Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Social Media Engagement And Mobilization To Extremist Violence, Lauren Moss

Political Science Theses, Dissertations and Student Creative Activity

This thesis investigates how engagement with extremist communities on social media correlates with increased violent mobilization among radicalized individuals. It argues that as individuals strengthen their ties to extremist groups online, they increasingly identify with these communities and adopt behaviors endorsed by them. This paper explores various levels of online engagement, from passive interactions to more active involvement, as well as factors to mobilization exhibited as observable behaviors both in person and online. Comparative analysis of two violent and two nonviolent adherents of the Boogaloo ideology reveals ten unique mobilizing indicators in violent cases. When compared against the social media …

What Makes A Radical?: An Exploration Of Sexism, Social Dominance Orientation, And Political Violence., Cassandra Atkinson

Student Research Submissions

How do sexist attitudes predict one’s likelihood of endorsing political violence? While past research identifies a link between hostile sexism and political violence, benevolent sexism has been overlooked. This article explores social dominance orientation (SDO) as a motivator to explain why individuals who hold attitudes of hostile or benevolent sexism are more likely to endorse political violence. Using survey data collected by the American National Election Studies, this article established a positive relationship between both hostile and benevolent sexism and an individual’s willingness to endorse state violence. Results also show a weak mediated relationship between SDO, hostile sexism, and endorsement …

Weaponization Of Religion: The Manipulation Of Religion In The Pursuit Of Political Power In Yugoslavia And Syria, Kathryn Echele

Senior Theses

Religious conflict has played an important role in shaping human history, particularly in the last few decades with the proliferation of ethno-religious violence. This paper examines the development of the relationship between religion and politics, then analyzes how leaders manipulate religion to gain political power. Two case studies—Yugoslavia/Yugoslav Wars and Syria/Syrian Civil War—are used to demonstrate this ability religion has to spur conflict when coopted for political means. Yugoslavia and Syria make ideal case studies because both countries have a deeply rooted and seemingly inseparable link between ethnicity and religion. Methods of cooptation include using religious mythology and symbolism, influencing …

"Domestic Terrorism" Or "Political Protest?": Partisan Cable News Framing Of The January 6 Attack On The U.S. Capitol, Alexandra M. Stover

Senior Honors Projects, 2020-current

The attack on the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, was a historical event that received widespread media attention in the days and weeks that followed. This study focuses on the differential framing techniques used by Fox News and CNN, specifically, in their coverage of January 6. Additionally, this study addresses the differential framing techniques used across different shows on the same network: “commentary-based” shows and “information-based” shows. In doing so, this research builds upon the vast body of pre-existing news media framing research. This study finds that the differences in framing are more pronounced between Fox News and CNN …

Destruction Or Disruption: Political Violence Inconsistencies In Liberation Movements, Julia Lemmon

Honors Thesis

Political violence is seldom viewed as an appropriate means to achieving a goal. Despite extensive studies produced on the reasons for using political violence, the scholarly world fails to consider comparing why some groups choose violence while their counterparts do not. Why is violence such an attractive method to some organized political groups, but not to others? Drawing on case studies of liberation movements, I attempt to understand what impacts the outcome of political violence during these movements. This study cross examines the Algerian Independence War with India’s nonviolent independence movement and the nonviolent independence movement of East Timor with …

Interpreting 9/11: Religious Or Political Event?, Fadime Apaydin

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Terrorism or violence can be triggered by a variety of circumstances, including the religious, cultural, political, or economic conditions of the social environment, as well as the perpetrator’s personal characteristics. However, studies conducted in the aftermath of 9/11 have largely described the attacks as religious events, arguing that religion inherently causes violence or that religion is the main motivation for violence. The primary argument for the approach adopted by such studies is that secular institutions are inclined to be less violent than religious ones. A second approach, on the other hand, fundamentally opposes the arguments that led to describing the …

The Political Nature Of Tourism: How A Country's Political Factors Influence Tourist's Willingness To Travel, Camilla Alarcon

