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AMERICAN drama, NATIONAL security, TERRORISM, and CHRONOLOGY

The National Security Act of 1947 was neither the first nor the last legislative word on intelligence coordination. Instead, it was the second of three formative, although not formidable, acts of Congress that have provided models for U.S. intelligence coordination: the Contingent Fund for Foreign Intercourse, the National Security Act of 1947, and the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004. This article reveals how the debate over intelligence coordination in the United States reaches back further than existing accounts that examine the origins of the Central Intelligence Agency. This article also uses the theme of intelligence coordination to introduce a new chronology for U.S intelligence history. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

BIPARTISANSHIP, PARTISANSHIP, WOMEN legislators, POLITICAL image, LEADERSHIP, and POWER (Social sciences)

High-profile examples of the Senate women's cross-party collaboration, such as the 2013 government shutdown, contribute to the perception that women policymakers are bipartisan. Print, digital, and broadcast journalism serve as units of observation for understanding how the women senators cultivated a shared political image imbued with conventionally-defined "feminine" leadership qualities that linked to bipartisanship. Drawing on their mediated perspectives, I argue that the women of the 113th Senate's portrayal of feminine leadership traits contributed to the conventional wisdom that women are bipartisan. My analysis indicates that, during a time of rancorous partisanship, the women senators' public discussion of a sisterhood, a supper club, and communication norms advanced the appearance of being a united force while seeking policy goals in a partisan chamber. By analyzing mediated texts that featured the women in the 113th Senate, I demonstrate how women policymakers collectively depict a legislative style that can become a tool for harnessing power in numbers and maximizing political influence as women while navigating a gendered and partisan space. The contributing factors discussed serve as an entry point for critical inquiry into bipartisan image construction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After nearly two decades under U.S. rule, the 1917 Jones Act granted American citizenship to Puerto Ricans. I argue that the United States strategically granted collective citizenship in order to strengthen its colonial rule. The convergence of two conditions prompted the grant of citizenship: Congress determined that the islands were strategically valuable to the United States; and Congress registered an independence movement on the island that could threaten colonial control. When Puerto Ricans demanded independence, Congress enveloped them in a bear hug that granted citizenship to weaken their movement. While citizenship was an attractive solution to many of the problems of colonial rule, there were strong objections within the United States to granting citizenship to a population considered to be nonwhite. As a result, Congress created a workaround by disentangling citizenship from statehood and from many of the rights and privileges that typically accompany it. Though citizenship is often associated with democracy and equality, American officials turned citizenship into a mechanism of control for the empire they were building. This work uncovers strategies of American territorial expansion and colonial governance and confronts deeply held notions about American citizenship and political community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The last two Republican presidents' hostility to multilateralism has produced striking departures from postwar American foreign policy, but this position is not as new as it sometimes appears. It has deep historical roots in the conservative wing of the Republican Party. Using data on congressional voting and bill sponsorship, we show that Republicans, especially those from the party's conservative wing, have tended to oppose multilateral rules for more than a century. This position fit logically into the broader foreign policy that Republican presidents developed before World War I but posed problems in light of the changing conditions during the mid-twentieth century. The importance of multilateral cooperation for U.S. national security during the Cold War and the growing international competitiveness of American manufacturing split the party on multilateral rules, but it did not reverse the conservative wing's longstanding skepticism of them. Congressional leaders' efforts to keep consequential choices about multilateral rules off the legislative agenda for most of the postwar era contributed to the persistence of this position. This move spared conservative members of Congress from confronting the costs of opposing multilateral institutions, giving them little incentive to challenge ideological orthodoxy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

From the first attempt to raise congressional pay in 1816, voters have judged members harshly for increasing their own compensation. During debates on the Compensation Act of 1856, members acknowledged that the experience of 1816 still loomed over them, though they disagreed about whether the lesson was not to increase pay or not to replace the per diem with a salary. In the end, they did both. Unlike the "salary grabs" of 1816 and 1873, however, few were punished directly by voters and the law was not repealed. The splintering of the party system allowed representatives to shift responsibility and obscure accountability. The timing of elections and addition of anticorruption provisions further limited backlash. Senators recognized the electoral jeopardy of representatives and so built a broad multiparty coalition for passage. While representatives were sensitive to the judgment of voters, the brief period of a multiparty Congress aided adoption of salary-based compensation in spite of that judgment, making possible later moves toward professionalization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

SPECIALISTS, PROFESSIONS, LABOR market, EMPLOYMENT, INDUSTRIAL relations, DISPLACED workers, OCCUPATIONAL mobility, and REGRESSION discontinuity design

