Ciao!

MPSA roundup

04.11.2005

I arrived in Chicago Wednesday night, checked into my hotel, then met K8 for a bite to eat late. Too late to meet up w/ Vanessa, unfortunately, who I'd see the next night. I also didn't go to panels at every opportunity (nobody does), but there were a few really interesting ones I wanna point out (ask if you want more details).

BTW, the MPSA (Midwest Political Science Association) is the second-largest political science conference, w/ thousands of attendees & over 3,400 presenters on more than 400 panels spread about between four days (here's the the program).

Thursday

The first day of the conference was uneventful. Moataz didn't make it in for his panel on Democratization in the Islamic world. But the other papers were interesting.

There was one on Islamic intellectuals in Iran & Indonesia, presenting evidence that success of pro-democracy (or reformist) political elites depends on their ability to: 1) produce a pluralist definition of Islam, 2) make coalitions w/ other elites (especially those in the military who can protect them), and 3) develop a broad base of grass roots support (especially in universities). Seems the Indonesian case is more successful, w/ some Islamic movements even winning voter support from non-Muslim voters. Iran was less successful, due principally to the lack of access to the ruling council (restricted to hard-line mullahs). But evidence that a majority of officers in the Revolutionary Guard support the reformists is encouraging.

The rest of the papers also highlighted the importance of better differentiating different types of Islamic movements, and that there's no single "Muslim culture". Among the other three papers, the one on the difference between "Muslimism" in Turkey & "Islamism" in Algeria, was interesting. The author argued that Muslim movements in Turkey were more pluralist (e.g. seeking inter-religious dialogue), while those in Algeria pursued a "Jacobin ideal", which view the West as a threat & pursue a more radical position.

Then a panel on Latin American politics (w/ only two papers) & public attitudes about democracy. The first was especially interesting, since it combined literatures from Latin America on "delegative democracy" w/ new Americanist literature on "stealth democracy". These study/explain low levels of support for competitive political institutions/practices in favor of non-competitive or non-representative institutions (i.e. legislatures) instead — in the US that's support for courts; in Latin America for strong executives. Both papers relied extensively on survey data from World Values Survey & LatinBarometro.

I took most of the afternoon off, going out to lunch near the shopping district (treated myself a SoundDock from the Apple Store). Then off to Winnetka for dinner w/ K8's family (who were quite pleasant), before heading out to meet Vanessa at NoMI.

NoMI was something else. It's one of the new, posh, hip Chicago nightspots, and Vanessa makes pastries there. After ordering drinks (tried Campari for the first & last time), waiting for her to get off work & join us. While waiting, we enjoyed frequent samples sent to us "courtesy of Vanessa" by polite, dashing, well-dressed waiters. J. Edmund, you'd be so jealous; these were some of the most delicious treats I've ever eaten. Wow. By 11:30, Vanessa was off work, and we had a chance to catch up on new & old news, reminisce about Kalamazoo, and talk about her new job at the new Wynn Las Vegas.

Friday

Skipped the 8:30 panel to sit over a latte, reviewing my paper before my 10:30 presentation. The panel was well attended, w/ three papers (including mine) on mixed-member electoral systems, and another on the differences between different groups' ability to mobilize support for legislative quota laws in Latin America. It was interesting, since it argued that women are better able to win quotas (e.g. requirements that 30% of legislative candidates are female), while indigenous social movements are less able, unless they're highly concentrated, but marginal groups (e.g. specific indigenous seat allocations in Venezuela). Her general argument's that feminist groups are able to solve the collective action problem because the cost of accommodating their demands is low (since they're spread out evenly across class, ethnic, and other social cleavages). While larger indigenous groups (e.g. Aymara or Quechua) are less able to, since they're not so universally present across other social cleavages, and the cost of accommodating them is high (e.g. they'd alter the political balance of power).

The three papers (including my own) pointed to potential problems w/ mixed-member electoral systems, pointing out that they're not panaceas to various problems facing new democracies. Ended up going out to lunch w/ a co-panelist, to continue conversing about different research related to our respective countries of study (Bolivia, Mexico).

After running into Katia & Aparna, two of my former WMU cohort, I ditched the afternoon panels to catch up. They're now at Texas A&M Texarkana and Cornell College, facing the daunting challenges of being new faculty members at small schools. We walked through the bookseller exhibits, ordering some desk copies of various potential textbooks, then drinks w/ Sabi & Dr. K (who gave us advice on being faculty & book publishing). We broke at 5:30, when I met some of the current WMU cohort, Melli & Nenad, for dinner.

Then back to the Palmer House to meet Andy & Saloumeh, in from DC/Wilmington for the Centellas family birthdays. Conversation over Miller Lites, before settling in for the night watching The Life Aquatic (which was disappointing, sadly).

Saturday

Woke up for an amusing (and insightful) 8:30 panel on the effects of late night TV on politics — w/ two papers on The Daily Show & one involving content analysis of Jay Leno jokes from the recent California gubernatorial recall. Despite being a new area of research, and one I'm not entirely familiar w/ (political communication), the papers were insightful & methodologically well-specified. Also, the panel's discussant was perhaps the best I've ever seen.

And thus ended my MPSA conference (although it continued for others), as we all checked out of my room by 11, before heading out downtown for shopping, errands, and lunch.

I'll post the rest of the weekend later. Right now, I've to settle into several hours of grading papers, writing final exam/quiz questions, and generally getting ready for the end of the semester.

Posted by Miguel at 04:05 PM

Comments

Posted by: Melli at April 11, 2005 04:45 PM

Posted by: Miguel at April 11, 2005 05:01 PM

Posted by: Nenad at April 11, 2005 07:18 PM

Posted by: Stephanie at April 11, 2005 11:46 PM