ABSTRACT In 1988, the Anti-Drug Abuse Act authorized the use of the death penalty for individuals who committed murder while involved in certain federal drug crimes. In recent years, as America has grappled with rising opioid overdose deaths, there has been an increase in calls for expanding murder charges and capital punishment for individuals who deliver drugs that result in an overdose death. Utilizing content analysis of news media and presidential speeches, this paper explores the claims-making process surrounding the arguments in favor of sentencing people who deal drugs to death during the 1980s and the contemporary opioid crisis. Findings demonstrate that three rhetorical tactics were employed during the Reagan and Trump Administrations to garner support for this practice: focusing on intent and impact of drug dealing, engaging in the argumentative fallacy of appealing to emotion, and utilizing racial scapegoating. Such claims seek to widen the definition of murder, in turn broadening the criminalization of people who use drugs. Such an approach may increase the number of overdose deaths by undermining Good Samaritan Laws and impacting the likelihood that users will contact emergency services during an overdose event, thus undermining the purported intent of these policies to reduce overdose deaths.

This paper examines the connection between Ronald Reagan's government and the Moral Majority in the early 1980s. In this work, the study aims to analyze how the Reagan administration potentially aligned with the Moral Majority in order to rally evangelical voters without fulfilling key promises the organization wanted later on. With a combination of both primary and secondary sources, existing records show how close ties between both sides faded after Reagan's rise to the presidency. The findings suggest that although the Moral Majority did play a significant role in consolidating conservative evangelical support and substantiating Reagan's electoral coalition, its influence on federal policy remained limited. Reagan's administration prioritized economic reform and foreign policy over issues such as abortion, school prayer, and the Equal Rights Amendment that the Moral Majority pushed for. Ultimately, this work concludes that the relationship was largely symbolic in which it was marked by rhetorical support rather than legislative action.

In this observational study, we provide estimates of the impact on the maternal mortality ratio of swings in US aid for family planning and reproductive health driven by changes in the implementation of the Mexico City Policy-first introduced as the US Policy on Population Assistance under the Reagan administration in 1984 and often referred to as the Global Gag Rule (GGR). The policy prohibits US foreign assistance for family planning to overseas non-governmental organisations that provide, make referrals to or promote abortion-related services or information, even when financed through non-US funds. Since first implemented by President Reagan in 1984, the GGR has been enacted under every Republican president and revoked under every Democrat. The policy was tightened under President Trump in his first presidency in 2017 and expanded to apply to all US global health assistance. Using data for the period 1985-2023, covering 150 countries worldwide and using a quasi-experimental study design, we estimate that a switch from a Democratic to a Republican administration, for a country with above median reliance on US family planning aid, is associated with an additional 44.7 maternal deaths per 100 000 live births-an increase of 10.5%. This erodes roughly one-fifth of the average worldwide decline in maternal mortality achieved since 1985. Additionally, our findings offer suggestive evidence of potential mechanisms including a reduction in contraceptive use, an increase in unmet need for contraception and a decrease in the proportion of births attended by skilled health workers.

This paper examines Poland's experience with extended deterrence across two pivotal historical junctures: the Solidarity Movement crisis (1980 - 1981) and the ongoing Russo-Ukrainian conflict (2022 - present). The analysis applies a comparative historical method supported by primary sources including declassified CIA documents and Politburo transcripts, alongside secondary academic literature and quantitative defense data. Poland's geopolitical position, shaped by centuries of partition, Soviet domination, and the trauma of the Molotov - Ribbentrop Pact, has produced a security culture defined by acute vulnerability and deep-seated reliance on external guarantors. During the Solidarity crisis, the Carter and Reagan administrations pursued a proactive deterrence strategy through explicit threats of sanctions, material support for the opposition, coordination with NATO allies, and exploitation of the Sino-Soviet rivalry. While the strategy successfully prevented direct Soviet military intervention, it failed to prevent the imposition of martial law in December 1981. Nevertheless, Solidarity's underground survival, sustained by continued Western support, ultimately contributed to Poland's democratic transition and the broader collapse of the Eastern Bloc. In the context of the Ukrainian conflict, Poland has evolved from a passive object of geopolitical competition into an assertive security actor, dramatically increasing its defense budget to over 3% of GDP, providing substantial military assistance to Ukraine, deepening U.S. military presence on its territory, and actively pursuing NATO nuclear sharing arrangements. The paper identifies strong strategic continuity in Poland's transatlantic orientation across both periods, while also identifying key limitations: excessive dependence on an external guarantor creates moral hazard, and intensified militarization risks deepening the security dilemma with Russia.

