Taubeneck's Laws: Third Parties in American Politics in the Late Nineteenth Century

Third parties were a persistent and important aspect of American politics after the Civil War and have been as well a continuing focus of scholarly interest. This article discusses both the history and the historiography of the most prominent third party by examining the attitudes and actions of Herman E. Taubeneck, the national chairman of the People's or Populist Party. Taubeneck drew from his participation in and study of American politics to formulate a set of laws that he believed defined the creation, organization, direction, and success of third parties in the American political context. His analysis remarkably foreshadowed the ways in which modern scholars, drawing from several different disciplinary perspectives and methodologies, have only recently begun to explain and clarify the complex course of Populism. But Taubeneck's incomplete application of his own principles helped to disrupt and destroy the Populist Party itself.     

President Clinton and the Republican Congress, 1995-2000: Political and Policy Dimensions of Veto Politics in Divided Government

This article melds alternative theoretical perspectives on veto threats to explain President Clinton's influence over legislative outcomes in the 104th-106th Congresses (1995-2000). Formal models of executive-legislative relations–in particular the "coordination model"–yield an incomplete understanding of veto politics and executivelegislative conflict from 1995-2000. Explaining Clinton's success through veto politics requires a recognition of the unique context of legislative conflict from 1995-96. Presidential- congressional relations in the 104th Congress turned on "blame-game" politics that Clinton manipulated to his advantage. Clinton's second term heralded a return to "normal politics" during which the Republican majority's response to his veto threats coincided better with the basic tenets of the coordination model. Quantitative analysis of Clinton's public threats and secondary analysis of bill histories are brought to bear to test the theoretical framework.     

(Re)asserting Indigenous Rights and Jurisdictions within a Politics of Place: Transformative Nature of Native Title Negotiations in South Australia

Australia's dominant politics of place has largely failed to give meaningful recognition to Indigenous peoples. The Native Title Act 1993 required governments, industry and others to (re)consider the basis and extent of their authority, unsettling the non‐Indigenous systems’ assumed dominance. While Indigenous hopes about Native title have diminished as a result of subsequent judicial, legislative and administrative responses, Native title negotiations have been pivotal in redefining politics of place and Indigenous–settler relationships in Australia at several scales. Focusing on South Australia's Statewide Indigenous Land Use Agreement Negotiation Strategy, this paper considers such a redefinition. The paper identifies four strategies as critical to success in transformative spatial politics: getting process right; recognising and supporting Indigenous jurisdictions; engaging and transforming non‐Indigenous scales; and shifting Native title process away from legalities, towards people and relationships. Since 1999, these strategies have transformed the politics of place and built more equitable inter‐cultural relationships and networks based on mutual recognition and respect between Indigenous and non‐Indigenous rights and interests in land and waters.     

Traceable Tasks and Complex Policies: When Politics Matter for Policy Implementation

Implementation represents a key venue for the expression of political conflict. The challenge of illusory implementation, implementing the law's letter but not its spirit, has long vexed scholars and architects of public policy. We develop a political model of policy implementation to predict the kinds of politics—electoral, group, administrative—that different parts of complicated laws activate during implementation. Using original state‐level data on landmark education policy, we assess whether and how these politics render illusory implementation more or less likely for specific policy tasks embedded in complex laws. Consistent with our model, we find electoral politics render illusory implementation less likely for a narrow set of tasks. Group‐based politics and administrative politics bear on illusory implementation for a broader set of tasks in diverse ways. Overall, how policy activates politics during implementation depends on the features of the policy lever, where it is put into practice, and how traceable it is to the bureaucrats who do the implementing. Further, the results underscore how nuanced insights about implementation emerge when one considers individual components of complex laws, rather than treating the laws themselves whole cloth.     

Legal Literacy and Immovable Property: Laws,Norms and Practices in Colombia

An equitable gender distribution of property ownership may be enhanced or limited by family law, individual knowledge of the law, and social norms. South America's laws of equal inheritance by sex and birth order and equal distribution of property upon divorce provide the basis of a gender‐equitable distribution of property ownership. This report of a qualitative case study exploring the gendered knowledge of immovable property laws and the practice of patterns of property ownership in central Colombia provides insights into the gap between law and practice caused by lack of information, social norms, gendered access to legal titles, a complex legal system and high transaction costs. It argues for greater attention to titling, legal procedures, legal education and legal advice to secure effective immovable property ownership for women.     

