2016 Government Publications and Grants

Appel, Hilary, and Mitchell A. Orenstein. "Why did Neoliberalism Triumph and Endure in the Post-Communist World?." Comparative Politics 48.3, 2016, 313-331.

Abstract: Post-Communist countries have been among the most fervent adopters of free market reforms. Not only did they adopt most of the policies of the Washington Consensus and achieve the same levels of liberalization as other advanced industrialized economies according to standard measures, but they also exceeded other countries in adopting avant-garde neoliberal reforms like the flat tax and pension privatization. Time and again, Eastern European and Eurasian governments overcame expected obstacles to liberalization. This article argues that the post-Communist countries’ protracted adoption of neoliberal policies must be seen through the lens of international economic integration and the need to compete with other developing countries for capital, most of which began to liberalize their economies a decade before 1989. Through a process of “competitive signaling,” numerous Eastern European and Eurasian countries used the adoption of sometimes extreme neoliberal economic reforms to attract attention from investors.

Tudor, Carissa L., and Hilary Appel. "Is Eastern Europe to Blame for Falling Corporate Taxes in Europe? The Politics of Tax Competition Following EU Enlargement." East European Politics & Societies 30.4, 2016, 855-884.

Abstract: When a dozen new countries joined the European Union in the mid-2000s, political tensions spiked over disparities in corporate income tax rates. Since the time of enlargement, leaders have tried repeatedly to enhance corporate tax coordination within the EU, as a result of fears of downward pressure on corporate tax rates and states’ weakening ability to collect revenues. At the same time, leaders from new member states in Eastern Europe with low corporate tax rates have contended that regional efforts to coordinate tax policies are not worthwhile, given that corporate tax competition is a global phenomenon. This article argues that corporate tax competition is more acute at the regional than the global level. While corporate tax rates are falling inside and outside the EU, we demonstrate using a large multiyear, multiregional data set that Eastern European countries have extremely low corporate tax rates relative to other EU and non-EU countries, even when controlling for multiple domestic economic and political factors. These findings support the potential efficacy of pursuing regional corporate tax reform to address the downward spiraling of rates in the EU.

Ascher, William. “Harold D. Lasswell,” International Encyclopedia of Communication Theory and Philosophy, edited by Klaus Bruhn Jensen and Robert T. Craig, John Wiley & Sons, 2016.

Ascher, William and Diana Ascher. “Inducing Better Stakeholder Searches for Environmental Information Relevant to Coastal Conservation ,” in Bertrum MacDonald, Elizabeth De Santo, Suzuette Soomai, & Peter Wells, eds, Oceans of Information: Elucidating Information Use at the Science-Policy Interface in Coastal and Ocean Management. London: CRC Press, 2016

Ascher, William, Garry D. Brewer, G. Shabbir Cheema, and John M. Heffron, The Evolution of Development Thinking: Governance, Economics, Assistance, and Security, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016.

Ascher, William and Natalia Mirovitskaya. Development Strategies and Inter-Group Violence: Insights on Conflict-Sensitive Development. Palgrave MacMillan, 2016.

Abstract: Although many scholars and practitioners recognize that development and conflict are intertwined, there is much less understanding of the mechanisms behind these linkages. This book takes a new approach by critically examining how various development strategies provoke or help prevent intrastate violence, based on cases from all developing regions.

Bessette, Joseph M. “All Lives Matter” Claremont Review of Books, Vol. XVI, No. 3, Summer 2016.

Abstract: Review essay of two important new books on crime in the United States.

Feser, Edward and Joseph M. Bessette, “Why the Church Cannot Reverse Past Teaching on Capital Punishment,” Catholic World Report, July 17, 2016.

Abstract: An argument that for 2,000 years the Catholic Church taught that the death penalty is in principle a legitimate punishment for heinous crimes and that this teaching cannot be changed by the Church without undermining the binding nature of the Magisterium on Catholics.

Feser, Edward, and Joseph M. Bessette, “Why the Death Penalty Is Still Necessary,” Catholic World Report, July 21, 2016.

Abstract: An argument that the death penalty remains necessary for promoting and achieving the common good.

Blitz, Mark. "A Discussion of Richard Flacks and Nelson Lichtenstein's The Port Huron Statement: Sources   and Legacies of the New Left’s Founding Manifesto." Perspectives on Politics 14.03, 2016, 801-802.

Blitz, Mark. “Being and Nazism.” Law and Liberty, April 25, 2016.

