IRCPPS

IRCPPS in the Links: Linking Human Rights and Development Assisstance

2011-11-11T12:00:00.000-05:00

...The big idea behind the MCC was to give poor countries stronger incentive to improve their economic and political governance by making a big, new pot of aid funding available, but making access to that pot conditional on countries’ performance on a basket of governance indicators. In theory, it’s like setting up a smoothie bar in a high-school cafeteria and then telling the hungry students they’ll get free smoothies, but only if they’ve done well enough on their report cards. If they’re hungry enough (and like smoothies enough), anticipation of that reward should encourage them to improve their schoolwork, and everyone ends up better off for it....

IRCPPS in the Links: Analyzing Mexican Gang Violence as Insurgency

2011-11-10T09:11:00.000-05:00

via the Monkey Cage:

...The violence in Mexico may not be a classic insurgency , but it is certainly being fought like one. Like other insurgencies, the violence in Mexico – especially the brutal killings of government officials and civilians – is being used to intimidate local populations and control territory. The Mexican government provides health, education and other public services to most citizens and provides order and security in the vast majority of towns and cities, including Mexico City. But the insurgents control about 7 percent of the country, including important drug distribution routes, and they have used violence to do so....

Call for Papers: Special Issue on “Global Justice & Practice-Dependence” in Raisons Politiques (in English)

2011-11-10T09:08:00.000-05:00

via Public Reason:

Deadline for submissions: April 1^st, 2012
Tentative publication date: Winter 2012

Raisons Politiques is a well-established journal of political thought currently building an international reputation with the support of Sciences Po, the French renowned research institute for social sciences. The journal endeavors to provide a forum where scholars from various backgrounds and traditions can fruitfully engage with contemporary social and political issues. By contrast with publications intended to a particular discipline, Raisons Politiques adopts a thematic approach and welcome contributions from all branches of social sciences. It encourages submissions in English or French, from both established academics and aspiring members of the scientific community.

Among notable contributors are Pierre Bourdieu, Judith Butler, Gerald Allan Cohen, Mitchell Cohen, Ronald Dworkin, Norman Daniels, Clifford Geertz, Robert E. Goodin, Jürgen Habermas, Martha Nussbaum, Thomas Nagel, Philip Pettit, Ian Shapiro, Quentin Skinner, Judith Jarvis Thomson, Michael Walzer and Iris Marion Young.
Raisons Politiques is available online through CAIRN, the French portal for social sciences. For more information about the journal, please visit the editor’s website.

Special Issue in English on “Global Justice & Practice-Dependence”

Over the last few years, a new generation of political theorists working in the field of global justice has come to endorse a practice-dependent view about justice. In this view, the content of a given conception of justice depends on the nature of the practices it is intended to regulate, where “practices” refer to existing institutions and every system of formal or informal rules defining the rights and duties of agents involved. Global social and political practices would thus not be governed by the same conception of justice that applies to domestic practices, dramatically different in nature, and that would help to account for the normative discontinuity between the domain of nation-states, where strong egalitarian standards of justice prevail, and the world beyond national borders, where requirements of justice seem closer to a humanitarian moral minimum.
This special issue of Raison Politiques aims to assess the legitimacy of the practice-dependent approach as well as to explore the conclusions that might be drawn from it in the debate on global justice. Authors are thus invited to submit:
-   Articles arguing in favor of the practice-dependent approach from a Rawlsian perspective or within a wider constructivist framework;
-   Articles offering a non-constructivist foundation for the practice-dependent approach;
-   Articles discussing different types of practice-dependence, such as conventionalism, institutionalism and functionalism;
-   Articles exploring whether the practice-dependent approach is supported by a particular view about the nature of justice;
-   Articles rejecting the methodological commitment to practice-dependence and offering reasons to favor an alternative approach to global justice;
-   Articles endorsing the practice-dependent view to develop a substantial account of global justice.

