Western Political Science Association Research Articles

Making Interpretivism Visible: Reflections after a Decade of the Methods Café

ABSTRACTMore than a decade after the observation that an “interpretive turn” was percolating through political science, there are clear indications of growth in the perceived legitimacy of interpretive scholarship. Both accompanying and contributing to interpretivism’s ascent has been the regular staging of Methods Cafés at various conferences in and beyond the discipline. First held at the 2005 meeting of the Western Political Science Association, the Methods Café subsequently landed at the 2006 conference of the American Political Science Association. The Methods Café has become an institutionalized feature of these and other conferences. This reflection looks at the past, present, and future of these events, as well as the key role they have played in making interpretivism visible in the discipline. In particular, I highlight their function as non-hierarchical intellectual spaces that promote teaching, learning, and interpretivist community building. Further, I offer friendly but not uncritical commentary on the successes and limitations of the Methods Café.

Announcements: Western Political Science Association

Announcements: Western Political Science Association

Introduction: Family, State, and Difference in Political Time

Family is a topic that has often been overlooked in political science. This oversight is based at least in part on an assumption that the public and private can clearly be distinguished, and that family belongs to the private sphere, outside of public concerns about state power. This split often has been replicated within the discipline, as state power has been seen as public and therefore a central focus of the discipline, while familial concerns often have been seen as private and therefore marginal to political science. Intermingling the public and the private, the essays in this symposium bring together the study of the state and of the family. In doing so, they powerfully upend long-standing assumptions and reveal the way that these assumptions have limited the discipline’s empirical and theoretical understanding of the constitution of power and identity in political time. It is probably not a coincidence that these essays were developed at the Western Political Science Association meetings and are being published in Polity, two important venues for innovative work in political science.

Introduction: Western States Budget Reports

DOI 10.1515/1944-4370.v4i3i Calif. J. Politics Policy 2012; 4(3): 1 Introduction: Western States Budget Reports This special issue on the Western States Budget Reports is produced in collabora- tion with The Center for Public Policy & Administration (CPPA) at The University of Utah. Drawing on the expertise of political scientists in 13 western states, the reports summarize each state’s budget process development in preparation for the next fiscal year. The reports are presented each year at a roundtable discus- sion during the Western Political Science Association’s annual conference. Initi- ated in 1997, the reports are intended to be of use to individual researchers, gov- ernment officials, and anyone interested in contemporary public budgeting in a practical setting. The California Journal of Politics and Policy began publishing the reports in 2011, and reports dating back to 1997 are available online at the CPPA website at cppa.utah.edu/western-states-budgets/index.php. Gerald Lubenow University of California, Berkeley

