American Politics Research Articles

The Gendered Political Consequences of Racialized Sexual Threats

Narratives of racialized sexual violence—specifically, where a dominant-group woman faces harm by a man outside the dominant group—have long been a staple of American political communication. Past scholarship has examined how these threats prime racial resentment among White Americans; less is known about their gendered effects. I present an original survey experiment comparing racialized sexual threats with racialized threats that are not gendered or sexual. Both evoke racial resentment. Compared with solely racial threats, however, racialized sexual threats also make benevolent sexism salient for a range of democratic outcomes. Moreover, I find distinct effects by respondent race and gender, as men and women of different racial identities are situated differently vis a vis racialized sexual threats. To demonstrate that the gendered/sexualized impact of these appeals extends to real-world campaigns, I conclude with an analysis of candidate support in the 1988 presidential election. The 1988 race saw one of the most notorious examples of racialized sexual threat in modern American politics in the “Willie Horton” ad, aired on behalf of the Bush campaign. Even with the limited measures available in that year, I find that sexism played an important role in shaping Americans’ political views.

How Elites Invigorate Emotionality and Extremity in Digital Networks

The October 2017 Las Vegas shooting was the deadliest shooting in modern American history, but little scholarship has examined the public uproar in its wake, particularly in digital networks. Drawing on a corpus of 100,000 public Tweets and 1,119,638 unique words written in reaction to the shooting, this article addresses this lacuna by investigating the topics of reactions and their linkages with elites. This article theorizes that elites invigorate the emotionality of public reactions and broker the connection between discursive and affective content in digital networks. The results show that Tweets engaging with elites expressed statistically greater emotionality and extremity in emotional valences compared to Tweets written independent of elites. Additionally, this article identifies variations in the discursive themes invoked based on the types of elites. Mentions of non-political elites drew on themes about expressive support and depictions of the immediate environment with little emotional extremity. By contrast, mentions of political elites drew on themes about broader policy debates on gun ownership laws and adherent policy reforms. Unlike with non-political elites, mentions of political elites also exhibited greater extremity in negative emotional valences, reflective of increasing polarization in American politics.

The Russia-Ukraine Crisis in American Political News: Van Dijk Model of Analysis

The Russia-Ukraine Crisis in American Political News: Van Dijk Model of Analysis

Teaching U.S. Constitutional Design: The Case of the “Genovian Revolution”

In the modern American politics classroom, ideological and partisan conflict have the capacity to interfere with a healthy classroom environment. This problem is increasingly apparent when students engage questions at the heart of U.S. Constitutional design. By asking students to inhabit fictional roles with preferences and attitudes that may differ from their own, classroom simulation activities present a potential solution to this issue. In the present study I introduce a two-week constitutional convention simulation that centers on the fictional Principality of Genovia. Working in groups, students assume roles within various segments of Genovian society who seek democratic representation following the sudden abdication of their autocratic prince. The simulation is designed to foreshadow key concepts in American government and politics. It does so in a way that allows for vociferous debate and conflict while sidestepping students’ preexisting ideologies and party attachments. It also provides a collaborative, active learning environment that fosters healthy classroom dynamics and encourages later collaboration. In a pre-post survey instrument, I test the effectiveness of the Genovian simulation in fostering key learning outcomes and enhancing the student experience vis-a-vis several other classroom modules, finding that the Genovian exercise is beneficial to students on several dimensions.

Anti-Black Political Violence and the Historical Legacy of the Great Replacement Conspiracy

Racial violence is central to the American polity. We argue that support for violence, specifically anti-Black violence, has a long historical arc in American politics dating back to chattel slavery. In this paper, we argue that the racial violence associated with the “great replacement” conspiracy is much more pervasive among the white American public because of the historical legacy of anti-Black violent sentiment. To investigate the prevalence of this idea, we conducted a preregistered simple priming experiment aimed to tap into top-of-mind ideas about racial demographic change. Our experimental design spans multiple data sources, including two probability samples, over the course of a year. We ultimately find that simply priming attitudes about racial demographic change through a single open-ended question consistently leads to increased support for political violence, increasing racial resentment, and expressed anti-Black views. Our approach allows us to test this question through variant methodological means, all of which confirm strong associations Americans have between racial demographic change, anti-Blackness, and violence. Our findings demonstrate that Black threat is an important driver of democratic backsliding in the realm of political violence that requires further attention.

