Douglas Kriner and Francis Shen
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- May 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780195390964
- eISBN:
- 9780199776788
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195390964.001.0001
- Subject:
- Political Science, International Relations and Politics
Many have long suspected that when America takes up arms it is a rich man's war, but a poor man's fight. Despite these concerns about social inequality in military sacrifice, the hard data to ...
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Many have long suspected that when America takes up arms it is a rich man's war, but a poor man's fight. Despite these concerns about social inequality in military sacrifice, the hard data to validate such claims has been kept out of public view. The Casualty Gap renews the debate over unequal sacrifice by bringing to light new evidence on the inequality dimensions of American wartime casualties. It demonstrates unequivocally that since the conclusion of World War II, communities at the lower end of the socioeconomic ladder have borne a disproportionate share of the human costs of war. Moreover, they show for the first time that when Americans are explicitly confronted with evidence of this inequality, they become markedly less supportive of the nation's war efforts. The Casualty Gap also uncovers how wartime deaths affect entire communities. Citizens who see the high price war exacts on friends and neighbors become more likely to oppose war and to vote against the political leaders waging it than residents of low-casualty communities. Moreover, extensive empirical evidence connects higher community casualty rates in Korea and Vietnam to lower levels of trust in government, interest in politics, and electoral and non-electoral participation. In this way, the casualty gap threatens the very vibrancy of American democracy by depressing civic engagement in high-casualty communities for years after the last gun falls silent.Less
Many have long suspected that when America takes up arms it is a rich man's war, but a poor man's fight. Despite these concerns about social inequality in military sacrifice, the hard data to validate such claims has been kept out of public view. The Casualty Gap renews the debate over unequal sacrifice by bringing to light new evidence on the inequality dimensions of American wartime casualties. It demonstrates unequivocally that since the conclusion of World War II, communities at the lower end of the socioeconomic ladder have borne a disproportionate share of the human costs of war. Moreover, they show for the first time that when Americans are explicitly confronted with evidence of this inequality, they become markedly less supportive of the nation's war efforts. The Casualty Gap also uncovers how wartime deaths affect entire communities. Citizens who see the high price war exacts on friends and neighbors become more likely to oppose war and to vote against the political leaders waging it than residents of low-casualty communities. Moreover, extensive empirical evidence connects higher community casualty rates in Korea and Vietnam to lower levels of trust in government, interest in politics, and electoral and non-electoral participation. In this way, the casualty gap threatens the very vibrancy of American democracy by depressing civic engagement in high-casualty communities for years after the last gun falls silent.
Michael Foley
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- January 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780199232673
- eISBN:
- 9780191716362
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199232673.003.0005
- Subject:
- Political Science, American Politics
This chapter discusses the complaints and critiques about the composition of American democracy, i.e., not only what American democracy consists of but what it should consist of to be both ...
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This chapter discusses the complaints and critiques about the composition of American democracy, i.e., not only what American democracy consists of but what it should consist of to be both authentically American and authentically democratic. What is evident from the contested nature of American democracy is that empirical assessments of its performance are not only guided by normative judgements, but are themselves vehicles of disputes between and amongst other ideas with competing claims upon American priorities.Less
This chapter discusses the complaints and critiques about the composition of American democracy, i.e., not only what American democracy consists of but what it should consist of to be both authentically American and authentically democratic. What is evident from the contested nature of American democracy is that empirical assessments of its performance are not only guided by normative judgements, but are themselves vehicles of disputes between and amongst other ideas with competing claims upon American priorities.
Tony Smith
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691154923
- eISBN:
- 9781400842025
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691154923.003.0001
- Subject:
- Political Science, Political Theory
This book offers a historical account of American efforts “to make the world safe for democracy” and the results of these attempts in the context of their own ambitions. It also examines how American ...