Submission Process

Manuscripts must be 1.5-spaced and no longer than 7,000 words, including footnotes and a 150-word summary. All bibliographical references must come in footnotes, formatted as follow:
- David Miller, National Responsibility and Global Justice (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007).
- Thomas Hylland Eriksen, “Formal and Informal Nationalism”, Ethnic and Racial Studies (16/1), 1993, 1-25.
- Kok-Chor Tan, “The Problem of Decent Peoples”, in David Reidy and Martin Rex (eds.), Rawls’s Law of People. A Realistic Utopia (Oxford: Blackwell, 2006), 76-94.
To facilitate blind review, please remove author-identifying information from the text and provide in a separate file a short biographical note (up to 80 words) specifying your title, current affiliation, research interests and relevant publications within the last three years. Send your manuscript and the file containing your personal information in Microsoft Word or Rich Text Format to hugo.elkholi@sciences-po.org.
All manuscripts are anonymously peer-reviewed by two referees within a two months delay – typically, one member of the editorial board and one external expert. Note that works under simultaneous consideration for publication elsewhere and works that have already been published in any form will not be considered.

Call for Papers: Southwest Council of Latin American Studies Conference

2011-11-09T15:05:00.000-05:00

via ISA:

The Southwest Council of Latin American Studies (SCOLAS) is now accepting panel and paper proposals for the March 8-10 Conference in Miami. Proposals from all disciplines are encouraged, including but not limited to: Anthropology, Archaeology, Art History, Cultural Studies, Environmental Studies, Ethnomusicology, Film Studies, Gender Studies, History, Linguistics, Literature, Political Science, and Sociology. Panels should consist of three presenters and a chair/commentator. Individual paper proposals are also welcome. Papers can be in either English or Spanish. Please provide names, professional affiliations, email addresses, and a one paragraph abstract of the paper or panel you propose. The deadline for proposal applications is December 15, 2011. Please see the conference WEBSITE for more information.

IRCPPS in the Links: More on Framing and Support for Government Programs

2011-11-09T12:57:00.002-05:00

via the Monkey Cage:

...The hidden quality of social welfare benefits in the tax code means that many people are largely unaware of them, and have no idea of their overall impact. How could these policies of the submerged state be revealed, and what difference would it make? Matt Guardino and I created a web-based experiment to test the impact of providing people with small amounts of basic information about such policies. We found that it had two basic effects: (1) people who expressed no opinion on such policies in the absence of information became significantly more likely to do so after receiving information; (2) after the provision of information, people adopted views that made sense given their political values and their interests, as defined by income. Overall, opposition grew to the policies that aid predominantly high income people, while support grew for policies that aid low income people....

IRCPPS in the Links: The Super-Committee and Side-Payments

2011-11-09T12:55:00.000-05:00

via the Monkey Cage:

...In the end, rather than taking power away from party leaders, the SC process puts them at the center of negotiations from beginning to end, and makes their support an essential component of any successful deal. Given policy deadlock between the House and Senate, leaders’ deployment of side payments is critical for success. Moreover, party leaders can provide important political cover to their caucuses. Leader support of an SC proposal gives their backbenchers a ready-made response to constituent criticisms of a yea vote – in Fenno’s terms, an explanation of Washington activity. It is not surprising, then, that as negotiations on the SC proceed, committee members from both parties are frequently consulting party leaders on both sides of the aisle – these leaders know as well as anyone which deals might be enactable, and control the political and policy resources needed to secure these outcomes....

IRCPPS in the Links: Separation of Powers and the Executive

2011-11-09T12:53:00.000-05:00

via the Monkey Cage:

.... A 2002 law allows Americans born in Jerusalem to place on their passports, as the place of their birth, “Israel.” President George W. Bush objected at the time, in one of his many signing statements, that this bound the executive branch to a diplomatic position it did not hold (U.S. policy is neutral on the provenance of Jerusalem) and should be under no obligation to assert. President Obama has affirmed this position. And so Menachem Zivotovsky (or rather his parents – Menachem was born in 2002) has now sued to uphold the plain text of the statute....

IRCPPS in the Links: Is Mandatory Voting a Polarization Panacea?

2011-11-09T12:51:00.000-05:00

via the Monkey Cage:

...the central effect of political campaigns—one identified in over 60 years of research—is to solidify and reinforce the existing social identities as well as partisan, ideological, or policy views of voters. That is, campaigns tend to bring potentially wayward voters back “in the fold.” This only tends to polarize voters. Indeed, it can happen even in the space of a single 30-second ad. If, under a mandatory voting system, candidates no longer have to worry about mobilizing voters to turn out and can concentrate on persuading voters to support them, I suspect that we would see this same effect, but magnified over the entire electorate. So it’s entirely possible that mandatory voting may even increase polarization...

