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In the previous chapters, we have analysed different aspects of the Supreme Court’s structures and processes. We have noted its political and legal dimensions, its powers and limitations and the controversies it has generated at different moments in its history. In this final chapter, we bring all these elements together and ask the ultimate question: ‘What is the role of the Supreme Court in American government and politics?’ All government and politics is about power. And since the United States Supreme Court is a co-equal branch of the federal
This book reconstructs American consular activity in Ireland from 1790 to 1913 and elucidates the interconnectedness of America's foreign interests, Irish nationalism and British imperialism. Its originality lies in that it is based on an interrogation of American, British and Irish archives, and covers over one hundred years of American, Irish and British relations through the post of the American consular official while also uncovering the consul's role in seminal events such as the War of 1812, the 1845–51 Irish famine, the American Civil War, Fenianism and mass Irish emigration. The book is a history of the men who filled posts as consuls, vice consuls, deputy consuls and consular agents. It reveals their identities, how they interpreted and implemented US foreign policy, their outsider perspective on events in both Ireland and America and their contribution to the expanding transatlantic relationship.
The role of the Congress is essential to any study of American government and politics. It would be impossible to gain a complete understanding of the American system of government without an appreciation of the nature and workings of this essential body. This text looks at the workings of the United States Congress, and uses the Republican period of ascendancy, which lasted from 1994 until 2000, as an example of how the Congress works in practice. The book illustrates the basic principles of Congress using contemporary and recent examples, while also drawing attention to the changes that took place in the 1990s. The period of Republican control is absent from many of the standard texts and is of considerable academic interest for a number of reasons, not least the 1994 election, the budget deadlock in 1995 and the Clinton impeachment scandal of 1999. The book traces the origin and development of the United States Congress, before looking in depth at the role of representatives and senators, the committee system, parties in Congress, and the relationship between Congress and the President, the media and interest groups.
, diplomatic, or intelligence community have foreknowledge of or perhaps order the execution of Charles Horman?’ 3 Hauser does not describe the lawsuit he and Ed Horman filed against the American government, as it was still subject to litigation at the time of publication. Instead, his book, its structure and politics clearly influenced by Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein's All the President’s Men (1974) and C.D.B. Bryan's Friendly Fire (1976), concludes with an extended present-tense summary of Ed's findings and the three leading questions they raise. Missing
close relationship between him and Wilson. The Wilson–Johnson relationship, 1964–68 The release in recent years of British and American government documents has enabled primary research on the Anglo-American relationship under Wilson and Johnson. 84 The growing literature includes Sylvia Ellis’s account of the relationship of the two leaders in the context of the Vietnam War. She argues that ‘no country
Schmitt argues in earlier writings) constitutes the condition of the political as such, this situation is one in which politics itself is precluded by the policy of nuclear deterrence employed by the two superpowers for the purpose of imposing a virtual state of emergency. In the novels, this virtual state of affairs collapses the properly political distinction between friend and enemy. As a superpower patron whose economic assistance appeared to undermine the political sovereignty of the RVN, the American government is portrayed as both an ally and an object of
The United States Supreme Court is an important, exciting and controversial institution. This book includes the major decisions of the 2014 and 2015 Supreme Court Term. It examines some of the fascinating policy issues that are central to the Court by examining its contemporary agenda. The book analyses the Court's major decisions on controversial issues such as race, abortion, capital punishment and gay rights. It explains the ideas that underpinned the creation of the Supreme Court in the first place and how and why it has changed over the years. The book then investigates how the framers of the Constitution envisaged the nature and the role of the Supreme Court, and how and why these have evolved. With examples, it also explains the process by which the personal, the judicial and the political are interwoven in some of the Court's most important cases. Next, the book takes up the specifically judicial and legal basics of the Court's structure and processes and looks at the rules and procedures that govern the Justices' work. The key concept of judicial review, the source of the Court's power is then examined. The book moves on to analyse one of the most controversial features of the contemporary Supreme Court, the process of appointing new Justices, and examines the politicisation of the appointment process. Finally, it explores how powerful is the Court and what is its role in American government and politics.
Printing Terror places horror comics of the mid-twentieth century in dialogue with the anxieties of their age. It rejects the narrative of horror comics as inherently and necessarily subversive and explores, instead, the ways in which these texts manifest white male fears over America’s changing sociological landscape. It examines two eras: the pre-CCA period of the 1940s and 1950s, and the post-CCA era to 1975. The authors examine each of these periods through the lenses of war, gender, and race, demonstrating that horror comics are centred upon white male victimhood and the monstrosity of the gendered and/or racialised other. It is of interest to scholars of horror, comics studies, and American history. It is suitably accessible to be used in undergraduate classes.
The election of Barack Obama was a milestone in US history with tremendous symbolic importance for the black community. But was this symbolism backed up by substance? Did ordinary black people really benefit under the first black president?
This is the question that Andra Gillespie sets out to answer in Race and the Obama Administration. Using a variety of methodological techniques—from content analysis of executive orders to comparisons of key indicators, such as homeownership and employment rates under Clinton, Bush, and Obama— the book charts the progress of black causes and provides valuable perspective on the limitations of presidential power in addressing issues of racial inequality. Gillespie uses public opinion data to investigate the purported disconnect between Obama’s performance and his consistently high ratings among black voters, asking how far the symbolic power of the first black family in the White House was able to compensate for the compromises of political office.
Scholarly but accessible, Race and the Obama Administration will be of interest to students and lecturers in US politics and race studies, as well as to general readers who want to better understand the situation of the black community in the US today and the prospects for its improvement.
In times of national security, scholars and activists who hail from the communities under suspicion attempt to draw readers and listeners to the complexity of the world we inhabit. For those who campaigned against the SUS law in the 1980s, when young Black men were being routinely stopped in the streets, the wave of counter-terrorism legislation and policy that exists today will be very familiar. Similarly, recent discussions about the impact of drill music in the culture of young Black men has drawn questions around the ways in which they should be securitised, with senior police calling for the use of terrorism legislation against them. In this environment, when those who study and have lived alongside the communities who are at the scrutiny of the state raise questions about the government, military and police policy, they are often shut down as terrorist-sympathisers, or apologists for gang culture. In such environments, there is an expectation on scholars and activists to condemn what society at large fears. This volume is about how that expectation has emerged alongside the normalisation of racism, and how these writers choose to subvert the expectations raised on them, as part of their commitment to anti-racism.