Volver la mirada al sur. Una criminología para América Latina

From a decolonial perspective, and taking Latin America as its case study, this article discusses southern criminology —a body of work that has consolidated in the region and other Global South countries, and that aims at explaining crime and violence, together with the social control responses they elicit, as part of the colonial matrix of power. The article claims that southern criminology has the potential to contribute to the discussion of crime, violence, and social control in Latin America in at least two aspects: first, it may provide an incisive analysis of the relations between diffearent forms of violence and subordination, on the one hand, and the punitive and exclusive responses of Latin American political regimes to these phenomena, on the other. Second, it may contribute a suggestive explanation of how the forms of social control that have emerged in different countries of the region since their birth as independent republics are closely linked to the construction of political, economic, and social orders that are part of the colonial matrix of power.

When Truth Trumps Facts: Studies on Partisan Moral Flexibility in American Politics

When Truth Trumps Facts: Studies on Partisan Moral Flexibility in American Politics

Winning Women’s Votes: Dotty Lynch and the Role of Gender in American Political Polling

As the chief pollster for Gary Hart’s 1984 race for the Oval Office, Dorothea “Dotty” Lynch became the first female pollster to head the polling unit for a presidential campaign. Lynch’s work reconstructed how the field of political consulting regarded the role of women in elections by making women’s issues a central focus of a US presidential candidate’s campaign strategy, and by actively recruiting more women to work on presidential campaigns. Her work is also significant for the contribution she made to help explain why the gender gap played a critical role in American politics and elections.

Longing for the “Good Old Days” or longing for a racist and sexist past?

Nostalgia plays an increasingly central and polarizing role in American politics, as the Republican Party has become the primary proprietor of nostalgic rhetoric. This paper explores how feelings of collective nostalgia in a country with an unjust past are inextricably tied to racism and hostile sexism. We expect that nostalgia is strongly related to racist and sexist attitudes. We test these expectations using data from the 2022 Cooperative Election Study. Our findings reveal a standard deviation increase in nostalgia is associated with a 7–13 percentage point increase in the probability of expressing racist attitudes, and a 6–9 percentage point increase in the probability of expressing sexist attitudes, even after controlling for partisan affiliation and ideology. These results suggest that nostalgic sentiments can exacerbate prejudice and discrimination by perpetuating the belief that things were better when America was more unjust.

Political Asian America

This article examines the history of the Asian American Political Alliance (AAPA), the organization that in the late 1960s originated a new identity, “Asian American,” and a new social movement, “the Asian American Movement” (AAM). Despite its significance, the scholarly coverage of AAPA has been rather cursory. This essay presents the most extensively researched study of AAPA and is the first published article based on AAPA’s papers at UC Berkeley, the newly released FBI files on AAPA, and extended interviews. It develops the concept of “Political Asian America” that, as constituted by AAPA, embraces ideas that are at once pan-Asian and Third Worldist, local and global, and antiracist and anti-imperialist. The article examines AAPA’s politics and practices through (1) developing the concept of Political Asian America; (2) examining AAPA’s intertwined goals of Asian American liberation and Third World radicalism, while raising complex questions about the tensions in coalitional work when Asians and Blacks are racialized differently; and (3) studying AAPA’s internationalist politics that pivoted away from a domestic analysis of race alone. In addition, the secondary aim of the article explores a brief history of the growth of AAPA chapters to show AAPA infused themes of Political Asian America into the nationwide AAM. While short-lived, AAPA’s politics continued to influence Asian American activism to the present through the ongoing organizing of its former members and its ideas that traveled across time and space.

Rise of American Populism and its Role in Reviving the Jacksonian Tradition in Trump’s Foreign Policy

Donald Trump’s victory in the 2016 Presidential Elections firmly established the fact that populism was the new reality of American politics. This research explores the basic factors that drove this populist tide, and which led to the election of Trump as American president. It was not only the increasing economic inequality and lack of employment opportunities which resulted in strengthening the populist tide, but also the perceived lack of status by the American middle class and their fear of becoming a minority in their own country which drove them to Trump’s campaign. Trump also fully exploited the public’s discontent with the elite and promised them that he was their best chance of restoring America’s dignity and breaking it free from the ‘disastrous’ economic deals that his predecessors had signed which were supposedly the primary cause of the country’s economic woes. This research shows that most of Trump’s foreign policy decisions were in line with his populist rhetoric and the Jacksonian tradition of American foreign policy. This research takes a deeper look into some of Trump’s populist foreign policy decisions in the light of Jacksonianism.