IRCPPS in the Links: Does Increased Education Enhance Women's Rights?

2011-11-09T12:22:00.000-05:00

Chris Blattman looks at some evidence from Kenya:

...the program increased objective political knowledge, and reduced both acceptance of political authorities and satisfaction with politics. However, in our Kenyan context, this rejection of the status quo did not translate into greater perceived political efficacy, community participation or voting intentions. Instead, the program increased the perceived legitimacy of political violence...

IRCPPS in the Links: How Support For Government Programs Varies When Framed as "Tax Breaks" vs. "Grants"

2011-11-09T12:18:00.000-05:00

via the Monkey Cage:

We presented survey respondents with a description of a federal housing program, after which they were asked to rate their approval of the program on a seven-point scale. About half of respondents received a description of the real-life Home Mortgage Interest Deduction:

“We’re going to ask you your opinion on a government program intended to help Americans afford to own homes. Under this program, individuals who take out a mortgage to buy a home are eligible to deduct the monthly mortgage interest from their taxable income, thereby reducing their tax burden. The total savings for individuals under this program are estimated to be $94 billion for fiscal year 2011.”

The other half of the respondents were shown a description that differed in two respects: first, the words “eligible to deduct the monthly mortgage interest from their taxable income, thereby reducing their tax burden” were replaced with “eligible for a grant from the federal government to help them afford the monthly payment;” second, the words “The total savings for individuals under this program…” are replaced with “The total government expenditures to individuals under this program…” We believe these contrasts in language were reasonable given the way these types of programs are often framed by elites.

The effect of this manipulation of delivery mechanism is displayed in this bar graph, which displays the percentage of respondents in each treatment group who expressed at least some approval of the program. The effect is considerable, as support drops by about 24% when the program is described as a grant.

Announcement: ISA Officer Elections

2011-11-09T12:11:00.002-05:00

via ISA:

It is time to elect new officers for ISA, including the President and three Vice Presidents. We are sending a ballot to all ISA members by e-mail today for the officer election for the term 2013-2014. The election is ongoing and will conclude on December 5, 2011. We have archived the report of the Nominating Committee HERE. Thank you to all the candidates for agreeing to run for office and contribute their time to ISA.

Call for Applicants: Fullbright Canada Scholarship

2011-11-09T12:10:00.000-05:00

via ISA:

Are you interested in conducting research in Canada-U.S. relations in the United States? Fulbright Canada offers unique opportunities to promising and prominent Canadian scholars, as well as experienced professionals, to conduct research, develop new professional networks, guest lecture and/or teach at select American universities and research centers. The holder of the Fulbright Visiting Research Chair spends up to five months in residence at the Canada Institute of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars conducting research in the field of Canada-U.S. relations. Applications should be received by November 15, 2011. Please see the FULBRIGHT CANADA website and select Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars for more information.

IRCPPS in the Links: More on Money in Elections

2011-11-04T13:49:00.000-04:00

Chris Blattman notes a paper by Leonard Wantchekon that indicates that spending money isn't always the most effective way to gain votes:

...The experiment took place during the March 2011 elections in Benin and involved 150 randomly selected villages. The treatment group had town hall meetings where voters deliberated over their candidate’s electoral platforms with no cash distribution. The control group had the standard campaign, i.e. one-way communication of the candidate’s platform by himself or his local broker, followed (most of the time) by cash distribution.

We ﬁnd that the treatment has a positive eﬀect on turnout. In addition, using village level election returns, we ﬁnd no signiﬁcant diﬀerence in electoral support for the experimental candidate between treatment and control villages.

…the positive treatment eﬀect is driven in large part by active information sharing by those who attended the meetings...

IRCPPS in the Links: Does Money Affect the Outcomes of US Elections?