ABSTRACT The intersection of environmental politics, regionalism, and Congressional policymaking is not well-examined by extant scholarship, so it is unclear to what extent regionalism within parties explains Congressional actions, particularly as it pertains to shifting partisan dynamics and focus on nationalized issues, such as climate change. The authors use data from the League of Conservation Voters to track voting behaviors among members of Congress from 1971 to 2022. Findings indicate that regional differences within parties did not emerge until the Reagan administration, but subsequently increased in significance, hitting their peak during the Obama administration. By the Trump administration, regionalism within parties began to dissipate as partisan voting practices converged on environmental issues.

A keyword search of "sex therapy" in the New York Times shows a rapid rise for articles covering the discipline in the 1970s, an equally rapid reduction in the 1980s, and further decline in the 1990s and into the 2000s. This surprising inflection, given that sex as a marketable construction did not decline in the late 20th century, opens room to examine sex therapy in the contexts in which it could and could not be successful. Sex therapy as a distinct intervention emerged in the 1960s, based on Masters' and Johnson's obstetric-gynecological research focus on satisfying, conjugal sex, and was boundaried by the optics of medical respectability. Sex therapy viewed sex as a bodily, visible, and behavioral phenomenon, with sexual problems conceived as overt and physiological symptoms and syndromes of the body. Correspondingly, sex therapy offered behavioral techniques to white middle-class clients to ameliorate dissatisfying sex. These conceptions were met with success and popularity in the 1970s, with thousands of sex therapy centers opening nationwide in just a few years. However, with the Reagan administration and AIDS crisis in the early 1980s, sex therapy quickly regressed as a respectable source of medical expertise about sex. Simultaneously, biomedical interventions more broadly replaced medicalized solutions for pre-conceived medical problematics. The introduction of Viagra in 1998 was a biomedical replacement of the medicalized sexual problems created by sex therapy, situated on the observable body. When a seemingly even more bodily and behavioral bio-medical solution to its problematics competed with sex therapy for its same white middle-class client base, sex therapy could not maintain public awareness of its disciplinarity.

Adherents of unitary executive theory claim the president has exclusive authority over the conduct of foreign policy. Why, then, are some presidents impeached after being involved in foreign policy scandals while others are not? Through a structured, focused comparison, I analyze the Iran-contra affair that embroiled the Reagan administration in the 1980s and the Ukrainian phone call scandal precipitated by President Donald Trump in 2019. I find support for the presidential contrition hypothesis as evidenced through Reagan’s apology which helped cauterize his scandal. I find weak support for the partisan impeachment hypothesis where instances of impeachment become more frequent as partisan polarization increases. I conclude that impeachment does not function the way the public and scholars expect—as a tool to remove the president from office. The cases analyzed here reveal the threat of impeachment caused administration policy to realign with legislative intent.

