University of Florida - Department of Political Science

Speaker: Kevin Glynn (Canterbury University, NZ)

Title: The 2004 Election Did Not Take Place: Bush, Spectacle and the Media Non-event

Abstract: It is arguable that the George W. Bush regime makes a more systematically intensive strategic effort to mobilize the management and control of media images as a primary mode of governance than any other US presidency we have yet seen. This talk will discuss aspects of the Bush White House's media-imagineering and draw upon notions of media spectacle, along with Jean Baudrillard's widely misunderstood analysis of the 1991 Gulf War and often overlooked theory of media non-events, in order to examine the 2004 US presidential election in particular. It will also identify and draw on what we might see as image insurgencies emerging from the Internet, the alternative press and the mainstream media in order to raise the prospect that the more fully a regime of power seeks to exert control over and through images, the more vulnerable it becomes to the generation of counter-images, counter-narratives and counter-spectacles.

Speaker: Sharon Austin

Title: Social Capital and Political Participation: A Racial Perspective

Abstract: In this paper we examine the question, "What influences the decisions of blacks and whites to vote—human capital or social capital?" In this paper, we adopt a Bayesian model to test the impact of social and human capital on both racial groups. The most important finding is that while bonding and bridging social capital as well as human capital are all important in explaining white voting participation, for African Americans only bonding social capital measured by church attendance is an important factor. We found that human capital, on the other hand, has no effect on black voting participation. We conclude that while social capital does help explain voting participation, the utility of social capital theory must be considered in a racial context.

Paper: austins-jan2008.doc

Speaker: Matt Golder (Florida State University)

Title: Ideological Congruence and Two Visions of Democracy

Abstract: A growing consensus has emerged that proportional democracies produce more ideological congruence between their citizens and representatives than majoritarian democracies. As we demonstrate, though, this consensus is open to question since it rests on a weak conceptualization of congruence, a poor theoretical foundation, and problematic data. In this paper, we introduce a new conceptualization of congruence and operationalize it with measures constructed with particularly appropriate data from the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems. In direct contradiction to almost all of the literature, our empirical analysis of 41 elections in 24 countries from 1996 to 2005illustrates that majoritarian and proportional democracies do not produce any substantive differences in terms of congruence. This suggests that if scholars wish to advocate on behalf of proportional democracies, then they should do so on grounds other than increased congruence. Our analysis has important implications for comparative and American scholars interested in political representation and congruence more generally.

Paper: golderm_congruence_uf_2007.pdf

Speaker: Beth Rosenson

Title: Examining Interest Group Influence Through Privately Sponsored Travel: Which Members of Congress Do Groups Target?

Abstract: Privately sponsored Congressional travel is an under-examined form of legislative shirking which raises important questions about legislative behavior and the influence of special interests on lawmakers. I use multiple regression to explain variation in Congressional travel domestically and abroad, looking at 13,737 trips by Senate and House members and their staff between 2001 and 2004. Both supply and demand-side factors are found to influence Congressional travel. Members in positions of institutional power take more trips, while electoral vulnerability is associated with reduced trip-taking. Pending retirement also influences trip-taking, though in the opposite direction from what shirking theory predicts.

Paper:rosenson-rsp-jan2008.doc

Speaker: Ido Oren

Title: The Unrealism of Contemporary Realism: The Tension between Realist Theory and Realists' Practice

Abstract: Realist IR thinkers often intervene in political debates and criticize their governments' policies even as they pride themselves on theorizing politics as it "really" is. They rarely reflect on the following contradictions between their theory and their practice: if there is a "real world" impervious to political thought, why bother to try to influence it? And, is realist theory not putatively disconfirmed by the fact that realist thinkers have so often opposed existing foreign policies (e.g., the wars in Vietnam and Iraq)? I argue that these contradictions are not inherent in realism per se so much as in the commitment of contemporary realists to naturalistic methodological and epistemological postulates. I show that Hans Morgenthau and especially E. H. Carr, far from being naïve "traditionalists," have grappled with these questions in a sophisticated manner; they have adopted non-naturalistic methodological and epistemological stances that minimize the tension between realist theory and the realities of realists' public activism. I conclude with a call for contemporary realists to adjust their theory to their practice by trading the dualism underlying their approach - subject-object; science-politics; purpose-analysis - for E. H. Carr's dictum that "political thought is itself a form of political action."

Speaker: Samuel Barkin

Title: Reassembling International Relations Theory: Realism, Constructivism, and Deparadigmatiztion.

Abstract: The core argument of this project is that a paradigmatic way of thinking about different approaches to the study of international relations is problematic. It obscures both the compatibilities among different approaches, and the complex ways in which they interrelate. Paradigms encourage insular thinking, and a focus on emphasizing differences. In this way, they encourages what might be called a paradigmatic imperialism at the expense of communication within the discipline. Constructivism and realism are often identified as two of the core paradigms in the field. The focus of this project is on the various relationships, ontological, epistemological, and political, between the two.

