Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

New Americans And The New Right: Hispanic Voting Trends In The Trump Era Of Politics, Emmanuel Keppel

Political Science Honors Projects

In 2020, Donald Trump lost re-election to Joe Biden by around 4.5% nationally. Despite losing in his re-election bid, Trump was able to make surprising inroads with Hispanic voters, reaching the highest Republican totals with Hispanic voters in decades. This trend held true across nearly every Hispanic neighborhood in the country. From large Hispanic-majority cities such as Miami to isolated pockets of Hispanic voters in New England, there was a consistent rightward trend. Moreover, this trend largely continued into 2022, with most Republican candidates in the midterm elections matching Trump’s numbers. This paper will take an in depth look at …

Interpretations Of Intent: Sovereignty, The Second Amendment, And Us Gun Culture, Lola I. Brown

Political Science Honors Projects

In this paper, I engage foundational theorists such as Jean Bodin, Thomas Hobbes, and John Locke to examine the philosophies of sovereignty that underpin the US Constitution and the creation of the Second Amendment. I find that the US Founders' reaction to these foundational theories of sovereignty allowed for a breakdown in the system of sovereignty in the country, and made way for the implementation of the Rule of Law. The Rule of Law, in turn, created the conditions of possibility for the psyche of radical individualism that now permeates the US. This radical individualism allowed for the reinterpretation of …

Expanding Carceral Frontiers: The 100-Mile Border Zone And Constituting Latinx Political Subjectivity, Elyse Y. Hatch-Rivera

Political Science Honors Projects

The thesis has two interrelated concerns. The first explores the emergence of the 100-mile border zone in order to study how the U.S. has expanded its borders inward and redefined notions of national security and carcerality. The second will define the 100-mile border as a carceral frontier that has emerged from previous years of racial security operations such as “Operation Wetback” in 1953. Moreover, I will demonstrate how the 100-mile border zone, a carceral frontier, blends the logic of security and the carceral in order to create a space of total state control. This inward turn of the 100-mile border …

Peer Reviewing The World: Increasing Civil Society Participation In The United Nations Universal Periodic Review, Lucien F. O'Brien

Political Science Honors Projects

The Universal Periodic Review (UPR) is an exceptional mechanism within the framework of international human rights. The fact that it evaluates all UN member states’ human rights records on a universal basis sets it apart from other enforcement mechanisms that do not give equal time to all countries or do not seek to cover all human rights. Following the introduction of hybrid modalities in the third cycle, the UPR faces a turning point in terms of who is included in the process and how. Drawing on semi-structured interviews with UN officials, diplomatic mission members, civil society representatives, and academics, as …

Forgiving Without Forgetting? Privacy In An Age Of Digital Permanence, Rock Park

Political Science Honors Projects

The 21st Century has been marked by increasing digital globalization, and an extensive, complete record of most individual’s public and private lives. This posed enough of a risk to privacy that in 2014, the European Union began to outline and articulate the digital privacy rights of European citizens in a set of policies known as “right to be forgotten” laws. As of 2018, these right to be forgotten protections had been codified into the General Data Privacy Regulation for the EU (GDPR). This paper explores the construction of privacy and subsequent adoption of the right to be forgotten specifically in …

Educating To Compete: Pandemic-Era Patterns Of Technology Incorporation In The Southern Cone, M. Candelaria Torres Jimenez

Political Science Honors Projects

Education has become a championship match. Global competition has defined many periods in history, but in the last two decades it has emerged within the knowledge economy, shaping education systems across the world. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the different levels of perceived educational resilience exhibited by states shaped their global competitiveness. Focusing on the Southern Cone of Latin America, this thesis explores the connection between globally competitive educational systems, access to Information Communication Technologies (ICT) and educational resilience during the pandemic through a multivariate regression model. Considering the profound disruption of education caused by the pandemic, I utilize a comparative …

Schooling On The East-West Divide: Educational Weaponization During The Final Phase Of The Cold War, Sophia Sahm

Political Science Honors Projects

During the Cold War, the United States and Soviet Russia focused on spreading their distinctive ideologies across the globe, and in doing so, came in direct competition with one another. In this study, I employ content analysis of two major U.S. and Soviet education reports and reforms from 1983 to 1991, namely A Nation at Risk and Fundamental Directions of General and Vocational School Reform, to explore and illustrate how the two states wielded their youth as weapons in a battle for ideological supremacy. My findings add nuance to the conversation surrounding education as a method of state control.