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Hard currency earned from travel and tourism feeds an important share of currency reserves in many countries and is often a key source of income, but how do political factors influence travelers’ decisions to visit and spend money in destination countries? In this paper, I argue that political factors such as regime type, political violence, and corruption can override traditional tourism attractors in determining potential visitors’ professed likelihood of traveling to hypothetical vacation destinations. In addition, I expect that political factors will hold less weight in determining self-reported likelihood of traveling when proper nouns are used to describe country profiles …

Helpers In Divided Times: The Psychological Experience Of Care Providers In The Ongoing Social Movement In Hong Kong, A Community Engagement Project, Sofia Lee

Expressive Therapies Capstone Theses

This community engagement project highlights the psychological experience of care providers from Hong Kong in the ongoing social movement. While the largest-scale Hong Kong social movement since June 2019 has led to an unprecedented mental health crisis, little is known about the psychological narratives of its affected communities, including care providers. The literature review first introduces the historical context of Hong Kong, as well as the relationship between social movements and internal experiences using the Movement Cycle framework. It then discusses the concept of political trauma, challenges for care providers, and the importance of an embodied approach in community-based work. …

Political Violence In Bangladesh: Explaining The Role Of State, Zunaid Almamun

Theses and Dissertations

Violence has been an integral part of the politics of Bangladesh since after its independence. The government has used the coercive apparatus of the state in order to confront the political opponents and the dissenters. Irrespective of the type of regime and political parties in power, the state always perpetrated violence against its citizens. On the one hand, the government used the law enforcement agencies, and the specialists of violence relied on coercion against the citizens, on the other hand, various groups appeared as the affiliates of the government in perpetrating violence. However, the nature of violence changed over time, …

“The Policy Of Intimidation Had Been So Successfully Managed That Many Colored Men Kept Away From The Polls”: Violence In The Reconstruction Era South, Marykatherine Klaybor

Undergraduate Honors Thesis Collection

After the American Civil War ended in 1865, the United States entered an era known as Reconstruction, which lasted until 1877. In this postwar period the federal government faced pressure to reincorporate the former Confederate States back into the Union. In addition, Southern political, economic, and social systems needed to be transformed in the wake of emancipation and the country grappled with the question of political rights for newly freed people. Throughout the era, the Republican Party favored policies that secured the rights of black Southerners while facing opposition from many Southern white Democrats. This opposition often manifested in unchecked …

How Does Relative Deprivation Cause People To Condone Political Violence? A Case Study Of Bangladesh, Md Mamunur Rashid

Browse all Theses and Dissertations

How does relative deprivation cause people to condone political violence? This thesis investigates this question by utilizing survey data conducted in Bangladesh. Scarcity of public resources, lethal political confrontation and poor resource allocation make Bangladesh a fertile ground for violence. Although the survey suggests a relationship exists between relative deprivation and the public attitude toward condoning political violence, the regression analysis reveals that the relationship is imprecise. Small sample size, lack of technical capacity, and limited applicability of the foundational theory may have caused this imprecise outcome. The study concludes by providing recommendations for future research to undertake a mixed …

The Effect Of Foreign Aid On Political Violence: Learning From Case Studies Of Nigeria And Sierra Leone, Charlotte Rohrer

Politics Honors Papers

Policymakers in OECD countries regularly cite reducing political violence as a fundamental purpose of foreign aid. For example, countries such as Pakistan and Iraq have received considerable amounts of aid meant to address the root causes of political violence. This project analyzes quantitative and qualitative evidence to assess whether foreign aid can reduce political violence. The quantitative and qualitative analyses study Boko Haram in Nigeria and the Revolutionary United Front in Sierra Leone to focus on regional and country-wide political violence. The study further focuses on aid projects in Sierra Leone and Nigeria as a means to reduce or curb …

When Do Ties Bind? Foreign Fighters, Social Embeddedness, And Combatant Repertoires Of Behavior During Civil War, Pauline Luz Moore