Speaker: Daniel Ziblatt (Harvard University)

Title: The Causes of Electoral Fraud: Explaining the Flawed Practice of Democracy in Pre 1914 Germany

Abstract: In new democracies, why do elections so frequently depart from Dahlian (1971) democratic norms? The paper addresses this question by turning to a 19th century historical case of democratic transition: post-1871 Germany. Using an original dataset of election dispute cases filed to the German parliament for every parliamentary election in the life of Imperial Germany (1871-1912), the paper analyzes all 397 national electoral constituencies across all thirteen national parliamentary elections to identify where and why elections were disputed. Recent scholarship highlights how inequality serves as a barrier to democratic transitions. This paper tests the impact of the distribution of material resources on election practice after universal male suffrage is adopted. I argue that democratic elections are more likely to be flawed when introduced into settings marked by steep social hierarchies and stark social inequalities. In particular, even controlling for other frequently cited factors including the competitiveness of elections, the paper demonstrates that landholding inequality—the hallmark of traditional social power—is significantly related to the incidence and location of elections wrought by disputes over charges of undue influence, coercion, electoral manipulation, and procedural errors. The paper concludes by reflecting on the implications of the analysis for the study of electoral institutionalization more broadly.

Co-sponsored by Center for European Studies

Paper: ziblatt-feb08.pdf

Speaker: Jay Maggio

Title: Martha Nussbaum and the Political Content of Art

Abstract: Martha Nussbaum's view of the way art interacts with politics represents a problem in the understanding of the cross between the aesthetic and the political. Embracing the Aristotelian view of art, Nussbaum sees art — specifically literature — as a way in which we can build empathy among citizens and political actors. Specifically, Nussbaum argues that the literary novel is important because it gives us the "ability to imagine what it is like to live the life of another person." (1995, 5). In other words, art allows us to wonder about the contingency of our own lives. Nussbaum writes:

Another way of putting this point is that good literature is disturbing in way that history and social science writing frequently are not. Because it summons powerful emotions, it disconcerts and puzzles. It inspires distrust of conventional pieties and exacts a frequently painful confrontation with one's own thoughts and intentions. (1995, 5)

In this paper I do not contest Nussbaum's argument that art often allows us to feel empathy for others. However, I contest that the content of such art is key to such emotion — rather it is the form of the art that is key. That being said, I am not suggesting that form is wholly irrelevant to Nussbaum. Nonetheless, her notion of form is almost completely limited to the "story arch" of a novel, and, consequently, her analytical emphasis is tied to the political and/or social content of the art. Simply put, Nussbaum argues that art moves people politically and ethically because its content "summons powerful emotions."
Yet, assuming a non-foundational world — what Nietzsche might call the "world of appearances" - Nussbaum's argument collapses upon itself. It is only in a successful form that art can summon powerful emotion. For example, certainly John Grisham and John Updike could tell the same story, but would the power of the story be the same? I contend, in contrast to Nussbaum, that such political and societal power — the power to change ideas — rests in the form of art.

Speaker: Dr. Clyde Tucker (Bureau of Labor Statistics and CNN)

Title: Election Night Projections: How We Got Here and Where We're Heading

Abstract: The importance of election projections in the American political system became dramatically apparent in the 2000 Presidential Election. Although election projections have been a staple of Election Night broadcasts for fifty years, interest in the intricacies of this arcane art greatly increased in the aftermath of the incorrect calls in Florida in 2000. This presentation begins by revisiting what happened on Election Night in both 2000 and 2004. That introduction will be followed by a relatively non-technical history of the development of methods for projecting elections over the half century prior to the 2000 election. Then improvements made in those methods since 2000 will be discussed. The presentation will conclude with some thoughts on experiences from the 2008 Presidential primaries and speculation about the future of election projections.

Speakers: Les Thiele and Sean Walsh

Title: The Passion for Justice and the Scar of Politics

Abstract: Political philosophy finds its origins in the quest for the just man and the just city, and this same quest has been assumed by subsequent generations of political theorists. Few theorists actually suppose the complete elimination of injustice is possible or practicable. In the Odyssean search for justice, the hero inevitably encounters obstacles that block the way home. At the same time, political theorists typically identify justice as an unmitigated good deserving unwavering allegiance. Postmodern theories, no less than their classical and modern antecedents, retain this utopian trace, even as they deconstruct more direct routes.

We contend that the pursuit of justice as an absolute value is an insidious project. From a Lacanian perspective, the virtuous passion for justice is undermined when it assumes an imperative character. When the pursuit of justice is no longer a simple desire, but instead becomes a demand, an obligation to which we are wholly committed, the passion for justice becomes a neurosis.

In this paper we argue that political theorists have been beset by a conflict between the understanding that perfect justice is always beyond reach, and perhaps even undesirable, and the persistent theoretical effort to align themselves with its achievement. First, we describe the distinction between this utopian justice, and an understanding of justice that embraces the insuppressible presence of its other, injustice. Next, we argue, with the aid of Lacanian psychoanalytic thought, that the utopian quest for justice, owing to its imperative character, constitutes a neurosis. Finally, we argue that politics emerges as a response to the neurotic wound of justice. Politics is a scar. It constitutes a means to acknowledge the passion for justice while limiting its neurotic pathologies.