Потенциал применения институционализма в качестве теоретической основы государственного управления

State management of the socio-economic development of Russian society is carried out in the context of unprecedented anti-Russian sanctions, which necessitates a rethinking of approaches to economic analysis, which is the theoretical basis for the development of long-term forecasts of socio-economic development and socio-economic policy of the state. In the process of economic analysis in the emerging conditions of public administration, along with economic ones, it is necessary to take into account other significant social phenomena and processes, including the political and legal systems, social values immanent in Russian society, which is possible through the application of institutional economic theory based on an interdisciplinary approach to economic analysis. However, firstly, the founders of institutionalism are American scientists who analyze the American political and legal system and the culture of the American people, which excludes the direct use of institutionalism for the analysis of Russian political and legal reality and, secondly, to date, institutionalism has not been incorporated into a unified economic theory. formed. Based on the fact that institutionalism is recognized as a promising direction in the development of economic theory, the article points out the need for its adaptation to the socio-economic conditions of the development of Russian society, for which, first of all, it is necessary to develop common approaches to the definition of such basic concepts used in Russian institutionalism, as "institutional structure", "institutional environment". The analysis of the approaches of American and Russian scientists to the definition of the concept of the analyzed terms is carried out, on the basis of which, taking into account the Russian political and legal system, the author's definitions of the concept of "institutional structure" and "institutional environment" are proposed. The conclusion is substantiated that the use of these concepts in the proposed interpretation in the course of institutional analysis corresponds to an interdisciplinary approach to economic analysis, immanent institutionalism, is aimed at establishing institutionalism as a unified economic theory adapted to the realities of Russian society, capable of acting as a theoretical basis for effective public administration.

Nie taki wilk straszny – strukturalne uwarunkowania populizmu w głównym nurcie amerykańskiej demokracji

Analyzing various types of populism, we face the question of the role of tension between leaders and the structures of political systems, we face the question of the role of tension between leaders and the structures of political systems. This tension creates the „institutional paradox of populism”, in which populist leaders may rely on the institutions that are the subject of their criticism on their way to power and in how they exercise it. What unites the various perspectives on populism is that they most often contain a negative evaluative element, suggesting that the phenomena of populism are an undesirable departure from „normality”. The following text indicates that in American democracy it is quite the opposite. Phenomena associated with populism are a permanent and indispensable element of mainstream American politics. To illustrate this thesis, the convergence between the classic features of populism and the features defining the character of American democracy was demonstrated. This convergence is a derivative of the durable structures of American democracy.

From the Three Rs to the “Culture Wars”? How Australians Perceive Local Government Action on Climate Change, Indigenous Reconciliation, and LGBTQIA + Advocacy

Australian local government has rarely been the domain where entrenched and polarising cultural disputes play out, and is instead most often associated with the “3Rs”: roads, rates, and rubbish. However, in recent years, a growing number of local councils from across Australia have taken exceptional and unprecedented steps, sometimes in defiance of state and federal governments, to address some of the country's most ideologically contentious issues. Drawing on long-established American urban politics literature on local politics and culture war conflicts, this research note offers an empirical account of the public understandings and perceptions of local government roles in the realm of contentious politics, an area that has not yet been addressed in the emerging Australian literature. Our findings from a representative nation-wide survey (n = 1,350) indicate that a majority of Australians believe that local governments should be involved in matters relating to climate change, Indigenous reconciliation, and LGBTQIA + advocacy.

Lessons From Dragons: Teaching Political Science With HBO’s House of the Dragon

Since first airing on HBO in 2011, Game of Thrones (GOT) has proven to be a fruitful text for teaching and studying politics. In 2022 the prequal to GOT—House of The Dragon (HOTD) debuted on HBO. This paper conducts discourse analysis on the entire first season with two goals in mind. First, we demonstrate how pop culture is impacted by real world politics by examining the change in gender and racial representation in HOTD compared to GOT and argue that this change was a product of cultural backlash that GOT received and a result of changing political attitudes over the time of both shows airing. Second, we use the show’s content as text to teach American and Comparative politics concepts. In the appendix we provide three examples of low, mid, and high-stake assignments that use show content in teaching political science courses.

