Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Who They Are, Where They Come From And Where They Are Going: Professional Background And Political Ambition Of Ecuadorian Women Legislators, 1979-2017, Santiago Basabe-Serrano, Natasha Álava Arteaga

Journal of International Women's Studies

This article examines the differences in socio-demographics, professional backgrounds, and political careers between women and men who were part of the Ecuadorian Congress, 1979-2017. We propose a descriptive statistical study in which, through a bivariate analysis, we compare women and men in terms of age, marital status, professional qualifications, and political ambition before and after their participation in Congress. Based on an unpublished database, the main empirical findings indicate that the differences between them are not statistically significant. Nevertheless, since the implementation of the Parity Law in 2009, women legislators are increasingly younger and single, with more academic training and …

Everyday Consumption In Twenty-First-Century Brazilian Fiction, Lígia Bezerra

Purdue Studies in Romance Literatures

Everyday Consumption in Twenty-First-Century Brazilian Fiction is the first in-depth study to map out the representation of consumption in contemporary Brazilian prose, highlighting how our interactions with commodities connect seemingly disconnected areas of everyday life, such as eating habits, the growth of prosperity theology, and ideas of success and failure. It is also the first text to provide a pluralistic perspective on the representation of consumption in this fiction that moves beyond the concern with aesthetic judgment of culture based on binaries such as good/bad or elevated/degraded that have largely informed criticism on this body of literary work. Current Brazilian …

Performing Dalit Feminist Youth Activism In South India: Rap, Gaana, And Street Theater, Pramila Venkateswaran

Journal of International Women's Studies

Young Dalit men and women are changing the narrative of casteist oppression in India. Youth activists perform protest songs in the genre of rap and gaana, using elements of slam poetry and rap from African American artists and blending them with local musical innovations. The performances have deliberate messaging, signaling particular caste and gender injustices, both current and historical. This paper will analyze Dalit youth performances of rap, gaana, and street theater (koothu) in South India, particularly in Tamil Nadu, to understand the poetics of protest against caste and gender oppression. It will look at the notion of space in …

Law Library Blog (July 2022): Legal Beagle Blog Archive, Roger Williams University School Of Law

Law Library Newsletters/Blog

No abstract provided.

Democratic Design Literacy Research, Ingvill Gjerdrum Maus

DRS Biennial Conference Series

This paper presents ideas about education and democracy embedded in studies on de-sign literacy for sustainability. The descriptions of one semi-structured group interview study and one action research study provided in three research papers are analysed in light of three different conceptions of education and democracy. The analysis outlines how the research methods used in situations in which students (1) engage in questions, introductions and tightly structured tasks developed from research-based knowledge; (2) interact with and share their thoughts and reflections in groups; and (3) respond to open-ended questions contribute to research enabling design education for democracy, design education through …

Totalitarian Tendencies Of Orbán’S Hungary, Rachel Reiss

Undergraduate Research Symposium

In 2015, Hungary garnered worldwide attention after subjecting its refugees to tear gas and metal pens. Since then, the dire state of Hungary and its democracy have become clear. Viktor Orbán, the country’s prime minister and leader of the Fidesz party, transformed Hungary into a state that undermines democracy, stresses Christianity, and uses this religious ideology to rally its people against refugees and other groups. In many ways, this newly reformed Hungarian state is reminiscent of totalitarian dictatorships. This project aims to investigate the totalitarian tendencies exemplified by Orbán’s Hungary: a Hungary where democracy is dead.

Sinful Trumps Exceptional: A Review Of We The Fallen People, Scott Culpepper

Faculty Work Comprehensive List

"Christians of all political persuasions... must face deep questions about how their faith in Christ’s kingdom intersects with their participation in the kingdoms of this world."

Posting about ­­­­­­­­the book We the Fallen People from In All Things - an online journal for critical reflection on faith, culture, art, and every ordinary-yet-graced square inch of God’s creation.

https://inallthings.org/sinful-trumps-exceptional-a-review-of-we-the-fallen-people/

Transparency In Architecture: Reflecting The Practice Of Democracy In City Halls, Ana Mendoza

Bachelor of Architecture Theses - 5th Year

The last election cycles of 2016 and 2020 became a tumultuous time for many Americans. More than ever, Democracy has been tested through recent events and has had many doubting the integrity of our governmental structures and the strength of our civic buildings. The events of January 6th unfolded before all of America’s eyes as we witnessed the breaching of the United States Capitol, which was supposed to be the most secure and honored building in Washington. America’s cultural diversity brings different opportunities within distinct contexts. So how do we reflect our ideals and necessities into the city halls that …

