"Politics must be understood through reason, yet it is not in reason that it finds its model. ... Politics is an art and not a science."
~ Hans Morgenthau
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NOTE: Links to separate Web pages with chronologies and other kinds of political information (indicated with the 
symbol) are found in each of the subsections below.
"Politics are made up of two elements -- utopia and reality -- belonging to two different planes which can never meet."
~ E. H. Carr
There are two main obstacles to objectively analyzing political decisions, behavior, and outcomes:
1) The values-laden subjective social milieu in which the observer finds himself or herself,
2) the essential self-reinforcing characteristic of most political phenomena, which gives rise to nonlinear, often-unpredictable outcomes. I would define politics as follows:
The pursuit of power in the public realm, the exercise of such power for particular or general purposes, and attempt to legitimize such power.
Power
Interest
The Common Good
Justice
The things that one must do in order to get power (deal-making, disparaging opponents, etc.) often clash with considerations of the common good, which are supposed to influence public policy decisions.
E. H. Carr, The Twenty Years' Crisis, 1919-1939 (1946): "Here, then, is the complexity, the fascination, and the tragedy of all political life. Politics are made up of two elements -- utopia and reality -- belonging to two different planes which can never meet."
Following in the tradition of Charles Tilly, Bruce Porter provides considerable empirical and theoretical backing for the argument that war mobilization and the modern interventionist welfare state have been mutually reinforcing phenomena. As he writes,
Liberal and reform-minded political leaders abhor war, but recognize the opportunity it presents for social reform; conservatives revere military institutions and traditions, but are often wary of actual conflict, sensing its potential for revolutionary change. (Bruce Porter, War and the Rise of the State, 1994)
This book deals with "state building," the long process by which fractured regional powers become unified into nation-states as a collateral effect of waging war. In my terms (see Dissertation), the hypothesized affinities between foreign policy and economic policy -- orthodox-compliant (OC) on one hand and defiant-heterodox (HD) on the other hand -- may be regarded as a manifestation of the historical tendency of societies to forge a unified identity and pursue greater social justice when threats from other countries increase: "we're all in this together." This conclusion is likely to be appalling to old-fashioned Marxists who believe that war is essentially a capitalist plot, such as Hannah Arendt. The hypothesized OC affinity is be consistent with the libertarian position expressed by Rummel, suggesting that the roots of peace lie in liberal capitalism -- not necessarily liberal democracy. (from my Dissertation Chapter One: final section)
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Did you know?
Africa is a continent, not a country!
Well, of course you did.
Foreign leaders (year-by-year list since 1975)
U.N. Security Council (year-by-year list of member countries since 1990)
| Year | President | War (?) | Other big issues |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1960 | Eisenhower | U-2, Berlin, Congo | |
| 1961 | Kennedy | Bay of Pigs, Vienna | |
| 1962 | Kennedy | Cuban missile crisis | |
| 1963 | Kennedy | JFK assassination | |
| 1964 | Johnson | Beatlemania | |
| 1965 | Johnson | Vietnam, India-Pak. | Dom. Rep. |
| 1966 | Johnson | Vietnam | |
| 1967 | Johnson | Vietnam, Mideast | |
| 1968 | Johnson | Vietnam | , urban riots |
| 1969 | Nixon | Vietnam, Cambodia | , Moon |
| 1970 | Nixon | Vietnam, Laos | Mideast |
| 1971 | Nixon | Vietnam | Dollar crisis, China |
| 1972 | Nixon | Vietnam | China, USSR |
| 1973 | Nixon | Mideast (Yom Kippur) | Watergate, |
| 1974 | Nixon | Watergate, Stagflation | |
| 1975 | Ford | Vietnam, Angola | |
| 1976 | Ford | Angola | Bicentennial |
| 1977 | Carter | Human rights | |
| 1978 | Carter | Iran, Nicaragua | |
| 1979 | Carter | Iran, Afghanistan | |
| 1980 | Carter | Iran, Cuba | |
| 1981 | Reagan | El Salvador | |
| 1982 | Reagan | Falklands, Lebanon | |
| 1983 | Reagan | Euro-missiles, SDI | |
| 1984 | Reagan | Euro-missiles, Nic. | |
| 1985 | Reagan | Euro. terrorism. Nic. | |
| 1986 | Reagan | Gorbo-mania, Libya | |
| 1987 | Reagan | Iran-Contra, Wall St. | |
| 1988 | Reagan | S & L, Japan trade | |
| 1989 | Bush I | Tienanmen, Berlin | |
| 1990 | Bush I | Budget, Kuwait, Ger. | |
| 1991 | Bush I | Iraq/Kuwait (Desert Storm) | USSR split |
| 1992 | Bush I | Budget, Russia | |
| 1993 | Clinton | Croatia | Health care, |
| 1994 | Clinton | Bosnia | , NAFTA |
| 1995 | Clinton | Bosnia | GOP Revol, |
| 1996 | Clinton | N. Korea, Taiwan | |
| 1997 | Clinton | Asian fin. crisis | |
| 1998 | Clinton | Kosovo | , impeach. |
| 1999 | Clinton | Sudan | |
| 2000 | Clinton | Somalia | |
| 2001 | Bush II | Afghanistan | 9/11 attack |
| 2002 | Bush II | Afghanistan | Homeland Security |
| 2003 | Bush II | Iraq | WMD Intel. |
| 2004 | Bush II | Iraq | swift Boats |
| 2005 | Bush II | Iraq | Abu Ghraib, Katrina |
| 2006 | Bush II | Iraq | Iran, N.Kor. |
| 2007 | Bush II | Iraq (Surge) | Darfur |
| 2008 | Bush II | Iraq | Mortgage |
| 2009 | Obama | Afghanistan | Mortgage |
| 2010 | Obama | Afghanistan | Euro crisis |
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"Energy in the executive is the leading character in the definition of good government."
