Fall Capstone

For you students still looking for a capstone, Professor Monica Schneider has room in her capstone titled “Citizen Politics in the United States: Political Psychology.”  Here is the description:

The discipline of political science includes the study of why members of the American public behave the way that they do.  Understanding political behavior can help us determine if the American public is living up to the challenges of democracy and whether or not measures need to be taken to improve the quality of public participation.  While there are many different types of explanations for political behavior, this course will focus on explanations drawn from theories in cognitive and social psychology.  We will consider the role of cognition, emotion, personality, stereotypes, and prejudice in American politics as well as the effects of media on our citizens.  We will be discussing the role that emotion and thinking play in voting; why some people chose to save Jews in Nazi Germany; whether or not there is a certain personality type for liberals and conservatives; and the role of stereotypes and prejudice in campaigns.  Method of instruction is seminar with videos and student presentations, with careful attention to current events.
Since this is a capstone experience, we will emphasize synthesizing different theoretical explanations for behavior. Students will work on their own and in teams to investigate questions of interest. They will be graded on participation, completion of 2 paper assignments, a class presentation, and an exam. No prior psychology or political science is assumed. Please email Professor Monica Schneider if you have more questions (schneimc@muohio.edu).

Unsure about Law School?

Political Science does a lousy job in informing our majors of other opportunities for major than going to law school.  Most of our majors plan on going to law school, even if that is not what they are sure they want to do with themselves.  There is a false belief, forged while sitting in con law or civil liberties, that after the major finishes law school, he or she will be arguing the big constitutional cases of the day before the Supreme Court of the United States.  That is not likely.

If you are not certain about law school, and even if you are, you should read this “New York Times” investigation of the difficulties facing newly minted lawyers in gaining employment upon graduation.

New Edited Volume

Brian Danoff, a faculty member in the department, has just published a new edited volume (along with L. Joseph Hebert) with Lexington Books titled “Alexis de Tocqueville and the Art of Democratic Statesmanship“.

A blurb from the book:

“In 1835, Alexis de Tocqueville famously called for ‘a new political science’ that could address the problems and possibilities of a ‘world itself quite new.’ For Tocqueville, the democratic world needed not just a new political science but also new arts of statesmanship and leadership. In this volume, my co-editor and I have brought together a diverse set of essays revealing that Tocqueville’s understanding of democratic statesmanship remains highly relevant today. The first chapter of the book is a new translation of Tocqueville’s 1852 address to the Academy of Moral and Political Sciences, in which Tocqueville offers a profound exploration of the relationship between theory and practice, and between statesmanship and political philosophy. Subsequent chapters explore the relationship between Tocqueville’s ideas on statesmanship, on the one hand, and the ideas of Plato, Aristotle, Machiavelli, Montesquieu, the Puritans, the Framers of the U.S. Constitution, Oakeshott, Willa Cather, and the Second Vatican Council, on the other. Timely and provocative, these essays show the relevance of Tocqueville’s theory of statesmanship for thinking about such contemporary issues as the effects of NGOs on civic life, the powers of the American presidency, the place of the jury in a democratic polity, the role of religion in public life, the future of democracy in Europe, and the proper balance between liberalism and realism in foreign policy.”

Inside Washington

Miami’s Inside Washington program will be holding an informational session
on Wednesday, March 24 at 5:30 in 101 Bachelor.  The Inside Washington
program still has openings for this fall semester and next spring semester’s
program.

The Inside Washington program offers students a unique opportunity to both
intern in Washington and also meet with prominent members of the Washington
community.  This semester Inside Washington students have met with Supreme
Court Justice Sonya Sotomayor, Karl Rove, Senators George Voinovich and
Sherrod Brown, and CBS’s Bob Schieffer.  Our current students are interning
at sites including the Supreme Court of the United States, NBC’s “Meet the
Press,” lobbying firms, and offices of members of both the House and Senate.

For more information on the Inside Washington program, please visit our
website at muohio.edu/insidewashington or contact me.

Howard Kleiman, Ph.D.
Professor, Mass Communication Area
Department of Communication
Miami University
Oxford, OH 45056
513-529-3545
kleimah@muohio.edu

News Blurb

Our own Christopher Kelley was quoted in a “Washington Times” article on the Obama Administration’s move towards unilateralism.

Forum on Democracy and the Press

This is a forwarded announcement from the folks at Northern Kentucky University about a forum they are holding on democracy and the press.  Contact information is included in the message:

Hello, my name is Joe Graf and I am the public relations intern for the Scripps Howard Center for Civic Engagement, located on Northern Kentucky University’s campus.  I would like to take this opportunity to inform you about a free forum being held here at NKU on Thursday, March 4th. The forum is titled, “News in the Information Age: What happens to democracy if the presses stop?”

