Questions in Politics The Journal of the Volume I • 2013 Questions in Politics Editorial Staff Editors in Chief Thomas E. Rotnem Southern Polytechnic State University [email protected] Adam P. Stone Georgia Perimeter College [email protected] Editor James Larry Taulbee Emory University Managing Editor Matthew E. Van Atta Founding Editor and Editor Emeritus Joseph S. Trachtenberg Clayton State University About the GPSA http://www.gpsausa.org Founded in 1968, the Georgia Political Science Association (GPSA) is the professional association for political science practitioners and educators in Georgia. Membership is drawn from the public, private, and academic sectors. We welcome members, attendees, participants, and students from around the world. Questions in Politics is the official journal publication of the GPSA. Questions in Politics The Journal of the Georgia Political Science Association Volume I Contents Preface .................................................................................................. iii Abstracts ................................................................................................. v Post-Local Autonomy Settlement and Local Minorities: A Comparative Analysis of Minority Accommodation in Aceh, Kosovo, and Sudan Arild Schou ............................................................................................. 1 From Armed Struggle to Peaceful Change: ETA’s Role in a Basque Peace Process Cleo Dan .............................................................................................. 21 The Critical Elections of 1968 and 1992 John A. Tures ........................................................................................ 41 The Natural State’s Unnatural Politics: Democratic Dominance in an Otherwise Red State Nicholas A. Rudnik ............................................................................... 67 Presidential Power and “Midcentury Conditions”: An Analytical Essay Remembering Richard Neustadt and Reevaluating His Ideas Carl D. Cavelli ..................................................................................... 91 Digital Tocqueville: Democracy in the Information Age Jennifer Joines ................................................................................... 109 i Contents ii China’s Rise in a Changing Regional Hierarchy: A Comparison of 21st-Century China to 20th-Century Germany Thomas Nisley .................................................................................... 129 Lost at Sea: How Past Disagreements in the U.S. Senate Continue to Block Ratification of the Law of the Sea Treaty Julia Schast ........................................................................................ 155 The Politics-Administration Dichotomy: Perceptions from Administrators in Masculine and Feminine State Agencies Beth M. Rauhaus ................................................................................ 183 Examining the Factors That Lead to Student Departure at Aiken Technical College Jameka N. Jackson ............................................................................. 201 Questions in Politics • Volume I • Georgia Political Science Association Questions in Politics The Journal of the Georgia Political Science Association Volume I Preface The Editors-in-Chief of Questions in Politics (QiP) welcome readers to Volume I. QiP is the scholarly journal of the Georgia Political Science Association (GPSA) that was formerly titled The Proceedings of the Georgia Political Science Association. The articles in this volume began as papers presented at the 2013 Annual Meeting of the GPSA. The authors then submitted the manuscripts to the journal, where they were initially reviewed twice by anonymous reviewers. Further review and editing commenced, and out of twenty-five manuscripts submitted, ten are published here. We are also pleased to announce that the first article in Volume I, “Post- Local Autonomy Settlement and Local Minorities: A Comparative Analysis of Minority Accommodation in Aceh, Kosovo, and Sudan” by Professor Arild Schou of Buskerud and Vestfold University College in Drammen, Norway, is the McBrayer Award winner for 2013. The McBrayer is given annually to the best paper presented at the Annual Meeting. The winning author or authors have traditionally received a certificate and a cash award. To further recognize this achievement, the McBrayer winner will be the first article in this and each successive volume. The GPSA was founded in 1968. The organization’s publication of papers presented at the Annual Meeting began almost immediately thereafter. Dr. J. Larry Taulbee, Associate Professor Emeritus of Political Science at Emory University, worked on those early volumes and continues to serve the GPSA as the editor of QiP. In 1973, the GPSA formalized its journal, titling it Southeastern Political Review, and until the early 1990s published it with covers that were the color of Georgia clay. SPR sought manuscripts beyond the GPSA, and the journal was eventually titled Politics & Policy as it became focused on all fields of scholarship within political science, with support coming from a variety of state political science organizations. In 2005, P&P was transferred to the Policy Studies Organization. Dr. Joseph S. Trachtenberg, Professor Emeritus of Political Science at Clayton State University, was the driving force behind the rebirth of The Proceedings, and they were relaunched online in 2005. As Founding Editor, Dr. Trachtenberg returned the journal to a refereed, reviewed, and edited compilation of papers presented at the Annual Meeting. He continues to serve the QiP as Editor Emeritus. iii Preface iv The change of this journal’s name to Questions in Politics reflects a broadening in scope of scholarship in political science. The source of the articles remains the same—papers presented at the GPSA Annual Meeting—but the articles cover all the fields of the discipline, as well as issues in public policy and teaching and learning in political science. All of these topics are addressed in a scholarly manner, and the larger and enduring questions in politics, as well as the discipline of political science, are considered in each volume. Thomas E. Rotnem and Adam Stone Questions in Politics • Volume I • Georgia Political Science Association Questions in Politics The Journal of the Georgia Political Science Association Volume I Abstracts Post-Local Autonomy Settlement and Local Minorities: A Comparative Analysis of Minority Accommodation in Aceh, Kosovo, and Sudan Arild Schou Buskerud University College, Norway Page 1 Territorial autonomy design has during the last decades been proposed or adopted as a solution to self- government conflicts in several countries around the world. The sustainability of such designs, however, have been highly disputed among scholars; some claim that they are a recipe for further conflicts and—in extreme cases—secession, while others see them as the only viable way to accommodate autonomy claims at that same time as they preserve the territorial integrity of the state. The most recent discussion, however, is geared toward conflict management mechanisms within the autonomous units themselves. The stability of units with relatively large minorities is particularly challenging because these minorities may have the power, collective self- consciousness, and international legitimacy to resist designs where they have become a minority in a unit whose population has been granted protection from national majority rule. This article examines the stability of three recent autonomy settlement deals in the light of the recent discussion on ethnic conflict management within such units; focusing on the Gayos in Aceh, the Serbs in Kosovo, and the indigenous peoples in Sudan. It concludes by challenging the present idea that local or national power-sharing is essential for coming to a conflict settlement, adding on two dimensions that would be relevant; the nature of the ethnic minority and the degree of power that are devolved to the concerned units. From Armed Struggle to Peaceful Change: ETA’s Role in a Basque Peace Process Cleo Dan Elon University Page 21 This article examines the process by which Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (ETA) transitioned from terrorism to nonviolence in the pursuit of v Abstracts vi policy goals. This article, part of a larger project examining how and why non-state actors utilizing violence engage in a political process, addresses three issues contributing to ETA’s adoption of peaceful tactics: (1) domestic political and institutional context, (2) international political and institutional context, and (3) the role of public opinion and the media. This article offers policy relevant generalizations explaining why ETA sought alternatives to violence. It argues that the birth of Basque political parties that offered nonviolent outlets for Basque nationalism changed the political environment to one favorable to the ETA moving away from violence. This article seeks to place ETA’s political interaction within a larger framework of how terrorist organizations end, with the hope of contributing to scholarship from a perspective linking policy, theory, and history. The Critical Elections of 1968 and 1992 John A. Tures LaGrange College Page 41 Many scholars have accepted that southern whites shifted their political allegiance from the Democratic Party to the Republican Party, and that the northeastern United States is no longer GOP territory. But were the 1968 and 1992 elections really “critical elections”?