Where We Came from: Defining the Western Political Science Association

history of the formation and early years of the Political Science Association (WPSA) has been well documented by G. Homer Durham, the founding President of the WPSA in his June 1956 Political Quarterly article, The WPSA: First Ten Years and the Next Ten. Durham described discussing organization during the 1946 annual meeting of the APSA at the Statler Hotel in Cleveland, Ohio. He reported that details of this postwar association were hammered out by a small group of colleagues in the club car of the train returning the founding group from Cleveland to the West. So the WPSA was conceived in a club car, and its first meeting took place in November of 1947 at the University of Utah. At that 1947 meeting, the constitution was adopted and officers were elected. It didn't take long, though, for the WPSA to move from constitutional consensus to division. first identity crisis of the organization occurred in the early 1950s. crisis concerned the meaning of the region. Was WPSA to be a Rockies organization (of mountain men) or a fully Western organization that would include the coastal states? Inclusiveness won out. A crisis of another sort followed on the heels of the first. In 1955, the Executive Council was faced with a difficult choice: Should the meeting scheduled in Logan, Utah, be cancelled or moved to another state because smoking inside public buildings was discovered to be illegal in the state of Utah? To quote the secretary treasurer: [The prohibition of smoking] might cause some consternation among the ranks of the heavy smokers. After much debate, the decision was made to hold the meeting in Logan. 1961 presented the WPSA with yet another crisis, this one constitutional: Should non-Westerners be allowed to chair panels of the WPSA? Showing its tolerant side, the WPSA knowingly permitted a nonWestern colleague (Professor William J. Gore of the University of Indiana) to chair a panel on Metro-Urban Issues. Gore was referred to in a letter to WPSA officers as an outsider. annual meeting in 1964, located in Salt Lake City, offered participants a change of pace from the usual. Mormon Tabernacle Choir performed for attendees at the meeting that year. Secretary of State Dean Rusk was in attendance at the performance. His thank you letter is among the documents in the archives of the WPSA. 1967 marked the beginning of era of resolutions from the floor of WPSA business meetings. Jumpstarting this new tradition, the membership passed a resolution denouncing the threat to academic freedom posed by the CIA's covert financing of academic research. WPSA members were offered opportunity in 1969 that has yet to be repeated. WPSA met that year at the Princess Kaiulani Hotel in Honolulu, Hawaii. Although the WPSA had a long-standing involvement with the shaping and growth of the Political Quarterly (now the Political Research Quarterly), the relationship between the WPSA and the WPQ was not codified until 1971 when the Council adopted the Mann Report, which formally set out the terms of this relationship. In the early 1970s, a concern with diversity and diversity-related issues became a major theme for WPSA, a theme that it has consistently embraced ever since. Caucuses were formed, studies were conducted, and official reports were written regarding the status of women, Chicanos, Blacks, and part-time faculty in the profession. Specialized awards were established to honor scholars focusing on these issues. Concern with the rights of women led to a major floor fight at the business meeting in Phoenix in 1977. A resolution was presented there that proposed barring the WPSA from meeting in states that had not approved Equal Rights Amendment or its equivalent. It passed, but not before some very harsh words were exchanged between members of the organization. Mann Report of 1971 did not anticipate some complexities of the relationship between the WPSA and the WPQ, so in 1979 the Executive Council commissioned a report and recommendations from a specially created committee. …

On the Origins of the Western Political Science Association and PRQ

As the WPSA celebrates its 60th anniversary this year, there ar few of its members who have a clear sense of the history of the organization or its journal, Political Research Quarterly (formerly Western Political Quarterly). As the chair of the Department of Political Science at the University of Utah for the past seven years, I was aware of the spe cial relationship between the University of Utah and the WPSA. Recently, I found some of the original documents related to the founding of the association and the journal, and this brief essay presents them to the membership. The WPSA was born at a meeting held on November 29, 1947, in the Little Theater in the old Union Building at the University of Utah. Actually, the idea was discussed at the Statler Hotel in Chicago the previous December during the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association. Vigor ous discussions between University of Utah professor G. Homer Durham and University of Wyoming professor Vincent Ostrom were held at the APSA meeting about establishing such an organization. Also engaged in those discussions were Frank H. Jonas, Utah State Agricultural College and later the University of Utah, and Stanford University's Charles Fairman. Later, the University of Washington's Thomas I. Cook and Whitman College's Chester C. Maxey joined in the efforts. On January 6,1947, Professor Durham wrote to Professor Cook about how to establish such a group and copied the American Political Science Association. Letters were sent to other faculty in the west with an interest in such an organization. By the end of January 1947, the president of the American Political Science Association had written back wishing the venture well. On April 5,1947, the president of the University of Utah, A. Ray Olpin, authorized the use of university facilities to hold a meeting to establish a political science associa tion in the west. The meeting was held in November at the University of Utah, a draft constitution was adopted, and officers were elected. Among the institutions repre sented at this first business meeting were the University of Utah, Stanford University, San Francisco State University, Fresno State University, University of New Mexico, University of Colorado, University of Puget Sound, University of Denver, University of Arizona, University of Oregon, Carbon College, University of Wyoming, University of Hawaii, Idaho State University, Brigham Young University, and Utah State Agricultural College. On December 29, the American Political Science Association formally accepted the Western Political Science Association as a regional group. The Western was the second such regional association rec ognized by the APSA, even though it was preceded in terms of organization by the Southern Association, the oldest of the regional political science associations; the Midwest Conference; and the Southwestern Social Science Association. The first officers of the WPSA were G. Homer Durham (Utah), president; Vincent Ostrom (Wyoming), vice president; and Frank L. Jonas (Utah), secretary-treasurer. The first program of the WPSA meeting in 1947 fea tured a symposium on the Objectives of U.S. Foreign Policy that included a paper on U.S. Objectives in the Middle East. Following a luncheon address by Charles Fairman (Stanford University and APSA vice president), an afternoon session was held on Current Develop ments in Local Government. A roundtable on Politics and Public Policy closed the meeting. Along with approving a draft constitution submitted by Professor Durham, the meeting also approved the statement of purpose of the WPSA: to promote the study and teach ing of government, to foster research, to facilitate the discussion of public affairs, and, as a section thereof, to conform to the objectives of the American Political Science Association. On January 13, 1948, the University of Utah's President Olpin provided funds and authorized the Institute of Government in the Department of

