Pacific Standard March-April 2013 Cover

Nail Polish, Democracy

February 1, 2013 • By • Leave a Comment
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Wafa Ben Hassine, writing today at Nawaat: The social climate in Tunisia is deteriorating. Many people cannot even find a place to call home, a shelter. Many cannot afford to go to school. Many of the country’s youth remain unemployed (in fact the unemployment rate, according to several sources, has risen in the past year). The cost of living has gone up. For a few weeks, outrage was felt all over the country as many families could not even find a place to buy milk – since now, because of the lack of rule of law, many mafias and trade rings control the flow of certain nutritional ... Read More

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Egypt’s Presidency Is Not for the Faint-hearted

May 22, 2012 • By • Leave a Comment

Egypt’s presidential elections process opened on March 10. Within two days, more than 300 citizens had picked up the paperwork to declare themself a candidate. By March 14, the number had climbed to 500, and by March 28, it approached a thousand. Stringent registration requirements have limited the circle of genuine contenders to about a dozen. Still, it appears many Egyptians feel able to serve as president, and underestimate the truly daunting challenges the position faces. Such as, it’s unclear what the president’s role will be. In March 2011 Egyptians, by popular ... Read More

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Not Twitter Revolutions, But Twitter-Assisted Revolutions

April 6, 2012 • By • Leave a Comment

It’s tempting to think of the Internet as the world’s best weapon against authoritarianism. Where it goes, democracy will follow, if we can just figure out how to strategically drop enough thumb drives, cell phones, and “shadow” technology. But, of course, the relationship between the Internet and democracy is much messier. And what we are now beginning to understand about it – with scientific rigor, that is – suggests that the laws governing this latest technology are not so different from its predecessors like radio and TV. “The Internet can play a role and facilitate ... Read More

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Republicans Like Candidates Who Look Republican

January 10, 2012 • By • Leave a Comment
Republican Candidate Test

Will the Republican who wins the New Hampshire primary be the candidate with the most money, the best message, or … the most Republican mug? While no scientifically proven criteria exists for what makes a politician look like a Republican, plenty of people seem to think they can spot a party affiliation on a candidate’s face. Maybe it’s something in the eyebrows, or the cheekbones, or the cast of a jaw line (or insert your humorous observation here). Whatever it is people are responding to, new research suggests that looking like a Republican may help politicians win over Republican ... Read More

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Calculating an End to Divisive Politics

December 27, 2011 • By • Leave a Comment

Much scholarly research never suggests a clear practical application for the public good. You can't say that about the work of Steven J. Brams, professor of politics at New York University. He seems to have an angle on everything. True to form, he has advice that could help detoxify national politics and pull the agenda from the grip of political extremists … and a better way to elect candidates in a political primary where there seems to be no clearly superior choice ... and how to pick a special congressional committee when important work needs to be done on divisive issues. Born in ... Read More

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Brams: Use Approval Voting in Presidential Primaries

December 27, 2011 • By • Leave a Comment

If Republicans are wondering about how to choose among less-than-inspiring choices available in the upcoming primaries — and how to sort losers from potential winners in a national election — they would be wise to sign up for study with Steven J. Brams. What happens in primaries of both parties, he says, is that the “field is crowded, the centrist is squeezed, the strong left candidate or strong right candidate wins. And it’s a disaster, in my opinion, for the country.” Brams says approval voting, in which voters can vote for more than one candidate — in some scenarios as ... Read More

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Brams: Let Congress Select Super Committees

December 27, 2011 • By • Leave a Comment

Following the failure of the budgetary super committee to come to an agreement in the fall, members of Congress admitted to being ashamed of the institution and the implacable partisanship that stymies it. As part of the deal to raise the debt ceiling, the 12-member super committee of six Democrats and six Republicans from both houses of Congress set about trying to identify $1.5 trillion in budgets cuts for the next 10 years. Compromise had little chance, even though failure to compromise triggers $1.2 trillion in across-the-board budget cuts — an outcome few in either party publicly ... Read More

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Why a Democracy Needs Uninformed People

December 15, 2011 • By • Leave a Comment

Uninformed people catch a lot of flak in society, whether they’re sitting on decision-making committees, choosing a new PTA president, or voting in a national election. Political commentators often daydream of a fully engaged and 100 percent knowledgeable electorate. New research, though, suggests these know-nothings may be more vital to democracy than anyone has given them credit for. Researchers at Princeton have discovered that the least informed among us may have a crucial role in tempering the most opinionated minorities. Surprisingly, they started off by studying fish. Iain ... Read More

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Women Win Big in Tunisia Vote

November 5, 2011 • By • Leave a Comment

With Tunisia’s ballot boxes closed but not stuffed, the real political winners in the country’s first free election are women. This election — for an assembly that will write the country’s new constitution — will likely result in the largest percentage of women in any assembly across the Arab world. When the dust settles, about a third of the 217 members of Tunisia’s constituent assembly will be women, twice as many women serving as currently serve in the U.S. Congress. Working as an official observer for the National Democratic Institute last week, I was struck both by how ... Read More

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Are Facebook, Twitter Fostering Civic Engagement?

June 28, 2011 • By • Leave a Comment

Since the first days of the Arab Spring, social media has been celebrated for its role in helping to foment democracy in countries that don't yet have it. An intriguing though less dramatic question back home is this: Can using Facebook or using Twitter also be used to strengthen democracy and civic engagement in countries like the U.S. that do have it? The answer isn't so obvious. Political operatives and White House insiders have touted the power of Facebook, Twitter and Google to engage the public in election season and the governing decisions that follow. But contrarian voices have ... Read More

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