Tulsa Wealth Disparity: The Political Legacy Of The 1921 Race Massacre, Elizabeth M. Burton

Political Science Honors Projects

Public policies rooted in systemic racism and racialized violence have stripped wealth from Black Americans. Is this wealth disparity heightened in Tulsa, Oklahoma, home to one of the worst incidents of racial violence in America? I shed light on this question by analyzing local housing and economic development policies and supplemental census data in Tulsa and Oklahoma City. I find that the Race Massacre has lasting detrimental effects on the racial wealth gap in Tulsa, likely exacerbated by policies in the 1960s-70s and the 2000s. Local and federal reparations are necessary to address a century of racialized dispossession in Tulsa.

Structured For Success: Activist Networks As Key To Organizing Victories At Macalester, Hannah D. Catlin

Political Science Honors Projects

Macalester’s identity as a college is deeply rooted in its commitments to social justice,

activism, and multiculturalism. As such, it has a rich history of student social movements defined by unique, decentralized networking structures forming out of the constraints of working in a college environment. In terms of structure, what do successful Macalester social movement organizations look like? I argue that Macalester social movement organizations form concentrically nested structures and that these networks in concert with organizational tactics lead to success or failure in terms of goal acquisition. I draw on the history of Macalester student social movement organizations, highlighting …

Follow The Money? Analyzing The Impact Of Fundraising On Candidate Withdrawal In The 2020 Democratic Presidential Primary, Scotland R. Kraker

Political Science Honors Projects

The 2020 Democratic presidential primary had the largest field in modern history. Twenty eight major candidates sought the nomination, yet after March 19th that historic field had been winnowed down to only two. This paper seeks to explain part of that winnowing process and expand on the literature explaining why candidates withdraw in presidential primaries. I trace the impact of fundraising on candidate withdrawal during the 2020 primary using an event history model, to compare cash on hand, a traditional indicator of financial success with a new indicator which takes into account a candidate's relative position in the field. My …

Refilling The Reservoir: How The Supreme Court Has Responded To Challenges To Its Legitimacy, Samantha A. Leo

Political Science Honors Projects

To protect the United States Supreme Court’s institutional status, justices on the bench must grapple with threats to the Court’s authority. How do members of the Supreme Court preserve their legitimacy? This thesis employs a historical analysis to evaluate responses to legitimacy challenges over time. Similar challenges impact the Supreme Court across various eras. Judicial responses build upon each other, and develop a stronger judiciary as time passes. In this light, I emphasize the historical continuities within the actions of the Roberts Court. There are many prior tools the current institution may implement to refill its reservoir of public support.

Colonial Legacies And Institutional Legitimacy: Explaining Variation In State-Level Informal Economy Size, Makayla Barker

Political Science Honors Projects

Abstract: Why are some states’ economies more formal than others? This question has critical significance for policy-makers who endeavor to tap into the reservoir of tax revenue and entrepreneurship that informal economies contain. More importantly, large informal economies inhibit public good provision and perpetuate the impoverishment, marginaliza- tion, and political instability of select communities. Despite major variation in the size of informal economies across states, most scholarship on the informal economy concentrates only on the causes and consequences of the phenomenon, while neglecting to address its variation. This thesis builds on a canon of scholarship surrounding colonial legacies, new- institutional …

Notoriously Ruthless: The Idolization Of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Lucille Moran

Political Science Honors Projects

It is now a fixture of mainstream commentary in the United States that Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has become a popular idol on the political left. Yet, while Justice Ginsburg’s image and story has reached an unprecedented level of valorization and even commercialization, scholars have yet to give sustained attention to the phenomenon and to contextualize it: why has this idolization emerged within this context, and what is its impact? This paper situates her portrayal in the cultural imagination as the product of two political forces, namely partisanship and identity politics. Considering parallel scholarly discourses of reputation, celebrity, …

The Purple Wave: Gender And Electoral Outcomes In The 2018 Midterms, Semilla B. Stripp

Political Science Honors Projects

This thesis offers an analysis of the relationship between gender and electoral outcomes in the 2018 midterm elections. What role did gender play in the success of candidates for the House of Representatives? In answering this question, I quantify women’s success by analyzing the extent to which female candidates’ vote shares can be attributed to their gender. I find that, while controlling for various electoral and biographical factors, female challengers and open seat candidates performed better than their male counterparts, while female incumbents had no advantage over male incumbents. These outcomes also divided along party lines, with Democratic women performing …

Roads Diverge: A Comparative Study Of Eu Accession And Lgbt Human Rights In Former Yugoslav States, Hannah Maycock

Political Science Honors Projects

Kosovo’s first Pride parade on October 10, 2017 was an important landmark for Kosovo’s LGBT community. The event was remarkable both as the first event of its kind and in that it occurred without violence. While the Western Balkans have seen significant progress on LGBT rights, differences in degree of homophobia are clear across the former Yugoslav states. Slovenia and Croatia have become the least homophobic in the region while Serbia and Kosovo are the most. Where other arguments fail to adequately justify this disparity, EU accession explains the emergent differences in LGBT human rights since the breakup of Yugoslavia.