Commentary on “Citizens by Choice, Voters by Necessity: Patterns in Political Mobilization by Naturalized Latinos”

The recent growth of the Latino population can be directly attributed to changes in U.S. immigration law in the mid-1960s. As the share of Latinos who were first-generation immigrants expanded from 20 percent in 1970 to 40 percent in 2000, questions concerning Latino immigrants' impact on Latino political empowerment became salient in the emerging subfield of Latino politics. Among the handful of scholars in the subfield concerned with the political behavior of immigrants, was general agreement that the presence of large numbers of immigrants with limited resources and political experience, along with low rates of naturalization, was major reason why Latinos' demographic ascendance had not translated into greater political empowerment. One study somberly concluded that Mexican immigrants were not a political resource readily available to enhance the political fortunes of the Mexican American community and that there is little reason to conclude that Mexican immigrants will for the foreseeable future involve themselves either in Mexican American issues or in American politics more (Garcia and de la Garza 1985, 562-63). As the empirical evidence showing low rates of naturalization and political participation among Latino immigrants accumulated, some regarded them to be political liability. This general sentiment began to crumble after the passage of Proposition 187 in California. Proposition 187 appeared on the 1994 California ballot as measure designed to stop the flow of illegal immigration to the state by denying public services to undocumented immigrants as well as requiring public officials, including doctors and school teachers, to report suspected immigrants to the Immigration and Naturalization Service. Although the initiative passed easily, with 59 percent of the vote, Latino opposition was overwhelming, and the opposition to the initiative showed surprising ability to mobilize foreign-born Latinos to political action. Data on naturalization also clearly showed that Latino immigrants reacted to this initiative and other policy-based attacks by naturalizing in record numbers in the years immediately following this event. Activists asserted that Latinos generally and immigrants in particular were mobilizing, registering, and voting at record rates, set of claims to which most scholars in the subfield long familiar with the political behavior of Latino immigrants reacted with natural skepticism. Past claims of new and rapid Latino mobilizations had frequently proved to be disappointingly premature. Sensing general shift in attitudes and behaviors among our immigrant friends and family members, we were not so sure these activists had gotten it wrong. Adrian Pantoja began developing this article in Gary Segura's Minority Politics Seminar. They refined and presented it at the 1999 Western Political Science Association meeting in San Jose. On the panel was Ricardo Ramirez, presenting his own paper on the effects of political context on Latino and white voting behavior. Ricardo's insights and feedback-and his discovery of critical error in the uncorrected data set-proved to be invaluable, and he was added as coauthor. Citizens by Choice, Voters by Necessity emerged from our discomfort with the prevailing wisdom regarding Latino immigrant political behavior in the discipline and collective effort that transformed the article into an important new finding. Before this article, the Latino behavior literature largely focused on transplanting extant work on Anglos to the Latino context and introducing the relevant considerations of Latino heterogeneity, particularly on dimensions of national origin group and whether the individual was foreign born or U.S. born. Citizens by Choice, Voters by Necessity, represented break with the earlier work because it began with the recognition of new reality, one missed (or at least misunderstood) by others more established (at that time) in the field. …

Announcements: Western Political Science Association

Announcements: Western Political Science Association

Where Have You Gone, Sherman Minton? The Decline of the Short-Term Supreme Court Justice

