Research Honors Track - Applications due February 24

The Department of Political Science is excited to announce the new Research Honors Track to begin in the 2011-12 academic year. The program, which leads to a BA degree with honors, will give participants the analytical tools they need to write top-notch honors theses and collaborate with Stanford faculty and Ph.D. students.  Through a specially designed program of study and research, students will develop the foundation for successful careers in academia, law, government, business, and other fields.

Click here to download the application.

CP Workshop - Karen Jusko

Electoral Geography and the Partisan Representation of the Poor

January 30, 2012 - 4:15pm - 6:05pm

Abstract: When will parties enter electoral contests on behalf of the poor? (What limits party entry in the U.S.?) The second half of my current book project presents an endogenous party formation and strategic mobilization account of party system development: Cross-national differences in electoral geography, or the joint geographic distribution of voters and legislative seats across districts, create (or undermine) incentives for parties to enter electoral competitions, and to target mobilization efforts to those potential supporters who are likely to be pivotal in the allocation of seats.  As a result, contemporary differences in party systems, and especially differences in the partisan representation of the poor, can be attributed to differences in the early mapping of votes to seats.     This presentation uses American, German (see the attached paper), and Norwegian census data to demonstrate the importance of electoral geography in the development of party systems.

Theory Workshop - Simone Chambers

Reason, Reasons and Reasoning: Three Faces of Public Justification

January 27, 2012 - 1:15pm - 3:00pm

Abstract: The working hypothesis of this paper is the following: public justification and its attendant ideas of pubic reason, public reasons, public discourse and deliberation, have replaced contract and consent as the locus of liberal democratic legitimacy.  While this hypothesis is relatively uncontroversial there is a great deal of disagreement about how we should understand and engage in public justification. In this paper I identify two different approaches to public justification. The first gives priority to a public process of reasoning together over identifying shared public reasons and so downplays the epistemic component of public justification in favor of an ethical component.  Here it is the way reasons are presented (for example dogmatically or not) or the ethical tone and import of reasons (for example, disrespectful or not) that becomes central. The second focuses on identifying a set or category of reasons that are acceptable to all involved. Here a certain type epistemic concern focused on the content of justification (for example religion reasons or reasons that appeal to comprehensive views) takes centre stage.  I conclude with some general observations about the pluses and minuses of these two approaches.  In general however, I am sympathetic to the process or ethical view and argue that the epistemic view or reasons-based view tends to sacrifice inclusiveness for determinate outcomes.