Blitz, Mark and J. Michael Hoffpauir. “Plato’s Political Thought.” Oxford Bibliographies in Political Science, edited by Sandy Maisel. Oxford University Press, 2016.

External Grants: Five-year, $1,200,000 grant for the Salvatori Center from the Donor’s Trust for Programs on the Work of Leo Strauss; a $50,000 grant for the Salvatori Center from the Bradley Foundation to support graduate study; and a $14,000 grant for the Salvatori Center from the Koch Foundation for Programs on American Constitutionalism.

Busch, Andrew, “Introduction to the Virtual Issue: Federalism and American Elections.” Publius, June 2016.

Abstract: This collection included an introduction I wrote as well as eight previously-published Publius articles that I selected to highlight key issues including the Electoral College, election administration reform, the party system, and the importance of state-level factors in presidential election outcomes.

Busch, Andrew E. "The Limits of Governmental Accomplishment: Obama's Domestic Policies.” Debating the Obama Presidency, edited by Steven E. Schier, Rowman & Littlefield, 2016, 195-220.

Abstract: In a volume designed to give alternative views to a variety of Obama-related topics, this chapter takes a more skeptical look at domestic policy during the Obama era. In particular, it examines economic policy, health care policy, education policy, and criminal justice. It also takes an overarching look at Obama's hopes of becoming a post-partisan and race-bridging figure.

Busch, Andrew, ed, “Virtual Issue: Federalism and American Elections.” Publius, June 2016.

Beer, Caroline C., and Roderic Ai Camp. "Democracy, gender quotas, and political recruitment in Mexico." Politics, Groups, and Identities 4.2 (2016): 179-195.

Abstract: Do male and female legislators have different qualifications, experience, and backgrounds? If so, what are the main differences and what explains these differences? Are women more likely to rely on personal connections? Are well qualified women routinely passed over in favor of similarly qualified men? Do gender quotas and transitions to multiparty democracy affect the recruitment patterns of men and women? Do gender quotas lead to the recruitment of less qualified women? This article attempts to explain how informal gendered selection norms change over time using detailed data from over 500 Mexican Senators since 1964. The data provide evidence of discrimination in that to be successful, female senators need to have more legislative experience and more party experience than male senators. We also find evidence that traditional gender roles lead women to follow different paths to power. After the transition to democracy and the implementation of gender quotas, the importance of local legislative experience increased, discrimination against female aspirants declined, and a more diverse group of women entered the Senate. Our data show that women are no more likely than men to rely on personal connections to get into power.

Camp, Roderic A. "Courage, Resistance and Women in Ciudad Juárez: Challenges to Militarization‐by Staudt, Kathleen and Méndez, Zulma." Bulletin of Latin American Research 35.4 (2016): 538-539.

Camp, R.A. “Mexico’s Evolving Democracy: A Comparative Study of the 2012 Elections”. Perspectives on Politics, 14(4), edited by Jorge I. Domínguez, Kenneth F. Greene, Chappell H. Lawson, and Alejandro Moreno, Johns Hopkins University Press, 2016, 1241–1242. 

Camp, R.A. “Where is Mexico Going? The obstacles in its rocky road to democracy,” Oxford University Press Academic Blog. September 22, 2016.

Camp, R.A. Formal Interview, three-time presidential candidate and first elected governor of Federal District, Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas. Video-taped edited digital recording. Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Latin America History, edited by William Beezley, Oxford University Press, 2016. Grant from Oxford University Press and the Mexico Institute, Woodrow Wilson Center, Smithsonian Institution, Mexico City, January, 2016. Also published July 16, 2016, on Oxford’s YouTube site.

Camp, R.A. Formal Interview, Ambassador from Mexico to the United States, Miguel Basáñez, edited digital recording. Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Latin America History, edited by William Beezley, Oxford University Press, 2016. Grant from Oxford University Press and the Mexico Institute, Woodrow Wilson Center, Smithsonian Institution, August, Burlington, Vermont. Also published September 25, 2016, on Oxford’s YouTube site.

Hoffman, Bruce, “Terrorism Challenges for the Trump Administration,” CTC Sentinel, vol. 9, issue 11, November/December 2016, 7.

Abstract: The incoming Trump administration faces serious counterterrorism challenges, which are as significant as any faced since the period around 9/11 with a strengthening global al-Qa`ida network posing the most serious long-term threat. With Islamic State- and al-Qa`ida-aligned groups present in more countries than ever before, the article argues that a reconciliation at some point between the groups is not impossible, and with a large cohort of foreign fighters trained in Syria and Iraq available to them in the future, the United States urgently needs to reboot its counterterrorism strategy.