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This book offers a historical account of American efforts “to make the world safe for democracy” and the results of these attempts in the context of their own ambitions. It also examines how American foreign policy has contributed to the increase in the number, strength, and prestige of liberal democratic governments worldwide at the end of the twentieth century. The book focuses on American liberal democratic internationalism and the United States's democratizing mission on a selected group of countries such as Japan, Germany, Iran, and the Philippines, along with the impact of this agenda on world politics as a whole. To better understand the American operational code with respect to liberal democratic internationalism, this chapter analyzes the nature of American liberal democracy and cites a historical example that reflects the character of American liberal democratic internationalism in the twentieth century: the Reconstruction after the Civil War.Less
This book offers a historical account of American efforts “to make the world safe for democracy” and the results of these attempts in the context of their own ambitions. It also examines how American foreign policy has contributed to the increase in the number, strength, and prestige of liberal democratic governments worldwide at the end of the twentieth century. The book focuses on American liberal democratic internationalism and the United States's democratizing mission on a selected group of countries such as Japan, Germany, Iran, and the Philippines, along with the impact of this agenda on world politics as a whole. To better understand the American operational code with respect to liberal democratic internationalism, this chapter analyzes the nature of American liberal democracy and cites a historical example that reflects the character of American liberal democratic internationalism in the twentieth century: the Reconstruction after the Civil War.
Kimberley Johnson
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- May 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780195387421
- eISBN:
- 9780199776771
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195387421.003.0001
- Subject:
- Political Science, American Politics
This introductory chapter begins with a description of Jim Crow reformers. Jim Crow reformers, along with others, played a significant role in shaping the political, economic, and social context in ...
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This introductory chapter begins with a description of Jim Crow reformers. Jim Crow reformers, along with others, played a significant role in shaping the political, economic, and social context in which both the civil rights movement and its counterpart, massive resistance, emerged. The policy successes and failures of Jim Crow reform examined in this book played a critical role in shaping the stage onto which history's actors would step. Southern reform and the shaping of American democracy, the Jim Crow order, and citizenship and the struggle for order and power are then discussed. An overview of the subsequent chapters is presented.Less
This introductory chapter begins with a description of Jim Crow reformers. Jim Crow reformers, along with others, played a significant role in shaping the political, economic, and social context in which both the civil rights movement and its counterpart, massive resistance, emerged. The policy successes and failures of Jim Crow reform examined in this book played a critical role in shaping the stage onto which history's actors would step. Southern reform and the shaping of American democracy, the Jim Crow order, and citizenship and the struggle for order and power are then discussed. An overview of the subsequent chapters is presented.
David Domke and Kevin Coe
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- January 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780195326413
- eISBN:
- 9780199870431
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195326413.003.0007
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Society
This chapter reflects on the workings of the God strategy, and on what its omnipresence means for American democracy. The God strategy's “golden rule” — exhibit faith, but don't be too strident or ...
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This chapter reflects on the workings of the God strategy, and on what its omnipresence means for American democracy. The God strategy's “golden rule” — exhibit faith, but don't be too strident or nakedly partisan in doing so — is discussed in relation to the 1992 presidential election and the 2006 midterm elections. In both cases, Republicans pushed too hard with the God strategy while Democrats responded with a religious politics of their own. And in both cases, the result was Democratic electoral gains. The chapter then discusses how America's current brand of religious politics puts at risk the Founding Fathers' vision for a democracy that would protect the church from the state and the state from the church. The chapter concludes by considering the role that mass media, the public education system, and religious institutions can play in preserving Constitutional protections.Less
This chapter reflects on the workings of the God strategy, and on what its omnipresence means for American democracy. The God strategy's “golden rule” — exhibit faith, but don't be too strident or nakedly partisan in doing so — is discussed in relation to the 1992 presidential election and the 2006 midterm elections. In both cases, Republicans pushed too hard with the God strategy while Democrats responded with a religious politics of their own. And in both cases, the result was Democratic electoral gains. The chapter then discusses how America's current brand of religious politics puts at risk the Founding Fathers' vision for a democracy that would protect the church from the state and the state from the church. The chapter concludes by considering the role that mass media, the public education system, and religious institutions can play in preserving Constitutional protections.
Sarah Azaransky
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- September 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199744817
- eISBN:
- 9780199897308
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199744817.003.0006
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Society
This chapter concludes that Pauli Murray's critical attentions to identity, history, and her articulation of a democratic eschatology provide readers with resources for contemporary discussions of ...
