Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Emerging From Behind The Curtain: A Comparative Analysis Of Polish And Czech Reforms Based On Quality Of Life Improvements, Summer Ellis

CMC Senior Theses

This thesis examines the economic reforms undertaken by Poland and the Czech Republic during the 1990s transition period. It seeks to ultimately differentiate reform quality between the Czech Republic and Poland in terms of well-being. The basis of reform success is determined using a quality of life scale that spans economic, health, and environmental indicators. Reform quality is then assessed based on improvements in well-being, instead of high-level economic metrics that often evaluate in a manner that fails to capture individual citizen sentiment. From this point, it is possible to determine which transitioning country underwent the most optimal reform process …

Dead Money: Measuring The Influence Of Representatives On Government Spending, Adhitya Venkatraman

CMC Senior Theses

In line with popular criticisms of Congressional pork barrel spending, I find that that individual representatives do wield significant influence in securing government contracts for their districts. Using federal contract data organized at the congressional district level from FY 2001 – FY 2021, I estimate how individual members of the House of Representatives affect funding outcomes. My identification strategy leverages changes in contract funding that occur during exogenous vacancies occurring in the middle of a term. By comparing contract funding outcomes during vacant quarters to non-vacant quarters, I estimate the amount of individual influence exercised by representatives.

During vacant quarters, …

The Politics Of Belonging: How Migration Affects Social Democratic Welfare States, Katherine Grace Siegenthaler

Pomona Senior Theses

The refugee crisis of 2015 sparked a new era of migration politics in Europe, with waves of immigrants altering the expectations for integration and assimilation policies in many states. Social democratic welfare states, that is, Denmark, Finland, the Netherlands, Norway, and Sweden, while far north of many of the arrival destinations of these migrants, were not immune to these changes. However, as social-democratic welfare states, much of their legitimacy rests on their ability to provide for their citizens, which is in turn supported by a pervasive sense of solidarity amongst their communities, so that extensive tax systems can continue to …

An Analysis Of Cyber Wargaming: Current Games, Limitations, And Recommendations, Sarah Chen

CMC Senior Theses

Cyberspace operations and conflict pose a unique challenge to decision-makers due to the uncertainty and unpredictability of cyber capabilities. Relying on wargaming literature, public cyber wargame reports, and expert interviews, this thesis analyzes the utility of cyber wargaming for education and analysis. Cyber wargames offer a method of testing, exploring, and understanding cyberspace through the abstraction and representation of cyber tools and attack cycles.

The thesis begins by examining cyber conflict and theorizes hypothetical wargame use cases. It then creates a framework for cyber wargaming elements and examines the design of eleven analytical wargames, eight educational wargames, and three commercial …

Neither “Post-War” Nor Post-Pregnancy Paranoia: How America’S War On Drugs Continues To Perpetuate Disparate Incarceration Outcomes For Pregnant, Substance-Involved Offenders, Becca S. Zimmerman

Pitzer Senior Theses

This thesis investigates the unique interactions between pregnancy, substance involvement, and race as they relate to the War on Drugs and the hyper-incarceration of women. Using ordinary least square regression analyses and data from the Bureau of Justice Statistics’ 2016 Survey of Prison Inmates, I examine if (and how) pregnancy status, drug use, race, and their interactions influence two length of incarceration outcomes: sentence length and amount of time spent in jail between arrest and imprisonment. The results collectively indicate that pregnancy decreases length of incarceration outcomes for those offenders who are not substance-involved but not evenhandedly -- benefitting white …

‘It’S Like Baking A Cake’: An Analysis Of Conscience Voting In The New Zealand House Of Representatives Since The Introduction Of The Mixed-Member Proportional System In 1996, Harrison Hosking

CMC Senior Theses

Conscience voting in the New Zealand House of Representatives offers a unique opportunity to assess Sam Peltzman’s ‘Principal-Agent Theory’ as outlined in his 1984 paper, Constituent Interest and Congressional Voting.

