Professor M. Mayer, WS 2007-08
HS Transformations in American Domestic Politics since 9/11
Thursday 10-12, room 203
This class takes a look at a variety of (particularly) domestic policy initiatives as well
as the institutional restructuring undertaken in the aftermath of 9/11. Some of these
measures are highly contested not only for their impact on civil liberties and the
quality of US democracy, but also for more fundamental effects transforming statesociety relations and the substance of the state. Similarities and differences with prior
administrations will be identified and the breadth of scholarly interpretations of how
to assess the contemporary US polity will be evaluated.
Requirements:
1 - weekly reports on assigned readings and regular class participation (due
Wednesday 6 pm on BB)
2 - discussion lead of one session, with a structuring one-page hand-out
3 - outline of (by 12/13) and final 10-12 page research paper (by 2/29)
3 - presentation of your preliminary research findings in last session (2/14)
4 - following developments in US (domestic) policy, using not only news media such
as NYT, WP or LAT, but also critical blogs such as truthdig.org, democracynow.org
and others, in order to learn how to use these media outlets as sources of the unfolding
events in US politics, as well as how to compare them and read each critically (due at
the beginning of class)
10/19: Course Overview and Introduction
Part I: Empirical Survey of Transformations in US Domestic Politics
10/25: Electoral Shifts and their societal/structural context (emergence of
Republican Right, dismantling of liberal compact)
Robert Brenner, "Structure vs conjuncture. The 2006 Elections and the Rightward Shift," New Left
Review 43, Jan-Feb 2007
Thomas Frank, "Lie down for America," Harper's Magazine 04/2004
(http://www.wesjones.com/frank1.htm)
Carl Davidson, Jerry Harris, Globalisation, theocracy and the new fascism: the US Right's Rise to
Power, Race & Class 47/3, 2006, 47-67
Jacob S. Hacker, Paul Pierson, Off Center. The Republican Revolution and the Erosion of American
Democracy. New Haven: Yale UP 2005
Peter Phillips, Bridget Thornton, Lew Brown, Andrew Sloan, "The global dominance group: a
sociological case for impeachment of George W. Bush and Richard Cheney," in: Dennis Loo, Peter
Phillips, eds., Impeach the President. NY: Seven Stories Press, 2006, chapter 14.
1. Policy Initiatives since 9/11
11/1: PATRIOT Act I: Restricting political and civil rights
John Whitehead, Steven Aden, "Forfeiting 'Enduring Freedom' for 'Homeland Security': A
Constitutional Analysis of the USA Patriot Act and the Justice Department's Anti-Terrorism
Initiatives," American University Law Review 51 (October 2002), 1081-1133.
Lawyers Committee for Human Rights, "Imbalance of Powers. How Changes to U.S. Law and Policy
since 9/11 Erode Human Rights and Civil Liberties." September 2002-March 2003 (www.lchr.org)
David Cole, James X. Dempsey, Terrorism and the Constitution. Sacrificing Civil Liberties in the
Name of National Security. New York: The New Press 2002, especially Chapter 11 and 12.
Michel Chossudovsky, Bush Executive Order: Criminalizing the Antiwar Movement, Global Research
2007 (www.globalresearch.ca/PrintArticle.php?articleId=6377)
Michel Chossudovsky, Big Brother, Freitag 31.3.2006
11/8: PATRIOT Act II: Restricting political and civil rights
Timothy Lunch, "Breaking the Vicious Cycle: Preserving our Liberties while Fighting Terrorism,"
CATO Policy Analysis No. 443, June 26, 2002 (http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa-443es.html)
Josef Braml, "Tyranny of the Majority?" Die Einschränkung persönlicher Freiheitsrechte nach den
Terroranschlägen von New York und Washington," in: Hils/Wilzewski, Hg., 189-233.
Lawyers Committee for Human Rights, Imbalance of Powers: How Changes to U.S. Law and Policy
since 9/11 Erode Human Rights and Civil Liberties (http://www.lchr.org/us_law/loss/loss_main.htm
Amy Kaplan, "Where is Guantanamo?" American Quarterly, 57:831-858, 2005
11/15: The War at Home: Restricting social rights
Frances Fox Piven, The War at Home. The Domestic Costs of Bush's Militarism. The New Press 2004.
Greg Palast, The Class War. Hope I die before my next refill, chapter 5 in: Armed Madhouse. NY:
Penguin 2006.