Against the backdrop of a decade-long wait for a Supreme Court vacancy, legal academics from across the political spectrum have recently proposed or supported significant constitutional or statutory reforms designed to limit the terms of Supreme Court justices and increase the pace of turnover at the Court. Fearing a Court that is increasingly out of touch with the national mood and staffed by justices of advanced age, advocates of term and age limits contend that the trend in Supreme Court tenures is inexorably upward. But are Supreme Court justices really serving longer now than in the past? If so, why? And what might such trends mean for American constitutional democracy? In a debate otherwise dominated by law professors—and largely without careful empirical analysis—we place the issue of judicial tenure in historical perspective, with special attention to the institutional development of the Court, the changing politics of the appointments process and the types of individuals who emerge from it, and to a lesser extent, broader socio-demographic trends in technology and medicine. In the process, we show how proponents of reforms designed to end life tenure have ignored a significant factor influencing patterns in judicial service: the decline of the “short-term” justice. Trends in judicial tenure, we argue, cannot be explained by more justices serving unusually long terms; rather, they are driven at least in part by the fact that fewer justices are serving relatively short terms. In this article, we consider why justices have retired after only short service throughout much of history, why they rarely do so today, the conditions under which future justices might be compelled to serve shorter terms, and the democratic gains and losses associated with short-term service on the Court. In sum, by following the rise and fall of the short-term justice over the course of American political development, we offer a new perspective, grounded in political science, on an issue currently occupying the attention of lawyers, journalists, and policymakers alike.Justin Crowe is Assistant Professor of Politics, Pomona College (justin.crowe@pomona.edu). Christopher F. Karpowitz is Assistant Professor of Political Science, Brigham Young University (karpowtz@byu.edu). We thank Chris Achen, Steve Burbank, Chris Eisgruber, Mark Graber, Ken Kersch, Kevin McGuire, David Stras, Keith Whittington, and two anonymous reviewers for encouragement and helpful feedback. An earlier version of this article was presented at the 2006 annual meeting of the Western Political Science Association, Albuquerque, NM.

The Methods Café: An Innovative Idea for Methods Teaching at Conference Meetings

Interpretive research methods of various sorts have long been used to study “the political,” but the full range of such methods is not widely known, and many are curious about what they entail. Others, who begin to use one or another of them, have questions about how to proceed. For those just learning about these methods, questions may be as basic as: “What does ethnomethodology mean?” “What is semiotic analysis?” “Are these approaches recognized as legitimate in political science?” Scholars engaging, or perhaps teaching, these methods might ask, e.g., “How do ethnographers overcome problems of accessing their field site, talking to strangers, and turning a year's worth of observational and interview notes into concise text?” We thank 2005 and 2006 Program Chairs Ron Schmidt and Val Martinez-Ebers and Executive Director Betty Moulds and Associate Director Elsa Favila at the Western Political Science Association, and Qualitative Methods 2006 Section Program Chairs Julia Lynch and Melani Cammett, and Michael Brintnall, Rob Hauck, Christina Marmor, and others on the conference organizing staff at APSA. Michael and Rob came to the Café at the Western in 2006 to see for themselves what it was that we were trying to do. We are grateful for their help in making it possible at APSA. And, of course, we thank all those colleagues who have contributed their time and thought to creating the Café with us, including Cecelia Lynch, who saw right at the beginning that it was a ‘café’ and came up with its definitive name.

Gender Trouble at Abu Ghraib?

This essay explores the controversy spawned by the release, in April, 2004, of the photographs taken by U.S. military personnel at the Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad. Its particular concern is with photographs that depict American servicewomen engaged in various forms of abusive conduct against Iraqi prisoners. In its opening half, the essay examines and criticizes the responses to these photographs offered, first, by right-wing commentators and, second, by American feminists, most notably Barbara Ehrenreich. All read these photographs as a referendum on feminism and, more particularly, its commitment to the cause of gender equality; and all do so, I argue, on the basis of a naive understanding of gender. In its latter half, accordingly, the essay offers a more adequate understanding of gender, one loosely grounded in the work of Judith Butler and the concept of performativity. Referencing various official interrogation manuals, as well as the investigative reports released in the wake of this scandal, the essay employs this concept in offering a more adequate account of the gendered import of the deeds depicted in the Abu Ghraib photographs. It concludes by arguing that what is important about these photographs is neither whether the perpetrators of the exploitation they depict are male or female, nor whether the deeds they portray somehow compromise the feminist quest for gender equality. Rather, what is important are the multiple ways in which specifically gendered practices, which can be detached from the bodies they conventionally regulate, are deployed as elements within a more comprehensive network of technologies aimed at disciplining prisoners and so confirming their status as abject subjects of U.S. military power.This essay has its origins in a roundtable titled “Gender Relations in the Age of Neo-Liberalism,” which was conducted in conjunction with the 2005 meeting of the Western Political Science Association. I wish to thank the other participations on that roundtable, Jane Bayes, Mary Hawkesworth, and Judith Hicks Stiehm, as well as Paul Apostolidis, Renee Heberle, Jinee Lokaneeta, Jeannie Morefield, Aaron Perrine, Kari Tupper, and three anonymous reviewers for their comments on earlier drafts of the essay.

