Final Readings Review (excl. HDD)

1619 podcast

The Fight for a True Democracy

• Creation of “black” as a sociopolitical identity (cultural construction of “race”)

• Some black people never felt fully able to claim “American” status despite being born/living in the US

  • Began researching and thinking about this podcast, shifted thinking → black people built the US so they have a right to be proud of it

• Evolution of American democracy through suffrage and civil rights

Pew

As Partisan Hostility Grows, Signs of Frustration With the Two-Party System

1. Negative Partisanship:

   • Republicans and Democrats increasingly hold negative views of each other, perceiving the opposing party as closed-minded, dishonest, immoral, and unintelligent.

2. Moral Perception Shift:

   • A notable shift in moral perception exists, with 72% of Republicans seeing Democrats as more immoral, and 63% of Democrats viewing Republicans as more immoral.

3. Additional Negative Stereotypes:

   • Both parties share negative stereotypes, perceiving each other as more dishonest and closed-minded than the general American population, contributing to a rise in partisan animosity.

Fiorina

The Political Parties Have Sorted

1. Increased Affective Polarization:

   • Democrats and Republicans now exhibit greater mutual dislike compared to a generation ago, contributing to heightened political animosity.

2. Party Sorting and Negative Traits Attribution:

   • Party sorting, clustering like-minded individuals, not only exacerbates affective polarization but also leads to an increased attribution of negative traits to the opposing party beyond ideological differences.

3. Impact on Relationships and Potential Solutions:

   • Affective polarization reduces the likelihood of forming relationships across party lines. To address this, reducing party sorting could enhance political diversity and competition, mitigating the challenges faced by candidates with diverse views.

Lodge et. al

The Responsive Voter: Campaign Information and the Dynamics of Candidate Evaluation

• Voters’ poor memory when it comes to political events and figures is not a result of inattentiveness, ignorance, or irrationality, but a reflection of the impressions left on them by the information they consume above the information itself. This impression is tracked through a mental tally (“OL tally”) and may reflect the amount of attention voters give to information (though this was shown to be untrue).

• Political scientists tend to overestimate memory’s influence on political judgment and voting behavior, campaigning has little effect on voter recall but can impact their perceptions of issues, and political science tends to be overly reliant on the recall of political information and the idea that voters make accurate political assessments based on the information with which they are provided

Kitschelt and Rehm

Secular Partisan Realignment in the United States: The Socioeconomic Reconfiguration of White Partisan Support since the New Deal Era

1. Realignment Based on Education and Income:

   • White American voters have recently shifted party alignment, with education and income levels serving as key factors.

2. Distinctive Views in Education-Income Groups:

   • The interaction of education and income provides nuanced insights into voter preferences, revealing distinctive views on economic redistribution and various sociopolitical issues.

3. Polarity Reversal and Core Constituencies:

   • A "polarity reversal" in the U.S. electoral landscape is noted, indicating a transition from the traditional New Deal alignment. Core constituencies for both major parties have shifted, with lower-education/higher-income voters central to center-left politics and lower-education/lower-income voters becoming swing groups.

Shimko

Interests

1. National interest is ubiquitous and controversial; difficult to define and used to describe many different agendas

2. National interest is inseparable from international interests in a globalized and highly interdependent world

   1. Some nations' interests converge with each other, others conflict

3. Foreign policy: essential to prioritize national interests since national resources are limited

4. There arguably exists a hierarchy of interests

   1. Vital (eg. survival, wellbeing, freedom), extremely important (eg. if compromised, prejudice but do not doom vital interests), just important, less important or secondary

5. Interests and values may or may not reinforce one another

Mearsheimer

The False Promise of International Institutions

1. Post-Cold War Security Priorities:

- Western policymakers, post-Cold War, prioritize international institutions for global security over traditional balance-of-power politics.

2. Neo-Wilsonian View and Institutional Adaptation:

- President Clinton and adviser Anthony Lake advocate a "neo-Wilsonian" view, emphasizing freedom. They believe existing Western institutions, like the European Community and NATO, must adapt to include Eastern Europe for durable security.

3. Global Emphasis on Overlapping Institutions:

- Western policymakers extend the importance of overlapping institutions beyond Europe to regions like Asia, emphasizing their role in ensuring stability, particularly in areas lacking well-developed institutions.

Keohane and Martin

The Promise of Institutionalist Theory

1. 1. Response to Mearsheimer's Critique:

   - The paper addresses John J. Mearsheimer's critique of liberal institutionalism, clarifying its tenets and highlighting flaws in Mearsheimer's realist perspective.

   2. Revisiting NATO and European Community Predictions:

   - The authors challenge Mearsheimer's predictions on NATO's decline and the European Community's weakening, pointing to inconsistencies with their actual expansions and questioning the logic in his realism.

   3. Affirmation of Institutionalist Theory:

   - The paper concludes by affirming the promise of institutionalist theory, countering Mearsheimer's arguments, and asserting its potential contribution to understanding both security and economic issues in international relations.

Mead

The Return of Geopolitics: The Revenge of the Revisionist Powers

1. 1. Intensified Geopolitical Rivalries (2014):

   - Geopolitical tensions rise in 2014, marked by events like Russia seizing Crimea, China's assertiveness, Japan's response, and Iran's Middle East ambitions.

   2. Misreading Post-Cold War Era:

   - Western misinterpretation of the post-Cold War era as resolving geopolitical issues led to a false sense of security. The collapse of the Soviet Union did not end hard power, as China, Iran, and Russia contested the geopolitical settlement.

   3. Challenges to "End of History" Assumption:

   - The assumption of the "end of history" is challenged by China, Iran, and Russia. The focus on development economics post-Cold War led to a vision of reduced U.S. involvement, but geopolitical challenges, including EU-Russia rivalry and complex relationships among China, Iran, and Russia, signal a less post-historical world.

Chotiner

Why John Mearsheimer Blames the US for the Crisis in Ukraine

1. 1. Mearsheimer's Critique of U.S. Foreign Policy:

   - John Mearsheimer, critical of U.S. foreign policy, holds the U.S. responsible for the Ukraine crisis, attributing it to eastward expansion, friendly relations with Ukraine, and actions that provoked Putin.

   2. Great-Power Politics and Existential Threats:

   - Mearsheimer argues that NATO's indication of Ukraine's potential membership in 2008, coupled with plans for EU and NATO expansion, contributed to Russia's perception of an existential threat, emphasizing great-power politics over imperialism.

   3. Rejecting Unipolar Policies and Shifting Blame:

   - Mearsheimer rejects creating a world dictating behavior for the U.S. and Russia, citing the disastrous policies of the unipolar moment. He contends that until 2014, the U.S. saw NATO and EU expansion as creating a zone of peace, shifting blame to Russia when the crisis erupted.