Bad Faith Disregard of Benefits and Science in Federal Environmental Deregulation

This article analyzes the rhetorical significance of nonhuman animal Otherness in Tony Kushner’s landmark two-part play Angels in America, which premiered in 1991 and 1992, respectively, and ambitiously explored (national) identity politics through the depiction of the AIDS crisis during the Reagan administration. Nonhuman animals appear in the text in multiple instances, articulating a rhetorical space of interspecies encounters at the center of which stands humans’ assimilation of time and the bodily experience. This study examines such spaces and imagery in order to, on the one hand, describe Kushner’s creative approach to nonhuman animals in the play and, on the other, shed some light on the exegetical possibilities that a serious consideration of nonhuman Otherness might entail. Drawing on animal studies scholarship, emphasis is placed on the ethical and historical significance that other species had in the AIDS epidemic and in the context of postmodernity—a role that has been largely overlooked by critics of the play. Although Kushner’s anthropocentric scope is undeniable, the AIDS crisis prompts discussions on interspecies encounters that implicate nonhuman animals at a scientific, cultural and ethical level. By re-historicizing nonhuman animals as agents and victims of (human) disease, we may better reassert their position as subjects worthy of moral consideration and explore how the rhetoric of illness can broaden its scope to include other species’ subjectivities and experience.

Studiesperceptions of the Reagan administration and played a key role in defining the president's image.Dr Anthony Eames expanded the discussion further so as to consider the international implications of Reagan's re-election.This focused on Reagan's relationship with Margaret Thatcher and how his approach to Cold War strategy played into the 1984 campaign's narrative of American renewal and strength.Professor Iwan Morgan concluded the panel by assessing the lasting implications of the 1984 election.He argued that Reagan's landslide cemented low-tax, free-market conservatism as a dominant force in American politics and laid the groundwork for the end of the Cold War and the emergence of Bill Clinton's Democratic Party.The panellists subsequently engaged with broader questions about the nature of incumbency, the role of social issues, and the shifting ideological battle lines in American politics.

The Vietnam War profoundly reshaped American politics, society, and military institutions, leaving behind what came to be known as the Vietnam Syndrome a reluctance to support overseas interventions and a demand for greater accountability. This paper examines how the Reagan administration (1981-1989), operating in the shadow of Vietnam, adapted U.S. conflict policy through public rhetoric, military reform, political oversight, and operational practice. Drawing on presidential speeches, congressional resolutions, and military doctrine, this work argues that the Vietnam War fundamentally redefined U.S. conflict strategy by producing a dual legacy of political caution and institutional reform. Reagans public messaging reframed Vietnam as a noble cause while assuring the public that future interventions would be limited and decisive. The Weinberger Doctrine and FM 100-5 translated lessons of Vietnam into military structure and strategy, emphasizing clear objectives, unified command, and joint coordination. Meanwhile, congressional oversight, embodied in S.J. Res. 186, underscored a new expectation of accountability in decisions of war and peace. Finally, the 1983 Grenada intervention demonstrated how these principles were applied in practice. Taken together, these developments reveal how the Vietnam experience functioned not merely as a trauma but as a catalyst for long-term adaptation, ensuring that American power was projected in ways that were both politically accountable and strategically sustainable.

ABSTRACT The article analyzes the formation and impact of the United States Friends of the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, a little-known but well-connected group of prominent Americans that operated during Argentina’s State Terrorism. It argue that the Friends provide a unique example of the protection-based advocacy that emerged to combat the Reagan administration’s human rights policies. Through archives, personal papers, government documents, and oral histories, the article exposes how a uniquely composed group sought to provide a powerful backing to the Mothers at a critical moment in transnational human rights advocacy.

Despite the combination of strong parties and insecure majorities in U.S. legislative institutions, Senate committees play a vital role in confirmation politics. A theory of selective committee delay is proposed that predicts that ideologically-vulnerable Senate committees constitute a primary source of confirmation delay. Evidence supporting this logic is obtained from nearly 10,000 U.S. federal PAS executive nominations between the Reagan and Trump administrations. Unified (divided) partisan alignment between the Senate and president is associated with protracted (swifter) committee confirmation processes when committees' policy interests diverge from those of the presidents. These findings highlight how the confirmation process serves as both a decentralized and variable procedural constraint on the executive branch appointment process within a separation of powers framework. More broadly, presidential nominee selection choices must account for the relative ideological positions of Senate committees, and that chamber-oriented rule changes to the confirmation process are unlikely to affect confirmation delay.

