War and American Political Development: Parties, State Building, and Democratic Rights Policy
Brown Bag presentation by Robert P. Saldin, Ph.D., Johns Hopkins University
Date/Time: Friday, May 9, 2008, 12:30-1:30 p.m.
Location: Centennial Center for Political Science and Public Affairs, APSA, 1527 New Hampshire Ave., Washington, D.C.
To Attend: Seating is limited. Please RSVP to center@apsanet.org or call (202) 483-2512.
War and American Political Development:
Parties, State Building, and Democratic Rights Policy
The effects of major wars on American domestic politics provide an explanatory framework for tying together political parties, elections, American state development, and democratic policy making. Political scientists often compartmentalize and separate American domestic politics from international affairs. Contrary to this tendency, American domestic politics and international events are inevitably intertwined and foreign wars influence domestic politics in three important ways. First, because wars are disruptive events that have the ability to fundamentally alter the political landscape, they have frequently influenced political party competition and ideology. Second, governmental responses to the crises arising from wars often promote enduring state building and institutional development. Once the initial crises pass, these governmental changes remain. And third, despite some infamous curtailments of civil liberties, wars have frequently brought about the extension of fuller citizenship and civil rights to marginalized minority groups that contribute to the war effort.
Robert P. Saldin is the Patrick Henry Postdoctoral fellow at Johns Hopkins University and a Visiting Scholar at APSA’s Centennial Center. In January he received his Ph.D. from the University of Virginia and this fall he will join the Department of Political Science at the University of Montana. His work has appeared in Political Research Quarterly, White House Studies, and the Journal of Politics among others.
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