Consenting Adults? Amish Rumspringa and the Quandary of Exit in Liberalism

The Amish are often cited as a paradigm illiberal group, mistrustful of and separated from the modern world. But the Amish practice of rumspringa complicates this common image. At age 16, Amish children are released from church strictures and given a year or more to “run around” in violation of Amish norms. Only after the opportunity to taste life with cars, electricity, alcohol, and rock and roll do Amish-raised teens decide whether to be baptized and enter the church. Consent must be express, never tacit: to paraphrase Locke, an Amish youth is born a member of no church. But is rumspringa a meaningful exit option? Are there plausible ways to make it more meaningful? What does this practice suggest about the debate between “toleration” and “autonomy” liberals, who divide over whether illiberal minority cultures ought to be accepted or somehow reformed? This paper brings a potent case study to the cultural rights debate and argues that both sides fundamentally err. While tolerance liberals tend to vastly underestimate what is required of a meaningful right of exit, autonomy liberals fail to appreciate how much intervention would be necessary to provide such a right. The Amish case suggests that the exit option is deeply flawed as the litmus test for whether and how minorities should be accommodated in a liberal polity.Steven V. Mazie is assistant professor of politics at Bard High School Early College in Manhattan and has taught previously at Bard College, New York University, and the University of Michigan (smazie@bard.edu). His articles have appeared recently in Polity, Field Methods, and The Brandywine Review of Faith and International Affairs. His first book, Israel's Higher Law: Religion and Liberal Democracy in the Jewish State, is forthcoming in early 2006. Earlier versions of this article were delivered at annual meetings of the Western Political Science Association (2003) and the Midwestern Political Science Association (2004) and in a Bard High School Early College Faculty Seminar (2005). The author would like to thank anonymous reviewers, the editors of Perspectives on Politics, and particularly Jennifer Hochschild for their valuable suggestions and criticisms. In addition, he is grateful to Herman Bontrager, Harry Chotiner, Andrey Falko, John Hagan, JoAnne Jensen, Donald Kraybill, Chandran Kukathas, Emile Lester, Carol Levy, Renanit Levy, Marc Olshan, Marek Steedman, Conrad Stern-Ascher, Jennifer Sutton, Lucy Walker, David Wiacek, Ed Wingenbach, Joe Wittmer, and Lee Zook.

Presidents of the Western Political Science Association

Presidents of the Western Political Science Association

Western Political Science Association Presents Annual Awards

As part of the 2003 Annual Meeting in Denver, the WPSA presented awards to these outstanding scholars and students.

Western Political Science Association Presents Annual Awards

Western Political Science Association Presents Annual Awards

The Relationship Between State Government Performance and State Quality of Life#

This article examines the relationship between government performance and quality of life in the American states. We contend that the management capacity of state governments should have direct, tangible impacts on the overall social and economic well‐being of state citizenry. In order to test this idea, we examine the influence of state management capacity (using the 1999 Government Performance Project grades), alongside other economic and political variables, on two prominent measures of state quality of life—The Morgan Quitno “Most Livable State” Index and State Policy Reports' (SPP) “Camelot Index.” We find that both state economic conditions and governmental policy priorities have significant impacts on state performance levels. But, our results clearly indicate that the management capacity of state governments also contributes directly to improving the overall quality of life for state citizens. #A version of this article was presented at the Annual Meeting of the Western Political Science Association, March 27–29, 2003, Denver, Colorado.

