2007 Conference Program - Midwest Political Science Association

Paper The Rule of Law Through the Looking Glass
Mary Liston, University of Toronto
Overview: This paper suggests that children’s literature can
provide insights into how the rule of law has been conceptualized
in both Anglo-North American popular culture as well as political
and legal theory.
Disc. Eileen H. Botting, University of Notre Dame
Laurie Naranch, Siena College
33-28 JUSTICE AND JUSTIFICATION
Room Dearborn 1, 7 th Floor, Sun at 9:50 am
Chair Colin P. Bird, University of Virginia
Paper Tribal Liberalism: The Ethical Implication of Public
Justification
Bill Curtis, University of Vermont
Overview: The commitment to public justification has greater
ethical implications than most liberal theorists realize. It implies a
distinctively liberal "way of life" that cannot in principle be
reconciled with the accomodation of nonliberal pluralism.
Paper Can Deliberation Build Trust?
Patti Tamara Lenard, Harvard University
Overview: I assess whether deliberation can be thought of a trustbuilding
mechanism, in particular the institutional conditions
under which it takes place so that it can be a trust-builder. I focus
on the ‘deliberation mediator’.
Paper Public Reason as Reason-of-State
Fred M. Frohock, University of Miami
Overview: A version of public reason crafted on reason-of-state, a
tradition of thought holding that the exercise of power at collective
levels identifies a political reasoning which presents its own
distinct and independent rules of engagement and morality.
Disc. Stephen P. Chilton, University of Minnesota, Duluth
Colin P. Bird, University of Virginia
34-7 ELECTORAL COMPETITION
Room PDR 5, 3 rd Floor, Sun at 9:50 am
Chair Steven Callander, Northwestern University
Paper Targeted Campaigns with Ambiguity-Averse Voters
Scott Ashworth, Princeton University
Overview: I study equilibrium targeting decisions in an election in
which candidates can provide information to voters who are
ambiguity averse, and might abstain if their information is "low
quality".
Paper Signalling Policy Commitments in Electoral Competitions
with Heterogeneously Motivated Candidates
Haifeng Huang, Duke University
Overview: When candidates can be either policy seeking or office
seeking, their policy announcements during campaigns signal to
voters their degrees of policy commitments. The median voter
theorem no longer holds in this signalling game.
Paper Attack Politics: Who Goes Negative and Why?
Kyle Mattes, California Institute of Technology
Overview: I introduce a formal model of campaign strategy to
show when candidates will engage in negative campaigning and
how it can affect election results.
Paper When Candidates as Well as Voters Value Good Job
Performance: A Spatial Model
James Adams, University of California, Davis
Samuel Merrill, III, Wilkes University
Overview: We develop a spatial model in which the candidates –
like the voters – prefer that the winning candidate possess qualities
such as competence and integrity that will enhance his job
performance.
Paper 2’s Company, 3’s An Equilibrium: Strategic Voting and
Multicandidate Elections
John W. Patty, Harvard University
Overview: Electoral competition with 3 or more candidates is
examined and it is shown that any profile of platforms in which at
least three candidates adopt different platforms is a subgame
perfect equilibrium in weakly undominated strategies.
Disc. Kevin A. Roust, University of California, San Diego
Page | 276
35-11 INFERRING INDIVIDUAL ATTRIBUTES
Room Montrose 2, 7 th Floor, Sun at 9:50 am
Chair Regina Branton, Rice University
Paper Inequality in Freedom Within States: Multi-level Models for
Survey Data
Olivia C. Lau, Harvard University
Overview: Freedom varies across individuals within states, as well
as across states. Using a multi-level ordinal probit model and
individual-level data from 38 countries, I find that individual
income, education, and gender affect the distribution of freedom.
Paper Uncovering Trail of Votes: A Solution for Ecological Bias
Problem
Mikhail G. Myagkov, University of Oregon
Dmitrii Shakin, Russian Economic School
Sergey Sulgin, Russian Academy of National Economy
Overview: The paper presents new solution for the Ecological
Bias problem, and uses it to trace votes between elections in
several countries. The new model is tested against several current
methods.
Paper Racial Disparities in Disability-Free Life Expectancy
Samir S. Soneji, Princeton University
Kosuke Imai, Princeton University
Overview: Disability-free life expectancy is an important measure
of active life expectancy that has been used for over thirty years.
In this paper, we apply new methodology to estimate racial
disparities in this measure by U.S. birth cohorts.
Disc. Gregory E. McAvoy, University of North Carolina, Greensboro
38-9 ASSESSING THE PERMANENT CAMPAIGN
Room LaSalle 2, 7 th Floor, Sun at 9:50 am
Chair Lilly J. Goren, Carroll College
Paper Vulnerability and Responsiveness in U.S. Disaster Policy,
1953-2003
R. Steven Daniels, California State University, Bakersfield
Overview: Relying on material collected from multiple disaster
databases, I examine the role of media coverage and demographic,
social, economic, and political vulnerability on the presidential
disaster decisions from 1953-2003.
Paper The Politics of the Permanent Campaign: Presidents,
Fundraising, and the Electoral College
Brendan J. Doherty, American Political Science Association
Overview: In this paper I systematically examine presidential
travel and fundraising from 1977 through 2004 to assess
empirically the extent to which there is a permanent campaign for
the presidency, as well as the evolution of the public presidency.
Paper From the Campaign Trail to the White House: The
Consequences of Geographic Targeting for Presidents'
Abilities to Govern
Henriet Hendriks, University of Minnesota, Twin Cities
Overview: Through a comparative case study of presidential
election campaigns and the period after the candidates took office,
this paper examines the effects of geographic targeting on the
ability to govern.
Disc. Lilly J. Goren, Carroll College
39-13 CONGRESS AND THE EXECUTIVE: BALANCING
POWER
Room Montrose 1, 7 th Floor, Sun at 9:50 am
Chair Ryan J. Vander Wielen, Temple University
Paper Presidents or Politics?: Fast Track Trade and the Line-Item
Veto
Patrick T. Hickey, University of Texas
Overview: This paper analyzes the dynamics of institutional
power. Specifically, under what conditions will Congress cede
power to the president? To answer this question, I examine the
politics of fast-track trade promotion authority and the line-item
veto.