constitutional government
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Environmental Politics and Law (EVST 255) By reviewing the conservation history of the Adirondack Park, this lecture examines strategies to manage land use and natural resources in protected areas. The Adirondacks has been protected since the 1880s and became a national park in the 1970s. The government manages the park for a variety of uses, including recreational, ecological, and natural resource-related uses. The multiple uses of the...more
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Environmental Politics and Law (EVST 255) The final lecture reviews topics discussed in previous lectures by imagining an ideal society. Professor Wargo talks about success stories in land management in the Adirondacks and pesticide regulation, and notes ongoing challenges in food safety, drinking water quality, personal consumption, population control, and the creation of parks and protected areas. He lectures about the fractured nat...more
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Professor Kleiner characterizes third-century Rome as an "architectural wasteland" due to the rapid change of emperors, continuous civil war, and a crumbling economy. There was no time to build and the only major architectural commission was a new defensive wall. The crisis came to an end with the rise of Diocletian, who created a new form of government called the Tetrarchy, or four-man rule, with two leaders in the East and two in the Wes...more
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The class's examination of Nozick's minimal state has raised a number of important questions, most of which are rooted in his troublesome model of compensation. Nozick would respond with his threefold account of justice: (1) justice in acquisition, (2) justice in transfer, and (3) rectification of past injustices. Nozick brilliantly demonstrates that "liberty upsets patterns"--even though we can originally start off with any just distribut...more
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Banks, which were first created in primitive form by goldsmiths hundreds of years ago, have evolved into central economic institutions that manage the allocation of resources, channel information about productive activities, and offer the public convenient investment vehicles. Although there are several types of banking institutions, including credit unions and Saving and Loan Associations, commercial banks are the largest and most importa...more
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Environmental Politics and Law (EVST 255) The United States' fragmented, piecemeal approach to environmental law is presented through the cases that led to the creation of major environmental statutes such as the Clean Water Act and the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act. The variety of federal agencies and levels of government that participate in creating and implementing regulation contribute to the fragmentation of American envir...more
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Environmental Politics and Law (EVST 255) The lecture describes the Clean Air Act and the way the federal government measures air quality as well as improvements in air quality. Professor Wargo reviews challenges in regulating air quality, reasons for lack of adequate enforcement, and approaches to setting ambient air quality standards. The lecture focuses predominantly on vehicle emissions, and the difficulty that regulators face when ...more
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Professor Shapiro takes up again Schumpeter's minimalist conception of democracy. When operationalized as a two turnover test, this conception of democracy proves far from minimalist, yet people often expect other things from democracy, like delivering justice. Although people experiencing injustice under other types of governments often clamor for democracy, they become disillusioned with democracy when a particular regime fails to ensure...more
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Professor Blight begins his lecture with a description of the sea change in Civil War scholarship heralded by the Social History revolution of the 1960s and 1970s. Along with a focus on the experience of the common solider, women, and African Americans, a central component of this shift in scholarly emphasis was an increased interest in the effects of the war on the Union and Confederate home fronts. After suggesting some of the ways in wh...more
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This lecture continues the analysis of Social Security started at the end of the last class. We describe the creation of the system in 1938 by Franklin Roosevelt and Frances Perkins and its current financial troubles. For many Democrats, Social Security is the most successful government program ever devised and for many Republicans Social Security is a bankrupt program that needs to be privatized. Is there any way to reconcile the views of...more
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Part 1 -Debating Same Sex Marraige: If principles of justice depend on the moral or intrinsic worth of the ends that rights serve, how should we deal with the fact that people hold different ideas and conceptions of what is good? Students address this question in a heated debate about whether same-sex marriage should be legal. Can we settle the matter without discussing the moral permissibility of homosexuality or the purpose of marriage? ...more
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Jeremy Bentham's formulation of classical utilitarianism is the first Enlightenment tradition that the course will cover in depth. In his Principles of Morals and Legislation, Bentham outlines the principle of utility; that is, the principle that all men are pleasure-seeking and pain-avoiding. Professor Shapiro presents the case that classical utilitarianism has five characteristics: (1) it is comprehensive and deterministic, (2) it is a p...more