Is State Gambling Policy “Morality Policy”? Framing Debates Over State Lotteries

The politics of so‐called “morality policies” including same‐sex marriage, abortion, gun control, and gambling have captured the attention of both the public and political scientists in recent years. Many studies have argued that morality policy constitutes a category of public policy that has distinctive characteristics (such as technical simplicity and less amenability to compromise) compared with non‐morality policy. However, in a recent contribution Mucciaroni argues that morality “policy” should instead be viewed primarily as a strategy for framing issues. Drawing on examples from the debate over gay rights, Mucciaroni finds that opponents focus on rational‐instrumental or procedural frames more so than engaging in “morality talk.” In this study, I seek to extend Mucciaroni's analysis to the issue of lottery gambling in the United States. Drawing on data from legislative records in four states, I find that lottery critics mostly avoid private behavior‐based morality arguments. Instead, they criticize government's role in sanctioning lotteries and denounce the negative consequences of gambling. Supporters, meanwhile, emphasize the potential benefits of lottery creation and the importance of allowing the state public a voice on the issue. The results indicate that rational‐instrumental arguments coexist alongside morality talk in state lottery debates, and that private behavior morality frames are on the decline while governmental morality frames are on the rise.     

Tracing children’s politics

This article sets out to conceptualize children’s political agency and the spaces of children’s politics by addressing children’s politics in official settings and everyday contexts. The study is based on research concerning child and youth policies and the politics played out in children’s everyday life practices. To demonstrate how childhood policies typically seek to involve children in politics, we discuss recent legislative developments related to building a parliamentary apparatus for children’s participation in Finland. We propose that not all children are able to, or willing to, participate actively in this kind of political action, and that all issues important to children can not be processed through (semi)official arenas such as school councils, children’s parliaments and civic organizations. Thus, we agree with scholarship portraying children as political agents also in their everyday environments and on their own terms. To further conceptualize these mundane politics, we propose a model for identifying different modes and spaces of children’s agency in terms of political involvement and political presence. We conclude by discussing the challenges of studying everyday political geographies in childhood.     

Defiant Innovation: The Adoption of Medical Marijuana Laws in the American States

Diffusion research often characterizes the role of the federal government in innovation adoption as a supportive one, either increasing the likelihood of adoption or its speed. We examine the adoption of medical marijuana laws (MMLs) from 1996 to 2014 to shed light on what motivates states to adopt innovations that are in explicit defiance of federal law. Furthermore, we examine whether federal signals have any influence on the likelihood of adoption. In doing so, we utilize implementation theory to expand our understanding of how the federal government's position impacts state policy innovation adoption. We find mixed evidence for the influence of federal signals on the adoption of MMLs. The results suggest that medical marijuana policies are much more likely to be adopted in states when proponents have the political or institutional capital, rather than a medical or fiscal need. Moreover, this political capital is sufficient independent of the federal government's real or perceived position.     

The German politics of war: Kunduz and the war in Afghanistan

This article analyses the way in which Germany's participation in the international intervention in Afghanistan has shaped and transformed the country's politics of defence and deriving policies. It argues that in the wake of operational challenges posed by the insurgency in northern Afghanistan since 2007, and in particular the increasing rate of German combat fatalities, established post‐Cold War dogmas of German politics are becoming subject to erosion. Developments in the Kunduz region of northern Afghanistan, with the tanker bombing of 4 September 2009 as its apex, have had a catalyst function in this process. In particular, strategic, operational and tactical requirements for counterinsurgency operations have had significant politico‐strategic repercussions for the country's defence and security policy more generally. As a result, in recent years the Bundeswehr has begun to undergo a far‐reaching structural process of military adaptation and innovation. The article explains and analyses this phenomenon of political change and military learning in the context of political paralysis.     

The origin of the Racist Laws under fascism. Aproblem of historiography

Abstract

Why did the fascist regime adopt racial laws in the 1930s? The laws were aimed first atnon-Europeans and people of mixed race in the colonies, and then at the Jews. This article reviews recent studies on the racial laws, which took a variety of forms, within which the specificity of the anti-Semitic legislation has to be acknowledged even though the legislation against the Jews came at much the same time as the other racial legislation. Were these laws an attempt to imitate Nazi Germany, and hence in some form an off-shoot of foreign policy? Or were there seeds of racism already present in Italian politics and society that found fulfillment in the racial laws? These issues have for some time been the subject of major debate, in which different historiographical traditions have come into conflict, while attention has been drawn to the need to counter attempts to blame others for what remains the responsibility ofItalians.     