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

How does the extent to which rebel organizations are embedded into local conflict contexts - i.e. the extent to which they "fit in" or "stand out" from local populations - affect their behavior on and off the battlefield during civil war? This dissertation examines why rebel group propensities to engage in governance and violence during war vary at the macro and microlevels of analysis and uses as its point of departure the presence of foreign fighters in the ranks of rebel groups engaged in civil war. I employ a cross-national analysis of insurgencies from 1989-2011, and also conduct a theory-testing …

The Oath Keepers: Patriotism, Dissent, And The Edge Of Violence, Sam Jackson

Dissertations - ALL

This dissertation investigates a prominent group in the patriot/militia movement called the Oath Keepers. It explores how the group uses references to core political ideas and important political events from American history. It argues that these rhetorical strategies serve three purposes: (1) helping the group’s supporters to make sense of contemporary America, (2) providing the group’s supporters with models of appropriate behavior in response to ongoing events, and (3) help the group to gain additional support. It also argues that different rhetorical strategies are useful for different purposes and target different audiences.

A Critical Analysis Of Presidential Term Limits In Africa: A Mixed-Methods Case Study Of Causes Of Political Violence In Burundi, Foday Darboe

Department of Conflict Resolution Studies Theses and Dissertations

The crisis in Burundi began when President Pierre Nkurunziza declared that he would pursue a third term despite a two-term limitation in Burundi’s Constitution. Opposition parties along, with some members of President Nkurunziza’s own National Council for Defence of Democracy, Forces for the Defence of Democracy (CNDD-FDD), argued that President Nkurunziza’s decision to extend his rule beyond the maximum two-terms was in direct violation of the Arusha Peace and Reconciliation agreement, also referred to as the Arusha agreement, signed in 2000. This action triggered opposition parties and civil society groups to organize peaceful protests to challenge President Nkurunziza’s third term …

The Responsibility To Prevent : Neocolonialism, Poverty And Mass Atrocity Crimes In Africa, Eileen Brino

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

The Responsibility to Protect principle was founded on the premise that sovereignty requires responsibility. The principle establishes the responsibility of states to protect their citizens from mass atrocity crimes and shifts the responsibility to the international community if states fail. This thesis explains how former colonies have had particular difficulty in meeting this responsibility and often fail to protect their populations from things like severe poverty and human rights abuses including mass atrocity crimes. In former colonies the matter of responsibility is complicated by the residual effects of colonial policies that often leave former colonies impoverished, dependent, socially fragmented and …

Aiding Repression? : The Effects Of U.S. Military Aid On Conflict Intensity And Civilian Targeting, Amira Jadoon

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

This three-essay dissertation contributes to a nuanced theoretical and empirical understanding of the links between international security, foreign aid and political violence. It examines how U.S military aid interacts with domestic conflict processes to affect the nature and magnitude of violence within recipient countries. As such, it assesses the usefulness of foreign aid to promote international security, by investigating its implications on conflict intensity and civilian targeting by state and non-state actors.

Nixon's War On Terrorism: The Fbi, Leftist Guerrillas, And The Origins Of Watergate, Daniel S. Chard

Doctoral Dissertations

In 1969, militant factions within both Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) and the Black Panther Party (BPP) began to form the United States’ first clandestine revolutionary urban guerrilla organizations: the Weather Underground and the Black Liberation Army (BLA). These groups carried out bombings, police ambushes, and other attacks throughout the country, prompting responses from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the administration of President Richard M. Nixon. Several historians have analyzed U.S. leftist guerrillas’ motives, and much has been written on FBI operations against the Black Power movement and New Left, including the Bureau’s covert counterintelligence programs (COINTELPROs) …

A One Percent Chance: Jabotinsky, Bernadotte, And The Iron Wall Doctrine, Andrew Harman

War, Diplomacy, and Society (MA) Theses

This thesis is an examination of the long historical processes that have led to the Israel/Palestine conflict to the contemporary period, focusing mostly on the period before Israeli independence and the 1948 war that created the Jewish state. As Zionism emerged at the turn of the twentieth century to combat the antisemitism of Europe, practical and political facets of the movement sought immigration to Palestine, an area occupied by a large population of Arab natives. The answer to how the Zionists would achieve a Jewish state in that region, largely ignoring the indigenous population, fostered disagreements and a split in …

