Welcome to the Spring 2009 edition of 
Critique: a worldwide student journal of politics.

Critique provides a forum for graduate and undergraduate students of politics to express and exchange diverse ideas and to imagine new possibilities for democracy and justice.  The electronic format of Critique provides an alternative venue that expands political debate by creating space for the emergence of new ideas.  Such a medium broadens the horizon for undergraduate and graduate publications and serves to lift typically unheard  voices in academia.  The editors firmly believe that budding scholars introduce valuable ideas that must be heard in order to understand the changing nature of our global community. 

Thus we encourage articles about politics that take seriously the growing opportunities for social change and new possibilities for enacting policy nationally and internationally.

Note from the Editor

This edition of Critique is comprised of winning papers from the 17th Annual Illinois State University Conference for Students of Political Science held this Spring (2009). Papers presented by Martha King, Fred F. Odisho and John Hamilton were ranked at the top in the graduate section. Ramya Sekaran, Ryan Cooper and Brenda Cheeks received awards in the undergraduate category. We are pleased to publish all of these papers. Together, they highlight the richness and diversity of student research in the field of politics. As always, we welcome comments on the papers published in this volume.

 - Kam Shapiro, Editor.