2011-11-04T13:46:00.000-04:00

The Monkey Cage tackles the question:

...Candidates who raise a lot of money tend to do better, and it’s more likely than not that at least part of this relationship is due to money paying for things like ads and canvassers that help candidates win over new voters and/or turn out their bases. High-quality challengers may be deterred by large war chests, but other factors such as local political conditions and incumbent quality are more important: in most cases, a much-despised incumbent with a lot of money is in a worse position than a much-liked incumbent with very little money...

Call for Papers: Nationalism, Ethnicity, and Boundaries

2011-11-04T13:44:00.000-04:00

via ISA:

The program chairs invite papers for the ASEN 2012 Conference on the theme: Nationalism, Ethnicity and Boundaries. The conference takes place 27-29th March, 2012 at the London School of Economics. Abstracts should be submitted ONLINE no later than November 18, 2011. Please see the conference WEBSITE for more information.

IRCPPS in the Links: Post-Election Report - Kyrgyzstan

2011-11-02T18:49:00.000-04:00

The Monkey Cage talks Almazbek Atambayev:

...Atambayev becomes the country’s fourth president, following Askar Akaev (1990-2005, ousted during the so-called Tulip Revolution), Kurmanbek Bakiev (2005-2010, whose rule also ended abruptly) and Roza Otunbaeva, who presided over the launch of a new constitution, new parliamentary elections in October 2010, but also a dramatic and bloody descent into chaos in June 2010 as the government witnessed powerless clashes between Kyrgyz and Uzbeks in the southern city of Osh, which left several hundreds dead and hundreds of thousands displaced...

Call for Nominations: ISSS Governing Council

2011-11-02T15:44:00.000-04:00

via ISA:

Nominations are invited for elections to the Governing Council of the INTERNATIONAL SECURITY STUDIES SECTION (ISSS) of the International Studies Association. Members of this council assume the broad responsibility of assisting in the governance of the section. We welcome nominations from all regions of the world. It is desirable to have diversity on the governing council across categories that include race, ethnicity, and gender. It is also desirable to have diversity across professional pursuits including academia, think tanks, NGOs, and government organizations. This year a total of four members will be elected to the Governing Council for a three-year term. At least one of these should be a graduate student elected to the designated student representative position. Nominees must be members of the section at the time of the election. Nominations should be sent to issselections@hotmail.com and must be received by November 23, 2012.

Call for Papers: W. E. B. Du Bois 50th Anniversary Commemorative Conference

2011-11-02T10:53:00.000-04:00

via PSRT-L:

The year 2013 will mark the 50th anniversary of the passing of Dr.W.E.B. Du Bois. On his birthday in February of that year, it is fittingthat Clark Atlanta University (CAU) celebrate his life and scholarship:Dr. Du Bois wrote his most influential works in the 23 years he spent asa professor at Atlanta University. Serving as faculty of the Departmentsof History and Economics, he taught at Atlanta University from 1897 to1910, and then returned from 1934 to 1944 as chair of the Department ofSociology. Dr. Du Bois also had impact in the area of social work and asa novelist, poet and short story writer. The W.E.B. Du Bois and theWings of Atlanta Conference will serve as a meeting at the crossroads ofvarious paths of Du Bois's work. Conference participants will engage inan interdisciplinary and international introspection of the life,scholarship and activism of one of the most influential intellectuals ofthe 20th century.
In a four-day conference, beginning on February 20, 2013 and concludingon Du Bois's birthday of February 23, Clark Atlanta University will hostpanels that highlight his countless contributions, especially thoseproduced in the 23 years of his tenure. Central works to be discussedinclude the Phylon journal (founded in 1940) and the Atlanta UniversityPublications (which he directed 1898-1914), where he covered topicsincluding African Americans in higher education, art, the Black church,urbanization, health, business, economics, and race relations inGeorgia. Books published while in Atlanta are also central to the CAUdiscussion: The Souls of Black Folk (1903), Black Reconstruction (1935)and Dusk of Dawn: An Essay toward and Autobiography of a Race Concept,the second of his three autobiographies (1940).
The Wings of Atlanta conference seeks to bring togetherlocal, national and international scholars to explore themes in Dr. DuBois's publications and collected papers in order to illuminate hisexperiences at Fisk University, Harvard University, University ofBerlin, Atlanta University, Philadelphia, Massachusetts, New York,Chicago, Ghana and other areas where Du Bois lived and worked.Especially welcome are panels addressing the multitude of Du Boisianintellectual legacies and implications of his myriad research agendas.
This conference will be held as a conclusion to theyear-long W. E. B. Du Bois Major Works Seminar Series hosted by theClark Atlanta University Office of the President, Office of the Provost,School of Arts and Sciences, and the Department of History. The W.E.B.Du Bois and the Wings of Atlanta Conference, held on CAU's campus,offers a uniquely significant locale from which to commemorate,interrogate, and celebrate the life and work of this exquisitelyeducated and distinctly complex man.
As interest is wide but space limited, individualconference papers will be considered, but panels of 4-6 papers will begiven preference. Panel proposals should be no more than 4 pages longand individual paper proposals no more than 2 pages. Panel submissionsmust identify the panel chair, names, phone numbers, email addresses,and institutional affiliation information for the chair and allpanelists.
One-page proposals for undergraduate and graduate student posters arealso encouraged.
Send proposals to Dr. Stephanie Y. Evans at sevans@cau.edu<mailto:sevans@cau.edu> .
For questions or additional information, call Dr. Evans at 404-880-6352.

