FRED I. GREENSTEIN and RICHARD H. IMMERMAN provide an account of the impressively rigorous process of national security policy planning in the Eisenhower presidency. They commend it as a model for the next administration.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, National Security, History, and American Presidency
PETER BURNS and JAMES G. GIMPEL examine mass attitudes toward immigration policy in the United States, asking whether widespread restrictionist sentiment is stirred more by economic insecurity, by negative ethnic stereotypes, or by some combination of the two. For some, prejudice is rooted in economic insecurity, but prejudice also has roots that are quite independent of economic fears. Anti-immigrant sentiment will not disappear simply because economic conditions improve.
Topic:
Immigration, Public Opinion, Economic Security, and Stereotypes
DALTON CONLEY examines the causes and consequences of the black-white asset gap in the United States. He argues that it is wealth, more than any other measure of socio-economic well being, that captures the nature of racial inequality in the post-civil rights era. Conley discusses policy implications that may be used to address such "equity inequity."
JAMES FOWLER draws on interviews with State Department officials and recently declassified documents to analyze the role of the United States in South Korea's democratization, concluding that U.S. public pressure on the Korean government played a critical role in determining the timing of the transition.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Democratization, and Bilateral Relations
BARRY M. BLECHMAN and TAMARA COFMAN WITTES examine the uses of military threats and military interventions in the Bush and first Clinton administrations. Based on case studies and interviews with U.S. decision makers, they conclude that domestic and international political constraints are preventing U.S. leaders from making threats decisive enough to persuade foreign leaders to comply with U.S. demands.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Politics, Military Intervention, Bill Clinton, and George H. W. Bush
PETER ANDREAS examines the rapid escalation of U.S. immigration control efforts along our southwest border in recent years. He argues that enhanced border policing has less to do with actual deterrence and more to do with projecting an image of order and coping with the deepening contradictions of economic integration.
Topic:
Immigration, NAFTA, Borders, and Economic Integration
R. DOUGLAS ARNOLD analyzes the political difficulties in reforming Social Security in the absence of a short-term crisis. He argues that the chief political problem is to find a way to impose short-term costs on current taxpayers when the benefits of advance funding are exclusively long-term for future retires.
MICHAEL LES BENEDICT's interpretation of the impeachment of President Andrew Johnson destroys the conventional textbook wisdom which portrays Johnson as a martyred president unjustifiably pilloried by a vindictive Congress. Benedict shows that the decision to impeach was made reluctantly after a series of presidential actions over the years convinced even the most conservative members of Congress that impeachment was the only means left for defending their constitutional prerogatives.
ROBERT J. ART argues that an open door membership policy will destroy NATO and that there is a better alternative to create a security structure for Europe.
Topic:
Security, NATO, Alliance, and Regional Security
Political Geography:
Europe, North America, and United States of America
ARLINE T. GERONIMUS examines widely-shared assumptions about teen childbearing that informed the welfare reform debate. She argues that the scientific basis for these assumptions is equivocal and questions the belief that teen childbearing always represents irrationality and the abdication of personal responsibility.
Topic:
Reform, Youth, Welfare, Social Responsibility, and Parenthood
KEN I. KERSCH addresses federalism questions involving the obligations of states to recognize same-sex marriages under the full faith and credit clause. He argues that a consideration of traditional norms of comity among states along with the nation's experience with analogous disputes concerning slavery and antimiscegnation statutes would be useful to policy makers grappling with the issue.
Topic:
Domestic Politics, LGBT+, Federalism, and Marriage
MICHAEL X. DELLI CARPINI and ESTER FUCHS give a brief overview of why women had been excluded from voting and office holding. They then examine the recent successes by women in the political process, culminating in the election of forty-seven women in the U.S. House of Representatives and five new women senators.
Topic:
Elections, Women, Voting, and Political Participation
DONA COOPER HAMILTON and CHARLES V. HAMILTON examine some major social welfare policies that have concerned black organizations since the New Deal. They show that the organizations, contrary to popular analyses, have always pursued two agendas: to overcome racial segregation and discrimination but also to secure universal social welfare policies.
Topic:
Minorities, History, Discrimination, Civil Rights, Welfare, and African Americans