Existing theories offer conflicting perspectives regarding the relationship between career specialization and labor market outcomes. While some scholars argue it is better for workers to specialize and focus on one area, others argue it is advantageous for workers to diversify and compile experience across multiple work domains. We attempt to reconcile these competing perspectives by developing a theory highlighting the voluntary versus involuntary nature of worker–firm separations as a theoretical contingency that alters the relative advantages and disadvantages associated with specialized versus generalized careers. Our theory is rooted in the notion that the characteristics of involuntary worker–firm separations (i.e., job displacement) simultaneously amplify the disadvantages associated with specialized careers and the advantages associated with generalized careers, thereby giving displaced generalists a relative advantage over displaced specialists. We find support for our theory in the context of U.S. congressional staffing, using administrative employment records and a regression discontinuity identification strategy that exploits quasi-random staffer displacement resulting from narrowly decided congressional reelection bids. Our theoretical contingency is further supported in supplemental regressions where correlational evidence suggests that while specialists tend to be relatively penalized in the labor market after involuntary separations, specialists appear to be relatively privileged when separations are plausibly voluntary. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

BUREAUCRACY, IMMIGRATION enforcement, JUDGES, LEGISLATIVE oversight, JUDICIAL process, and JUDICIAL independence

At the center of contentious debates concerning U.S. asylum policy are immigration judges, bureaucrats who decide life and death cases on a daily basis. Congress, the executive and the courts compete for influence over these key actors — administrative judges distinct from those examined in much of the bureaucratic control literature. They are hired, fired, promoted or demoted by executive officials; face congressional oversight; and must follow circuit law. We argue that, because of the fear of reversal, immigration judges will look most to the courts in the decision-making process. Our results support our theory. Examining over 900,000 immigration judges' decisions, we find that, although IJs are influenced by a fear of pushback from the elected branches, the impact is conditional on circuit preferences. Our findings inform scholarly understanding of judicial behavior and bureaucratic accountability, and support the pursuit of judicial independence and due process in immigration courts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

FOREIGN physicians, FOREIGN workers, PHYSICIAN supply & demand, ASIANS, COMMUNITIES, ARCHIVES, and RURAL poor

This essay traces the transformation and standardization of the first cohort of Asian physicians trained outside the United States into Foreign Medical Graduates (FMGs) within the United States through documentary regimes. Congress solicited foreign physicians under the Hart-Celler Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 to address doctor shortages in inner-city and rural communities throughout the country—a trend that continues today. Central to their migratory journey was an archive of expertise, a compilation of documents intended to verify identity, skill, and competence. Through the analysis of a physician's case file, new relations to documentation emerge that reveal how claims of underdocumentation, incorrect documentation, and overdocumentation regulate immigrant possibilities. In adopting this approach, this case study moves away from the unskilled / model minority dichotomy to show how documentary proceduralism operates as a racializing, disciplinary strategy across categories of immigrant labor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

POLITICAL party leadership, PRIME ministers, PRIME numbers, ELECTORAL reform, and POLITICAL leadership

This article shows what were/are the features of Japanese prime ministers as party leaders, as well as how and why these features have changed over the last 20 years. It focuses on three dimensions: party centralisation, internal cohesion and leadership security. On party centralisation, the electoral reform of 1994 introduced a single-member district system into the House of Representatives, or Lower House. This reform ended intra-party competition within the LDP that had existed under the multi-member system and since then the party has become much more centralised. On internal cohesion, the electoral reform has provided the prime minister with a powerful instrument to control the party: the power of endorsement. On leadership security, prime ministers like Koizumi Junichirō and Abe Shinzō were successful in restraining rebels and securing their leadership by effectively using the power of endorsement along with the power of appointment. However, a considerable number of prime ministers in the 21st century have had short tenures of about one year. While the personalisation of politics has made the position of popular prime ministers more secure, it has made unpopular prime ministers highly vulnerable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

HATE crimes, HATE crime laws, LAW enforcement agencies, LAW enforcement, VICTIMS of hate crimes, and WESTLAW (Database)

Hate-motivated crime remains problematic in the United States. California passed the first hate crime law in 1978; Congress followed in 1990. States continue to amend their hate crime legislation, producing an amalgam of statutory provisions. This article creates a conceptual framework from which to classify hate crime legislation across the 50 states and Washington, DC. Laws were identified through Westlaw. Analyses compared the types of crimes covered, discrete and insular minorities protected, prosecutorial alternatives, mandates for law enforcement agencies, and additional rights provided to victims among states' legislation. Considerable variation in scope and content of hate crime legislation exists among states, leaving several vulnerable groups unprotected, law enforcement underprepared, and victim rights and resources sparse. Future directions for hate crime policy and legislation are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]