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This chapter concludes that Pauli Murray's critical attentions to identity, history, and her articulation of a democratic eschatology provide readers with resources for contemporary discussions of Christianity and American democracy. It considers Murray's project in conversation with the work of Jean Bethke Elshtain and Cornel West, two contemporary theorists who aim to inform democratic theory with Christian theological imagination and commitments.Less
This chapter concludes that Pauli Murray's critical attentions to identity, history, and her articulation of a democratic eschatology provide readers with resources for contemporary discussions of Christianity and American democracy. It considers Murray's project in conversation with the work of Jean Bethke Elshtain and Cornel West, two contemporary theorists who aim to inform democratic theory with Christian theological imagination and commitments.
Matthew M. Briones
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691129488
- eISBN:
- 9781400842216
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691129488.003.0001
- Subject:
- History, American History: 20th Century
This introductory chapter draws on Charles Kikuchi's diaries in presenting a trail guide for a reconstructive study of why the various schools of American democracy—including Nisei intellectuals at ...
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This introductory chapter draws on Charles Kikuchi's diaries in presenting a trail guide for a reconstructive study of why the various schools of American democracy—including Nisei intellectuals at Berkeley, pluralist advocates, Chicago School sociologists, and African American progressives, among other types—ultimately failed in part and, not insignificantly, of how some of their ideas managed to survive the larger society's capitulation to Orwellian, Cold War ideology in the late 1940s and early 1950s. Kikuchi's preservation of the time's key moments and meaning makers allows for a restaging of historical actors and events. Most importantly, through Kikuchi's narrative, historical actors reenact their earnest but fallible efforts at progressively redefining the idea of American democracy on a stage not quite prepared for the glare of klieg lights.Less
This introductory chapter draws on Charles Kikuchi's diaries in presenting a trail guide for a reconstructive study of why the various schools of American democracy—including Nisei intellectuals at Berkeley, pluralist advocates, Chicago School sociologists, and African American progressives, among other types—ultimately failed in part and, not insignificantly, of how some of their ideas managed to survive the larger society's capitulation to Orwellian, Cold War ideology in the late 1940s and early 1950s. Kikuchi's preservation of the time's key moments and meaning makers allows for a restaging of historical actors and events. Most importantly, through Kikuchi's narrative, historical actors reenact their earnest but fallible efforts at progressively redefining the idea of American democracy on a stage not quite prepared for the glare of klieg lights.
Jude C. Hays
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- September 2009
- ISBN:
- 9780195369335
- eISBN:
- 9780199871056
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195369335.003.0006
- Subject:
- Political Science, Political Economy
This concluding chapter recaps and pulls together the main theoretical arguments and the most important pieces of empirical evidence presented throughout this study. It concludes with a few comments ...
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This concluding chapter recaps and pulls together the main theoretical arguments and the most important pieces of empirical evidence presented throughout this study. It concludes with a few comments about recent trends in the international economy and possible policy responses for governments in the Anglo-American democracies.Less
This concluding chapter recaps and pulls together the main theoretical arguments and the most important pieces of empirical evidence presented throughout this study. It concludes with a few comments about recent trends in the international economy and possible policy responses for governments in the Anglo-American democracies.
Kay Lehman Schlozman, Sidney Verba, and Henry E. Brady
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691154848
- eISBN:
- 9781400841912
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691154848.003.0001
- Subject:
- Political Science, Democratization
This chapter briefly engages multiple themes regarding American democracy and the “political voice.” Here, political voice is understood as any activity undertaken by individuals and organizations ...
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This chapter briefly engages multiple themes regarding American democracy and the “political voice.” Here, political voice is understood as any activity undertaken by individuals and organizations that has the intent or effect of influencing government action—either directly by affecting the making or implementation of public policy, or indirectly by influencing the selection of people who make those policies. The chapter provides some analyses on the inequalities of political voice and how to measure them empirically, taking into account the various factors for political participation, which complicates this investigation even further. Finally, the chapter provides further notes on the data to be analyzed in the book and presents an overview of the following chapters.Less
This chapter briefly engages multiple themes regarding American democracy and the “political voice.” Here, political voice is understood as any activity undertaken by individuals and organizations that has the intent or effect of influencing government action—either directly by affecting the making or implementation of public policy, or indirectly by influencing the selection of people who make those policies. The chapter provides some analyses on the inequalities of political voice and how to measure them empirically, taking into account the various factors for political participation, which complicates this investigation even further. Finally, the chapter provides further notes on the data to be analyzed in the book and presents an overview of the following chapters.
