Money and Mandates: The Politics of Intergovernmental Conflict

The federal government's relationship with the states dependsin part on the level of federal aid and the number of federalmandates. Environmental policy, with less federal aid and moremandates, differs from education policy and health policy. Thevolume of intergovernmental litigation is heavier and rhetoricalreferences to intergovernmental partnerships by agency headsare more common in environmental policy. Waivers are more commonin education policy and health policy, but that appears to bea function of congressional policies largely barring environmentalpolicy waivers. Federal judges are more supportive of the federalgovernment's position on environmental protection and educationthan its position on health care. Overall, federal funding andmandates appear to have an impact on state governments, federalbureaucrats, and federal judges.     

Conflict Media Strategies and the Politics of Counter-terrorism

This article argues that the events of 11 September 2001, and the subsequent 'war on terror', have highlighted the role of the media in both the coverage and conduct of modern conflict. The article concentrates on the 'conflict media strategies' pursued by belligerents and examines the development and refinement of such strategies over time, from the Second World War through to the conflict in Afghanistan. Using data from Vietnam, the Falklands, the Gulf, Kosovo and other conflicts, I argue that an effective conflict media strategy is an essential tool of warfare that is used by states and terrorist groups alike.     

Encountering China: Contexts and Methods for Teaching Chinese Politics in American Classrooms

This article explores the use of student-centered learning activities when teaching Chinese politics in American college classrooms and discusses the importance of context in those activities. In particular, the article explores how classroom context, including student identities, and student exposure to diverse, often conflicting ??political identities?? in course material emerge during different ??encounters????a Cultural Revolution poster exhibition, a simulation about the Three Gorges Dam, a Cultural Revolution role-play, and a problem-solving session involving factory workers. The article argues that encounters, which encompass in-class activities, such as problem solving, simulations, and role-play, enhance student engagement with course material, improve student retention of historical and contemporary political knowledge, and encourage critical thinking and peer collaboration in a student-centered learning environment. The article concludes that learner-centered teaching is significant because as the world becomes more complex, the knowledge and skills acquired through student-centered activities in politics classes are highly relevant for the future of self-organization, social interactions, and institution building.     

Size and e-Democracy: Online Participation in Norwegian Local Politics

This study of municipal e-participation in Norway, comprising local politicians as well as citizens, explores the impact of municipal size on online participation. First, the analyses show that the conventional predictors of offline participation also influence online participation, but the Internet encourages more activity among young people. Second, the same digital divides are generally found within the local political elite as among the citizens. Municipal size is, however, an exception. In the case of the local politicians, higher online participation rates are found in populous municipalities. This territorial digital divide is absent among the citizens. The findings indicate that the relatively high level of traditional participation in small municipalities also promote e-participation.     

Placing Racial Stereotypes in Context: Social Desirability and the Politics of Racial Hostility

Past research indicates that diversity at the level of larger geographic units (e.g., counties) is linked to white racial hostility. However, research has not addressed whether diverse local contexts may strengthen or weaken the relationship between racial stereotypes and policy attitudes. In a statewide opinion survey, we find that black‐white racial diversity at the zip‐code level strengthens the connection between racial stereotypes and race‐related policy attitudes among whites. Moreover, this effect is most pronounced among low self‐monitors, individuals who are relatively immune to the effects of egalitarian social norms likely to develop within a racially diverse local area. We find that this racializing effect is most evident for stereotypes (e.g., African Americans are “violent”) that are “relevant” to a given policy (e.g., capital punishment). Our findings lend nuance to research on the political effects of racial attitudes and confirm the racializing political effects of diverse residential settings on white Americans.     

Integration and Identity in an International Context: Problems and Ambiguities in the New Politics of Multiculturalism

Debates about multiculturalism, minority rights, and identity dominated Anglo-American political theory during the majority of the 1990s, and continue to raise important questions concerning the nature of citizenship, community, and the responsibilities of liberal states. They were popular, too, among policy makers, politicians, and journalists: many academics and practitioners were, for a time, united in their support for multiculturalism. Just as the philosophical literature at that time became more 'multiculturalist', so many European states increasingly adopted multiculturalist policies as a way of including historically marginalised groups into mainstream liberal culture or, in some cases, as a way of protecting minority groups from unfair pressures from the majority culture. However, as time has gone on, the multiculturalist turn in liberal political theory, and among many European governments, has waned. In the wake of terrorist atrocities around the world, growing concerns about the erosion of civic and national identity, and fears that cultural recognition can permit illiberal practices, many academics and practitioners have sought to distance themselves from the idea that it is a role of the state to afford special treatment to cultural minorities, and have sought once again to emphasise those common bonds which unite citizens of liberal democratic states, rather than those cultural identities which may serve to divide them. This article evaluates some of the recent philosophical literature on multiculturalism against the changing political landscape in Britain and Europe and suggests that the multiculturalist position remains weakened by a number of crucial ambiguities.     