The idea for an acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) memorial was developed in 1988, as a small group of San Franciscans wanted to honor the huge losses suffered in their community. People with AIDS had for so long been disrespected by so many, with the disease not being seriously addressed by the Reagan administration and others. They chose a piece of land in Golden Gate Park for the National AIDS Memorial Grove called the de Laveaga Dell, which was desperately in need of repairs. This area of the park was so run down, it was not and could not be accessible to the public. This intervention took an unusable space and allowed it to become not just functional but eventually sacred. This is a memorial that functions as a place to honor loved ones, to place ashes, to have ceremonies, or just to commune with nature. The hope is that, as the memorial expands, new people are able to learn the history and gain awareness. As the world slowly inches toward eliminating AIDS, this memorial is further necessitated to prevent history from repeating itself. The Grove, combined with the AIDS Memorial Quilt that they oversee, symbolize both hope for an end to AIDS and remembering the lost. Yet in the community engagement—from monthly volunteer workdays to individual garden pruning opportunities to quilt panel making and more—the success of the monument is determined, not by awards, but by the building of communities and finding friendship. The history and development of this space deserves to be told, so that its successes can be modeled as the basis for future memorials. But further, the involvement in maintaining the monument and making the quilts deserves to be taught and shared; encouraging participation illustrates how a memorial can live in the people who visit, volunteer, and maintain it. In this instance, intervening in a wasted park space allowed for the creation of one of the most treasured and importance spaces in San Francisco.

ABSTRACTThe Mexico City Policy provides for the discontinuation of U.S. government funding for foreign non‐governmental organizations (NGOs) that provide legal abortion services. While Republican administrations have repeatedly pushed for the introduction of the Mexico City Policy after their re‐election, those regulations have been rescinded by Democratic administrations. All in all, numerous introductions and abolitions of the Mexico City Policy resulted during the last 40 years since the Reagan administration had introduced this law. Thus, NGOs working in this field are always dependent on these political fluctuations in the United States for funding and are thus exposed to an uncertain political environment. This article pursues the following research interest: It seeks to analyse the reasons along which the Mexico City Policy is introduced and abolished. The theoretical perspective of the political “backlash” is used for this, whereby the Mexico City Policy, in contrast to other backlash policies, has the particularity that it has been introduced and cancelled several times over the years. The focus here is primarily on the causes of a backlash policy: On the base of three phases, the Mexico City Policy is analysed along the republican as well as democratic administrations under certain structural conditions of the political and social system. The structural conditions are characterized by a pluralistic interest mediation structure, societal cleavages and its deepening through populist action. The three phases show that the Mexico City Policy is not primarily characterized by a backlash policy, but by a backlash‐frontlash logic in which the Mexico City Policy is cancelled and reintroduced. The backlash‐frontlash movement has led to tense Government–NGO Relations. In this context, this article also takes into account the counter‐reactions of the international NGOs concerned, where the strategy of “successful failure” is obvious.

This article explores the international context surrounding the emergence and intensification of anti-nuclear movements in Western Europe during the late 1970s and early 1980s, focusing particularly on the responses of U.S. governmental agencies. It analyzes how these movements were perceived and managed by the United States within the broader framework of U.S.-Soviet negotiations on arms control. The research draws upon a comprehensive range of primary sources, including archival records from the Carter and Reagan administrations, materials from the U.S. Department of State and the Central Intelligence Agency (including digitally accessible collections), previously unpublished documents from the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union held at the Russian State Archive of Contemporary History, as well as contemporary press materials and memoir literature.Based on a detailed examination of archival and supplementary sources, the study highlights three primary findings. Firstly, NATO’s decision to deploy intermediate-range nuclear missiles in Western Europe served as the critical catalyst for the rapid growth of anti-nuclear activism in the region. Secondly, U.S. governmental bodies perceived the proliferation of anti-nuclear protests not as isolated incidents, but rather as closely interlinked with ongoing strategic arms-reduction negotiations between the United States and the Soviet Union. Thirdly, U.S. policy sought actively to reassure Western European public opinion regarding the reliability of American security guarantees and to reinforce the indispensability of the transatlantic alliance. Such efforts aimed strategically at minimizing Soviet influence over anti-nuclear movements in Western Europe. The article concludes that the U.S. approach was instrumental not only in mitigating anti-American sentiment, but also in establishing conditions conducive to productive arms-control negotiations with the USSR.