Federal Funding For The Arts & Developmental Success In Western Nations, Sophia Ciokajlo

Undergraduate Honors Thesis Collection

Culture is undeniably a vital part of any society. To preserve and develop their culture, a majority of modern states allocate some part of their annual expenditure to the arts. The amount of money and system through which it is distributed varies from country to country, but the principle remains the same. Not only do countries value the contribution of culture to their common well-being, but it is also widely accepted that participation in the arts, as a performer or viewer, holds benefit for the individual. All of this considered, I sought to investigate whether or not the size of …

Rabble-Rousers: A Brief Treatise On Populism And Its Ascent In The West, Andrew Baechtel

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

This project aims to examine the causes for the recent ascent of populism in the West during the last dozen or so years with a lens focused on the United States and France. The primary area under observation is both the historical and contemporary role that populism and its adherents have played within our cultures. I aim to address the following: What is populism, how has it been broadly understood and how do its adherents regard it and what causes populist movements to develop. Academics in the field have produced a rich historiography that reveals a divided discourse. Previously analysts …

What Role Do Women In Politics Play For Democratic Erosion?, Emelyn Rodriguez

Politics Honors Papers

Research has found that women in politics are important for representation and women’s rights, but can women’s increasing involvement in politics also stabilize fragile democracies? This research analyzes the relationship between women in politics and democratic consolidation, asking whether and how women help consolidate democracies and prevent the erosion of democratic institutions. I show initial quantitative evidence suggesting that under some conditions, women in politics reduce the probability of democratic erosion. In the main part of the project, using a case study of the Dominican Republic, I take a closer look at the work women have done for a newly …

Critical Thinking In The Age Of Misinformation: Information Literacy For Citizenship, Tamra Ortgies-Young, Jennfer Lobo Meeks, Barbara Robertson

Georgia International Conference on Information Literacy

As recent political events across the globe have shed a light on the fragility of democratic values, the role of the University in creating a framework for civic education becomes more urgent. Informed, caring and engaged citizenry must be a goal of higher education. Students currently face the emergence of faulty types of information - such as misinformation and disinformation, which undermines the notion of collective or public inquiry, not only within universities, but also within society as a whole. This challenge must be acknowledged and addressed by academic institutions.

Session presenters will provide an overview of their work, “Critical …

The American Congress Digital Archives Portal Project White Paper, Danielle Emerling

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

This white paper documents the work of the American Congress Digital Archives Portal project to aggregate congressional archives into a single, online platform and make them more broadly available. Congressional archives document the democratic process; the development of public policy; and multiple narratives related to the country’s social, cultural, and political development. Work of the project included developing standards and best practices; creating governance structures for the one-year project and future phases; developing a web portal that meets user needs and adding archival content; determining digitization priorities via a research survey; conducting usability testing; and communicating and publicizing the project. …

Democracy, Citizen Participation And Peace Economics In Kenya: Interrogating The Social Change Processes, Elias O. Opongo

The Journal of Social Encounters

While to a large extent many Africans come out to vote, in most cases, electoral periods have turned out to be the most significant threats to the stability of a country. This article interrogates the extent to which democratic practice in Kenya is meeting people’s expectation and whether it contributes to the economic wellbeing and peace stability of the country. The research applied a cross-sectional research design and interviewed 102 respondents from 6 counties: Nairobi (capital city), Kisumu (western region), Uasin Gichu (Rift Valley region), Mombasa (coastal region), Turkana (northern region) and Kwale (coastal region). The study shows that most …

Unconventional Avenues For Public Participation: A Case Study From Rural Egypt, Hassan Hussein

The Journal of Social Encounters

When traditional avenues for learning and participation become inaccessible for less-advantaged people to learn and participate, people tend to develop other unconventional avenues to learn and participate in decisions that affect their lives. There are two distinct research approaches in the study of political participation. One approach, which had been historically predominant, focuses on individual characteristics such as education level, income and class, and the other, social network approach focuses on the influence of context and social networks in the political socialization and mobilization of men and women in democracies and authoritarian polities. This paper fits into the second approach …

Women’S Rights In Kenya Since Independence: The Complexities Of Kenya’S Legal System And The Opportunities Of Civic Engagement, Gail Presbey

The Journal of Social Encounters

Since Kenya gained independence from Britain in 1963, women’s rights in the country have made slow gains and suffered some setbacks. However, the rights of women and their guaranteed participation in politics was outlined in Kenya’s 2010 Constitution. This paper will survey some of those gains as well as describe the social backlash experienced by women leaders who have been trailblazers in post-colonial Kenyan politics.