The Occurrence and Consequences of Electoral Mandates in Historical Context

This study revisits the debate over electoral mandates by assessing the occurrence and consequences of landslide electoral victories since the 1860s. The study builds on Keeler's (1993) formulation of mandates in terms of the opportunities afforded by an election. Viewing elections as creating policy opportunities allows a more straightforward assessment of the relation between election outcomes and the legislative activity that follows. The idea of policy windows also avoids some of the criticisms directed at electoral mandates. Using public laws enacted from 1860 to 1998,1 find that landslide electoral victories precede less active Congresses almost as often as they precede surges of legislative activity. Using qualitative historical information, I further find that the legislative opportunities afforded by a landslide victory are conditional upon unity of the president's party.     

Gendered Structures of Local Politics in Turkey

Indicators offered by available international statistical data and observations of many researchers point out that women's formal political involvement at the local level is stronger than that at the national level for the majority of states. However, gendered political patterns in Turkey have been following a rather different path. One and the most significant contradictory aspect is that women's representation at local elected organs is weaker than the national parliament. This article, first, investigates the reasons for this relatively weak existence in formal local politics. The references of this relativity are both national formal politics of Turkey, and the dominant worldwide model. Secondly, the article tries to establish country‐specific links between formal and informal local politics concerning women's participation. The experience in Turkey has proven that women's local engagement does not necessarily propel decision‐making power and women's empowerment. Women's local mobilization in Turkey has been mostly limited to socio‐cultural and charity activities instead of central decisions on the settlement, and of efforts for establishing women's local political agendas. Moreover, as a very prominent factor concerning the maintenance of asymmetric gendered structures of local politics, women's movement at the national level has been lacking in systematic political interest in the issue until very recently. In this article, these pretensions and future prospects are discussed in terms of the actual global‐national circumstances affecting local politics as well as women's local conditions. To these ends, existing quantitative‐qualitative research, data and analysis, and relevant findings of the author's recent (2000–2003) original research, as well as her observations through participation in recent feminist activism targeting local politics are being evaluated.     

Edmund Burke,Strauss, and the Straussians

In Natural Right and History, Leo Strauss accused Edmund Burke of being ignorant of the nobility of last-ditch resistance; defending a conception of history that set the path for historicism; and discarding a vision of politics as it ought to be. By separating philosophy from politics, Burke, according to Strauss, helped lay the intellectual foundation for modern political ideologies. While a number of scholars have attempted to vindicate or refute Strauss' criticisms through textual exegesis, my article aims to lay a sharper emphasis on particular historical episodes of Burke's political life in which his political thought and statesmanship calls into question Strauss' interpretations. I argue, moreover, that Burke's legislative activities retain a closer resemblance to Strauss' conception of classical statesmanship than Strauss suggests in Natural Right and History. I conclude by maintaining that Straussian scholars could enrich their framework of the Western canon by giving greater attention to Burke's political thought.     

MAPPING CHILDREN'S POLITICS: SPATIAL STORIES,DIALOGIC RELATIONS AND POLITICAL FORMATION

This article confronts a persistent challenge in research on children's geographies and politics: the difficulty of recognizing forms of political agency and practice that by definition fall outside of existing political theory. Children are effectively “always already” positioned outside most of the structures and ideals of modernist democratic theory, such as the public sphere and abstracted notions of communicative action or “rational” speech. Recent emphases on embodied tactics of everyday life have offered important ways to recognize children's political agency and practice. However, we argue here that a focus on spatial practices and critical knowledge alone cannot capture the full range of children's politics, and show how representational and dialogic practices remain a critical element of their politics in everyday life. Drawing on de Certeau's notion of spatial stories, and Bakhtin's concept of dialogic relations, we argue that children's representations and dialogues comprise a significant space of their political agency and formation, in which they can make and negotiate social meanings, subjectivities, and relationships. We develop these arguments with evidence from an after‐school activity programme we conducted with 10–13 year olds in Seattle, Washington, in which participants explored, mapped, wrote and spoke about the spaces and experiences of their everyday lives. Within these practices, children negotiate autonomy and self‐determination, and forward ideas, representations, and expressions of agreement or disagreement that are critical to their formation as political actors.     