An Empire of Development: American Political Thought in Transnational Perspective

This article offers a reconceptualization of US empire by foregrounding a central concept of its theory and practice: development, an ideology and attendant set of material practices that purport to uplift a defined population through political, economic, and social interventions. Because developmental ideology promises benefits and allocates specific roles to different groups, it has worked as a racializing technology, not only defining and assigning clusters of people to hierarchies of different stages but also establishing possibilities, however limited, for movement between these stages. The article demonstrates how developmental ideas and practices have been persistent, if flexible, features across the racialized government of formerly enslaved persons and Native Americans after the Civil War, overseas expansion to the Philippines at the turn of the nineteenth century, and US participation in transnational debates about empire in the early twentieth century and its pursuit of global hegemony after World War II.

Moving the electoral goalposts: State and local strategies of electoral intervention in the U.S.

Central to the partisan divide in American politics is disagreement over the fundamental legitimacy of American elections. Due to the decentralized nature of election administration in the US, these disagreements have led to a complex web of heterogeneous electoral institutions. Scholars have made impressive progress on untangling the effects of these different institutions — unfortunately, less is known about the sources of adoption of such proposals. Using time-series cross-sectional data on the adoption of various electoral policies by state governments from 2001–2018, I examine the role of politics and identity in shaping the types of electoral interventions adopted by state legislatures during an important period of increasing politicization of such interventions. Applying dynamic panel models and constructing a novel measure of the concentration of Black population within competitive congressional districts, I find that the effects of race, competition, and ideology on electoral interventions differ across both partisan lines and issue areas.

American Politics, the American Public, and the Protection of Cultural Heritage: An Analysis of the U.S. – Cyprus Cultural Property Agreement

ABSTRACT In 1999, the United States adopted emergency restrictions on the import of Byzantine cultural material from Cyprus. That initial action has evolved into a long-standing memorandum of understanding that includes archaeological as well as ethnological materials. Recognizing the political climate in which U.S. law and the initial emergency measures were enacted and how the memorandum interacts with current social and political conditions, the authors argue that both U.S. policy and American attitudes toward antiquities trafficking and cultural heritage protection need to change.

Investigating Family metaphors in the speeches of American Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama in the United Nations General Assembly

Three salient assumptions suggested by Lakoff (1996 / 2002) in his Morality Politics Theory (MPT): (1) American political positions emerge from two independent moral worldviews that are conceptually entrenched in individuals’ beliefs about ideal families. Conservatives tend to promote the strict father (SF) family model whereas Democrats endorse the nurturant parent (NP) family model. (2) The conceptual linking or mapping of ideal parenting models onto politics occurs because people metaphorically conceptualise the nation as a family. (3) Some people may endorse both parenting models (biconceptuals), that is, they can reason about political issues using SF & NP models. Lakoff additionally argues that American politicians use two conceptual metaphors, NATION IS FAMILY and the WORLD COMMUNITY metaphors, to reason about foreign policy. Building onempirical study, this paper seeks to examine Lakoff’s(1996 / 2002) assumptionsin the speeches delivered by G. W. Bush and Barack Obama in the United Nations General Assembly. The analysis of this research corpus gives different conclusions of that suggested by Lakoff. Firstly, contrary to what was suggested by Lakoff (1996 / 2002), the data shows that Obama can be labbeled as SFand G. W. Bush as NP. Secondly, the results reveal that both speakers tend to use more logical literal entailments from the models rather than metaphorical expressions when they speak about various moral political issues.

The United States, the Defence of the Middle East and Türkiye: 1946-1952

This study analyses the early years of cooperation between Türkiye and the United States (US) in the field of security and defence by utilising US government documents and the secondary sources that heavily depend on primary sources. It emphasizes the link between the elements of the strategic context in which the US developed its approach to the defence of the Middle East and the American interest in developing defence ties with Türkiye. The major outcomes of Turkish-American cooperation were American support for Türkiye against the Soviet Union in 1946, the provision of American military assistance in 1947, the modernization of the Turkish military, the construction of military bases on Turkish territory, American support for Turkish membership in NATO and Turkish willingness to conduct its relations with the Middle East in coordination with the West. This study reveals that those outcomes reflected for the most time American political and strategic preferences. For this reason, the typical characteristics of those relations between great powers and small states can be observed in Turkish-American security relations during their formative years.