Lynch, Frederick R. "America’s Road to “Post Familialism”." Society 53.2, 2016, 211-217.

Abstract: This review essay examines and compares the cultural, sociological and economic factors affecting changes in family formation, structure and single-person lifestyles based upon four new and recent books on these topics: Andrew Cherlin’s Labor’s Love Lost (2014), Isabel Sawhill’s Generation Unbound (2014), Jonathan Last’s What to Expect When No One’s Expecting (2013) and Eric Klinenberg’s Going Solo (2012).

Lynch, Frederick R., “Why are so many white men angry?” Washington Examiner, August 25, 2016.

Miller, Kenneth P. "The California Supreme Court and the Popular Will." Chap. L. Rev. 19, 2016, 151.

Nadon, Christopher, ed. “Leo Strauss Course Transcript, Xenophon 1963.” Leo Strauss Center, University of Chicago, 2016.

Nichols, James, ed. “Leo Strauss’ Seminar in Political Philosophy: Cicero, 1959.” Edited and with an introduction by James Nichols. The Leo Strauss Center, University of Chicago, October 27, 2016.

Abstract: Strauss's course deals with De re publica, De legibus, De finibus, and De officiis. My preface treats the place of Cicero in Strauss' work as a whole and highlights distinctive aspects of his interpretations.

Nichols, James. “The Notion of an End of History: Philosophic Origins and Recent Applications.” Philosophy, History, and Tyranny: Re-examining the Debate between Leo Strauss and Alexandre Kojève, edited by Timothy Burns and Bryan-Paul Frost, SUNY Press, 2016.

Abstract: Provides an analysis of the philosophic reasons Kojeve held to a notion of an end of history, and considers the current state of the question (reconsidering Fukuyama's promulgation of the notion)

Pei, Minxin. China's Crony Capitalism: The Dynamics of Regime Decay. Harvard University Press, 2016.

Abstract: Corruption in the post-Tiananmen era exhibits distinct characteristics not found in the 1980s, such as astronomical sums of money looted by officials, their family members, and their cronies in the private sector, large networks of co-conspirators, and the sale of public office.  By examining the evolution of Chinese economic and political institutions since the early 1990s, we can trace the emergence of crony capitalism to two critical changes in the control of property rights of the assets owned by the state and the personnel management of the officials the ruling Communist Party.  The cumulative effects of these changes have dramatically decentralized the control of public property without clarifying its ownership and granted local party chiefs unprecedented personnel power.  Consequently, local political and business elites gain greater incentives and opportunities to collude with each other in looting the assets nominally owned by the state.  The insights from a sample of 260 cases of corruption involving multiple officials and businessmen suggest that crony capitalism in China has given birth to a decentralized kleptocracy with its own market rules and dynamics

Pei, Minxin. "The Beginning of the End." The Washington Quarterly 39.3, 2016, 131-142.

Abstract: The rule of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) faces two existential threats to its survival.  The first is challenge to its power by social forces that have acquired enormous resources and capabilities as a result of China’s rapid modernization.  Historically, few non-oil autocracies as wealthy as China have managed to hold on to power for long.  The second threat comes from the decay of the organizational norms, institutional rules, and elite unity both as the result of pervasive corruption and the destruction of the post-Tiananmen political order by China’s new strongman Xi Jinping.  Although the end of one-party rule is not imminent, the decay of the regime has reached an advanced stage and a breakdown in the coming decade and half is a distinct possibility. 

Pei, Minxin. "Transition in China?: More Likely than You Think." Journal of Democracy 27.4, 2016, 5-19.

Abstract: Relying on the historical record and research on transitions from authoritarian rule, this essay questions the continued prospect of one-party rule in China. The fall of one-party rule generally occurs in two phases: a prolonged period of decay, followed by rapid breakdown. Like other autocratic regimes, China’s Communist Party will find its survival imperiled as the country enters the upper middle-income, or “transition” zone, where most non-oil autocracies have historically fallen. Compounding this, China exhibits many of the key symptoms of regime decay. These factors suggest that regime breakdown will occur, and will likely proceed via “refolution”: limited initial reform, followed by revolution.

External Grant: From the Smith Richardson Foundation, $117,000.

John J. Pitney, Jr., “Obama and Washington: Fallen Hopes and Frustrated Change.” Debating the Obama Presidency, edited by Steven Schier, Rowman and Littlefield, 2016.

