Midterm election in the House of Representatives Essay

Midterm election in the House of Representatives - Essay Example There are two theories that explain the out come of mid term elections. The first one is the theory of rise and fall of a regime and the second is the performance of the regime and the situation at the time of the election. Both the theories provide different analyses but you can also use a combination of the two for analyzing the outcome; this method is supposed to give better reasoning. Analyzing the data for mid term polls in the last hundred years, the ruling party seems to have always lost, except in 1934. After 1940 the loss used to be 30 seats or more than 30 seats. In the midterm elections of 1946 the loss was as high as 46 seats. According to the rise and fall of a regime theory, the strong performance by the presidential party in previous elections may cause a downfall in the midterm election. But this is more statistically correct than logically applicable. Generally the statistical details about the loss of the President's party in elections denote that the extent of the strong performance in the last election will decide the downfall in the present election.1 But the statistical details were the results obtained by applying statistical analysis to available data. Though all the mid term elections are similar to each other, each election will have its own significance. The significant factor changes from term to term. That significant factor will have an important place in analyzing the outcome of the midterm elections along with the standard issues. This year the war on Iraq and the policy of the government regarding it is supposed to be a deciding factor in the elections. According to the rise and fall theory the strong performance by the presidential party in previous elections may cause a downfall in the midterm election. The strong performance of the president's party depends upon the information provided by presidential candidate about his future activities in power. The strong performance indicates the trust of the people in his policies and words. It is clear that two years period is not sufficient to deliver in all the fields. It can be difficult for the party in power to defend the delay. At the same time it is easy for the opposition party to criticize and exploit the situation in the form of votes polled. The performance of George W. Bush in the last election can be termed as strong, because his party withstood an anti - incumbency wave and won a majority. Winning a second time shows greater expectations from the people and the party itself. It takes time to fulfill the promises made during the election campaigns and to materialize the wishes of the people. In the course of these things when the government has to face the midterm polls, generally the electorate compares the performance with the promises before electoral victory. The dissatisfaction due to the non - fulfillment of the promises results in mid term poll losses. A number of reasons for the dissent of the people towards the party in power can be cited. The uproar about the nominal boss of US intelligence Negro Ponte's activities of pleasure, spying and making Iraqis write pro US articles by funding them, can be one of the number of activities which is capable of fixing the regime in trouble.1 The above-mentioned activities may not show direct affect on the people. When the electorate

Interrelation Between Foucauldian Concepts of Sexuality and Confession Essay

Interrelation Between Foucauldian Concepts of Sexuality and Confession - Essay Example Therefore, at the subconscious level of mind, the person learns through confession to acknowledge the social institutions (that boost up one another and that are interrelated with each other), in other words, the society as the power over his or her life, while learning to view body as an object that needs to be reigned carefully and to remain in continual vigilance. (Reich, 1966: 35-37) According to Foucault, how confession is related to sexuality essentially involves learning about the truth of human body or what Foucault calls the science of sexuality (‘scientia sexualis’). Indeed Foucault’s concepts of ‘confession and sexuality’ are indispensably interwoven with his â€Å"theory of social discipline† in the sense that his theory considers the physicality or the organic existence of body –a seat of needs and appetite- as a subject of politics and power. Foucault assumes that confession comprises â€Å"all those procedures by which th e subject is incited to produce a discourse of truth about his sexuality which is capable of having effects on the subject himself† (Foucault, 1980: 110). Confession produces subjectivity through the authority of speech about sex. Indeed confession and sexuality are related with each other through a power-subject relationship. (Tambling, 1990: 49) When sexuality represents body as a subject to power, confession plays a dual role in power mechanism. Not only has it provided power with the scope to exercise control over the body by informing power of the self-willed, honest and spontaneous truth about human body, but also it assists the confessor over the subject of confession, sex, by distancing it as an object to be discussed. Foucault believes that confession plays â€Å"a central role in the order of civil and religious powers†¦The truthful confession was inscribed at the heart of the procedures of individualization by power [and has become] one of the West’s mo st highly valued techniques for producing truth† (Foucault, 1990: 58). In the very first place, the obligation to confess itself is the sign of power’s influence on the individual, as Foucault writes about it: â€Å"the obligation to confess†¦is so deeply ingrained in us, that we no longer perceive it as the effect of a power that constrains us; on the contrary, it seems to use that truth, lodged in our most secret nature, ‘demands’ only to surface† (Foucault, 1990: 60). This urge of an individual to confess evolves his or her discomfort under the panoptic gaze of power. Smart (1995: 88) explains Foucault’s concept of panoptic as following: The Panopticon was to function as an apparatus of power by virtue of the field of visibility in which individuals were to be located, each in their respective places ... for a centralized and unseen observer. In this schema subjects were to be individualized in their own space, to be visible, and to be conscious of their potentiality constant and continuous visibility. (Foucault, 1975: 88) By confessing the confessor becomes affected in two ways: first, he or she becomes a part of power’s panoptic gaze, which imposes constant surveillance on sex, by internalizing it more; second, the confessor reaffirms his or her identity in term of power relations, since sex holds the truth of