Policy Attitudes in Institutional Context: Rules,Uncertainty, and the Mass Politics of Public Investment

This article examines the link between citizens’ policy attitudes and the institutional context in which policies are carried out. The article develops a theory of opinion formation toward policies that impose costs on citizens in order to invest in broadly valued social goods. In this framework, problems of agency loss and time inconsistency leave citizens uncertain about whether promised policy benefits will be delivered. Citizen support for public investments thus depends on whether the institutional context makes elites’ policy promises credible. We consider hypotheses about how the institutional allocation of authority and the institutional rules governing implementation affect citizen support for public investment, and we find broad support for the framework in three survey experiments administered to representative samples of U.S. citizens. The results shed light on the link between political institutions and citizens’ attitudes, the capacities of voters for substantive political reasoning, and the political prospects for public investment.     

US Military and Economic Intervention in an International Context of Low-intensity Conflict

Recent major shifts in US military thinking, creating a new low-intensity conflict (LIC) doctrine, have resulted already in significant changes in organization, mission definition, force structure and budgetary allocation. These changes have come about because American leadership recognizes that the process of deindustrialization has produced a vulnerable, highly integrated and interdependent global economic system. This system of economic rationalization is susceptible to anti-western disruptions because of the instability produced by rapid social change, a consequence of the competition from the newly industrialized nations. LIC capability is viewed as a necessary means for dealing with disruptions.     

Schattschneider in Brussels: How Policy Conflict Reshaped the Biotechnology Agenda in the European Union

This article asks why the European Commission lost control over the policy process in one of the most contested areas of policy-making in the European Union in recent years. The article finds that after years of vigorous political controversy over the framing of the issues at stake, the EU finally shifted into a Schattschneiderian mode of politics. The policy conflict expanded dramatically and a previously unrelated set of actors and interests united along new lines of policy debate. The analysis underscores how the political mode of EU decision-making can shift during the process of policy-making. In particular, it stresses how policy conflicts affect the mobilisation and demobilisation of political contestants and the realignment of political actors in the European Union.     

Comparing Feminist Policy in Politics and at Work in France and Germany: Shared European Union Setting, Divergent National Contexts

This essay introduces the seven articles in the symposium. Placing this special issue within the purview of the new field of Feminist Comparative Policy, the analysis shows how the symposium contributes to comparative theories of feminist policy formation in Western postindustrial democracies. It then defines the three subareas of feminist policy covered in the rest of the volume—political representation, equal employment, and reconciliation—explains why the German and French cases were selected for comparative analysis, discusses the importance of the ongoing process of Europeanization for feminist policy in the two countries, and finishes with a presentation of the outline for the seven articles.     

Altruism and Spite in Politics: How the Mind Makes Welfare Tradeoffs About Political Parties

How much will people sacrifice to support or oppose political parties? Extending previous work on the psychology of interpersonal cooperation, we propose that people’s minds compute a distinct cost–benefit ratio—a welfare tradeoff ratio—that regulates their choices to help or hurt political parties. In two experiments, participants decide whether to financially help and hurt the inparty and outparty. The results show that participants were extremely consistent (>?90%) while making dozens of decisions in a randomized order, providing evidence for tradeoff ratios toward parties. Moreover, participants’ ratios correlated in the expected directions with partisanship, political ideology, and feelings of enthusiasm and anger toward each party, corroborating that these ratios are politically meaningful. Generally, most participants were willing to sacrifice at least some money to help their inparty and hurt the outparty. At the same time, a sizable minority hurt their inparty and helped their outparty. Welfare tradeoff ratios push our understanding of partisanship beyond the classic debate about whether voters are rational or irrational. Underneath the turbulent surface of partisan passions hide precise calculations that proportion our altruism and spite toward parties.