~ Alexander Hamilton,
The Federalist #70.
The Presidency -- includes election results and a list of national conventions since 1948.
Its bicameral structure -- the House of Representatives vs. the Senate -- was a clear example of the desire by the Founding Fathers to restrain the exercise of government power, so as to preserve liberty.
Synopsis of R. Douglas Arnold's Logic of Congressional Action -- A rational choice approach to analyzing policy making by the U.S. Congress.
Controversies over the proper role of the Supreme Court in our society are perfectly natural, and will never be fully resolved. John Agresto's book, The Supreme Court and Constitutional Democracy, debunks the widespread notion that the Supreme Court is "first among equals" among the three branches of government in Washington. He contends that there can be no "supreme" branch of government in a system of checks and balances. Ironically, many modern liberals who look to the High Court as the the champion of progressive social reforms seem to have forgotten that this same institution has actually hindered social legislation during most of its history, and in any case, is the least susceptible to democratic influence of the three branches. (Excerpted from a paper written in a graduate seminar under Prof. Martha Derthick at the University of Virginia, 1991.)
Supreme Court chronology (year-by-year list of justices since 1975)
The United States Court of Appeals consists of ten "circuits" (districts). "The Ninth Federal Circuit has a well-deserved reputation as a bastion of left-liberalism, but its problems don't end there. It has 28 active judgeships and its jurisdiction encompasses western states, accounting for nearly 20 percent of the total U.S. population, which creates all sorts of distortions." (Sept. 2005.)
| Term |  Democrat |
 Republican |
|---|---|---|
| 1993 | David Wilhelm / Debra DeLee | Haley Barbour |
| 1995 | Sen. Chris Dodd * | Haley Barbour |
| 1997 | Roy Romer * | Jim Nicholson |
| 1999 | Ed Rendell * | Jim Nicholson |
| 2001 | Terry McAuliffe | Jim Gilmore / Mark Racicot |
| 2003 | Terry McAuliffe | Ed Gillespie |
| 2005 | Howard Dean | Ken Mehlman |
| 2007 | Howard Dean | Mike Duncan |
| 2009 | Tim Kaine | Michael Steele |
Asterisk (*) denotes general chairman, responsible for public speaking and fundraising, serving along with a party chairman focused on managerial duties. SOURCE: Wikipedia, etc.
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"All politics is local."
~ attributed to Tip O'Neill, former Speaker of the House
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Aristotle, Politics introduction by Max Lerner (New York: Random House / The Modern Library, 1943 [orig. circa 340 B.C.]
Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay, The Federalist Papers, introduction by Clinton Rossiter (New York: Mentor Books, 1961 [orig. 1788])
Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince, introduction by Harvey C. Mansfield, Jr. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985)
Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, introduction by John Plamenatz (Cleveland: Meridian Books, 1963)
Hans J. Morgenthau, Scientific Man and Power Politics (Chicago: Phoenix Books, 1967 [1946])
Locke, John. 1980. Second Treatise of Government. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing.
Bruce Porter, War and the Rise of the State: The Military Foundations of Modern Politics (New York: The Free Press, 1994).
Francis Fukuyama, The End of History and the Last Man(New York: Avon Books, 1993)
Milton Friedman, Capitalism and Freedom (Chicago: Phoenix Books, 1962)
Reinhold Niebuhr, Moral Man and Immoral Society (New York: Scribners, 1932)
Charles Tilly, Coercion, Capital, and European States, AD 990-1990 (Cambridge, MA: Basil Blackwell, 1990)
Kenneth N. Waltz, Theory of International Politics (Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1979)
John H. Herz, Political Realism and Political Idealism (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1951)
R. Douglas Arnold, The Logic of Congressional Action (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1990)