The Public Cost of Unilateral Action

Scholarship on democratic responsiveness focuses on whether political outcomes reflect public opinion but overlooks attitudes toward how power is used to achieve those policies. We argue that public attitudes toward unilateral action lead to negative evaluations of presidents who exercise unilateral powers and policies achieved through their use. Evidence from two studies supports our argument. In three nationally representative survey experiments conducted across a range of policy domains, we find that the public reacts negatively when policies are achieved through unilateral powers instead of through legislation passed by Congress. We further show these costs are greatest among respondents who support the president's policy goals. In an observational study, we show that attitudes toward unilateral action in the abstract affect how respondents evaluate policies achieved through unilateral action by presidents from Lincoln to Obama. Our results suggest that public opinion may constrain presidents' use of unilateral powers.     

Norwegian parliamentary elections, 1906–2013: representation and turnout across four electoral systems

Since gaining full independence in 1905, Norway has experienced more than a century of democratic elections, and has reformed its electoral system three times, most notably with the switch from a two-round runoff system to proportional representation in 1919. This research note introduces a new dataset featuring all candidates running for parliamentary (Storting) elections from 1906 to 2013, and documents the patterns over time and across electoral systems in the development of the party system; candidates’ gender, age, occupation, and geographic ties; and voter turnout. Scholars interested in using the dataset can gain access to it through the Norwegian Centre for Research Data.     

Course corrections and failed rationales: how comparative advantage and debt are used to legitimise austerity in Africa and Latin America

This article examines the role of ideological mechanisms in support of long-term economic liberalisation. Specifically we examine the ideological roles of comparative advantage and debt reduction as precursors to austerity policy imposition. Austerity policies, as episodic mechanisms designed to deepen neoliberalisation, are examined in the comparative historical context of Africa and Latin America.     

"Who Are You Wearing?" Using the Red Carpet Question Pedagogically

This paper presents an active learning module design and implementation strategy for use in an undergraduate course on globalization, world politics, international political economy, or international relations. Students are first asked to conduct research on their wardrobe and its origins by country, allowing for classroom discussion of research methods and designs. Results are submitted, along with a short response essay. This is evaluated in conjunction with a case-study short reading and shared discussion, followed by a short video/multimedia presentation on free trade and labor issues. Drawing on literature on active learning, I argue that this presents a more cohesive approach for engaging students in the material on a substantive level, while at the same time allowing them to actively appreciate and understand such diverse concepts as commodity chains, free trade zones, fair trade versus free trade, gendered divisions of labor, consumer responsibility, research methodologies, and macroeconomic shifts in employment across nations. This also serves as a rubric for instructors to use in creating their own topical "modules." Preliminary data and classroom results are discussed, as are additional strategies for lesson development.     

Facilitators of development or Kapos for capital: the primrose path to GATS

This article arose from work undertaken on behalf of a UK-based NGO developing a policy response to the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS). It looks at GATS as a key to locating development NGOs (NGDOs) within the broader field of development aims and practices, examining the long-term implications of GATS with respect to the idea of a ‘fourth position’ for such NGOs. It is argued that this theoretical position fails to take into account changing imbalances of power between NGDOs and their Southern counterparts that began under structural adjustment, as a consequence of which many NGDOs now occupy a position from which effective mediation between civil society, the state, and the market would be difficult if not impossible. In addition, GATS represents a step-change along the evolutionary path towards a market-oriented ideology whose verticalist worldview represents a profound contradiction to the avowedly progressive aims of most NGDOs.     

Reports of our death are greatly exaggerated: A study of criminal justice academic program survival in Alabama

It has been suggested that the reduction of and eventual termination of LEEP funds for the education of inservice justice system employees would lead to a reduction in the size of criminal justice academic programs with attendant termination of many programs. However, academic programs are rarely terminated and tend to develop their own constituencies. This study examined the survivability of criminal justice academic programs in Alabama and found that while there may have been a reduction in size at some point, the criminal justice programs continue to survive, are experiencing growth in student population, and have longterm plans for program development.