College of Behavioral & Social Sciences
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The collections in this community comprise faculty research works, as well as graduate theses and dissertations..
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Item Reconstituting the War Powers: Towards a Deliberative Constitutional System for War(2014) Janow, Jeremy A.; Elkin, Stephen L.; Government and Politics; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This study of American constitutional theory and practice offers a distinctive perspective on the interminable war powers debate, a view away from formal constitutional settlement and towards a deliberative constitutional politics for war. Contemporary war powers scholarship centers on the question of how the rise of discretionary executive power and receding legislative influence over the use of military force should be constitutionally evaluated and addressed. This dissertation shows that underlying the conventional divide between congressionalist and presidentialist interpretations of the Constitution are competing theories about how such a balance of powers is to be politically constituted that have important implications for the interbranch politics of warmaking. The predominate framing of the war powers debate has been from the vantage point of legal constitutionalism--centering on constitutional interpretation, statutory clarification, and ultimately judicial review to clearly establish the authority over the use of military force. After describing the theoretical promises of the formal entrenchment of the separation of powers, an examination of constitutional practice reveals this approach to be a contemporary construction that has tended to undermine the purposes to which it aspires. The dissertation then turns to consider a more fully political constitutionalism, a conception with roots in the American founding and which has seen a revival in recent scholarly discussions. Political constitutionalism accommodates continual discord over the proper boundaries of institutional authority in war and the inevitability of some executive discretion as inherent and potentially salutary elements of the political order. The analysis shows that the warmaking order that emerges from such a constitutional politics should not entail anything goes, but instead can be judged by the extent the branches engage in recurring interactions that amount to systemic deliberation, a standard drawn from the political form of the constitution itself. This study concludes with a sketch of how processes of legal constitutionalism might be integrated into the deliberative interbranch warmaking politics aspired to by political constitutionalism and a view towards the broader political foundations of a deliberative constitutional system for war.Item Incivility in Mass Political Discourse: The Causes and Consequences of an Uncivil Public(2013) Gervais, Bryan T.; Uslaner, Eric M.; Government and Politics; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)In this dissertation project, I explore the effect that exposure to uncivil political talk has on deliberative attitudes and behavior. I hypothesize that incivility in political discourse can induce anti-deliberative attitudes among the public, and increases the use of incivility in political talk. I argue that an anti-deliberative spirit among the public helps fuel mass partisan polarization, and limits the positive effects that come from public deliberation. Using survey data, I find that use of incivility by the public when talking politics has increased. This trend has come alongside changes in partisan polarization and media over the last few decades. A separate analysis confirms the tie between exposure to partisan, uncivil media and uncivil political talk; using panel data, I find that exposure to political talk radio and pundit-based television programming leads audience members with like-minded political views to mimic uncivil language and tactics when expressing their own political opinions. I use experimental methods to explore incivility's effects more in-depth. Drawing from affective intelligence theory, I hypothesize that political incivility has the ability to induce anger, which in turn reduces deliberative attitudes. In one experiment, I manipulate the amount of incivility in an online message board. I find that uncivil political talk induced feelings of anger in individuals when one's partisan in-group was targeted, and led to an increased use of incivility when the partisan out-group was targeted. When feelings of anger are stimulated in people, they reprimand the uncivil "perpetrator" on the message board, and display anti-deliberative attitudes--including a reduced propensity to consider alternative views and lower levels of satisfaction with interactive online communication. A second experiment, embedded in a national survey, confirms that disagreeable incivility and like-minded incivility have different effects. Uncivil messages that are disagreeable induce feelings of anger, decrease willingness to compromise, and boost use of incivility. While the connection between like-minded incivility, anger, and anti-deliberative attitudes is less clear, uncivil messages lead like-minded messages to mimic uncivil and anti-deliberative behavior. My findings show that incivility limits political deliberation. I conclude by noting the consequences of this, as well as directions for future research.Item Abortion Escorts and Democratic Participation(2008-04-16) Maloney, Steven Douglas; Alford, Charles F; Government and Politics; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)My dissertation explores the theoretical value of political participation. I argue that some acts of political participation, such as abortion escorting, constitute "political action" as Hannah Arendt used the term. These acts do not fall under the umbrella of either civil society or activism. A more nuanced account of political participation is needed. This account must include participatory, deliberative, and republican ideals, and it must take political action more seriously than the predominant procedural, communicative, or economic visions of liberalism currently do. Here, abortion escorts exemplify the type of political participation that Hannah Arendt argued was missing at Little Rock Central High School during the period of integration. Arendt called for citizen escorts during integration, and abortion escorting provides a positive example of this behavior today. Arendt confessed she was moved to write her essay only from a photograph that she saw, and she was criticized for her lack of fieldwork. However, I went into the field to observe abortion escorting. Moreover, while Arendt's factual statements about integration and American racial politics have been somewhat discredited, I argue there are still important theoretical insights in her essay--and in Arendt's theoretical work more broadly--that need resuscitating even if her empirical account is troubled at times. As such, I use abortion escorts as an example--a means of rescuing Arendt's theory of political action and integrating it into a contemporary body of American political theory that has been both inspired by Arendt and unsettled by her contributions