Esther Kaplan, Follow the Money, The Nation Nov 1, 2004
APSA Task Force, "American Democracy in an Age of Rising Inequality," American Political Science
Association, Perspectives on Politics, vol 2 no 4, December 2004 ; also at:
http://www.iefd.org/articles/american_democracy.php
Jacob S. Hacker, Suzanne Mettler, Dianne Pinderhughes, Inequality and Public Policy, chapter 4 in:
Lawrence R. Jacobs, Theda Skocpol, eds., Inequality and American Democracy. NY: Russell Sage
Foundation 2005.
Godfrey Hodgson, The next big issue: inequality in America" (openDemocracy 9/13/ 2006)
2. Institutional Restructuring since 9/11
11/22: The Electoral System (Stolen elections, redistricting, vote buying)
Godfrey Hodgson, The money trap, openDemocracy 3/27/07
Mark Crispin Miller, None dare call it stolen. Ohio, the election, and America's servile press, Harper's
Magazine August 2005
Mark Crispin Miller, Our rigged elections, The Washington Spectator 10/01/2006
http://www.iefd.org/articles/our_rigged_elections.php
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Was the 2004 Election stolen? Rolling Stone 2006
Dennis Loo, "Never Elected, not Once: The Immaculate Deception and the Road Forward," in: Dennis
Loo, Peter Phillips, eds., Impeach the President. The Case against Bush and Cheney. New York: Seven
Stories Press 2006.
Andrew Gumbel, Steal this Vote. Dirty Elections and the Rotten History of Democracy in America.
New York Nation Books 2005
Greg Palast, "The Con. Kerry Won, Now Get OverIt...," chapter 4 in: Armed Madhouse. NY: Penguin
2006.
For additional texts see: http://www.iefd.org/articles/index.php#stolen
11/29: "One party rule" (Republican congressional corruption and corporate fraud;
Why Democrats are not about to change that)
Robert Kuttner, America as a One-Party State, The American Prospect online, February 1, 2004.
Mike Davis, The Democrats after November, New Left Review 43, Jan Feb 2007.
Selection from Hacker/Pierson, Off Center
Lou Dubose, Jan Reid, The Hammer: Tom DeLay, God, Money, and the Rise of the Republican
Congress, New York 2004
Paul Krugman, Toward One-Party Rule, NYT, June 27, 2003
Tom Hamburger, Peter Wallsten, One Party Country. The Republican Plan for Dominance in the 21st
Century. NY: John Wiley & Sons 2006
Thomas B. Edsall, Building Red America. The New Conservative Coalition and the Drive for
Permanent Power. Basic Books 2006.
12/6: Erosion of separation of powers, move towards unitary executive
Mark J. Rozell, "Executive Privilege in the Bush Administration. The conflict between Secrecy and
Accountability," in: Garly L. Gregg II, Mark J. Rozell, Considering the Bush Presidency. Oxford UP
2004
David C. Vladeck, "Litigating national security cases in the aftermath of 9/11," Journal of National
Security, Law & Policy, 2/1, 2006, pp 165-193.
Barbara J. Bowley, The Campaign for unfettered power: executive supremacy, secrecy, and
surveillance, in: Dennis Loo, Peter Phillips, eds., Impeach the Presdent. NY: Seven Stories Press 2006,
chapter 9.
ACLU, Insatiable Appetite. The Government’s Demand for New and Unnecessary Powers after
September 11. October 2002
Phillip J. Cooper, Presidential Signing Statements, ch. 7 in Cooper, By Order of the President. The Use
and Abuse of Executive Direct Action. U Press of Kansas, 2002, 199-230
Scott Horton, Accountability and the Renegade Executive, Speech at U of Mississippi School of Law,
March 28, 2007 (http://balkin.blogspot.com/)
Stephen Graubard, Command of Office. How War, Secrecy and Deception Transformed the
Presidency, from Theodore Roosevelt to George W. Bush. Basic books, Feb 2006
Part II: Different Theoretical Perspectives of Analysis
12/13: Neoliberalism vs Neoconservatism
David Harvey, A Brief History of Neoliberalism, 2005, chapters 4, 6 and 7.
David Harvey, Neo-liberalism and the restoration of class power, in: Spaces of Global Capitalism,
Verso 2006.
Wendy Brown, "American Nightmare. Neoliberralism, Neoconservatism, and De-Democratization,"
Political Theory 34/6, December 2006, 690-714.
12/20: A smaller but meaner state? Outcontracting essential state functions
Scott Shane, Ron Nixon, US contractors becoming a fourth branch of government, NYT February 4,
2007
Saskia Sassen, "Reconstructing the Public-Private Divide," chapter 4 in Territory, Authority, Rights,
pp. 184-203.
Jeremy Scahill, Blackwater, Nation books 2007
1/10: State of Emergency, State of Exception
David Dyzenhaus, Schmitt v. Dicey: Are States of Emergency inside or outside the legal order?