Conference proposals will be accepted between January 1, 2012 and July1, 2012.
Acceptance notification: August 15, 2012.

CAU History Department Website:http://www.cau.edu/Academics_History_Main.aspx
Call For Proposals PDF:http://www.cau.edu/CMFiles/Docs/CAU2013DuBoisConferenceCFP.pdf
CAU History Department Facebook Page:http://www.facebook.com/CAUHistoryDepartment

Dr. Stephanie Y. Evans
Chair, Department of History
Dual Associate Professor, History and African American/Africana Women'sStudies
Clark Atlanta University
200w McPheeters-Dennis Hall
404.880.6352
sevans@cau.edu
Dr. E's Resource Page:
www.professorevans.net <http://www.professorevans.net/> - [updated]

IRCPPS in the Links: Insights on the Greek Referendum from Eastern European EU Accessions

2011-11-01T16:30:00.000-04:00

The Monkey Cage discusses the Greek bailout referendum:

...In a series of publications with a number of different co-authors,^* I have examined the causes of attitudes towards EU membership in post-communist countries considering membership in theEU (see here and here) and then again in the actual referendum on EU membership in Poland (here). In all three articles, the overwhelming empirical lesson is clear: economic winners are more likely to support EU membership, while economic losers are more likely to oppose EU membership....

Announcement: ISA-NE Conference Program

2011-11-01T16:26:00.003-04:00

via ISA:

The annual conference of the International Studies Association-Northeast (ISA-NE) will be held this weekend, 4-5 November 2011, at the Providence Biltmore in Providence, Rhode Island. Panels will be convened on many subjects related to international studies, broadly defined, grouped under this year’s conference theme, Continuity and Change in Global Politics. The conference program has been posted HERE for your review.

Call for Applicants: U.S.-China Economic & Security Review Commission 2012 Research Fellowship Program

2011-11-01T09:02:00.000-04:00

received via e-mail:

The USCC was established by Congress to look into the national security implications of the bilateral trade and economic relationship between the United States and the People’s Republic of China. Recent topics of interest to the Commission have included China’s 12th five-year plan, outward foreign direct investment, military modernization, and East Asian security and cooperation.

The USCC Fellowship Program is a full-time 24 week opportunity with two sessions offered each year. The first session begins in mid-January and the second begins in July. Individual Fellowships may be extended up to 48 weeks; two concurrent sessions.

The program is intended to fully engage participants in the key elements of the Commission’s Annual Report cycle. The report cycle includes the preparation and facilitation of public hearings; the drafting and editing process; and releasing the report and its findings. Generally, Fellows are expected to work with little supervision on substantive long term assignments and projects. A Fellow’s day-to-day work includes researching, monitoring and analyzing issues of importance to U.S.- China relations, Taiwan, and the western Pacific Region as well as attending seminars, meetings and events on behalf of the USCC. Fellows may also be assigned independent, original research projects by the Commission’s Research Working Group (RWG).

