Sex Scandals in American Politics PDF Download

Author: Alison Dagnes
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 1441110151
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 200

View

Book Description
A collection of essays that examine the construction, disgrace, and consequences of political sex scandals from various academic disciplines.

Author: Alison Dagnes
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 1441186905
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 201

View

Book Description
From the misbehavior of President Clinton to Governor Mark Sanford's Argentinean tryst, sex scandals have become a prominent feature of American public life. This collection of essays explains why politicians elected for their leadership and promises of ethical behavior risk their career, and the socio-political consequences of their actions.

Author: Hinda Mandell
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN:
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 180

View

Book Description
Examining how gender impacts political sex scandals in the United States, this book explains how political sex scandals contribute to the mistrust of government and identifies why these events have serious consequences for our political system. The increasing tabloidization of politics and focus on politicians involved in sex scandals is both problematic and important. When a major political sex scandal occurs, it occupies as much as 25 percent of all news coverage in the United States. Even if people may deny it, they enjoy "consuming" and talking about political sex scandals. Written by a former journalist who has frequently explored the intersections of politics, sex, and gender in the United States, Sex Scandals, Gender, and Power in Contemporary American Politics investigates how political sex scandals contribute to the mistrust of government and why these events have great significance in our frenzied media environment. The book makes use of comprehensive descriptive data (including statistics) to explain how political sex scandals are a representation of society's broader gender dynamics, conveying subtle messages about power and morality. It addresses the roles of men and women in political sex scandals over time, the increasing tabloidization of politics, and the often-overlooked consequences of sex scandals for the political system. Author Hinda Mandell also documents how scandals' multiple negative effects for the politicians themselves and for society include turning politics into a spectator sport, contributing to the mistrust of government, the questioning of politicians' competence and judgment as a group, and politicians' diminishing effectiveness in office.

Author: Paul Apostolidis
Publisher: Duke University Press
ISBN: 9780822332657
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 236

View

Book Description
DIVCollection of essays analyzing political sex scandals and U.S. political culture from a variety of theoretical angles, including feminism, cultural studies, Marxist critical theory, queer theory, and critical race theory. /div

Author: David Rosen
Publisher: Key Publishing House
ISBN: 9780981160665
Category : Celebrities
Languages : en
Pages : 232

View

Book Description
Sex Scandal America is a comprehensive history of sexual scandals in America from colonial times (including Pocahontas and the Puritans) to today (few know about this part of George W. Bush's dubious past). The book exposes the scandals of national political figures (presidents, congress-folk, governors) and those of celebrities (e.g., entertainers and tycoons). It ties these scandals to the deeper changes in sexual culture occurring during the various phases of the country's social evolution. Most importantly, it assesses the role of political scandals as a form of public shaming. The book shows how, over the last four centuries, scandals have changed as a ritualized spectacle, evolving from a morality tale to an entertainment distraction.

Author: Suzanne Garment
Publisher: Anchor
ISBN:
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 400

View

Book Description
A widely respected authority on national politics explores the world of post-Watergate Washington and provides the essential details to understand how government has become paralyzed by endless hearings and investigations. Updated to include new material on Clarence Thomas, Anita Hill, and Bill Clinton.

Author: J. Michael Martinez
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1538167549
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 261

View

Book Description
Historian Michael Martinez surveys political sex scandals in American history, from the earliest years of the Republic to today, to explore how these events impacted the politics of the day and the legacy they left for future generations of American leaders.

Author: Robert Busby
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3030916383
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 244

View

Book Description
This book examines how scandal allegations have been managed in the contemporary era in the United States and how understandings of the impact of scandal on political credibility have changed over time. It incorporates prominent scandals, at both federal and state level, in which sudden and unexpected revelations created an uncertain political environment. The primary focus is on sex scandals and how damage limitation strategies have been utilized in order to try to limit and accommodate a demise in political standing. The book considers how damage limitation strategies were utilized, the core components of each, and their impact on the political standing of the individuals involved. Rather than marking the end of a political journey, scandal increasingly appears to be an issue that can be perceived as a temporary impediment in a political career.

Author: Paul Apostolidis
Publisher: Duke University Press
ISBN: 0822385384
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 289

View

Book Description
Public affairs—or sex scandals—involving prominent politicians are as revealing of American culture as they are of individual peccadillos. Implicated in their unfolding are a broad range of institutions, trends, questions, and struggles, including political parties, Hollywood, the Christian right, new communications technologies, the restructuring of corporate media, feminist and civil rights debates, and the meaning of public life in the “society of the spectacle.” The contributors to Public Affairs examine, from a variety of perspectives, how political sex scandals take shape, gain momentum, and alter the U.S. political and cultural landscape. The essays in Public Affairs reflect on a number of sex scandals while emphasizing the Clinton/Lewinsky affair, certainly the most avidly followed and momentous sex scandal in American political history. Leading scholars situate contemporary public affairs in the context not only of earlier sex scandals in American politics (such as Thomas Jefferson’s and Sally Hemings’s affair), but also of more purely political scandals (including Teapot Dome and Watergate) and sex scandals centered around public figures other than politicians (such as the actor Hugh Grant and the minister Jimmy Swaggart). Some essays consider the Clinton affair in light of feminist and anti-racist politics, while others discuss the dynamics of scandals as major media events. By charting a critical path through the muck of scandal rather than around it, Public Affairs illuminates why sex scandals have become such a prominent feature of American public life. Contributors. Paul Apostolidis, Jodi Dean, Joshua Gamson, Theodore J. Lowi, Joshua D. Rothman, George Shulman, Anna Marie Smith, Jeremy Varon, Juliet A. Williams

Author: Dr. Leslie Dorrough Smith
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 019092408X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 256

View

Book Description
Americans have long believed that the private lives of their politicians are important indicators of their fitness to lead and of their ability to defend and uphold American values. For many, a sex scandal renders a person ineligible, or at the very least questionably qualified, for public service. In Compromising Positions, Leslie Dorrough Smith questions the assumption that sex scandals are really about sex-- that is, that they are primarily concerned with the discovery of sexual misconduct. She argues that they are, instead, a form of cultural storytelling that uses racial and gendered symbols to create a collective sense of national worth and strength. Smith shows that sex scandals involve the use of four very powerful social tools--gender, race, politics, and religion-- that together create a rhetoric about what America is, who is eligible to formally represent it, and what types of symbolic religiosity such leaders must display to legitimize their power. Americans tend to condemn or excuse the sexual misdeeds of their politicians depending on the degree to which the individual in question reinforces evangelical interpretations of "American values" and a "Christian nation." Such values include not just moral integrity, but strength, courage, and conquest. As a consequence, sex scandals are less likely to occur in cultural moments when the public is open to reading a politician's moral lapse as a symbolic form of national dominance. Put simply, when a leader is perceived as strong, domineering, and necessary for national health, many people will find ways either to overlook his illicit sexual behavior or somehow read it as an American act.