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Political Science

Boise State University

Theses/Dissertations

2020

Articles 1 - 8 of 8

Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

Diplomatic Intervention And The Effects Of Third-Party State Power On Intrastate War Outcome, Alexann Sandberg Dec 2020

Diplomatic Intervention And The Effects Of Third-Party State Power On Intrastate War Outcome, Alexann Sandberg

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

This paper seeks to examine the role third-party states may play as diplomatic intervenors in intrastate wars. Because diplomatic interventions seek settlement outcomes over military victory, understanding the efficacy of these interventions may provide support for their usage over non-diplomatic options. I hypothesize that third-party state power, in the form of military, economic, and political capabilities, will impact the likelihood of diplomatic intervention outcome; more powerful third-party states will have a greater likelihood of producing preferred outcomes. I use 12 multinomial regression models to examine this relationship. I find that economic capabilities are the only factor of state power that …

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Ethnic Fractionalization, Corruption, And Trust In The Courts, Sinan Nadarevic Aug 2020

Ethnic Fractionalization, Corruption, And Trust In The Courts, Sinan Nadarevic

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

Prior research has examined the effects of ethnic fractionalization on trust in political institutions. However, most of the literature focuses on a general understanding of political trust, disregarding the relationship between ethnic fractionalization and individual trust in the legal system. I argue that high levels of ethnic fractionalization decrease trust in the courts. To provide empirical support for my theory, I use individual-level survey data from 32 African and Latin American countries from 2013 and I produce two findings. First, using multiple OLS fixed effects regression analysis, I find that ethnic fractionalization decreases trust in the courts. Second, using mediation …

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The Unintentional Gerrymandering Of America: How Population Shifts In Congressional Districts Contribute To The Wasting Of Votes, As Measured By The Efficiency Gap, Hannah Sharp May 2020

The Unintentional Gerrymandering Of America: How Population Shifts In Congressional Districts Contribute To The Wasting Of Votes, As Measured By The Efficiency Gap, Hannah Sharp

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

Thanks to the foresight of our Founding Fathers we are required by law to redraw legislative boundaries every ten years, after the decennial census. These boundaries create districts at both the state and federal legislative level, and there are many guidelines which govern how districts can be drawn in order to provide for fair competition and accurate representation. Population distribution is key to how electoral districts are drawn at all levels. In recent decades, increasing concentrated populations of Democrats in urban areas and decreasing population in rural, more Republican areas has made it harder to draw competitive districts at the …

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Girl’S Education In Africa: The Importance Of Culture And State Capacity, Hadley Olivia Hobbs May 2020

Girl’S Education In Africa: The Importance Of Culture And State Capacity, Hadley Olivia Hobbs

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

Why is girls’ education participation notably below average in countries throughout both North and Sub-Saharan Africa? Previous research has concluded that the low rates of girls’ education in Africa are attributed to economics and more specifically wealth. While wealth needs to be addressed as a part of the discussion of issues surrounding girl’s education, it does not seem to be the primary cause of low participation outcomes. I argue that culture and governance are the primary factors effecting girls’ education in Africa. Moreover, government effectiveness and female genital mutilation are primary causes of the outcomes of girl’s education and appear …

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Organized Crime And Development In Low And Middle-Income Countries, Katie Kelshaw May 2020

Organized Crime And Development In Low And Middle-Income Countries, Katie Kelshaw

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

The presence of organized crime is common across all income levels, but the effects of organized crime differ between low-income and middle-income countries. Institutionally, socially, and economically, criminal organizations make contributions which affect the states they are in. This paper theorizes that the contributions made by organized crime help development in low-income countries, then later harms development in middle-income countries. Empirical tests find that the direct effects of organized crime are not significant in low and middle-income countries. The indirect effects of organized crime – corruption in the public sector — have a negative effect on development.

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Weaponizing The Epa: Presidential Control And Wicked Problems, Craig A. Jones May 2020

Weaponizing The Epa: Presidential Control And Wicked Problems, Craig A. Jones

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

In its broadest sense, presidential control encompasses all the actions, in both word and deed, whereby presidents “go it alone” to adopt policies in the absence of congressional will to do so, and sometimes directly contrary to it. This dissertation studies how President Obama used rhetorical and administrative tools of presidential control to address the “wicked problem” of climate change. The “administrative presidency” and the “rhetorical presidency” are familiar political science terms, but in the case of climate change policy, they appear to be moving policymaking in a new and perhaps profound direction, which this study refers to as “post-deliberative …

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Presidential Influence And Competitive Grant Funding: Reexamining Presidential Pork, Benjamin Albert May 2020

Presidential Influence And Competitive Grant Funding: Reexamining Presidential Pork, Benjamin Albert

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

How does partisan alignment with the president affect the distribution of federal competitive grant funding? This analysis contributes to the literature on distributive politics by reexamining the relationship between alignment with the president and competitive grant funding over the time period of 2001 to 2017. Furthermore, the analysis will test if the relationship between alignment and competitive grant funding changed after the enactment of the 2011 earmark moratorium. Fractional probit regression is used to model the relationship between a representative’s partisan alignment with the president and the portion of annual competitive grant funding that their district receives. The results suggest …

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Globalization: A Blessing Or A Curse For Women In Developing Countries, Magaly Denisse Carrillo Terriquez May 2020

Globalization: A Blessing Or A Curse For Women In Developing Countries, Magaly Denisse Carrillo Terriquez

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

Countries have been able to exchange goods and services as well as intellectual property. However, they have not addressed how these changes affect those that are considered a vulnerable population, women. The feminization of poverty is a real problem in our globalized society, where women form 70% of the world’s poor. This paper investigates globalization’s impact on women empowerment by focusing on maternal mortality and female primary education in eighty-seven developing countries. The literature suggests that an increase of globalization leads to a decrease in maternal death and to an increase in female primary education. The pooled data set was …

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