Our Silence Will Not Protect Us . . . And Neither Will J. Edgar Hoover: Reclaiming Critical Race Theory Under The New Mccarthyism, Christina Hsu Accomando, Kristin J. Anderson

Humboldt Journal of Social Relations

The right-wing attack against critical race theory is the latest manufactured panic designed to whip up supporters of a party beholden to Donald Trump. Since late 2020, hundreds of measures have been introduced across the U.S. to ban antiracism education, critical race theory, the 1619 Project, and any understanding of racism as systemic and embedded in U.S. history and law. While an understandable reaction of educators is to declare that they are not teaching critical race theory, our position is to reclaim critical race theory for the powerful lens it offers in understanding the history of the U.S., the protracted …

Of Rights And Regulation, Stephen W. Sawyer, William J. Novak

Book Chapters

This chapter explores the development of social provisioning as a matter not of right but of democratic administration in France and the United States in the nineteenth century. The authors take issue with conventional chronologies of rights development, which see civil and political rights being developed in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, with social rights appearing in the twentieth. Such categories and sequencing obscure the ways in which democratic administrations took the problem of social provisioning seriously. A history of socio-economic rights cannot be distinguished from the less formal technologies of socio-economic regulation that were an integral part of the …

Missouri Soybean Exports And The Democratizing Market Force, David D. Hammons

MSU Graduate Theses

A commonly held assumption of America’s post-Cold War place in the world is that prolonged contact with American capitalism and democracy will lead to the adoption of these systems in all nations that participate in international trade. This paper attempts to verify or disprove that assumption by examining a specific traded commodity between two specific nations, the institutions that support this trade, and the people actively participating in it. The growth of soybean exports from the state of Missouri provides this vehicle for examining the trade history between the United States of America and China, and provides evidence that disproves …

How To Vote Well: Rebuilding Barriers To Demagoguery And Incentivizing Responsible Leadership In The American Republic, Harper Rubin

CMC Senior Theses

This thesis explores the relationship between the public and government institutions in the United States as a way to form good political leaders. While democracies rely on publics to elect responsible leaders who will act with their constituencies best interests in mind, best interests are not always clear. Furthermore, people are easily duped by demagogues and can be goaded into undermining important democratic institutions that protect rights and freedoms. This thesis first determines what the qualities of good leadership are. Then, it studies how the barriers to demagoguery envisioned by the American founders have deteriorated, partly due to changes in …

An Examination Of Women’S Rights In South Korea: From “New Women” To Female Idols, Cece Trifoso

History | Senior Theses

Between 2000 and 2022, South Korean popular music and the accompanying entertainment industry contributed to a unique solidarity among young Korean women, whilst also perpetuating harmful stereotypes. The widespread popularity of all-girl music groups from Korea has motivated women around the world, including in Korea itself, to stand on their own and establish recognition without the influence of men. This relatively new era in Korean feminist thought requires historical contextualization in order to fully appreciate and comprehend its impact on a globalized society. The evolution of feminist thought in South Korea encompasses the accumulation of knowledge from various conversations on …

Kagame’S Ruse In Rwanda: The Debilitating Role Of Authoritarianism In Rwanda And Its Impact On Long Term, Sustainable Development, Manuel Grajeda

International Studies (MA) Theses

Following the genocide in 1994, Rwanda has been touted as a major, international development success, gaining praise and attention from the international community who place the prosperity of the nation in the hands of Paul Kagame, the leader of the Rwandan Patriotic Front and the country’s current president. Indeed, under the leadership of Kagame the country was able to get through the horrors of mass killings and nationwide destruction and it is true that the country has made a serious turn around in the past 25 years. However, while the country is acclaimed to be a model for developed democracy …

Scientifically Based Research And Teacher Agency: Combating “Conspiracies Of Certainty”, Kurt Stemhagen, Brionna C. Nomi

Democracy and Education

This project considers how certain types of educational research position teachers as problems to be managed or worked around. We start with a discussion of scientifically based research (SBR), particularly how the quest for generalization/objectivity are often pursued at the expense of relevance. We use the way teachers are positioned in the growing field of Implementation Science as an example of what’s wrong with SBR. A fundamental tension emerges—researchers’ need for scientific control is inescapably at odds with the idea of teacher as professional. Finally, we provide an example of an approach that has potential to counter the SBR-influenced idea …

Dalit Women In History: Struggles, Voices, And Counterpublics, Tarushikha Sarvesh, Rama Shanker Singh, Tehzeeb Alam