Phillip Brown, Hugh Lauder, and David Ashton
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- May 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199731688
- eISBN:
- 9780199944125
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199731688.003.0025
- Subject:
- Sociology, Occupations, Professions, and Work
This chapter reviews the discussions that have been presented in previous chapters, including the concept of the American Dream. It considers the question of whether the American democracy will lead ...
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This chapter reviews the discussions that have been presented in previous chapters, including the concept of the American Dream. It considers the question of whether the American democracy will lead to another experiment that is needed to bring together prosperity and justice using new ways based on a generally different set of social priorities. It identifies the future prospects for American families and workers and discusses the neoliberal opportunity bargain and a new opportunity bargain.Less
This chapter reviews the discussions that have been presented in previous chapters, including the concept of the American Dream. It considers the question of whether the American democracy will lead to another experiment that is needed to bring together prosperity and justice using new ways based on a generally different set of social priorities. It identifies the future prospects for American families and workers and discusses the neoliberal opportunity bargain and a new opportunity bargain.
Kay Lehman Schlozman, Sidney Verba, and Henry E. Brady
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691154848
- eISBN:
- 9781400841912
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691154848.001.0001
- Subject:
- Political Science, Democratization
Politically active individuals and organizations make huge investments of time, energy, and money to influence everything from election outcomes to congressional subcommittee hearings to local school ...
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Politically active individuals and organizations make huge investments of time, energy, and money to influence everything from election outcomes to congressional subcommittee hearings to local school politics, while other groups and individual citizens seem woefully underrepresented in our political system. This book is a comprehensive and systematic examination of political voice in America, and its findings are sobering. The book looks at the political participation of individual citizens alongside the political advocacy of thousands of organized interests—membership associations such as unions, professional associations, trade associations, and citizens groups, as well as organizations like corporations, hospitals, and universities. Drawing on numerous in-depth surveys of members of the public as well as the largest database of interest organizations ever created—representing more than 35,000 organizations over a 25-year period—this book conclusively demonstrates that American democracy is marred by deeply ingrained and persistent class-based political inequality. The well-educated and affluent are active in many ways to make their voices heard, while the less advantaged are not. This book reveals how the political voices of organized interests are even less representative than those of individuals, how political advantage is handed down across generations, how recruitment to political activity perpetuates and exaggerates existing biases, how political voice on the Internet replicates these inequalities—and more. In a true democracy, the preferences and needs of all citizens deserve equal consideration. Yet equal consideration is only possible with equal citizen voice. This book reveals how far we really are from the democratic ideal and how hard it would be to attain it.Less
Politically active individuals and organizations make huge investments of time, energy, and money to influence everything from election outcomes to congressional subcommittee hearings to local school politics, while other groups and individual citizens seem woefully underrepresented in our political system. This book is a comprehensive and systematic examination of political voice in America, and its findings are sobering. The book looks at the political participation of individual citizens alongside the political advocacy of thousands of organized interests—membership associations such as unions, professional associations, trade associations, and citizens groups, as well as organizations like corporations, hospitals, and universities. Drawing on numerous in-depth surveys of members of the public as well as the largest database of interest organizations ever created—representing more than 35,000 organizations over a 25-year period—this book conclusively demonstrates that American democracy is marred by deeply ingrained and persistent class-based political inequality. The well-educated and affluent are active in many ways to make their voices heard, while the less advantaged are not. This book reveals how the political voices of organized interests are even less representative than those of individuals, how political advantage is handed down across generations, how recruitment to political activity perpetuates and exaggerates existing biases, how political voice on the Internet replicates these inequalities—and more. In a true democracy, the preferences and needs of all citizens deserve equal consideration. Yet equal consideration is only possible with equal citizen voice. This book reveals how far we really are from the democratic ideal and how hard it would be to attain it.