This thesis begins with a brief assessment of the principal-agent model (and other literature regarding parliamentary representation) before looking at the New Zealand Parliamentary system and the phenomenon of private member’s bills and how they aid the legislative process. This is followed by an exploration of a constructed dataset of conscience votes that have occurred since the inception of the mixed-member proportional (MMP) electoral system in 1996. An analysis …

Tracing Biometric Assemblages In India’S Surveillance State: Reproducing Colonial Logics, Reifying Caste Purity, And Quelling Dissent Through Aadhaar, Priya Prabhakar

Scripps Senior Theses

Tracing Biometric Assemblages in India’s Surveillance State seeks to understand the historical conditions that rendered the nation-state of India as having the world’s largest biometric surveillance system: Aadhaar. Surveillance practices used by the British Raj mirrors the current social order of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), as they use surveillance to similar ends in today’s political economy, through the intersecting forces of neoliberalism and ethnonationalism. This thesis is an exploration into how India’s current surveillance regimes cultivate biometric surveillant assemblages through Aadhaar. Contrary to claims that Aadhaar was created to empower the poor, I argue that these surveillance regimes …

Healthy And Unhealthy Responses To American Democratic Institutional Failure, Thomas D'Anieri

CMC Senior Theses

I have set out on the hunch that politics in America “feels different,” that we are frustrated both with our institutions as well as with one another. First, I will seek to empirically verify this claim beyond mere “feelings.” If it can be shown that these kinds of discontent genuinely exist to the extent that I believe they do, I will then explain why people feel this way and why things are different this time from the economic, political, and social points of view. Next, I will examine two potential responses, what I will call the populist and the institutional …

Populism: An Exploration Into The American Case Through The Academic Literature, Data Analysis, And Fiction, Maxwell Knowles

CMC Senior Theses

The twenty-first century has seen a rise in populist leadership and rhetoric throughout the globe, with the United States standing as one powerful case. This thesis hopes to develop the “story” of populism from multiple perspectives, attempting to not only inform but change the way we approach the populist movement in America, and perhaps, the world. In Part I, I summarize and blend much of the core literature written on populism and economic change, developing the story that populism in America today has its roots in the significant techno-economic and cultural paradigmatic shifts of the 1970s. Social media and an …

Uneven Influence: Why Female Representation Affects Some Migration Policies But Not Others, Lauren M. Olsen

Claremont-UC Undergraduate Research Conference on the European Union

In the wake of the 2015 migration crisis, immigration policy has become one of the most critical topics of academic scholarship and political debate. Despite this prolific response, very little research has investigated how the gender of policymakers affects immigration policy. This raises an interesting question: is there any difference in immigration policy among countries with high and low numbers of female legislators? To investigate this matter, I use panel fixed-effects regression to systematically compare the immigration policies of the original EU-15 from 2000 to 2010. As a single policy area, I find female representation has no significant impact on …

The Finch Effect: Evolutionary Metaphors And Illiberal Democracy In Central And Eastern Europe, Abigail Woodfield

Claremont-UC Undergraduate Research Conference on the European Union

In recent years, several states in Central and Eastern Europe have seen democratic digression. Such illiberal resurgences came as a surprise to the many political scientists who assumed that the future of these states was democratic. Indeed, after the fall of the Soviet Union, the world largely regarded liberal democracy as the predominant system of government. The future seemed bright, and it was tempting to understand that future in evolutionary terms—just as humans evolved under natural selection to become the dominant species, democracy had survived a similar competition and defeated all other systems of government to become the dominant regime. …

Candidacy Rhetoric In The Rise Of The Donald And Its Relation To Populist And Fascist Ideology, Robert A. Moore

CMC Senior Theses

This essay provides a comparison of Trump’s rhetoric to fascist and populist ideology through an analysis and politolinguistic framing of the usage of apophasis, mesarchia, and pathos in Trump content spanning the first six months of his candidacy for the 2016 U.S. presidency seat. This account finds that Trump is decidedly Ur-Fascist or populist, and cannot be neither of the two, is likely both Ur-Fascist and populist, and leans more in favor of populist ideology given the analyses undertaken. This account ultimately aims to have supported critical discourse analysis (CDA) and politiolinguistics in support of these approaches as rigorous political …

Partisanship In Mexico: Influence Of Violence And State Spending, Christopher White

CMC Senior Theses

This paper serves to further investigate factors influencing partisanship in Mexican politics with a focus on state spending and drug violence. With state spending, this paper builds on prior literature about political effects of federal social spending (Handelman 1997, Domínguez and Chappell 2004, Díaz-Cayeros 2009) to propose a similar theory regarding state social spending. The proposed panel data model for national elections between 2000 and 2012 finds that for diputados elections, a thousand-peso increase in state spending had a statistically significant influence on party voting – boosting PRI candidates (typically incumbents) by 0.66% and hurting both PAN and PRD candidates …

Civic Dignity And Meaningful Political Participation, Melissa Mahoney Smith

CGU Theses & Dissertations

This dissertation looks at how enhanced political participation opportunities can increase individual liberty and improve public-sector reform efforts. It blends political theory with contemporary concerns for individual well-being and government accountability. To do this, several research methodologies are used, including normative, qualitative process-tracing, and quantitative analysis.