The USCC is dedicated to maintaining a diverse workforce with a wide variety of backgrounds and expertise. Fellowships are intellectually challenging and require individual initiative and an ability to monitor and report on current events and issues. Strong research and communications skills – writing and oral – are essential.

All applicants for Research Fellowships must be U.S. citizens (or be permanent residents with legal authorization to live and work in the United States), and must have at least a 3.0 GPA (on a 4.0 scale) or equivalent. Research Fellows must be current graduate-level students, or have completed an accredited Master’s or J.D. program.

Coursework with a strong focus on Chinese and/or broader Asian business, economics, culture, history, & language; international relations, foreign affairs and security studies; or specialization in other related areas is desirable. The ability to read Chinese at an advanced level is highly desirable.

Application Deadlines:

SESSION
APPLICATION DEADLINE

Session I (January – June 2012)
November 4, 2011

Session II (July – December 2012)
April 8, 2012

To apply or get more information about the Commission and
our Fellowship opportunities check us out at:
www.uscc.gov

The US-China Economic & Security Review Commission is an EEO employer
and does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, national origin, political affiliation, sexual orientation, marital status, disability, or age, and is dedicated to maintaining a diverse workforce with a wide variety of backgrounds and expertise.

Humor: Stuff Political Scientists Like #12 - Artistic Pretensions

2011-11-01T08:56:00.000-04:00

via Duck of Minerva:

...political scientists really bear no resemblance to painters. In fact they specialize in taking a fascinating reality and squeezing all the beauty, life and color out of politics by reformulating its elements and reducing its complexity to the most pedestrian of shapes – the two-by-two table. And no political scientist has ever, ever, sired multiple children by multiple different models. In fact they mean something very different by that term that isn’t sexual at all. Well, maybe for some...

IRCPPS in the Links: Can Libya's NTC Pull Itself Up By Its Bootstraps?

2011-11-01T08:49:00.001-04:00

Dart-Throwing Chimp examines the challenges Libya's National Transition Council faces going forward:

...Libya is a collapsed state. It has no functioning central authority. The NTC has proclaimed itself to be the country’s national government, and the international community has endorsed that claim, but that claim is only now starting to get tested. The conventional view is that internal authority and external endorsement are intertwined, but that’s an international legal fiction, not real politics. As places like Afghanistan and Somalia remind us, international endorsement does not magically cause domestic factions to fall in line behind the anointed party....

IRCPPS in the Links: Does Prior Experience Impact Presidential Greatness?

2011-11-01T08:42:00.000-04:00

John Sides considers the question at 538:

...A new paper by political scientists Joseph Uscinski and Arthur Simonprovides an answer. Knowing that previous studies such as this one haven’t provided much evidence that experience matters, they improve on these studies in several ways. For one, they focus on “modern” presidents, a category that begins with William McKinley (although similar results would emerge if the analysis had begun with Woodrow Wilson or FDR). This is because the modern presidency is a much different job that the presidency of the 1700s and much of 1800s. Messrs. Uscinski and Simon also expand the measurement of presidential greatness to include not just overall ratings but ratings on specific dimensions from the 2009 C-SPAN Survey of Presidential Leadership. Finally, they develop more precise measures of experience. So rather than simply note whether a president served in the military (most presidents did), they count the numbers of years each president served in both wartime and peacetime...

Call for Papers: The European Union and the World

2011-10-31T17:18:00.000-04:00

via ISA:

The Graduate Society for International Studies and the Center for Regional and Global Studies, in collaboration with the Graduate Program in International Studies and AccessEU, are pleased to announce the 10th annual Graduate Research Conference to be held at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, VA on February 24, 2012. The conference title is "The European Union in the World: Global Dimensions and Dynamics." The organizers welcome abstracts from all programs including political science, economics, communications, humanities, history, public administration, business studies, criminology, women's studies, modeling and simulation, foreign languages and intercultural studies. Please send a 250-300 word abstract (double-spaced and clearly titled) to the Conference Coordinator by January 15, 2011. Include a cover sheet with the following information: name, mailing address, telephone numbers and e-mail address, academic affiliation, and paper title. Please see the CONFERENCE WEBSITE for more information.

SESSION	APPLICATION DEADLINE
Session I (January – June 2012)	November 4, 2011
Session II (July – December 2012)	April 8, 2012