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Iran began conducting presidential elections after the revolution of 1979. Following the death of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in 1989, Iran experienced a limited liberalization process, culminating in the election of President Khatami in 1997 and 2001 and the election of a reform-oriented parliament in 2000 (Sahliyeh, 2002). This phase ended when the conservatives recaptured the parliament in 2004 and 2008, and the election of Mahmoud Ahmedinejad as president in 2005 and 2009 (Gheissari and Nasr, 2005; Hen-Tov, 2006-07; Campbell, 2008). [Copyright Elsevier Ltd.]

Balance of power between the US Congress and the President under the War Powers Resolution of 1973.

President Ilham Aliyev, the son of former president Heydar Aliyev, was re-elected to a second term in Azerbaijan's third presidential election held on 15 October 2008. Opposition parties challenging the Aliyev governments are examined, along with Azerbaijan's electoral system; the six other presidential candidates; the electoral campaign; & reasons for the 75.1% turnout in spite of predictions to the contrary. Consideration is given to threats to democratization that currently exist in Azerbaijan. [Copyright Elsevier Ltd.]

Lou Fisher's prolific writings on the war power—the constitutional repository of authority to initiate war and lesser military hostilities on behalf of the American people—have informed and, for the better part of four decades, shaped discussions and debates on the respective roles of Congress and the president, from the halls of academe to the corridors of power. Widely cited and invoked on hundreds of occasions by political scientists, historians, and legal academics, his work has opened doors for serious consideration of his views by representatives in all three branches of the federal government. It has, as well, established his place in the front-rank of constitutional scholars and, almost certainly, earned for his scholarship an enduring influence on discussions about the constitutional authority to order the use of military force.

Algeria, the biggest country in Africa and potentially one of the most volatile, played an eerily subdued role in the Arab Spring. There were sizeable demonstrations to begin with but while neighbours including Libya and Tunisia exploded into revolution, President Abdelaziz Bouteflika's regime remained remarkably stable. It is only now, two years since a wave of popular uprisings spread across the Middle East and North Africa, that Algeria has become a focus of world interest. With revived interest in Algeria, there is much for the West to learn. Bouteflika spent much of the Arab Spring warning that gangster jihadists would thrive within the borders of his newly liberated neighbours. Anticipating dark consequences of the Arab uprisings, the determinedly iron-fisted Bouteflika clamped down on any sign of unrest at the beginning of 2011. Adapted from the source document.

In Chile, sexual and reproductive rights have been at the core of an ideological and material struggle during the past decade between the women's movement-the grassroots, academic, and nongovernmental organizations that work for women's rights, whether or not they call themselves feminists-and conservative forces. The 2006 election of Michelle Bachelet, a divorced socialist and single mother, as president led to governmental attempts to advance reproductive rights, principally distribution of the emergency contraceptive pill in public health care centers. This effort was unsuccessful for most of Bachelet's term. Although in 2010 a new emergency contraception law finally allowed the public health system to distribute the "morning-after pill," the political debate over other reproductive rights such as abortion is still dominated by conservative positions. [Reprinted by permission of Sage Publications Inc., copyright holder.]

ObjectiveOur objective is to examine whether positive symbols of progress for the black community, such as Obama's election as president, increase black optimism in the American Dream.MethodLogit regression and ordered logit regression with predicted probabilities and odds ratios.ResultsUsing several surveys conducted between 1987 and 2010, we show that blacks are much more optimistic about the American Dream after Obama is elected to the White House, in spite of their worsening economic status.ConclusionsOur findings suggest that positive symbols of progress are a better gauge of the American Dream for blacks than objective economic indicators. Moreover, previous racial gaps in beliefs in the American Dream may be attributed to lack of black representation at high levels of government, rather than solely based on differences in socioeconomic standing.

We investigate bill passage by party factions in Uruguay and show that those joining cabinet coalitions earn policy influence. The policy advantage of coalition is therefore not collected by the president alone, as often implied: partners acquire clout in law-making and use it to pass bills of their own and to strike deals with outside factions. Analysis of all bills initiated between 1985 and 2005 reveals that the odds of passing a bill sponsored alone by a majority cabinet faction was about 0.5, up from about 0.15 otherwise. Contingent upon the cabinet status of factions involved, the odds of co-sponsored bills conform well to patterns expected by a view that policy rewards are a fundamental part of the politics of coalition in presidentialism. [Reprinted by permission of Sage Publications Ltd., copyright holder.]

The whitewashed two-story villa bristled with activity. Down the hall from my Taliban sources sat an aggrieved tribal elder and his son in one room and two officers from Pakistan's powerful Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) Directorate in another. I had gathered them all there to make sense of what had become the signature incident of the war in Afghanistan and Pakistan: an American drone strike, one of the first ordered on the watch of the new U.S. president, Barack Obama. The two fighters described how the militants were adapting to this new kind of warfare. The Taliban and al Qaeda had stopped using electronic devices, they told me. They would no longer gather in huge numbers, even in mosques to pray, and spent their nights outside for safety, a life that was wearing thin. Adapted from the source document.

Dating back to Harry S. Truman, a number of presidents and prominent political leaders have tried, in some way or another, to reduce the reliance on nuclear weapons in U.S. foreign policy. Throughout the years, such attempts have prompted countless international debates and spawned a cottage industry of security research related to the eventual elimination of nuclear arms. However, aside from the occasional foray, this research paradigm generally overlooks the domestic political obstacles that policy makers should expect to encounter if national security policy continues down the path toward nuclear zero. In pursuit of this goal, this article empirically examines public attitudes concerning the continued pursuit of nuclear abolition. In doing so, we highlight the beliefs and perceptions that inform public preferences concerning the importance assigned to retaining nuclear weapons today.Desde la época de Harry S. Truman, muchos presidentes y líderes políticos han intentado, de una u otra forma, reducir la dependencia de la política exterior de los Estados Unidos en armas nucleares. A través de los años estos intentos han provocado sinnúmero de debates internacionales y generado una pequeña industria dedicada a la investigación de una posible eliminación de armas nucleares. Sin embargo, este enfoque investigativo generalmente pasa por alto los obstáculos políticos domésticos que los legisladores deberían esperar si la política de seguridad nacional continúa por el camino de la abolición nuclear. En búsqueda de este objetivo, este artículo examina empíricamente las actitudes públicas respecto a la contínua búsqueda de una abolición nuclear. Al mismo tiempo, destacamos las creencias y percepciones que informan las preferencias públicas atribuidas a la importancia de preservar armas nucleares en la actualidad.