Embedded Violence : A Quantitative Analysis Of Political Violence In India, Madhukar K. Shetty

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

ABSTRACT

Winning Well: Civil Resistance Mechanisms Of Success, Democracy, And Civil Peace, Jonathan C. Pinckney

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Several recent studies indicate that revolutions of non-violent civil resistance lead to more democratic and peaceful political transitions than either violent revolutions or elite-led political transitions. However, this general trend has not been disaggregated to explain the many prominent cases where nonviolent revolutions are followed by authoritarianism or civil war. Understanding these divergent cases is critical, particularly in light of the problematic transitions following the "Arab Spring" revolutions of 2011. In this paper I explain why nonviolent revolutions sometimes lead to these negative outcomes. I show, through quantitative analysis of a dataset of all successful non-violent revolutions from 1900-2006 and …

Unpacking The Impact Of Democracy On Terrorism, Issares Lertangtam

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

While policy makers assert that democracy can reduce terrorism, academics have produced differing theories explaining the relationship between the two. One theory suggests that democracy discourages terrorism because citizens in democracy can express grievances through electoral process resulting in their less incentive to resort to violence. Another theory argues that democracy encourages terrorism because its enabling environment reduces the cost of terrorist activities. Still another contends that democracy increases terrorism because political contestation in democracy induces some groups to use violence to outbid for their cause. Other strands exist including one suggesting no relationship between democracy and terrorism. These controversial …

Religion And Conflict: What Explains The Puzzling Case Of “Islamic Violence” And Islamist Party Moderation?, Suveyda Karakaya

Doctoral Dissertations

Despite considerable interest in the relationship between Islam and political violence, there is little systematic empirical research that explores the intra-state conflict proneness of Muslim majority states. Existing studies either offer inconclusive evidence of a relationship or suffer from methodological flaws. If we analyze the proportion of countries with large Muslim populations that experience domestic armed conflicts, Muslim-majority states do in fact stand out. What explains the prevalence of political violence in the Muslim world and to what extent does religion play a role in promoting violence? Under which conditions ethno-political organizations opt for violent strategies to achieve their political …

The Palestinian Shahid And The Development Of The Model 21st Century Islamic Terrorist, Benjamin Timothy Acosta

Theses Digitization Project

The purpose of this study seeks to uncover the relationship between the political objectives of the primary Palestinian political entities, the methods used by those entities to pursue their goals, and the socio-cultural fluctuation vis-á-vis the acceptability of, and participation in, suicide terrorism that has occured as a result.

Political Violence And Conflict Resolution: The Struggle For Peace In Northern Ireland, Lisa G. Fox

Graduate Program in International Studies Theses & Dissertations

Political violence, especially in ethnoreligious conflicts, continues to threaten the stability and security of the international environment. Motivations for using violence are complex and can evolve over time. As long as one or more of the motivations continue to exist, parties to a conflict will feel that violence is a legitimate course of action and, thus, the conflict will persist.

Theories about the causes of conflict and the approaches that should be taken to terminate it mostly propose a single approach. A single approach, however, will address certain issues while leaving others unresolved, allowing some motivations to continue stimulating conflict. …

Sequelae Of Political Torture: Narratives Of Trauma And Resilience By Iranian Torture Survivors, Nouriman Ghahary

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

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Genesis And Resolution Of Political Violence In Sub-Saharan Africa, Tola Merid

Master's Theses

Satellites that enable viewers to observe actual fighting on a day-to-day basis have created a heightened awareness of the pervasiveness of violent conflict in the world. The incidents of declared and undeclared war, bombings, assassinations and coups d'etat reinforce the reality that conflict is the norm rather than the exception in the politics of nations. The awareness that conflict, once resolved in negotiations between tribal chiefs or through hand-to-hand combat between small group of fighters, may in the immediate future bring civilization to an end through a nuclear holocaust, has accelerated the serious study of the phenomenon by political scientists, …