Why We Hear About It, And Why We Don't: Power Dynamics And Sexual Harassment Reporting In Us State Legislative Bodies, Halley Norman

Political Science Honors Projects

The rise to prominence of the #MeToo Movement in October 2017 opened the floodgates to sexual harassment and assault allegations in all fields and levels of employment, across the United States and the world. This movement has crucially revealed is that women often wait months or even years before reporting, if they report at all. Looking at US state legislative bodies, I argue that gendered power dynamics between men and women suppress allegations and promote harassment. Using interviews and data analysis, this paper identifies different factors that may delay or hinder reporting, with a specific focus on gendered power dynamics …

Constructing And Destructing The Peace: Models Of International Engagement In Post-Conflict States, Colin Churchill

Political Science Honors Projects

Variance in the stability of post-conflict states presents an interesting predicament. What causes this variance in states two or three decades removed from civil conflict? In this paper, I argue that the type of engagement that international actors take towards post-conflict states explains differences in stability. I draw out four distinct models of international engagement from three case studies of Lebanon, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Northern Ireland that present the different ways that international actors have constructively and destructively engaged in these states. Furthering this analysis is an examination of the transition or possible transition between models in the cases.

The Political Economy Of American Military Aid And Repression, Lukas Matthews

Political Science Honors Projects

No abstract provided.

Soldiers, Activists, Legislators: Democratization And Women's Representation In Bolivia And Nicaragua, Margaret Mischka

Political Science Honors Projects

In 2018, Bolivia and Nicaragua contain 53 and 46 percent women in their national legislatures respectively, while other countries, including the United States, lag behind with proportions around 20 percent. Why do some countries have higher levels of women in office? A preliminary answer points to gender quotas, which have increased numbers of women in legislature in numerous cases. Rather than beginning and ending the story of women’s representation with gender quotas, however, this project analyzes the processes that lead a country toward the adoption of such quotas. By tracing the political histories of Bolivia and Nicaragua through crises related …

Iran’S New Interventionism: Reconceptualizing Proxy Warfare In The Post-Arab Spring Middle East, Emmet Hollingshead

Political Science Honors Projects

Iranian proxy groups in the Middle East pose a continuing challenge to stability, American interests, and peaceful self-governance in the region. From a strategic standpoint, Iran’s innovative use of proxy groups to pursue their political and military interests has proven difficult to understand and respond to within a comprehensive framework. This paper will argue in favor of reviving and modifying the ‘new wars’ literature as a theoretical framework for understanding Iranian proxy groups and regional interests. It analyses Iranian actions in fostering relationships with non-state actors in the region as an extension of the state into ‘new wars’ dynamics and …

Coca, Capitalism And Decolonization: State Violence In Bolivia Through Coca Policy, Margaret A. Poulos

Political Science Honors Projects

I approach Bolivian coca policy under Evo Morales, Bolivia’s first indigenous President, as a site to examine the broader issue of decolonization. My paper argues that the new General Law of Coca, passed in March 2017, is part of a larger systemic pattern of violence towards historically disenfranchised communities in Bolivia, despite Morales’ indigenous Aymara identity and pro-coca activism. Drawing on interviews I conducted and a postcolonial theoretical framework, I analyze how although Morales has rhetorically advocated for indigenous communities and decolonizing Bolivia, colonial legacies supplanted in the subjectivity of Bolivians and institutions of its government have persisted. I suggest …

Nunca Más: Rhetoric Of Human Rights And Democracy In Post-Authoritarian Argentina, Sarah R. Coleman

Political Science Honors Projects

In 1983, Argentina began its process of transitioning to democracy and away from a repressive military dictatorship that had ruled the nation for the past 7 years. With this democratic transition came the process of transition justice aimed at confronting and rectifying the human rights violations committed under the authoritarian regime. Out of this transitional period arose many questions: How do principles of democracy and human rights overlap? How does one define concepts such as justice, truth, and rights? What responsibility does democracy have to upholding human rights? And most importantly, how does a transitional regime institute long-lasting norms regarding …

Restoring A Mapuche World: Resistance To Settler Colonialism In Chile's Child Protection System, Maxine Freedman

Political Science Honors Projects

How do Mapuche families engage with and resist settler colonialism in order to move toward decolonization? I argue that Mapuche families, especially youth, who are subjected to settler colonialism, envision and fight for a decolonized world. Grounded in the dispossession of indigenous land, settler colonialism permeates Chilean institutions including the child protection system, SENAME. SENAME targets indigenous families with tactics such as child removal, confinement, and criminalization, and its attempts at intercultural reform further assimilate families into settler culture. Yet, Mapuche people sustain their indigenous world. Youth promote Mapuche autonomy and knowledge through their discourse. Their vision might serve to …