Journal of International Women's Studies

History is a projection of realities from the historian's lens and parameters. The popularity and acceptance of historical accounts depend much on hegemonic structures and knowledge. The Dalit community was marginalized within the Indian economic, social, and political historiography. Gradually, with the rise of Dalit consciousness, men—the better-positioned gender of the community—tried to express their vulnerabilities from a masculinist perspective. The literature written also projected women only as extensions of male protagonists. Though the traumas Dalit women have faced due to intersectional realities are separate from that of men, they could not find a place in early literature as complete …

Freedom Or Responsibility? On The Unreason Of Public Reason, Mitchell L. Winget

The Hilltop Review

Abstract: This article argues that the public reason tradition of political normativity is flawed. As a result, I argue for a politically normative approach that rationally justifies morally legitimate political power for democratic political societies from outside the paradigm of public reason. To this end, I propose that neo-Aristotelian virtue theory lends us such a framework. Furthermore, I’ll defend this framework against the objections that such a theory of political normativity is unreasonable and anti-democratic.

Do Media Literacies Approach Equity And Justice?, Paul Mihailidis, Srividya Ramasubramanian, Melissa Tully, Bobbie Foster, Emily Riewestahl, Patrick Johnson, Sydney Angove

Journal of Media Literacy Education

It is often assumed that media literacy serves to protect and uphold democratic practice and that media literate citizens are the best safeguards for democracy. However, little attention is paid to defining this practice and its relationship to ongoing inequities within democratic societies. In this essay, we argue media literacy operates from three core assumptions; media literacy creates knowledgeable individuals, empowers communities, and encourages democratic participation. The first assumption draws out an individual’s skills and critical thinking in media literacy practices. The second assumption focuses on the community aspect of media literacy, specifically which communities are best served by media …

Recognition And Positive Freedom, David Ingram

Philosophy: Faculty Publications and Other Works

This chapter explores what, if any, contributions a Hegelian ethics of recognition makes towards enriching our understanding of the intersubjective foundations of freedom. Against Berlin, I argue that recognition is wrongly construed as a form of solidarity with society that threatens individual freedom. Drawing from recent work by Honneth, I submit that distinct recognition regimes correspond to distinct social action spheres in a way that that facilitates critical reflection and freedom to resist over-reaching action spheres. I conclude that reconciling these action spheres on both individual and social levels by means of a meta-level form of social recognition in the …

Uncivil Disobedience And Democracy: An American Perspective, Walter J. Kendall

The Journal of Social Encounters

From the time of the Athenian democracy there has been the debated question of whether protest and dissent, especially uncivil disobedience to the law was supportive or destructive of a people’s democracy. The debate continues unabated today.

In a recent collection of essays titled Protest and Dissent, Professor Susan Stokes offered an answer to the question Are Protests Good or Bad for Democracy? (Schwartzberg, 2020, p. 269). After considering both possibilities, she concludes, as had James Madison in Federalist 10, that protests “are a natural by-product of freedoms of expression and association which, if curtailed, would threaten democracy itself.”(Schwartzberg, 2020, …

Beyond The "Formidable Circle": Race And The Limits Of Democratic Inclusion In Tocqueville's Democracy In America, Christine Dunn Henderson

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Despite his assertion that the first volume of Democracy in America (1835) would concentrate upon institutions, Tocqueville found himself finishing the draft manuscript in 1834 and unable to conclude his study without discussing race relations in the United States. In the end, he quickly penned a final chapter. That chapter—by far the book’s longest—offers “Some Considerations on the Present State and Probable Future of the Three Races That Inhabit the Territory of the United States.” Tocqueville begins the chapter by acknowledging that its subject “is American without being democratic” (DA, p. 516), and to the extent that it analyzes slavery …

The Positive Impact Of King Abdullah Of Jordan’S Speeches During The Arab Spring And The Political Role Of Jordanian Parliament (2011-2013), Jamal Hussein, Ahmad Al-Balasi

Jerash for Research and Studies Journal مجلة جرش للبحوث والدراسات

The study aims to examine the positive role of King Abdullah of Jordan’s speeches during the Arab Spring (2011-2013) and the role of Jordanian Parliament in political reforms during the same period.

The study concluded that Jordan enacted a number of political reforms, sought to introduce further democratic changes, and encouraged the establishment of civil society institutions and political parties. The study made a number of recommendations such as the importance of the constitutional empowerment of parliament by increasing the scope of its powers through a modern election law that would contribute to the advancement of political life in Jordan