Clerics, Exiles, and Academics: Opposition to the Brazilian Military Dictatorship in the United States, 1969–1974

Virtually no one in the United States raised objections to the 1964 military takeover of the Brazilian civilian government. In the early 1970s, however, the Brazilian regime had become associated with torture and the arbitrary rule of law. By the end of that decade, compliance with human rights standards had developed into a yardstick for measuring U.S. foreign policy initiatives in Latin America. This paper argues that between 1969 and 1974, a small group of dedicated church activists, exiled Brazilians, and academics introduced the issue of human rights in Latin America into the U.S. national body politic. A network of concerned activists fashioned a systematic campaign to educate journalists, government officials, and the public about the abuses taking place under the generals' rule. Their activities helped isolate the military regime and laid the groundwork for a broader solidarity movement with Latin American popular struggles in the late 1970s and 1980s.     

Issues,the Spatial Theory of Voting,and British General Elections: A Comparison of Proximity and Directional Models

Competing spatial models of voter choiceare compared in the context ofparliamentary representatives selectedthrough single-member district, pluralityelections where party platforms areemphasized over individual candidates.Respondents of the 1987, 1992, and 1997British general election surveys ratepolitical parties on a series of issuescales. Ordered logistic regressions ofparty evaluations under proximity,directional, and mixed models reveal thatthe classic spatial model and thedirectional model perform equally well.Differences center on perceptions of thestatus quo, as voters appear to evaluatethe incumbent party (here, theConservatives) slightly differently thanminority parties (Labour and the LiberalDemocrats). The proximity model worksbetter for voter evaluations of governingparties while the directional model workswell for opposition parties.     

Political Partisanship and Welfare State Reform in Advanced Industrial Societies

In this article we evaluate two claims made in recent studies of the welfare states of advanced industrial societies: first, that welfare states have remained quite resilient in the face of demands for retrenchment; and second, that partisan politics have ceased to play a decisive role in their evolution. Addressing the first claim, we present analysis from a new data set on unemployment insurance and sickness benefit replacement rates for 18 countries for the years 1975–99. We find considerably more evidence of welfare retrenchment during the last two decades than do recent cross-national studies. Second, we examine the "end of partisanship" claim by estimating the effects of government partisanship on changes in income replacement rates in sickness and unemployment programs. Our results suggest that, contrary to claims that partisanship has little impact on welfare state commitments, traditional partisanship continues to have a considerable effect on welfare state entitlements in the era of retrenchment .     

The Federal Line Item Veto Experiment: After the Supreme Court Ruling,What's Next?

The federal line item veto has ceased to exist, thanks to the Supreme Court's June 1998 ruling invalidating the expansion of the president's rescission authority that was contained in the Line Item Veto Act. This article reviews the application of the Act during 1997, its effect on spending and the deficit, the judicial reaction to its use, and the prospects for the restoration of some version of the power. President Clinton was quite restrained in the use of his new power, with the exception of his cancellations in the Military Construction appropriation bill; these were ultimately restored by the Congress. Because of the president's restraint, the Line Item Veto Act had a miniscule affect on spending and the deficit; total cancellations represented less than .04 percent of FY98 discretionary budget authority. Ultimately, the Supreme Court held that the Act violated Article I, Section 7 because it created a Constituionally impermissable way for the president to change laws. There is no clear fallback position for supporters of the Act; alternatives are either difficult to enact, hard to administer, or too weak to be considered an effective substitute. Given the problems in enacting any alternative, it may be that the federal line item veto will end up only as a historical anomaly.