This free forum will be in the Student Union Ballroom and will open with a presentation by Princeton University economics professor Dr. Sam Schulhofer-Wohl, who is researching the impact on democracy when newspaper’s close. His focus has been northern Kentucky and Cincinnati after the closing of The Kentucky Post and The Cincinnati Post in December 2007.  You can read his preliminary research at:          http://wws-roxen.princeton.edu/wwseconpapers/papers/dp236.pdf.

Dr. Schulhofer-Wohl will join a panel after his remarks including: Rich Boehe, CEO of the E.W. Scripps Co.; Jacques Steinberg, a New York Times reporter who has covered media and education; M. E. Sprengelmeyer, owner and publisher of the Guadalupe County (N.M.) Communicator; and Dennis Hetzel, general manager of the Kentucky Enquirer.

This event could be a great learning experience for you as well as your program’s students.  I would like to ask you to forward this information on to any students you feel would enjoy or benefit from this forum, professors, or anyone else you feel may be interested.  If that does not work for you please send me an e-mail list and I would be more than glad to send it out.

We realize that many of you cannot attend the forum in person.  So to facilitate, we will be streaming the forum live on ustream, and also feeding live to twitter (nkyforum).  To access ustream, click on this link, www.ustream.com and enter NKYFORUM in the search box.

For additional information, please visit our website at http://civicengagement.nku.edu/index.php, or e-mail me personally at grafj [at] nku.edu.

Sincerely,

Joe Graf and Your friends at Scripps Howard Center for Civic Engagement

Government Data

Working on a project–either faculty or student–that deals with government agencies and you would like government stats to put your paper over the top?  Fortunately the bureaucratic agencies, as a result of new rules governing transparency, have to make their data available to all.

The site Data.gov has information from each of the departments and agencies in the Executive Branch, including the Executive Office of the President.

Happy Hunting!

Pi Sigma Alpha

Pi Sigma Alpha, the national Political Science honorary, is soliciting applications for membership.  Application forms and information are available on the bulletin board outside the Department of Political Science office in 218 Harrison Hall.

Membership requirements: 1) have completed at least 10 semester hours in Political Science; 2) have completed at least 3 semester hours in Political Science above the 200 level; and 3) hae at least a 3.0 gpa in Political Science courses.

You need not be a Political Science major to apply.

Applications are due by Friday, March 5, 2010.

If you have questions, please direct them to Dr. Brian Danoff @ 9-0160

Signing Statements, Reagan to Bush II

Christopher Kelley and Bryan Marshall have a new publication in the March 2010 issue of Social Science Quarterly that examines the use of the presidential signing statement from Reagan to Bush II.

The article looks at how recent presidents use both the constitutional and rhetorical signing statements to deal with such conditions as divided government, major legislation, and election cycles.  The article takes a much needed step towards identifying how presidents deal with hostile external political conditions.

New Book

Our own Brian Danoff has recently had a book of his published by SUNY Press.  His book, titled “Educating Democracy: Alexis de Tocqueville and Leadership in America” has been a labor of love.  Brian offers the following summation:

The relationship between leadership and democracy has long been viewed as problematic, for the preeminence and power of leaders can pose a threat to democratic norms of liberty and equality. I argue that the best way to think through the problem of democratic leadership in America is through Alexis de Tocqueville. Whereas many contemporary scholars of leadership and statesmanship focus on the ‘effectiveness’ of leaders or on the superior qualities of character possessed by outstanding statesmen, Tocqueville suggests that great democratic leaders are those who educate, elevate, and empower their fellow citizens. Tocqueville thus reveals that certain kinds of leadership can enhance rather than diminish democratic self-rule. While I find considerable value in Tocqueville’s ideas on democratic leadership, I do not treat these ideas as definitive or final. I use Tocqueville’s ideas on leadership to set the terms of debate, but I then demonstrate that the ideas of certain American thinker-statesmen – including the Antifederalists, Abraham Lincoln, and Woodrow Wilson – can be used to contest, build on, and sometimes improve upon Tocqueville’s understanding of leadership. In the book’s final chapter, I argue for the continuing relevance of Tocqueville’s ideas on democratic leadership through a critical examination of Robert Putnam’s strategies for reviving civil society. I here explore the promise – but also the pitfalls – of what Tocqueville called ‘the doctrine of self-interest properly understood.’ Throughout the book, I not only shed new light on Tocqueville, but I also provide an important new perspective on the place of leadership in American political thought and in democratic theory.

Congratulations to Brian!