Jedediah Purdy, Anthony Kronman, and Cynthia Farrar (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2004
- Published Online:
- October 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780300102567
- eISBN:
- 9780300130485
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Yale University Press
- DOI:
- 10.12987/yale/9780300102567.001.0001
- Subject:
- Law, Philosophy of Law
This book explores democracy in the United States from a variety of perspectives. A dozen contributors consider the nature and prospects of democracy as it relates to the American experience—free ...
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This book explores democracy in the United States from a variety of perspectives. A dozen contributors consider the nature and prospects of democracy as it relates to the American experience—free markets, religion, family life, the Cold War, higher education, and more. The chapters bring American democracy into fresh focus, complete with its idealism, its moral greatness, its disappointments, and its contradictions. Based on DeVane lectures delivered at Yale University, these writings examine large themes and ask important questions: Why do democratic societies, and the United States in particular, tolerate profound economic inequality? Has the United States ever been truly democratic? How has democratic aspiration influenced the development of practices as diverse as education, religious worship, and family life? The book aims to aid in understanding of what democracy has meant in the past, how it functions now, and what its course may be in the future.Less
This book explores democracy in the United States from a variety of perspectives. A dozen contributors consider the nature and prospects of democracy as it relates to the American experience—free markets, religion, family life, the Cold War, higher education, and more. The chapters bring American democracy into fresh focus, complete with its idealism, its moral greatness, its disappointments, and its contradictions. Based on DeVane lectures delivered at Yale University, these writings examine large themes and ask important questions: Why do democratic societies, and the United States in particular, tolerate profound economic inequality? Has the United States ever been truly democratic? How has democratic aspiration influenced the development of practices as diverse as education, religious worship, and family life? The book aims to aid in understanding of what democracy has meant in the past, how it functions now, and what its course may be in the future.
Kay Lehman Schlozman, Sidney Verba, and Henry E. Brady
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691154848
- eISBN:
- 9781400841912
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691154848.003.0018
- Subject:
- Political Science, Democratization
This chapter reiterates the findings so far discussed in this volume, and discusses how this book has helped to not only bring to light the persistent inequalities of political voice, but also ...
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This chapter reiterates the findings so far discussed in this volume, and discusses how this book has helped to not only bring to light the persistent inequalities of political voice, but also contributed to the cause of equality of political voice and its tandem issues. After all, the inequalities of political voice this book has documented so extensively threaten the democratic principle of equal responsiveness to all. This chapter thus argues that to recognize the inequalities of political voice, to listen more carefully to the accent of the “unheavenly chorus,” and to take measures to include a more representative set of singers would be a step toward delivering on the promise of American democracy.Less
This chapter reiterates the findings so far discussed in this volume, and discusses how this book has helped to not only bring to light the persistent inequalities of political voice, but also contributed to the cause of equality of political voice and its tandem issues. After all, the inequalities of political voice this book has documented so extensively threaten the democratic principle of equal responsiveness to all. This chapter thus argues that to recognize the inequalities of political voice, to listen more carefully to the accent of the “unheavenly chorus,” and to take measures to include a more representative set of singers would be a step toward delivering on the promise of American democracy.
Matthew M. Briones
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691129488
- eISBN:
- 9781400842216
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691129488.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, American History: 20th Century
Following Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, the U.S. government rounded up more than one hundred thousand Japanese Americans and sent them to internment camps. One of those internees was ...
