it examines whether these can be attributed either to Republican control of state legislatures or to protest threat. Contrary to the findings in much of the literature, bills aimed at suppressing protest are less closely related to threat than to the realignment of state politics. The article also finds that these proposals were influenced by diffusion through policy brokerage.

The Subaltern Voice in Sree Moolam Praja Sabha

Sree Moolam Thirunaal Rama Varma, the ruling Maharaja of the Indian state of Travancore, instituted Sree Moolam Praja Sabha, also known as Sree Moolam Popular Assembly on 1 October 1904. The representatives of Sree Moolam Praja Sabha were selected from every section of society to address their grievances. Sree Moolam Sabha mainly consisted of landlords, merchants and their representatives. Those days, then existing social customs prevented the lower-caste people or the subaltern communities from participating in the Sree Moolam Praja Sabha. In the initial phase, there were representatives from each religion and caste, except the subaltern groups. Later, the Diwan attempted to include Dalits and other minority communities in the process of policy formulation as well as providing them with an essential role in their community development. Mahakavi Kumaran Asan, one of the triumvirate poets of modern Kerala was the nominated member of Sree Moolam Sabha, and he was one of the disciples of Sree Narayana Guru. Ayyankali was nominated to Sree Moolam Popular Assembly in 1912 because of his popularity among subaltern communities in the Thiruvithamkoore Kingdom. He had a record of being a nominated member in a legislative assembly for a consequtive period of 27 years, from 1912 to 1939, even before Independence. Ayyankali was the first Dalit representative who was nominatedto India’s first state (legislative) assembly, especially during the pre-independence period.