2007 Conference Program - Midwest Political Science Association

29-13 ETHNIC INCLUSION AND THE POLITICS OF
CITIZENSHIP AND NATURALIZATION
Room Clark 7, 7 th Floor, Sat at 4:25 pm
Chair Lorrie Frasure, Cornell University
Paper Controlled Cohesion: Restrictive Immigration/Liberal
Citizenship in the UK
Sara B. Wallace, Georgetown University
Overview: In this paper, I examine co-maintenance within Great
Britain’s migration policy of restrictive immigration and liberal
citizenship, arguing that this social strategy enables Britain to
uphold common values despite globalized migration.
Paper Costly Citizenship? Dual Nationality Institutions and the
Choice to Naturalize
Jeffrey K. Staton, Florida State University
Damarys Canache, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
Robert A. Jackson, Florida State University
Overview: Focusing on Latinos, this paper assesses the conditions
under which dual nationality rules in sender countries influence
the choice of immigrants from those countries to seek citizenship
in the United States.
Paper New Americans or Diasporic Nationalists? Mexican
Immigrant Responses to Naturalization
Adrian Felix, University of Southern California
Claudia Sandoval, University of Chicago
Overview: The immigration debate has reclaimed attention within
public discourse and the academy alike. There is disagreement
around Mexican immigrants who are becoming American citizens.
Disc. Lorrie Frasure, Cornell University
Nancy Kwang Johnson, Western Illinois University
32-14 VARIETIES OF LIBERALISM
Room LaSalle 1, 7 th Floor, Sat at 4:25 pm
Chair Michael Ravvin, Columbia University
Paper Liberty and Multiculturalism: A Possible Resolution to an
Endless Conflict
Miriam Bentwich, University of Notre Dame
Overview: This paper attempts to make progress towards
resolving the conflict between multiculturalists and liberals as to
the importance of individual liberty by establishing a justification
for the supremacy of the latter from a multiculturalism stance.
Paper Nationalism and the Limits of Justice
Craig P. French, Georgetown University
Overview: An examination of David Miller's liberal nationalism,
paying particular attention to the limits on global distributive
justice imposed by the method in ethical theory which he has
recently described as the search for a "theory of just boundaries."
Paper Cosmopolitan Flaws, Practical Failures, and the Possibility of
Positive Tolerance: The Future of the Liberal Polity
Stephen W. Moore, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
Overview: I explore three alternatives of social organization:
cosmopolitanism, practical liberalism, and positive tolerance. I
argue that recent arguments supportive of cosmoplitanism fall
short of the liberal ideal and that the rational strategy.
Paper Deontological Perfectionist Liberalism: The Very Idea
Evan Riley, University of Pittsburgh
Overview: I am interested in an approach to the familiar normative
questions of justice that is both perfectionist and also a
deontological liberalism. In this paper, I focus on defending the
intelligibility of the very idea against three general worries.
Disc. Ruth M. Abbey, University of Notre Dame
32-101 AUTHOR MEETS CRITICS: DANNY POSTEL'S
READING LEGITIMATION CRISIS IN TEHRAN
Room Parlor B, 6 th Floor, Sat at 4:25 pm
Panelist Danny Postel, openDemocracy magazine
Jeffrey Isaac, Indiana University
Courtney Jung, New School for Social Research
Nader Hashemi, Northwestern University
Farzin Vahdat, Vassar College
Overview: Roundtable discussion of Danny Postel's book Reading
Legitimation Crisis in Tehran: Iran and the Future of Liberalism, a
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meditation on the widespread confusion on the Western Left about
Iran and what lessons we can draw from Iranian liberalism today.
33-12 EQUIVALENCE AND EXPLOITATION:
QUESTIONS OF EQUAL DIGNITY
Room Dearborn 2, 7 th Floor, Sat at 4:25 pm
Chair Jeffrey A. Becker, University of the Pacific
Paper What Makes Racism Wrong?
T. J. Donahue, Johns Hopkins University
Overview: In answer, this paper argues that racism treats some
persons as second-class persons or not persons at all. This is
wrong because it is wrong to omit treating any person as a bearer
of equal dignity, and this treatment omits precisely this.
Paper The Problem of Moral Equivalence
Jason S. Ferrell, McGill University
Overview: The meaning of moral equivalence is ambiguous. It is
often said a position is ‘superior’ to another if they are not morally
equivalent. This paper will argue that moral equivalence is best
understood in terms of the idea of incommensurability.
Paper The Ethics of Exploitation
Robert Mayer, Loyola University, Chicago
Overview: This paper describes the ethics of exploitation. This
ethics varies depending on whether the exploitation is structural or
discretionary. Some structural exploiters face a dirty-hands
dilemma in which it is right to do wrong.
Paper Autonomy, Political Equality, and the Moral Good
Michael P. McKeon, Syracuse University
Overview: Nowadays, we know unequivocally that slavery is
wrong. The intuitive idea here is that slavery is incongruous with
our concept of autonomy and equality. I argue that it is not selfevident
that we would have made it to this point sans religion.
Disc. Jeffrey A. Becker, University of the Pacific
34-4 ELECTIONS AND POLICY
Room Burnham 1, 7 th Floor, Sat at 4:25 pm
Chair James Adams, University of California, Davis
Paper Fallacies of Roll Call Vote Aggregation in Spatial Models of
Electoral Competition
Justin Buchler, Case Western Reserve University
Overview: Spatial models of electoral competition make flawed
predictions both for candidate location decisions and for citizens’
voting decisions because neither voters nor candidates derive
utility directly from a location decision.
Paper Government Performance, Clientelism and Political
Competition.
Leonardo A. Gatica, Universidad de Gudalakara
Overview: This paper explains the fact of a negative relationship
between political competition and government performance. It
formalizes a spatial model with provision of patronage and public
goods to challenge the idea that competition increases
performance.
Paper Entrenching the Machine: Shark Repellant and White Squires
as Obstacles to Reform Party Success
Jeffrey Grynaviski, University of Chicago
Overview: In this paper, I develop a formal model which
examines how incumbent political machines use their control over
the bureaucracy prior to an election to create obstacles to a
successful electoral challenge by a reform party.
Paper Transparency and Separation of Powers
Dimitri Landa, New York University
Ethan Bueno de Mesquita, Washington University
Overview: We analyze the effects of the interaction between
transparency and separation of powers on electoral accountability
when incumbents must take multiple costly actions prior to
elections.
Disc. Alan E. Wiseman, Ohio State University