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Is the Water Rising? Reflections on Inequality and American Democracy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 February 2006

Larry M. Bartels
Affiliation:
Princeton University

Extract

Many Americans were shocked and shamed by the televised images of New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. Scenes of physical devastation were juxtaposed with even more disturbing scenes of human devastation. Thousands of residents, mostly Black and poor, seemed to be trapped in a Hobbesian state of nature, abandoned by government and civilized society. An untold number starved to death; for days their corpses floated in the streets.

Type
SYMPOSIUM
Copyright
© 2006 The American Political Science Association

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