Presidents of the Western Political Science Association

Presidents of the Western Political Science Association

State & Regional Associations

Western Political Science Association Presents Annual AwardsAs part of it 2001 Annual Meeting in Las Vegas, the WPSA presented five awards to outstanding scholars and students.Pi Sigma Alpha Award, for the best paper at the 2000 WPSA meeting, to Robert W. Mickey, doctoral candidate, Harvard University, for his paper “Ruling Parties in a Bind: The Transitions of South Carolina and Mississippi in Comparative Perspective.

How to Select a Publisher in Political Science

Convention. Unpublished paper. -. 1984. Early Women in Political Science: the Personal Side. Paper delivered at annual meeting of Western Political Science Association, Sacramento, April 12-14. . 1986. Support for Academic Women in Political Science, 1890-1945. Women and Politics 6 (Fall 1986) 75-104. deGrazia, Alfred, and Charles L. Ruttenberg. 1963. Innovators in the Study of the Legal Process. The American Behavioral Scientist 7:48-52.

Public Opinion and Congressional Representation

The political views of citizens should be reflected in the government of a democratic society. Typically, citizens' views are expressed by their elected representatives. We used the Center for Political Studies (CPS) 1986 National Election Study and a mail survey of the U.S. House of Representatives to look at representation collectively and dyadically. Collectively, we find some degree of congruence between leaders and followers. However, there are significant differences between them on half of the issue items, with the leaders usually taking more extreme positions than the followers. We looked at leaders and followers dyadically in 33 districts using Achen's measures of representation. We found that the representatives' views are fairly close to those of their constituents, that representatives are efficient at positioning themselves at the mean constituent position, and that representatives respond to shifts in liberalism/ conservatism in their districts. Legislative representation has been the topic of numerous political debates. One controversy centers on the role of the legislator in relation to his or her constituency. Are legislators free to act as please? Should use their own judgment to do what is best for their constituents? Or are representatives, by definition, required to reflect accurately the opinions of their constituents? We respond no Public Opinion Quarterly Volume 56:185-205 ? 1992 by the American Association for Public Opinion Research All nghts reserved. 0033-362X/92/5602-0001$02.50 CHERYL LYN HERRERA is a Ph.D. candidate in political science at the University of California, Santa Barbara. RICHARD HERRERA is assistant professor of political science at Arizona State University. ERIC R. A. N. SMITH is associate professor of political science at the University of California, Santa Barbara. We would like to thank Richard Brody, John Geer, Kim F. Kahn, John Kessel, Patrick Kenney, Warren Miller, and two anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on previous drafts of this article. An earlier version of this article was presented at the 1988 Western Political Science Association meeting in San Francisco. Some of the data used in this paper were made available by the Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research. We bear sole responsibility for the analyses and interpretations presented here. This content downloaded from 207.46.13.33 on Sat, 26 Nov 2016 04:22:08 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 186 Herrera, Herrera, and Smith to the first question and argue that legislators should use their own judgment as well as reflect public and opinion. This is consistent with Pitkin's definition of political representation, which includes the idea that legislators should act in the of those represented and that they should look after the public and be responsive to public opinion, except insofar as non-responsiveness can be justified in terms of the public interest (Pitkin 1967, p. 224). In democracies, citizens' views are expressed by their elected representatives. Thus, most empirical studies of representation focus on the extent of agreement between political leaders and the mass public. Agreement between legislators and the public can be conceived of collectively or dyadically (Weissberg 1978). Collective representation refers to a collective body representing a people, while dyadic representation refers to a particular legislator and the constituency that elected that legislator. We shall employ both dyadic and collective measures of representation in order to provide as much information about the representativeness of members of Congress as possible. We use the opinions of the members of the U.S. House of Representatives, rather than the rollcall votes, because we believe that representatives' opinions serve as proxies for their behavior. Studies show a high correlation between attitudes and behavior (Smith, Herrera, and Herrera 1990; Sullivan and O'Connor 1972). In addition, congressional attitudes are important in their own right, functioning in the long gestation period before roll-calls, setting the agenda, and framing the specific questions to be decided by a roll-call (Backstrom 1977, p. 412).