Cardozo Law Review 27/5 (march 2006), 2005-2040.
Kim Lane Scheppele, The Migration of anti-constitutional ideas: the post-9/11 globalization of public
law and the international state of emergency, in: Sujit Choudhry, ed., The Migration of Constitutional
Ideas. Cambridge UP 2006, 347-373.
Scott Horton, State of Exception. Bush's war on the rule of law. Harper's Magainze, July 2007.
Henry A. Giroux, Terrorism and the Culture of Permanent War: Democracy under Siege, in: Michael
A. Peters, ed., Education, Globalization, and the State in the Age of Terrorism. Boulder: Paradigm
Publishers 2005
Jean-Claude Paye, Ausnahmezustand in Permanenz: 9/11 als konstitutiver Akt, Blätter f. deutsche und
internationale Politik, 9/2006.
1/17: Garrison State or National Security State
Marcus G. Raskin, A. Carl LeVan, "The National Security State and the Tragedy of Empire," pp. 3-42
and "The National Security State, War, and Congress," pp. 245-278 in: Raskin/LeVan, eds., In
Democracy's Shadow, New York: Nation Books, 2005
Matthew J. Morgan, "The garrison state revisited: civil-military implications of terrorism and security,"
Contemporary Politics 10/1, march 2004, 5-19.
Martin Kahl, Reinhard Wolf, "National Security State? Terror, Sicherheitsfixierung und die
Entwicklung der amerikanischen Demokratie," in: Jochen Hils/Jürgen Wilzewski, eds., Defekte
Demokratie - Crusader State? Die Weltpolitik der USA in der Ära Bush. Trier: Wissenschaftlicher
Verlag 2006, 141-187.
Abraham Sofaer, "Presidential Power and National Security," Presidential Studies Quarterly 37/1,
march 2007, 101-123.
1/24: The N- and the F-Word
Diane McWhorter, "The N-Word, Unmentionable lessons of the midterm aftermath," Slate November
28, 2006 (http://www.slate.com/id/2154567/)
Sheldon Wolin, Inverted Totalitarianism, The Nation, May 19, 2003
David Abraham, The Bush Regime from Elections to Detentions: A Moral Economy of Carl Schmitt
and Human Rights, October 2006 (http://ssrn.com/abstract=942865)
Naomi Wolf, Fascist America, in 10 easy steps. The Guardian April 24, 2007
Naomi Wolf, The End of America: A Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot. Chelsea Green 2007
John Sanbonmatsu, Zieht in den USA ein postfordistischer Faschismus herauf? Das Argument
264/2006, 95-105.
Laurence W. Britt, Fascism Anyone? Free Inquiry magazine, Volume 23, Number 2.
(http://www.secularhumanism.org/index.php?section=library&page=britt_23_2)
(see also: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eg6Sg6Uzxgc
and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VVVa1IvHdKc)
1/31: Post-imperial Presidency
Saskia Sassen, Redistributing Power inside the State, chapter 4 in Territory, Authority, Rights, pp. 168184.
William G. Weaver, Robert M. Pallitto, "State Secrets and Executive Power," Political Science
Quarterly 120/1, 2005, 85-112.
Jonathan Schell, The US: Too late for empire, The Nation magazine, August 14/21, 2006.
Phillip J. Cooper, "George W. Bush, Edgar Allan Poe, and the Use and Abuse of Presidential Signing
Statements," Presidential Studies Quarterly 35/3, September 2005, 515-532.
Söhnke Schreyer, Imperial Presidency Redux? Die institutionelle Machtbalance zwischen
Terrorbekämpfung und Präventivkrieg, Kap. 3 in: Jochen Hils/Jürgen Wilzewski, eds., Defekte
Demokratie - Crusader State? Die Weltpolitik der USA in der Ära Bush. Trier: Wissenschaftlicher
Verlag 2006, 111-139.
Neil Smith, "Global Executioner," The South Atlantic Quarterly, 105/1, Winter 2006, 55-69.
2/7: Authoritarian or Illiberal Democracy
Joe Conason, It Can Happen Here: Authoritarian Peril in the Age of Bush, 2006
Josef Braml, "Tyranny of the Majority?" Die Einschränkung persönlicher Freiheitsrechte nach
den Terroranschlägen von New York und Washington," in: Hils/Wilzewski, Hg., 189-233
Paolo Flores d'Arcais, Ist Amerika noch eine Demokratie? Der Populismus der Mehrheit
bedroht die Freiheit in den USA, Die Zeit, 20. Januar 2005, 39.
Henry A. Giroux, The New Authoritarianism in the US, January 2006 (www.dissidentvoice.org)
2/14: Presentation of Research Findings