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Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

Consequences Of Sexual Violence During Civil Conflicts For Post-Colonial Democratization, Kathleen Clark Jan 2017

Consequences Of Sexual Violence During Civil Conflicts For Post-Colonial Democratization, Kathleen Clark

Commonwealth Review of Political Science

Countries face large obstacles in the post-civil conflict period, including democratization. The nature of the warfare during the civil conflict may have important implications for the prospects for future democratization. Specifically, the experience of sexual violence during civil conflicts may hinder democratization. I argue that countries that experience prevalent sexual violence during civil conflicts have lower chances for post-conflict democratization than those without. This occurs through the psychological consequences of sexual violence on victims and communities. Sexual violence negatively impacts victims, but it can also have more widespread negative consequences for society. Communities of the victims may collectively respond to …


The Great Divide: The Political Implications Of Southern Regional Identification In Kentucky, Joel Turner Jan 2017

The Great Divide: The Political Implications Of Southern Regional Identification In Kentucky, Joel Turner

Commonwealth Review of Political Science

Kentucky occupies a unique place on the American political landscape. The Commonwealth has never been fully embraced as Southern by most observers, but at the same time it is not necessarily a Northern state. As the intersection of North and South in the United States, Kentucky presentes a unique opportunity to study the impact of regional identity on public opinion. Utilizing data from a 2014 survey of a random sample of Kentucky residents, we are able to demonstrate that Southern regional identification is fairly high in Kentucky, and that this identification has a significant influence on opinion regard politicians and …


The Phantom Segregationist: Kentucky's 1996 Desegregation Amendment And The Limits Of Direct Democracy, D. Stephen Voss Jan 2017

The Phantom Segregationist: Kentucky's 1996 Desegregation Amendment And The Limits Of Direct Democracy, D. Stephen Voss

Commonwealth Review of Political Science

Decades after Kentucky abolished de jure racial distinctions in education, the state legislature asked voters to strip segregationist language from their venerable constitution. Political elites were stunned when a third of the state's voters, and majorities in five countries, rejected the change. However, the prime culprit for Kentucky's 1996 constitutional amendment vote was not white racism, because African-American voters endorsed segregation at rates similar to whites. Rather, the Kentucky vote offers a particularly clear and particularly dramatic example of the limits of ballot-box policy making. It should alert scholars that highly publicized referenda in high-profile states - the focus of …


Holding School Leaders Accountable: Estimating The Effects Of Retrospective Evaluations Of Kentucky School District Superintendents, Martin Battle, James C. Clinger Jan 2017

Holding School Leaders Accountable: Estimating The Effects Of Retrospective Evaluations Of Kentucky School District Superintendents, Martin Battle, James C. Clinger

Commonwealth Review of Political Science

This research represents an attempt to apply the theory of retrospective voting to the issue of turnover among Kentucky school district superintendents. The analysis tests the hypothesis that poor school district performance should increase superintendent performance. The hypothesis is tested using accountability data compiled by the Kentucky Department of Education. The analysis reveals somewhat mixed support for the hypothesis. Different performance measures have different kinds of impact. Schools with students scoring high on math and writing were more likely to experience superintendent turnover than other school districts were. The index scores for science and social studies had a negative, statistically …


A Case Study On American Social Media Privacy: Facebook And Government Oversight, Sarah Fink Jan 2017

A Case Study On American Social Media Privacy: Facebook And Government Oversight, Sarah Fink

Commonwealth Review of Political Science

As we move further into the age of technology, there is no reason to expect the use of social media and the internet will decline. The government's inability to create a uniform technological landscape across offices and departments around the nation along with the shifting view of privacy in America has created openings for non-governmental companies, like Facebook, to collect the information freely given by citizens. This makes the privacy policies of social media companies civil rights and liberties issues for individual citizens as well as a national security concern. This paper argues that until the public, and policy makers, …


Red Dog, Blue Dog, Yellow Dog: How Democrats Can Use Strategic Communications To Attract Republican And Conservative Voters, B. Gammon Fain Jan 2017

Red Dog, Blue Dog, Yellow Dog: How Democrats Can Use Strategic Communications To Attract Republican And Conservative Voters, B. Gammon Fain

Commonwealth Review of Political Science

In recent election cycles, a rightward shift among white Southerners, and in some cases the loss of African-American supporters through racial redistricting, turned many long-held Democratic districts in the South red. Kentucky is an excellent example of this shift in voting behavior. Even though registered Democrats outnumber Republicans, the GOP controls the Governor's mansion, most other statewide elected offices, both chamber of the state legislature, and all but one of Kentucky's congressional seats. To win back those seats, Democrats in states like Kentucky will need to appeal to conservative voters. Unfortunately, little scholarly research directly addresses the practical question they …


The Paradox Of The Progressive Presidency: How The Democratization Of The Presidential Selection System Has Degraded The Office, Jeffrey T. Syck Jan 2017

The Paradox Of The Progressive Presidency: How The Democratization Of The Presidential Selection System Has Degraded The Office, Jeffrey T. Syck

Commonwealth Review of Political Science

Every U.S. president leaves a lasting mark on the institution, few more significantly than the small number who have impacted the way presidents are selected. This paper examines how the presidential selection system has evolved over time and the negative effects this evolution has produced. The Framers created a complicated selection process hoping the Electoral College would attract and elevate "men of first character." Although the system failed to operate as its architects intended as a result of the early and inevitable development of political parties, Martin Van Buren helped to adapt the selection system to the new environment in …


Resilient Communists: How Fidel Castro Survived The Soviet Collapse And Cuba's Uncertain Road To Democracy, Max J. Prowant Jan 2017

Resilient Communists: How Fidel Castro Survived The Soviet Collapse And Cuba's Uncertain Road To Democracy, Max J. Prowant

Commonwealth Review of Political Science

It is easy to conclude that Fidel Castro was nothing more than a pawn of the Soviet Union, and Cuba, a communist satellite throughout the Cold War. The island received an annual subsidy of four billion dollars from the U.S.S.R. and hosted Soviet troops; its economic dependence was so extensive that when the Soviet Union collapsed more than 25 years ago, Cuba experienced a GDP contraction of between 30 and 40 percent. Despite this, Cuba's communist regime survived, even as many formerly communist countries in Eastern Europe embraced new democratic constitutions. This project seeks to explain how--in spite of the …


Complete Issue - Volume 4, Number 1 (2017) Jan 2017

Complete Issue - Volume 4, Number 1 (2017)

Commonwealth Review of Political Science

Complete Issue