Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

A Dangerous Professor Loses A Friendship, Michael C. Vocino

michael c vocino

A brief essay/short story based on the author's experience as a gay university professor and how creative teaching methods ended one of his vital friendships.

The Politics Of Sex: Analyzing The Relationship Between The State And Gender Identity And Desire, Rachel Mayer

Honors Theses

The disenfranchised experiences of women are central to feminist understandings of identity. Crucial to this understanding is the question of what is the cause of female oppression and how to remedy the situation. This introduces the concept of state power and its relationship to women. The state, as the seat of legal and political power, has the ability to serve as both protector and oppressor. The thesis is devoted to exploring feminist perspectives and critiques on state power such as arguments for state intervention in the protection of women through concrete action such as gender-specific laws. Opposing this view is …

Deciphering A Duality: Understanding Conflicting Standards In Sex & Violence Censorship In U.S. Obscenity Law, Rushabh P. Bhakta

Political Science Honors Projects

This research examines the division in US obscenity law that enables strict sex censorship while overlooking violence. By investigating the social and legal development of obscenity in US culture, I argue that the contemporary duality in obscenity censorship standards arose from a family of forces consisting of faith, economy, and identity in early American history. While sexuality ingrained itself in American culture as a commodity in need of regulation, violence was decentralized from the state and proliferated. This phenomenon led to a prioritization of suppressing sexual speech over violent speech. This paper traces the emergence this duality and its source.

Theology Of Global Citizenship: Belonging Beyond Boundaries, God Within Boundaries, Jisoo Hong

Political Science Honors Projects

Though creating identity and belongingness under the sovereign requires an enclosure by boundaries, the very act of drawing boundaries imposes inevitable challenges. The limitations of the Westphalian system based on territorial boundaries are becoming more tangible with transnational flows threatening individual’s sense of belonging and the state’s exercise of sovereignty. Global citizenship is suggested as a possible “solution” transcending these arbitrarily drawn boundaries. Nonetheless, my political theological examination concludes that global citizenship is yet another translation of the human beings’ old wish for belonging to, protection from, and unity under a “god,” albeit with new boundaries that differentiate us from …

National Identity And The Education Of Immigrant Youth In Spain, Kathleen C. Mautner

Scripps Senior Theses

This thesis examines the present-day educational policies enacted by Spain in response to the country’s growing immigrant populations, specifically by comparing the policies implemented in two of Spain’s distinct autonomies. The thesis ultimately argues that the regions’ differing conceptualizations of national identity and their distinct relationships to the central Spanish state play a fundamental role in their motivations to enact comprehensive and effective policies that promote immigrants’ educational and social success.

Turning Away From Your Slavic Brother: The Effects Of Identity On Relations Between Russia And Belarus, Matt Matejka

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

On September 24, 2011, it was announced that Putin would run for president once again in 2012. The reaction in the West was that ―the more things change, the more they stay the same.‖ The Western conception of the post-Cold War Russia is often one of remarkable consistency since the turn of the century. This Western narrative focuses on an autocratic Putin reigning over his resurgent and confrontational Russia. Does this narrative tell the story of Russia today, or does it instead obscure it? To answer this I have elected to analyze Russian identity and how it relates to Russia‘s …

Establishing Difference: The Gendering And Racialization Of Power In Genocide, Erin E. Welsh

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis is designed to delve deeper into perceptions of identity, specifically gender and racial identity, the power relationship that emerges as each of these switches is reached in the progression towards genocide, and the effects of these perceptions during and after the genocide takes place. The primary question addressed is whether the power relationship that emerges as a result of these pre-genocidal stages becomes gendered and racialized due to perceptions rooted in a male-dominated hierarchy and a belief in the superiority of one ethnicity over another. The primary goal of this thesis is to analyze the power relationship in …

Cultural Assimilation: The Political Economy Of Psychology As An Evolutionary Game Theoretic Dynamic, Atin Basu Choudhary, Dave Cotting

Atin Basu Choudhary

In this paper, we model the interaction between idiocentric and allocentric immigrants in two settings – in a society that is predominantly collectivist and in a society that is predominantly individualist. Immigrants, either allocentric or idiocentric, can also be entity theorists (fixed mindset) or incremental theorists (growth mindset). We use evolutionary game theory to model how the host country cultural environment places selective pressure on the cultures of immigrant populations. This has implications for how well immigrants assimilate into their host country. Our results show: (a) depending on the initial ratio of allocentric and idiocentric immigrants, assimilation is either complete …

Towards An Impure, Dynamic Concept Of Identity?, Rafael Rodríguez Prieto

Rafael Rodríguez Prieto

We live in homogenizing times, in an increasingly globalized world; at the same time, we are witnessing an era of ferocious particularities and rabid individualism. Both trends—rooted in essentialisms of identity—deny entire populations the opportunity to emancipate themselves and participate in self-government. Universalizing (or imposing a specific hierarchy of values and ideas on others) is as dangerous as refusing to recognize the role other values and ideas play in shaping one’s own value set. This paper will take a closer look at the notion of identity through the looking glass of globalization.

Latino Voters 2012 And Beyond: Will The Fastest Growing And Evolving Electoral Group Shape U.S. Politics?, Sylvia R. Lazos

Scholarly Works

The author reviews two recent books, Marisa A. Abrajano’s Campaigning to the New American Electorate: Advertising to Latino Voters (2010) and Marisa A. Abrajano’s and R. Michael Alvarez’s New Faces New Voices: The Hispanic Electorate in America (2010). These books are part of a growing literature that scientifically studies the evolving Latino electorate, and attempts to answer difficult questions about this ethnic group’s electorate cohesiveness and how candidates might be able to influence the Latino electorate. A careful read of Abrajano’s recent books brings additional understanding to Latino voter behavior, and by implication, how this key group will influence the …

The Decline In Trust In The European Union, Nathan Donald Price

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

After twenty years, the European Union is undoubtedly at a crossroads, as its institutions try to manage the sovereign debt crisis in member states and the uncertainty surrounding the future direction of the project. The challenges the European Union has faced, and the response to them, have drawn considerable attention on the capacity of the European Union to manage the interests of the Europeans. In this dissertation, I discuss the process of Europeanization and why it has resulted in suboptimal outputs. Additionally, I discuss the perception of a democratic deficit in the European Union. The purpose of this is to …

Course Syllabus: Harry Potter And International Politics - Identity, Violence And Social Control, Emma Norman

Emma R. Norman

The themes we draw from J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series are used to illuminate parallels in contemporary world politics and to apprehend in detail some of the key problems that revolve around the three core themes of the course (identity, violence, and social control). How, for instance, does life in Hogwarts help to illuminate the multiple, crosscutting identities produced by globalization? How does the divide between wizards and muggles, or Hermione’s obsession with elvish welfare, serve to illuminate continued discrimination in current liberal democracies and do these narratives help to widen our options when it comes to minimizing it? What …

The Discursive Frames Of Political Psychology, Paul W. Nesbitt-Larking, Catarina Kinnvall

Paul W Nesbitt-Larking