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Following Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, the U.S. government rounded up more than one hundred thousand Japanese Americans and sent them to internment camps. One of those internees was Charles Kikuchi. In thousands of diary pages, he documented his experiences in the camps, his resettlement in Chicago and drafting into the army on the eve of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and his postwar life as a social worker in New York City. Kikuchi's diaries bear witness to a watershed era in American race relations, and expose both the promise and the hypocrisy of American democracy. This book follows Kikuchi's personal odyssey among fellow Japanese American intellectuals, immigrant activists, Chicago School social scientists, everyday people on Chicago's South Side, and psychologically scarred veterans in the hospitals of New York. The book chronicles a remarkable moment in America's history in which interracial alliances challenged the limits of the elusive democratic ideal, and in which the nation was forced to choose between civil liberty and the fearful politics of racial hysteria. It was an era of world war and the atomic bomb, desegregation in the military but Jim and Jap Crow elsewhere in America, and a hopeful progressivism that gave way to Cold War paranoia. The book looks at Kikuchi's life and diaries as a lens through which to observe the possibilities, failures, and key conversations in a dynamic multiracial America.Less
Following Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, the U.S. government rounded up more than one hundred thousand Japanese Americans and sent them to internment camps. One of those internees was Charles Kikuchi. In thousands of diary pages, he documented his experiences in the camps, his resettlement in Chicago and drafting into the army on the eve of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and his postwar life as a social worker in New York City. Kikuchi's diaries bear witness to a watershed era in American race relations, and expose both the promise and the hypocrisy of American democracy. This book follows Kikuchi's personal odyssey among fellow Japanese American intellectuals, immigrant activists, Chicago School social scientists, everyday people on Chicago's South Side, and psychologically scarred veterans in the hospitals of New York. The book chronicles a remarkable moment in America's history in which interracial alliances challenged the limits of the elusive democratic ideal, and in which the nation was forced to choose between civil liberty and the fearful politics of racial hysteria. It was an era of world war and the atomic bomb, desegregation in the military but Jim and Jap Crow elsewhere in America, and a hopeful progressivism that gave way to Cold War paranoia. The book looks at Kikuchi's life and diaries as a lens through which to observe the possibilities, failures, and key conversations in a dynamic multiracial America.
John S. Lapinski
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691137810
- eISBN:
- 9781400848638
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691137810.001.0001
- Subject:
- Political Science, American Politics
Lawmaking is crucial to American democracy because it completely defines and regulates the public life of the nation. Yet despite its importance, political scientists spend very little time studying ...
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Lawmaking is crucial to American democracy because it completely defines and regulates the public life of the nation. Yet despite its importance, political scientists spend very little time studying the direct impact that the politics surrounding a particular issue has on lawmaking. This book draws on a vast range of historical and empirical data to better understand how lawmaking works across different policy areas. Specifically, the book introduces a theoretically grounded method for parsing policy issues into categories, and shows how policymaking varies in predictable ways based on the specific issue area being addressed. The book examines the ways in which key factors that influence policymaking matter for certain types of policy issues, and it includes an exhaustive look at how elite political polarization shifts across these areas. The book considers how Congress behaves according to the policy issue at hand, and how particular areas—such as war, sovereignty issues, and immigration reform—change legislative performance. Relying on records of all Congressional votes since Reconstruction and analyzing voting patterns across policy areas from the late nineteenth to late twentieth centuries, the book provides a comprehensive historical perspective on lawmaking in order to shed light on current practices. Giving a clear picture of Congressional behavior in the policymaking process over time, this book provides insights into the critical role of American lawmaking.Less
Lawmaking is crucial to American democracy because it completely defines and regulates the public life of the nation. Yet despite its importance, political scientists spend very little time studying the direct impact that the politics surrounding a particular issue has on lawmaking. This book draws on a vast range of historical and empirical data to better understand how lawmaking works across different policy areas. Specifically, the book introduces a theoretically grounded method for parsing policy issues into categories, and shows how policymaking varies in predictable ways based on the specific issue area being addressed. The book examines the ways in which key factors that influence policymaking matter for certain types of policy issues, and it includes an exhaustive look at how elite political polarization shifts across these areas. The book considers how Congress behaves according to the policy issue at hand, and how particular areas—such as war, sovereignty issues, and immigration reform—change legislative performance. Relying on records of all Congressional votes since Reconstruction and analyzing voting patterns across policy areas from the late nineteenth to late twentieth centuries, the book provides a comprehensive historical perspective on lawmaking in order to shed light on current practices. Giving a clear picture of Congressional behavior in the policymaking process over time, this book provides insights into the critical role of American lawmaking.
Kerwin Lee IZlein
- Published in print:
- 1997
- Published Online:
- May 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780520204638
- eISBN:
- 9780520924185
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520204638.003.0002
- Subject:
- Anthropology, American and Canadian Cultural Anthropology
This chapter examines modernist philosophy and history's attempt to rationalize language in relation to the history of the American frontier. It explains that efforts of historians and philosophers ...