Buzz Kill: State Adoption of DUI Interlock Laws, 2005–11

Most states have adopted significant measures to reduce the incidence of driving under the influence (DUI) but a DUI death occurs about every 53 minutes; a significant portion of these accidents are the result of recidivist DUI drivers. A relatively new and novel way states can reduce DUI deaths from repeat offenders is to require offenders to install an interlock device on their vehicle, but not all states have adopted this measure. We explore whether the Policy Typology and Policy Diffusion Frameworks can help us understand the politics behind why some states have adopted interlock policies while others have not. Employing over‐time data from the American states our results suggest that the adoption of interlock laws is best explained by internal factors to the state and the adoption of interlock laws by neighboring states. In addition, the adoption of interlock laws is a form of incremental policymaking—states with existing DUI laws are more likely to adopt interlock policies. We conclude that interlock policies diffuse in a manner similar to other regulatory policies and that interlock policies should be categorized as protective regulatory policies rather than social regulatory policies.     

WINNING THE HEARTS AND MINDS OF FARMERS: INSTITUTIONALIZED INNOVATION DIFFUSION IN SRI LANKA

Classical diffusion research, both in geography and sociology, received considerable criticism in the 1970s and 1980s, but after that the diffusion debate has faded away. At the same time, one of the earliest contributors to diffusion research, Gabriel Tarde, is now attracting the attention of both geographers and sociologists. Drawing on earlier experiences with agricultural extension and the Green Revolution, this Tarde‐inspired article aims to revitalize the diffusion debate through an ethnographic case study of extension practices in Hambantota District, Sri Lanka. The study is based on field material collected between 2009 and 2011, which includes semi‐structured interviews with representatives from various spread agencies – government agricultural instructors, NGOs, social enterprises, and the inorganic industry – as well as with farmers and other key informants. Following the recent work of Nigel Thrift, it is argued that such an approach to the study of innovation diffusion can be a way of uncovering “the political economy of propensity”. The article suggests that a return to Tarde should not lead researchers back into naïve diffusionism, or towards a position that blames traditionalist farmers for non‐diffusion. Non‐human actors can also exhibit resistance and sociality: innovations travel through a landscape which is both human and non‐human, and the spread of organic farming practices is configured by both bonds of trust among farmers and bonds of chemicals in the soil. Furthermore, it contends that future research may interrogate the ways in which the very medium of diffusion is being reconfigured, following actors' institutionalization of innovation diffusion methods.     

Managing Dissent in a Post‐genocide Environment: The Challenge of Political Space in Rwanda

This article analyses how political space, defined here as the ability of actors other than the government to critically engage in debate on government policy and practice, is being constituted in post‐genocide Rwanda. Using evidence from interviews with civil society activists and examples from the Rwandan Government's post‐genocide policies, it explores the kind of political space which results from an interplay of potentially competing influences. These include the promotion of a liberal approach to democracy, favoured by many of Rwanda's donors, and a more tightly‐managed and limited transition which is both preferred by and beneficial for the RPF Government. The article shows that although space could be seen in some areas as opening, this trend is hampered by government actions, including legislative and shadow methods, by donor reluctance to pressure the ruling RPF and by fear within civil society of tackling politically sensitive issues. In conclusion, the author suggests that this fear is reinforced by government policies which narrow perceptions of political space, exacerbated by perceived abandonment of civil society by donors, and that in combination these factors pose a long‐term challenge to more openly contested politics in Rwanda.     

Convergence/divergence hypotheses of governments' activities: Some methodological considerations

This contribution to comparative politics — and to Australian state politics in particular — provides an initial brief review of the broader significance of the convergence/divergence hypotheses for the study of politics, and of some general methodological considerations. The essay continues by giving critical attention to the use of various indicators of governments' activities (organisations, portfolios, laws, and expenditure). It then moves to address the special requirements of testing for policy convergence/divergence, and concludes by discussing the research implications of policy area‐specific changes in governments' activities.     

Adaptation Machines and the Parasitic Politics of Life in Jamaican Disaster Resilience

This paper unpacks a politics of life at the heart of community‐based disaster management to advance a new understanding of resilience politics. Through an institutional ethnography of participatory resilience programming in Kingston, Jamaica, I explore how staff in Jamaica's national disaster management agency engaged with a qualitatively distinct form of collective life in Kingston's garrison districts. Garrison life has been shaped by the confluence of political economic, cultural, geopolitical force relations, which creates a hyper‐adaptive life that exceeds the techniques and rationalities of neoliberal disaster resilience. I draw on autonomist Marxist and Deleuzian readings of biopolitics to identify a new subject of disaster politics that I call, after Deleuze and Guattari, “adaptation machines”, decentralized apparatuses of capture that are parasitically reliant on the population's immanent adaptive capacities. The concept of adaptation machines enables us to envision resilience politics as a struggle over how to appropriate vulnerable peoples’ world‐forming constituent power.