Abstract: President Obama's accomplishments fell far short of his promises.

Bowling, Cynthia J.  and Shanna Rose, “Introduction to the Special Issue.” Publius 46 (3), 2016, 275-280. 

Abstract: In January 2009, Barack Obama became president of the United States, succeeding George W. Bush in an era filled with political division and fiscal crises. President Obama inherited war and insecurity in the Middle East, the largest recession since the 1930s, rapidly rising costs of healthcare, and a partisan Congress that became even more polarized during his time in office. Obama may not have come into the executive with a definitive strategy for the intergovernmental interactions and relationships that would develop throughout his time in office. However, as the end of his presidency nears, we can begin to assess how the administration has made and implemented policy over the last eight years. How has federalism changed since 2009? How have power dynamics and relationships among the national, state, and local levels of government evolved? In this short introduction, we briefly recap how the editors and some contributors to the “Annual Review of American Federalism” special issues in Publius between 2009 and 2015 have characterized the dynamics of intergovernmental relations. In the articles that follow this introduction, a series of contributors to “The Obama Administration and American Federalism” special issue place the Obama presidency in the context of prior administrations, examine policy-making regarding the environment, education, and health care, and assess court decisions and state challenges to federal government actions during the Obama presidency.

Rossum, Ralph A., Antonin Scalia's Jurisprudence: Text and Tradition. Paperback edition with a New Afterword, University Press of Kansas, 2016.

Abstract: The New Afterword brings up to date Scalia's major opinions concerning separation of powers, federalism, and substantive and procedural rights from the book's original publication in 2006 until his untimely death in February of 2016.

Rossum, Ralph A. and G. Alan Tarr, American Constitutional Law. Vol. I: The Structure of Government, and Vol. II:  The Bill of Rights and Subsequent Amendments, 10th edition, Westview Press, 2016.

Abstract: The two-volume work comprises 23 chapters beginning with lengthy introductions followed by classic and contemporary Supreme Court opinions on the full panoply of constitutional questions including the meaning and extent of legislative, executive and judicial power, the war powers, the Commerce and Tax Clauses, the Contract Clause, tribal sovereignty, Free Speech and Press, the Religion Clauses, the criminal procedural provisions of Amendments Four through Eight, the Due Process Clauses of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments, the Equal Protections Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, and the voting rights provisions of the Fifteenth Amendment.

Dunn, Joshua M., Sr., and Jon A. Shields. “No, We’re Not Self-Hating Conservatives.” National Review Online, March 15, 2016.

Shields, Jon A. " “Nothing to See Here?” Heterodox Academy. June 2, 2016.

Shields, Jon A. and Joshua M. Dunn , Sr. “Campus Unicorns: Conservative Teachers.” Wall Street Journal, April 21, 2016.

Shields, Jon A. and Joshua M. Dunn, Sr. “Do Universities Need Affirmative Action for Conservative Professors?” Los Angeles Times, March 20, 2016.

Shields, Jon A. and Joshua M. Dunn, Sr. “Forget what the right says: Academia isn’t so bad for Conservative Professors.” Washington Post, March 13, 2016.

Shields, Jon A. and Joshua M. Dunn, Sr. Passing on the Right: Conservative Professors in the Progressive University. Oxford University Press, 2016.

Abstract: Few seem to think conservatives should become professors. While the left fears an invasion of their citadel by conservatives marching to orders from the Koch brothers, the right steers young conservatives away from a professorial vocation by lampooning its leftism. Shields and Dunn quiet these fears by shedding light on the hidden world of conservative professors through 153 interviews. Most conservative professors told them that the university is a far more tolerant place than its right-wing critics imagine. Many, in fact, first turned right in the university itself, while others say they feel more at home in academia than in the Republican Party. Even so, being a conservative in the progressive university can be challenging. Many professors admit to closeting themselves prior to tenure by passing as liberals. Some openly conservative professors even say they were badly mistreated on account of their politics, especially those who ventured into politicized disciplines or expressed culturally conservative views. Despite real challenges, the many successful professors interviewed by Shields and Dunn show that conservatives can survive and sometimes thrive in one of America's most progressive professions. And this means that liberals and conservatives need to rethink the place of conservatives in academia. Liberals should take the high road by becoming more principled advocates of diversity, especially since conservative professors are rarely close-minded or combatants in a right-wing war against the university. Movement conservatives, meanwhile, should de-escalate its polemical war against the university, especially since it inadvertently helps cement progressives' troubled rule over academia.

