Government & Politics Theses and Dissertations
Permanent URI for this collectionhttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/2775
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Item Flip-Flops, Double Standards, and Other Political Sins: A Citizen's Guide to Hypocrisy in Politics(2020) Stonerook, Jason Port; Soltan, Karol; Government and Politics; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)People detest hypocrisy, and one of the reasons people hold politics in such low regard is that politics appears rife with hypocrisy. The proliferation of hypocrisy in politics can leave many feeling disenchanted and cynical about political affairs. Yet even those with a strong aversion to political hypocrisy are likely to admit there are occasions when an act that has been characterized as hypocritical is actually acceptable in politics. In some cases, the offense of hypocrisy may not be very serious, or conditioned by circumstances; in other cases, the accusation may not even be valid. This study examines the question of when hypocrisy is more or less acceptable in politics. This issue is explored through a series of case studies drawn from events that occurred in American politics between 2014-2016, an era characterized by high political polarization, high-stakes showdowns between congressional Republicans and the Democratic administration of President Barack Obama, the 2016 presidential primaries, and 2016 presidential election between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. The study is organized by type, with a focus on basic violations of principle; logical inconsistencies; double standards involving partisan competition; discrepancies between the public affairs of public officials and their private lives; and flip-flops. The study finds that the most useful and powerful accusations of hypocrisy are those that effectively assert that a political figure has inappropriately prioritized narrow partisan concerns over a broader commitment to principles related to democratic norms, the exercise of civic virtue, and public-spiritedness.Item OVERCOMING NON-COOPERATION: DESIGNING A PATENT SYSTEM FOR THE PUBLIC(2019) Leaderman, Arthur Isaac; Soltan, Karol E; Government and Politics; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Patents allocate power by assigning exclusive property rights to persons who claim to have discovered new scientific or technical art. Accordingly, infringers can be treated like trespassers. In a longstanding theoretical quarrel, some insist that these exclusive rights serve society as incentives to innovation and as just rewards for inventors. Others counter that learning is socially generated and that intangible ideas should not be privately rationed. Theory aside, the institutional facts are polycentric and modulated. While a dominant regime of codes and treaties indeed protects exclusionary property in ideas, several enduring exceptions (subregimes) counter patent exclusivity. Regulations in the technology domains of environment, energy, pesticides, plant genetic resources, and some pharmaceuticals, for example, sometimes set aside strict exclusionary norms and force a patent holder to include others in a semi-commons of cooperative sharing. This dissertation observes that the polycentricity and variability in the patent system expose resistance to exclusionary property rights in ideas. The resistance is stable and can inspire an institutional redesign that brings inclusive norms into dominance, without forfeit of reasonable social and material rewards for inventors. It further challenges the two prevailing modes of justification for the dominant exclusionary norms. Utilitarian or welfare-maximizing justifications for the exclusionary norms are shown to be both multifarious and conflicting. At the same time, non-consequentialist justifications, under the banner of natural rights for the inventor, stumble because patents can be assigned arbitrarily, waste the resources of non-patent holders, and constrain society’s collective liberties to expand knowledge. This study also supports a “proof of concept” for an alternative, inclusive patent system that 1) operates without prohibitory injunctions; 2) extends licenses-of-right that compensate inventions without deadweight losses; 3) opens application and examination procedures for better patent quality; and 4) expands private ordering of disputes to lower transaction costs. This inclusive alternative is hardly utopian: the aforementioned subregimes significantly validate the practicality of cooperative, non-exclusive norms.Item After the Fire the Embers Still Burn: A Theory of Jus Post Bellum(2013) Kirkpatrick, Jesse; Soltan, Karol; Government and Politics; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Ending wars right and justly has been an ethical imperative since they have first been fought. Given that the postwar periods of numerous wars fought in the recent past have been seriously bungled, the need for postwar ethics has become perspicuously clear. This need is also striking. It is striking because theories of jus post bellum have recently begun to take shape, yet they remain seriously deficient. Jus post bellum theorizing often remains narrowly focused on interstate warfare and is not reflective of the existing complexity and modalities of twenty first century conflict. In addition, current theories typically focus on punishment, recriminations, and backward–looking models of justice that do not necessarily prioritize relief and aid to war-torn soldiers, societies, and civilians. By theorizing the concept of jus post bellum as a forward-looking cosmopolitan model of justice, where the central task is on building a just and lasting peace through stabilization, aid, and development, this dissertation aims to fill this gap. In so doing, the dissertation seeks to broaden the scope of jus post bellum by connecting it, and the just war tradition more generally, with the emerging contemporary literature of cosmopolitan global justice.Item WHO IS A PERSON AND WHY? A STUDY OF PERSONHOOD IN THEORY AND THE LAW(2012) Chandler Garcia, Lynne Marie; McIntosh, Wayne; Government and Politics; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This study concerns what it means to be a person and the role the law plays in bestowing the status of person. The purpose of this dissertation is to further our understanding of how courts in the U.S., and especially the U.S. Supreme Court, have defined "person" as a legal construct within Constitutional law. In order to achieve this, court decisions concerning the personhood of key entities with a claim to personhood are analyzed and compared in order to yield a more meaningful understanding of the word "person." The entities studied include slaves, corporations, fetuses, and higher-order animals. To focus the study, several theoretical dichotomies are presented that unite the scholarship of personhood as it pertains to each of these entities. These include the dichotomy between a human being and person; property and person; and inclusion or exclusion in a community of persons. Each of these entities is then thoroughly examined in terms of the theories of personhood that are applicable to that entity, the particular historical and political circumstances that surround each entity, and finally the court decisions that determined that entity's status as a person. Through careful analysis of court documents, the study tests to see if the legal decisions reflect the dichotomies between person and human being or person and property. Further, these legal decisions are compared in order to determine if the courts have been consistent in the bestowal of personhood. Through a thorough analysis of judicial decisions concerning personhood combined with a theoretical foundation of the interdisciplinary discussions that inform and affect judicial and moral personhood, this study seeks a more concrete answer to the question, "Who is a person and why?"