Abstract Today, two touchstones of the conservative legal movement are support for the unitary executive theory and skepticism of affirmative action policies. This article reveals a connection between these two positions, demonstrating how policy disputes over civil rights contributed to conservative efforts to increase and legitimize presidential control over the bureaucracy through the controversial claim that the president possesses the whole executive power under Article II. Specifically, I examine two intertwined controversies from 1983, which pit the Reagan White House and Department of Justice (DOJ) against the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and U.S. Commission on Civil Rights (USCCR), two agencies that Reagan officials viewed as obstacles to pursuing its preferred civil rights agenda. Conflicts between the DOJ and EEOC led the administration to deploy the unitary executive theory to help centralize control over its civil rights litigation strategy, while clashes with the USCCR spurred the administration to assert the theory's tenets amid battles over that agency's reauthorization. While these episodes yielded mixed political and legal outcomes, the early articulations of the unitary executive theory that emerged helped to elaborate and advance a controversial constitutional doctrine about presidential power that has become increasingly consequential over time.

ABSTRACT This article draws on numerous primary sources to tease out the “usable sacred histories” that Sanctuary Movement congregations of the 1980s invoked in declaring their houses of worship a “sanctuary” for Central American refugees. These declarations often vaguely alluded to precedents in the ancient world, the Bible, the Middle Ages, the Americas, and the Holocaust, offering a broad base of usable sacred histories that informed the imagination of sanctuary organizers. This article argues that congregations tapped into and in many cases clearly deployed “usable sacred histories” to justify in large part their entry into the decade’s sanctuary civil disobedience standoff with the Reagan administration. This article examines over thirty sanctuary declarations, resolutions, and statements along with brief articles and speeches. Together, they demonstrate the power of “usable sacred histories” written by sanctuary organizers and sympathizers, helping us to understand a key religious dimension of this nationwide movement.

This essay examines the historical and theological evolution of Ecclesiology of Liberation in Latin America. The aim is to provide critical reflections on the attacks that Ecclesiology of Liberation has faced over the past century "At first, the Latin American Catholic Church was influenced by medieval essentialist theology, which opposed socialist ideas.".. In the twentieth century, Theology of Libertation emerged in response to the theoretical-theological crisis experienced by "revolutionary Christians" engaged in political struggle. This theology proposed rethinking the conception of salvation as to the historical process of Liberation. The critique of European theology by Latin American theologians introduced a historical dimension to soteriology, leading the Church to recognize the necessity of constructing the Kingdom of God among people through historical processes of Liberation. Ecclesiology of Liberation sought to renew ecclesial practices but faced opposition from traditional European theology. Political factors, such as U.S. influence and the rise of neoconservatism during Reagan's administration, also affected Theology of Libertation. Despite criticisms, Theology of Libertation remains active, adapting to new realities and diversifying into areas such as feminist, Indigenous, and African theology. The election of Pope Francis brought renewed hope to this theology, which continues to strive to remain relevant in a globalized world.

ABSTRACT This article focuses on American support for the mujahideen in the context of the Soviet-Afghan war. It underlines that the Afghan resistance was multifaceted and disunited and that US policy was confused and uncertain as to which faction to support. Ultimately, American relied on Pakistan to guide its regional policy, a choice that was both forced and in the long run misguided. This article shows how the objectives of US policy originated under the Carter and not the Reagan administration. Although Reagan did transform a covert policy into an open commitment and escalated the level of US support to unprecedented levels, the main goals of his policy remained similar to those pursued by Carter, with both administrations operating within a clear Cold War mindset. Subsequent claims that these policies led to the creation of the Taliban and Al Qaeda are forcefully disputed.