Sinha, Aseema. “A Distinctive Indian Political Economy: New Concepts and a Synthesizing Framework.” Studies in Indian Politics, 4(2), 2016, 266-273.

Abstract: This article reviews Suzanne Rudolph and Lloyd Rudolph’s contribution to comparative and Indian political economy.

Sinha, Aseema. Globalizing India: How Global Rules and Markets Are Shaping India’s Rise To Power. Cambridge University Press, 2016.

Abstract: India’s recent economic transformation has fascinated scholars, global leaders, and interested observers alike. In 1990, India was a closed economy and a hesitant and isolated economic power. By 2016, India has rapidly risen on the global economic stage; foreign trade now drives more than half of the economy and Indian multinationals pursue global alliances. Focusing on second-generation reforms of the late 1990s, Aseema Sinha explores what facilitated global integration in a self-reliant country predisposed to nationalist ideas. The author argues that globalization has affected trade policy as well as India’s trade capacities and private sector reform. India should no longer be viewed solely through a national lens; globalization is closely linked to the ambitions of a rising India. The study uses fieldwork undertaken in Geneva, New Delhi, Ahmedabad, Mumbai, and Washington, DC, interviews with business and trade officials, alongside a close analysis of the textile and pharmaceutical industries and a wide range of documentary and firm-level evidence to let diverse actors speak in their own voices. This book speaks to the Comparative Politics literature, International Relations literature and Studies of India directly.  It examines how the World Trade Organization affected and changed Indian actor’s preferences about globalization.  Its deploys an interdependence approach to an analysis of India, while also building a dynamic framework that examines how domestic actors shape and re-shape global institutions and markets. 

Sinha, Aseema. “Partial Accommodation Without Conflict: India as a Rising Link Power.” Accommodating Rising Powers: Past, Present, and Future, edited by T.V. Paul, Cambridge University Press, 2016, 222-245.

Abstract: This book chapter was just published in a volume published by top-ranked Cambridge University Press that looks at the rise of India as a global power. I analyze whether India is being accommodated in the global system.  The idea in this paper is that India’s rise will not cause conflict in the system but India has been accommodated both in terms of global institutions, soft power, and hegemonic strategies.

External Grant: 2016-2017, Fulbright Academic and Professional Excellence Award. Transforming the US-India Partnership: The Role of Economic and Social Linkages.

Statement Summary, Fulbright Grant for South Asia (India), Security Studies: In 2009 United States launched a strategic re-balancing descried as “US pivot to Asia.”  United States relationship to India and the related transformations with Japan and China became more salient. This pivot to Asia was based on the premise that the 21st century will be an Asia-Pacific Century.  Simultaneously, United States and India labeled, as “estranged democracies” have become “strategic” partners. Who are the authors of this foreign policy transformation between the world’s two largest democracies? This project assesses the role of non-state factors in both countries—economic and social linkages-- in turning the US-India relationship around and creating support for the pivot to Asia. I focus on four communities that have shaped the US-India relationship from 1990-to the present: a) business; b) diaspora communities; c) middle classes, students, and professionals; d) the Indian media and elites.

Taw, Jennifer. “Preventive Force: The Logic of Costs and Benefits.” Preventive Force: Drones, Targeted Killing, and the Transformation of Contemporary Warfare, edited by Kerstin Fisk and Jennifer M. Ramos, New York University Press, 2016, 33-57.

Abstract: If we think about the use of the military for offense, defense, and deterrence, preventive warfare is an offensive action intended to have both a deterrent and defensive effect. It loses the efficient inaction of deterrence, since it requires actual engagement and not just the threat of retaliation; it loses the legitimacy of defense, since it is offensive in the absence of an imminent threat. It presumably has the advantage of removing an anticipated threat entirely, cauterizing it, thus destroying a potentially costly pathway of extended conflict. It was ostensibly this logic that led the United States into Iraq; it was this logic that led Israel to bomb Osirak; it would be this logic that would lead Israel to attack Iran’s nuclear development facilities. The question is, under what conditions will preventive operations be successful enough to balance the costs of military action and international disapprobrium? In other words, preventive attacks should only take place when deterrence is anticipated to fail and when enough is at stake. This paper will examine what threats meet these criteria, what means may be available to eliminate them, and under what conditions these two categories will overlap.

Thomas, George. “Madison and the Perils of Populism” National Affairs Number 29, 2016, 142-156.