In a post-September 11 world, no religious group in the United States has become more important yet remains more misunderstood than Muslim-Americans. This is particularly true with respect to the manner in which religious and political attitudes influence Muslim-Americans’ political behavior. This article addresses this issue by using data gathered from surveys taken in 70 mosques throughout the United States. With these data, this article maps the political and religious attitudes and behavior of mosque-attending Muslim-Americans and then analyzes the voting behavior of these respondents in the 2000 and 2004 Presidential elections. It will show that the cultural and religious traditions of Islam have resulted in most mosque-attending Muslim-Americans being social conservatives and, as a result, report having voted for Bush in 2000. It will also show that increasingly negative perceptions of the manner in which the United States war in Iraq has affected Muslims living American led many to switch loyalties and cast their ballots for Kerry in 2004.
While work on the political behaviour of religious groups in America has shown that, among other things, religious commitment and strong opinions on salient issues can encourage turnout and raise the probability of these groups' members voting in national elections, much less is known about these relationships with respect to Muslim Americans. Using data collected at mosques in 2006 during the holy month of Ramadan, this article maps the turnout patterns of Muslim American respondents and then investigates the factors that explain the political participation of members of this increasingly important religious group. The article focuses on reported turnout in the 2004 presidential election and shows that, more than anything else, strong opinions on salient issues boosted the participation rates of members of this religious group in the election, even when controlling for other factors known to help explain turnout.
South Korea is the only nation to become an important donor nation after being a recipient of Official Development Assistance (ODA) for several decades. In 2010, it became a member of the OECD's Development Assistance Committee, and while it has continued to use its experience as a former ODA recipient to inform its distribution practices, it also has evolved its ODA policies in response to changes in international norms and the imperatives associated with being a DAC-member nation. We know that, while policies may change, actual ODA disbursements—which nations are selected as recipients and receive ODA in what amounts—may lag or even remain unchanged. In this paper, we use the case of South Korea to determine how actual ODA disbursements change in response to policy changes. To accomplish this, we use a selection model to conduct a statistical analysis of South Korea's ODA disbursements using dyadic data from 1987 to 2016. Our results indicate that, while there has been continuity in terms of which nations receive South Korean ODA, there were also notable changes in its disbursements. Specifically, the ODA policy changes the South Korean government enacted did result in an altered profile of nations that were targeted by South Korea as ODA recipients.
This study focuses on the incumbent senator's ideological congruence causing strategic retirement in the United States. The extent of ideological congruence between a senator and her constituency can be interpreted as the degree of electoral vulnerability. Senators out of steps with constituents are more likely than those toeing the line with constituents' preferences to choose voluntary retirement over being risk losing the general election. This study finds that senators with legislative records of relatively ideological incongruence to their state ideology will be more likely to decide to retire strategically.
The story of South Korea’s post-armistice economic ascendance has been well documented, but its parallel rise as an influential international actor is just beginning to receive the scholarly attention it deserves. Moreover, in the work that has been produced thus far, scholars have assumed that it was its remarkable economic growth that drove South Korea’s rise to international influence. This assumption misses the important fact that South Korea was elevating itself internationally while it was still a poor nation. As we demonstrate in this paper, what is missing in existing work is that it was the diplomatic efforts of South Korean presidents early in the post-armistice period that put the country on the path to its current international influence both directly and indirectly. They did this directly by removing it from the diplomatic isolation it inherited after the Korean War, and they accomplished this indirectly by using the tools of diplomacy to expand South Korea’s trading relations, without which it would not have enjoyed the remarkable economic growth it experienced.
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