First, the dissertation draws insights from ancient and modern political philosophy and the political thought and example of Jane Addams in 19th Century Chicago. It begins with Josiah Ober’s work on civic dignity, which he defines as “equal high standing” among citizens, marked by “non-infantilization and non-humiliation.” This definition is a useful starting point …

The Modern Administrative State: Why We Have ‘Big Government’ And How To Run And Reform Bureaucratic Organizations, Sean Y. Sakaguchi

CMC Senior Theses

This work asserts that bureaucratic organization is not only an inevitable part of the modern administrative state, but that a high quality bureaucracy within a strongly empowered executive branch is an ideal mechanism for running government in the modern era. Beginning with a philosophical inquiry into the purpose of American government as we understand it today, this paper responds to criticisms of the role of expanded government and develops a framework for evaluating the quality of differing government structures. Following an evaluation of the current debate surrounding bureaucracies (from both proponents and critics), this thesis outlines the lessons and principles …

Lessons In Micropolitical Management: A Case Study Of China's Investment And Political Intervention In Zambia, Eugene Daryl Nandwa

CMC Senior Theses

China continues to invest in natural resources in Africa to fuel its economic growth.China’s expanded presence in Africa has contributed to growing tensions within the Sino-African relationship. This thesis examines a variety of historical factors that have contributed to the increased presence of China in Africa, and how these factors have evolved into the foundations of the tensions observed today.

By exploring the historical patterns of the Sino-Zambian relationship, this thesis will shed light on the foundations of the underlying tensions between the two countries. With the Zambian election of 2006 as a focal point, China faced a political crisis …

"I Voted": Examining The Impact Of Compulsory Voting On Voter Turnout, Nina A. Kamath

CMC Senior Theses

Over the past few decades, falling voter turnout rates have induced governments to adopt compulsory voting laws, in order to mitigate issues such as the socioeconomic voter gap and to bring a broader spectrum of voters into the fold. This paper presents evidence that the introduction of mandatory voting laws increases voter turnout rates by 13 points within a particular country through an entity- and time-fixed effect panel model. Moreover, it includes a discussion of the implications of adopting mandatory voting policies within the United States, finding that compelling citizens to vote would have increased participation rates to over 90 …

Structural Limits Of Liberal Neutrality: Understanding Problems For Sustainabiity, Madison R. Williams

Scripps Senior Theses

Liberalism is a political philosophy that is “committed in the strongest possible way to individual rights, and, almost as a deduction from this, to a rigorously neutral state” (Walzer 99). It takes its “constitutive morality” to be a “theory of equality that requires official neutrality amongst theories of what is valuable in life” (Dworkin 203). For this reason, some theorists say Liberalism and the idea of environmental sustainability are not in conflict with one another. According to Mike Mills, because the commitment to neutrality means there is “no given set of policies associated” with Liberalism, any outcome is plausible (168). …

“Damning The Dams”: A Study Of Cost Benefit Analysis In Large Dams Through The Lens Of India's Sardar Sarovar Project, Evelyn Wong

Scripps Senior Theses

This thesis examines the evaluation of the economic, environmental and social effects of dams, and lessons learned from previous dams. It then focuses on cost benefit analysis as a decision-making tool pre-project for evaluating the potential gains and losses of building a dam; and as a framework for evaluating dams in operation. It reviews the basic assumptions required for a legitimate cost benefit analysis, and the inherent limitations of this method. It uses the Sardar Sarovar dam as a case study for the use and abuse of cost benefit analysis in decision-making, interstate politics, propaganda and activism. It also illustrates …

Democratic Strength And Terrorism: An Economic Approach, Brian P. Winter

CMC Senior Theses

There has been much literature about the economic effects of terrorism in democratic countries, but this literature often considers democracy to be a binary variable. This paper sought to explore how the effects might differ depending on the strength of a democracy. In the end, I found that the numbers of attacks and the effects of those attacks do not follow a linear path. The results for autocracies and anocracies require further analysis, but democracies have revealed interesting results. It seems that democracies as a whole have more terrorist attacks, but, within this group, the more democratic a country is …