What is the Canon in American Politics? Analyses of Core Graduate Syllabi

Many core graduate-level seminars claim to expose students to their discipline’s “canon.” The contents of this canon, however, can and do differ across departments and instructors. This project employs a survey of core American politics PhD seminar syllabi at highly ranked universities to construct a systematic account of the American politics canon. Our results offer valuable insights into the topics and literature that political scientists consider important and on which future scholars base their work. Our article breaks down the literature into a comprehensive list of topics and subtopics, which allows us to identify both an overall field canon and one for each topic, to assess whether some topics receive more attention than others, and to identify which topics are most clearly defined. We explore the extent to which diverse perspectives and methods are (or are not) taught to young scholars, and, although we identify sets of frequently assigned readings and authors within each topic, we also find considerable variation between seminars.     

Factors Underlying the Growth of Local Government in the 19th Century United States

Early in the 19th century local governmentsspent less than either the federal or stategovernments. By the end of the 19thcentury local governments spent more thanthe federal and state governments combined. This growth is obviously related to thegrowth of cities, but cities continued togrow in the 20th century, while the localgovernment share of total governmentexpenditures fell, so the growth of citiescannot be the complete answer. Anexamination of expenditures and revenues intwo cities – Boston and Baltimore –suggests that no one component ofexpenditures was responsible for increasesin total spending. Rather, it appears thatthe primary causal factor was revenuegrowth. Cities rely heavily on propertytaxes, and the increasing value of taxableproperty allowed cities to raise increasingamounts of revenue, leading to increasedgovernment spending.     

The Role of Gender in Adolescent Identity and Intimacy Decisions

This study explored the relative importance of identity and intimacy in male and female adolescent decisions. One hundred twenty adolescents responded to 16 identity/intimacy dilemmas. Females had higher identity (and lower intimacy) scores than males. Identity scores were higher in scenarios with female protagonists. A content analysis of decision explanations showed females gave more explanations than males with identity and intimacy fused. Implications for theories of psychosocial development are discussed.     

Integrating Concerns with Climate Change into Local Development Planning in Cambodia

Integration of climate change adaptation with development planning at multiple scales is widely seen as preferable to reactive, fragmented, or highly centralized responses. At the same time, there are growing concerns on when intervention is most appropriate, the transaction costs of coordination, and the adequacy of institutional capacity at local levels, especially in developing countries. This article examines entry points and mechanisms for integrating concerns with climate change into local development planning in Cambodia. An institutional ethnography of the planning process indicates that subnational planning is participatory and flexible; and thus, provides plausible entry points to integrate climate change concerns. Case study methods applied to two externally supported, climate‐resilient development projects identify promising mechanisms and strategies, as well as obstacles to integration. A vulnerability reduction assessment tool and top‐up grant scheme both included promising deliberative and participatory elements from which lessons for future and elsewhere can be drawn. At the same time, key stakeholders concede that local integration more widely is hampered by multiple obstacles, including weak institutional capacity, low community participation, and lack of resources and incentives. Addressing these challenges requires political commitments for good governance, capacity development, and additional resources.     

Arresting Masculinity: Anger,Hybridity and the Reproduction of Phallic Space

This paper examines how the signifier of ‘toxic masculinity’ operates in the contemporary psycho-social landscape of embodied power relations. It is argued that toxic masculinity is a symbolic response to the deep sense of anger people experience owing to the persistent disturbance of reason that characterizes the radically incongruous Thirdspace in which we live. To those who feel disoriented and lost, toxic masculinity is both an imagined cause and a projected solution to the endemic sense of dislocation. As an index of repressive power, self-serving discipline and ruthless ambition, toxic masculinity is held fully responsible by angry ‘outsiders’ for the ongoing disturbance of reason, whilst the very attribution of the cause of this disturbance to a gendered position of traditional embodied authority simultaneously serves the purpose of changing the hybridity of Thirdspace into more conventional figurations of social imbalance. This explanatory model, which draws both on Edward W. Soja’s reflections on the changing spatialities of the human lifeworld and Henri Lefebvre’s theory of the (re-)production of (phallic) space, is further employed to address the questions as to why patriarchy persists and whether alternative constellations of governance are feasible.

     

Exploring the Political Agency of Humanitarian NGOs: Médecins Sans Frontières During the European Refugee Crisis

Due to the recent high influx of refugees, migration has become one of the most politicised issues within the European Union (EU). To explore the political agency of humanitarian NGOs, this article analyses the behaviour of Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) during the peak of the influx from April 2015 to June 2016. Outrage about the EU’s response to the refugee crisis triggered confrontational and politicised strategies from MSF that aimed to enhance contestation and mobilise public opinion. The proximity of the crisis and the organisation’s independence and decentralised structure facilitated this political agency. Furthermore, neither MSF’s strong commitment to the humanitarian principles of neutrality, impartiality and independence, nor its cooperative ties to national and international political elites, hindered its political actions in this situation. This article therefore refutes the common perspective that humanitarian NGOs are generally cooperative and, ultimately, depoliticising agents in global governance. Under certain conditions, humanitarian NGOs can decide to become highly political and confrontational in opposing national and EU policies.