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This chapter examines modernist philosophy and history's attempt to rationalize language in relation to the history of the American frontier. It explains that efforts of historians and philosophers to escape myth, metaphor, and emotion and formalize historical explanations resulted into disputes over the ways and means of the scientific method. The chapter also provides commentaries on Frederick Jackson Turner's hypothesis that frontier expansion created American democracy.Less
This chapter examines modernist philosophy and history's attempt to rationalize language in relation to the history of the American frontier. It explains that efforts of historians and philosophers to escape myth, metaphor, and emotion and formalize historical explanations resulted into disputes over the ways and means of the scientific method. The chapter also provides commentaries on Frederick Jackson Turner's hypothesis that frontier expansion created American democracy.
Benjamin C. Waterhouse
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691149165
- eISBN:
- 9781400848171
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691149165.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, American History: early to 18th Century
This book tells the story of the political mobilization of American business in the 1970s and 1980s. The book traces the rise and ultimate fragmentation of a broad-based effort to unify the business ...
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This book tells the story of the political mobilization of American business in the 1970s and 1980s. The book traces the rise and ultimate fragmentation of a broad-based effort to unify the business community and promote a fiscally conservative, antiregulatory, and market-oriented policy agenda to Congress and the country at large. Arguing that business's political involvement was historically distinctive during this period, the chapter illustrates the changing power and goals of America's top corporate leaders. Examining the rise of the Business Roundtable and the revitalization of older business associations such as the National Association of Manufacturers and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the book takes readers inside the mind-set of the powerful CEOs who responded to the crises of inflation, recession, and declining industrial productivity by organizing an effective and disciplined lobbying force. By the mid-1970s, that coalition transformed the economic power of the capitalist class into a broad-reaching political movement with real policy consequences. Ironically, the cohesion that characterized organized business failed to survive the ascent of conservative politics during the 1980s, and many of the coalition's top goals on regulatory and fiscal policies remained unfulfilled. The industrial CEOs who fancied themselves the “voice of business” found themselves one voice among many vying for influence in an increasingly turbulent and unsettled economic landscape. Complicating assumptions that wealthy business leaders naturally get their way in Washington, the book shows how economic and political powers interact in the American democratic system.Less
This book tells the story of the political mobilization of American business in the 1970s and 1980s. The book traces the rise and ultimate fragmentation of a broad-based effort to unify the business community and promote a fiscally conservative, antiregulatory, and market-oriented policy agenda to Congress and the country at large. Arguing that business's political involvement was historically distinctive during this period, the chapter illustrates the changing power and goals of America's top corporate leaders. Examining the rise of the Business Roundtable and the revitalization of older business associations such as the National Association of Manufacturers and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the book takes readers inside the mind-set of the powerful CEOs who responded to the crises of inflation, recession, and declining industrial productivity by organizing an effective and disciplined lobbying force. By the mid-1970s, that coalition transformed the economic power of the capitalist class into a broad-reaching political movement with real policy consequences. Ironically, the cohesion that characterized organized business failed to survive the ascent of conservative politics during the 1980s, and many of the coalition's top goals on regulatory and fiscal policies remained unfulfilled. The industrial CEOs who fancied themselves the “voice of business” found themselves one voice among many vying for influence in an increasingly turbulent and unsettled economic landscape. Complicating assumptions that wealthy business leaders naturally get their way in Washington, the book shows how economic and political powers interact in the American democratic system.
Lucien Jaume
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691152042
- eISBN:
- 9781400846726
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691152042.003.0015
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Political Philosophy
This chapter summarizes key themes and presents some final thoughts. This book has attempted to show that what sharpened Tocqueville's perception of the ever-present perils of democracy was his ...
