Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Elements Of Postfeminism: The Current Landscape Of American Politics?, Laura Delorenzo Denison

Doctoral Dissertations

The purpose of this dissertation is to establish the meaning and definition of postfeminism along with an assessment of whether it accurately represents the current era of thinking. It is an historical, descriptive, qualitative analysis of the feminist movement from its inception with the central focus on the newest strand of feminist thought, postfeminism. The progression toward these conclusions entails an outlining of the waves of feminism and the strands of thought within these eras as well as a discussion of third wave feminism, modern feminism and generational differences between the waves. The focus on postfeminism begins with an exploration …

A Theory Of Multi-Transitions And The Chinese Welfare State, Bo Li

Doctoral Dissertations

In this dissertation I introduce an institutional approach for the research of the Chinese welfare state and the measure of people’s welfare benefit. I demonstrate that multiple institutional transitions due to the economic reforms initiated in the early 1980s have since dramatically changed the Chinese welfare state and the way welfare benefits are distributed. Multiple institutional transitions discussed in this dissertation are structural changes associated with the state-owned enterprise (SOE) reforms, the rapid industrialization, ever-growing urbanization, and large-scale decentralization of the fiscal system. Through the exploration of the data from the 1988 and 1995 Chinese Household Income Project (CHIP), I …

The Origins Of A War Of Secession: A Comparison Of Namibia And Botswana, Eric D. Smith

Doctoral Dissertations

This work is an attempt to define a comprehensive contemporary model of the causes of wars of secession, state and illustrate its gaps, and develop new theories to accentuate and improve that model, and through comparative case studies perform some elementary tests of their validity. My theoretical paradigm is dependent on an assumption that the ultimate causes, as captured under the rubric of institutions and structures, of an event involving rational but free-willed human beings are inadequate to explaining the onset of radical, extraordinary politics in general and wars of secession in particular. On the contrary, proximate causes, in the …

Repealing State Legislative Term Limits: A Comparative Analysis, Troy Christopher Goodale

Doctoral Dissertations

The proposed research is a comparative case study of State governments that have attempted to repeal State legislative ‘term limits’ (N = 8). The study will examine the institutional processes and the behavior of political actors culminating in an institutional output in the form of legislative statutes and judicial decisions concerning the repeal of term limit legislation. The theoretical propositions explored in this research are derived from decision-making theories, democratic theories of representation, and the findings of the literature on State legislative term limits. The States selected are Florida, Idaho, Oregon, Utah, and Wyoming. All of the legislative and judicial …

A Qualitative Analysis Of Grutter V. Bollinger: Implications For Use In Professional Programs Conducted Under Geier V. Bredesen, Marva Lane Rudolph

Doctoral Dissertations

This study represents an analysis of the public policy mandated in Grutter v. Bollinger and the public policies and procedures administered through Geier v. Bredesen at professional schools in the State of Tennessee. To gather information and ensure objectivity, a multiple information-gathering approach was used, which included administering a written questionnaire, reviewing court documents, conducting elite interviews, and participating in various University of Tennessee-based committees. Both Grutter and Geier used affirmative action policies to help achieve student body diversity in public higher education institutions. Grutter used affirmative action as a voluntary means to support the argument that diversity is a …

The Effect Of Academic Earmarking On The Distribution Of Federal Research Funding, Andrew Beecher Dunsmore

Doctoral Dissertations

This study is about the emergence of academic earmarking and its effect on the distribution of federal research funding. The study examines four basic research questions. First, does receiving earmarks improve the ability of an institution to receive other types of federal funding? Second, how does awarding earmarks affect the geographical distribution of federal research funding? Third, are earmarks additive, or do they come at the expense of peer reviewed funding? Finally, is there much difference between the institutions which garner the most earmarked funding and those which receive the most peer reviewed funding?

There are six major findings of …

Partisanship During The Collapse Venezuela's Party System, Jana Morgan

Political Science Publications and Other Works

Political parties are crucial for democratic politics; thus, the growing incidence of party and party system failure raises questions about the health of representative democracy the world over. This article examines the collapse of the Venezuelan party system, arguably one of the most institutionalized party systems in Latin America, by examining the individual-level basis behind the exodus of partisans from the traditional parties. Multinomial logit analysis of partisan identification in 1998, the pivotal moment of the system’s complete collapse, indicates that people left the old system and began to support new parties because the traditional parties failed to incorporate and …