Do Weapons Make Warfare? An Instrumental Variables Approach Towards Investigating The Relationship Between Small Arms Abundance, Civil Conflict Onset, And Civil Conflict Intensity, Gabriel S. Barrett

Political Science Honors Projects

Scholars, journalists, and policymakers frequently attribute the intensity and onset of civil conflict to the abundance of small arms. However, the direction of causality has been difficult to assess due to a lack of data on the illicit small arms market and the plausibly endogenous relationship between the abundance of weapons and civil conflict. Using a new dataset of estimated small arms prices, I determine that a decrease in the price of small arms is significantly and negatively correlated with an increase in the intensity of conflict in the following year. I also determine that small arms prices increase in …

The Sino-American War Of Words: Soft Power As Coercion, Lucas Deane Myers

Political Science Honors Projects

Soft power is typically understood to involve attraction, or the influence an actor gains through the positive image of its institutions, ideals, and culture. However, this conception underplays the coercive side of soft power. Attractiveness is not a pre-existing, unchanging condition but a socially constructed reality that allows the attractive actor to exercise discursive power over other actors. Soft power conflicts appear, therefore, as a “war of words.” In such wars of words, participants utilize coercive soft power, or representational force, to reify a narrative and self-identity into social reality while simultaneously detracting from the opponent’s. Utilizing discourse analysis, I …

Agro Sí, Mina No: Explaining The Onset Of Protest Surrounding Mining Projects In Peru, Jhader Aguad

Political Science Honors Projects

Peru has witnessed an increase in protest activity over the past decade, seemingly related to natural resource extraction. Yet protests were more prevalent in some provinces than others. What explains this variation? I hypothesize that a mining company's announcement of the creation or advancement of a project has a greater effect on the likelihood and frequency of protest if local people rely more on agriculture. Analyzing an original dataset on Peruvian protests between 2011 and 2015, I find the reverse: Protests are less prevalent when mining projects occur in agricultural provinces, suggesting challenges to collective action in rural areas in …

Female Autonomy: An Analysis Of Privacy And Equality Doctrine For Reproductive Rights, Elizabeth Levi

Political Science Honors Projects

What is the constitutional basis for women’s equality? Recently, scholars have suggested that as the right to privacy has floundered against the political undoing of women's access to abortion, equal protection arguments have grown stronger. This thesis investigates the feminist utility and limits of the equality and privacy arguments. Taking liberal feminism and feminist legal theory as analytical lenses, I offer interpretations of gender discrimination, reproductive rights, and marriage equality case law. By this framework, I argue that while an equality argument is less inherently oppressive towards women than the privacy doctrine, equality doctrine has been constructed thus far to …

From Refugees To Representatives: Exploring Hmong American Political Representation, Sean Mock

Political Science Honors Projects

This past November, Hmong Americans saw success at the Minnesota polls and doubled their representation in the state legislature. Though the first Hmong refugees only began arriving in the United States in 1975, they have made an outsized contribution to state and local governments: to date, 32 Hmong Americans have been elected to city councils, school boards, and state legislatures nationwide. Yet the political science literature on Hmong American political representation remains limited to the first generation of Hmong Americans elected to the Minnesota Legislature. My thesis addresses this gap. By interviewing the latest generation of Hmong American politicians, non-Hmong …

(Un-)American Movement: Unaccompanied Immigrant Children And The Rhetoric Of Space And Identity, Emily K. Royer

Political Science Honors Projects

Immigration, in all its various forms, has become one of the most pressing issues of the modern era. In the contemporary United States, the arrival of migrants—be they refugees, asylum seekers, documented or undocumented immigrants—is often figured as a problem of existential proportions. In this project, I turn my attention to a significant recent development in the new American immigration “crisis.” During the summer months of 2014, the United States witnessed a period of heightened migration by unaccompanied children from the Central American nations of Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador. Through a rhetorical analysis of congressional hearings held in response …

Transforming The State, Challenging The Nation: The Role Of Identity Politics In The Brexit Vote, Rebecca Mendelsohn

Political Science Honors Projects

British voters have decided to withdraw membership from the European Union (EU). By considering the outcome of Brexit as a moment in time when British voters declared, “this is who we are,” this project asks: What role did identity play in the Brexit vote? What does Brexit tell us about how expressions of identity have been affected by transformations of the state? An internal conflict over what it means to be British has, in part, driven the United Kingdom to leave the EU. Neither British Euroscepticism nor competing notions of Britishness are new. Rather, anxiety over the ability to dictate …