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This dissertation is a study in literature and politics and proceeds by tracing out the major political themes of McCarthys body of fiction and analyzing them toward their logical conclusions. The critical approach in this narrative-based anthropology looks at man first in profound isolation and then progresses through his novels in sequence, in an increasingly social context. McCarthys later fiction displays an increasingly affirmative view of the sacredness of human life and of the basic impulse toward community in even the most unreflective of characters; an essential characteristic of humans. To call any of McCarthys works a political novel would be absurd. Apocalyptic fiction has rarely, if ever, been overtly or consistently political in terms of its subject matter or intended audience. Rather, I find in McCarthys novels an artistic or poetic utterance that speaks to discomforting realities of experience while simultaneously sublimating the particularities of experience, however immediate, into a mythic plane. In this textual world, with its apocalyptic backdrop and mythical sublime, I construct an analytical framework for exploring the political ideas that appear and reappear throughout all of McCarthys work. Though interrelated, narrative, nature, history, witnessing, agency, and order are broad conceptual categories within which I discuss essential political questions. McCarthys political vision demonstrates the general failure of politics to do what politics is supposed to do. The political or sovereign power in McCarthys world may be said to attempt to provide for an ordered environment for human existence, even with nominal liberty. But it fails in any meaningful way to protect men from each other and from themselves or to advance any notion of the good life. Indeed, his reader is frequently left to ponder exactly what might even be said to constitute the good life in McCarthys fiction. Is this failure of the political the result of some deficiency in our laws or political institutions? No. The failure results from our gross misunderstanding of our place in the order of the world. It results from our inability to accept our fundamental loneliness in the world.

Discussion of rhetoric surrounding the role of women in Iran.

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Contrary to the doctrine of sovereign immunity, a long standing principle of international law and international relations that protects states from being hauled before the courts of other states, civil lawsuits against state-sponsors of terrorism allow for just that. They permit U.S. citizens to sue certain states in U.S. courts for acts of terrorism committed outside the United States. These lawsuits do not take the form of traditional lawsuits as they are not designed to function within a litigation model that aims to compensate victims for injury, deter future bad acts, and provide forums for the establishment of truth. Instead, they are about politics. These lawsuits are a relatively new tool in the foreign policy toolbox, their framework having been meted out over the last 35 years as congress and several presidents have battled for control over it. The primary factor that continues to drive the lawsuits, and thus determines which branch wins the battle over their framework at any particular point in time, is the influence of terrorism victims advocacy groups. The power of this influence is best evidenced in three ways: (1) the battle over a right to sue states; (2) the battle over control of foreign state assets to execute terrorism judgments against states; and (3) the battle over control of diplomatic negotiations to recover unpaid judgments. The primary result of advocacy groups influence is a framework that places severe constraints on the foreign policy bureaucracy. It places foreign policy outside normal foreign policy-making channels and in the hands of the courts. The long-term implication of these lawsuits is that they unintentionally affect foreign policy through the court system, the very issue that for centuries, the doctrine of sovereign immunity has tried to avoid.

Across the Latin American region, invalid votes regularly âwinâ over candidates from smaller political parties. This dissertation assesses how individual and contextual factors affect individuals' decision to assume the costs of turning out to vote but then choose not to select a candidate, and to what political effect. First, I find that most invalid votes in Latin American presidential elections are cast as a protest signal that reflects disappointment with specific policy outcomes or with a particular slate of candidate offerings rather than with democracy itself. Second, I argue and show that elite polarization, the number of candidates competing, and flux in the partisan options shape invalid voting by changing the ease with which citizens navigate politics, as well as their perceptions of the representativeness of the political space. Third, I find that efforts to mobilize the invalid vote have occurred in more than twenty Latin American presidential elections since 1980, mostly as an expression of discontent with candidate options, or with corruption in politics, although evidence of accompanying increases in government corruption is limited. Finally, I show that small ideological and radical parties respond to historical rates of invalid voting in making strategic decisions about where to enter competition in Peru.

This dissertation draws upon research in political science, psychology, and sociology to explore how inter-and intra-group social status influences political attitudes across divergent groups and issue areas, such as religion and gender. Using a variety of qualitative and quantitative methods to analyze both existing and original data, I find that concern about group status is an important force behind support for group-based policies. In other words, group members desire social esteem and adjust their policy preferences in an effort bolster both their groupâs social position and their position within the group.

<p> The interests of African Americans are underrepresented in Congress. The Congressional Black Caucus was formed to further the interests of African Americans. However, how effective the CBC may be in its congressional representation of the African American community is subject to dispute. It was hypothesized that throughout the 102^nd through the 112^th Congress (1992&ndash;2012), the CBC&rsquo;s legislative behavior persuaded party leaders to advance the CBC&rsquo;s legislative agenda. Archival data gathered by Scott Adler and John Wilkerson in their Congressional Bills Project 1947&ndash;2012 was utilized to complete the study. Linear regression T-tests and Chi-square tests were used to assess CBC members&rsquo; legislative behavior and the likelihood of the CBC introducing legislation that supported its legislative agenda. The results of the study show that the CBC demonstrated a robust legislative behavior of bill sponsorship, floor speeches and press conferences in support of its legislative agenda. The presence of the CBC in Congress is substantive, necessary to the success of legislation affecting African American interest and its&rsquo; legislative behavior is statistically significant compared to non-CBC members of Congress. The study validates, as essential, the presence of African American members of Congress.</p>