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This chapter summarizes key themes and presents some final thoughts. This book has attempted to show that what sharpened Tocqueville's perception of the ever-present perils of democracy was his aristocratic culture, which he translated into the structuring myth of Democracy in America: namely, the return of the despot. In this light, it is possible to reconsider a problem with which students of Tocqueville have long grappled: Is the “soft” tutelary despotism described at the end of volume 2 incompatible with the view of American democracy set forth in volume 1? Are there in fact “two democracies” and indeed two distinct books, one in conflict with the other?Less
This chapter summarizes key themes and presents some final thoughts. This book has attempted to show that what sharpened Tocqueville's perception of the ever-present perils of democracy was his aristocratic culture, which he translated into the structuring myth of Democracy in America: namely, the return of the despot. In this light, it is possible to reconsider a problem with which students of Tocqueville have long grappled: Is the “soft” tutelary despotism described at the end of volume 2 incompatible with the view of American democracy set forth in volume 1? Are there in fact “two democracies” and indeed two distinct books, one in conflict with the other?
John Anderson
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- July 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780719077388
- eISBN:
- 9781781702000
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9780719077388.001.0001
- Subject:
- Political Science, Democratization
This book examines the contribution of different Christian traditions to the waves of democratisation that have swept various parts of the world in recent decades, offering an historical overview of ...
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This book examines the contribution of different Christian traditions to the waves of democratisation that have swept various parts of the world in recent decades, offering an historical overview of Christianity's engagement with the development of democracy, before focusing in detail on the period since the 1970s. Successive chapters deal with: the Roman Catholic conversion to democracy and the contribution of that church to democratisation; the Eastern Orthodox ‘hesitation’ about democracy; the alleged threat to American democracy posed by the politicisation of conservative Protestantism; and the likely impact on democratic development of the global expansion of Pentecostalism. The author draws out several common themes from the analysis of these case studies, the most important of which is the ‘liberal-democracy paradox’. This ensures that there will always be tensions between faiths which proclaim some notion of absolute truth and political order, and which are also rooted in the ideas of compromise, negotiation and bargaining.Less
This book examines the contribution of different Christian traditions to the waves of democratisation that have swept various parts of the world in recent decades, offering an historical overview of Christianity's engagement with the development of democracy, before focusing in detail on the period since the 1970s. Successive chapters deal with: the Roman Catholic conversion to democracy and the contribution of that church to democratisation; the Eastern Orthodox ‘hesitation’ about democracy; the alleged threat to American democracy posed by the politicisation of conservative Protestantism; and the likely impact on democratic development of the global expansion of Pentecostalism. The author draws out several common themes from the analysis of these case studies, the most important of which is the ‘liberal-democracy paradox’. This ensures that there will always be tensions between faiths which proclaim some notion of absolute truth and political order, and which are also rooted in the ideas of compromise, negotiation and bargaining.
John Anderson
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- July 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780719077388
- eISBN:
- 9781781702000
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9780719077388.003.0007
- Subject:
- Political Science, Democratization
This chapter examines the developments in Anglo-Protestant culture, with particular reference to its likely consequences for the evolution of American democracy. The factors contributing to the ...
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This chapter examines the developments in Anglo-Protestant culture, with particular reference to its likely consequences for the evolution of American democracy. The factors contributing to the emergence of the Christian Right correspond to those underlying the wider rise of political religion in various parts of the world. The Christian Right threatened American democracy. It promotes a socially conservative agenda. The argument of the Christian Right is that post-war ‘judicial tyranny’ has reinterpreted the First Amendment in such as way as to distort the intention of the founders by creating ever-larger hurdles to religious involvement in politics. There is an interesting parallel between Samuel Huntington's argument that Anglo-Protestant culture is somehow central to American identity and Christian Right claims that good governance requires Christian input into the political process. Christian Right leaders are concerned with their loss of power and authority.Less
This chapter examines the developments in Anglo-Protestant culture, with particular reference to its likely consequences for the evolution of American democracy. The factors contributing to the emergence of the Christian Right correspond to those underlying the wider rise of political religion in various parts of the world. The Christian Right threatened American democracy. It promotes a socially conservative agenda. The argument of the Christian Right is that post-war ‘judicial tyranny’ has reinterpreted the First Amendment in such as way as to distort the intention of the founders by creating ever-larger hurdles to religious involvement in politics. There is an interesting parallel between Samuel Huntington's argument that Anglo-Protestant culture is somehow central to American identity and Christian Right claims that good governance requires Christian input into the political process. Christian Right leaders are concerned with their loss of power and authority.
