Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Dual Intransigence: An Assessment Of The Us-Iran Conflict And Prospects For Rapprochement, Chad Lama

Master's Theses

In the months leading up to the 2012 Presidential Election, a number of Republican candidates that were vying for the nomination against the incumbent, Barack Obama, made sensational claims regarding the “Nuclear Iran Question”. This study discusses the issue of a nuclear Iran, what this means for regional stability, and what America’s options are in dealing with the Islamic Republic. Specifically the researcher addresses the consequences of a strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities, conducting a discourse analysis for the purposes of demonstrating the polarizing affect this issue has had on some of the leading scholars, theorists and practitioners. The central …

Struggling Recovery And Economic Policy Uncertainty: Testimony Before The Joint Revenue Hearing, House And Senate Ways And Means Committees, Massachusetts State House, Boston, Ma, Christian Weller

Christian Weller

The U.S. economy is in the fourth year of a recovery that started in June 2009. The fact that the economy is in recovery, even modestly, is something of a miracle given how stacked the deck is against it. This is absolutely unique in American economic history: There has never been a recovery without the housing market expanding substantially as well; There has never been a recovery with state and local governments shrinking for three years in a row; There has never been a recovery with households owing, on average, well more than 100 percent of their after-tax income in …

Human Rights Policy Paper: Rape As A Tactic Of War, Sarah Fitzgerald

Global Studies Student Scholarship

This paper reports on rape used as a tactic of war, outlining the scope of the problem and introducing policy options to address the issue on a global scale. Policy options targeted at relief services include increasing direct aid through funding fistula surgeries, building rural hospitals, and providing skills training for women awaiting surgery. Additional policy options addressing the problem at its root include legislative changes to stop impunity at the International Criminal Court, revising the Convention on Genocide to include sex and gender, utilization of devices such as the Rape aXe, and changing the culture of misogyny through educational …

The Structural Constitutional Principle Of Republican Legitimacy, Mark D. Rosen

William & Mary Law Review

Democracy does not spontaneously occur by citizens gathering to choose laws. Instead, representative democracy takes place within an extensive legal framework that determines such matters as who gets to vote, how campaigns are conducted, and what conditions must be met for representatives to make valid law. Many of the “rules of the road” that operationalize republicanism have been subject to constitutional challenges in recent decades. For example, lawsuits have been brought against partisan gerrymandering—which is partly responsible for the fact that most congressional districts are no longer party competitive, but instead are either safely Republican or safely Democratic—and against onerous …

Is The Daily Show Bad For Democracy? An Analysis Of Cynicism And Its Significance, Evan Bartlett

Honors Projects in History and Social Sciences

In recent years, satirical news programs like The Daily Show with Jon Stewart have emerged as an important development in contemporary American society, culture, and politics. Critics have argued that The Daily Show has a negative impact on the political attitudes of American citizens by making them cynical about government and the political process as a whole. As a result of these attitudes, they argue, citizens are less apt to participate in politics and, in turn, this behavior is detrimental to American democracy. The purpose of this research project is to explore the debate over whether or not The Daily …

“Dear Premier I Finally Escaped On Youtube”: A Cyberconflict Perspective On Chinese Dissidents, Athina Karatzogianni

Athina Karatzogianni

Massa E Elite. Uma Lição Da 'Renascença Portuguesa', Paulo Ferreira Da Cunha

Paulo Ferreira da Cunha

Há muitos mitos e preconceitos sobre o elitismo e o seu papel em democracia. Confunde-se elite com oligarquia, por exemplo. Desde a Antiga Grécia que os regimes mais perfeitos eram mistos, em que não havia um único princípio a governar, mas vários. Hoje que as manifestações enchem as ruas e as massas podem ter maior protagonismo (já o estão a ter) é preciso refletir sobre o papel das massas e de como se relacionam com as elites. Um contributo para essa reflexão está já no movimento da Renascença Portuguesa, que se encontra em tempo de comemoração, mas também revisitação crítica. …

Struggling Recovery And Economic Policy Uncertainty: Testimony Before The Joint Revenue Hearing, House And Senate Ways And Means Committees, Massachusetts State House, Boston, Ma, Christian Weller

Public Policy and Public Affairs Faculty Publication Series

The U.S. economy is in the fourth year of a recovery that started in June 2009. The fact that the economy is in recovery, even modestly, is something of a miracle given how stacked the deck is against it.

This is absolutely unique in American economic history: There has never been a recovery without the housing market expanding substantially as well; There has never been a recovery with state and local governments shrinking for three years in a row; There has never been a recovery with households owing, on average, well more than 100 percent of their after-tax income in …

I Am The Light Of The World: An “I Am” Statement Of Jesus, David C. Taylor Jr

David C Taylor Jr

The Gospel of John contains eight “I AM” statements of Jesus. “I AM” is the term God first used of Himself when speaking to Moses at the burning bush (Exodus 3:14). By using this statement, Jesus was aligning Himself with God. One specific use of the statement in John comes in chapter 8 verse 12. Jesus states that He is the light of the world. His claim showed and declared that He has come to take away darkness from the world and give them the light of life. The statement showed His power, and His Deity and His relationship with …

Diseñando Colisiones De Satélites En La Guerra Cibernética Encubierta, Jan Kallberg

Jan Kallberg

La guerra concentrada en la red depende de la red de información global para capacidades de combate conjuntas.3 La capa fundamental crea la capacidad de combate global como la columna vertebral espacial de la red de información donde los haberes espaciales son el elemento decisivo. EE.UU. depende de las capacidades espaciales para su éxito y la seguridad nacional de EE.UU. se basa hoy en día en un número limitado de satélites muy utilizados. Estos satélites son cruciales para la disuasión estratégica, la vigilancia, la recopilación de inteligencia y las comunicaciones militares. Si la disuasión estratégica falla, los satélites forman parte …

Seis Planteamientos, Jose Luis Sardon

Jose Luis Sardon

Un breve repaso de los seis planteamientos fundamentales en el continuo ideológico del pensamiento económico.

Magee, J. Harry (Sc 66), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid and scan (Click on "additional files" below) for Manuscripts Small Collection 66. Letter, 23 December 1868, written by J. Harry Magee, Washington, D.C., to Dr. Albert Covington, Bowling Green, Kentucky, regarding the record of the U. S. Senate impeachment proceedings against President Andrew Johnson.

The Rise Of Religious Parties In Turkey And India, Hannah Donovan

Political Science Student Scholarship

This project examines the rise of religious parties in secular democracies. In both Turkey and India, religious parties have enjoyed electoral successes (and failures). While religion is a significant issue to voters, it is oftentimes the persistence of economic problems that leads to the rise and fall of religious parties. The impact of coalition governments, change in political rhetoric, and relationship between government and religion in both countries are also analyzed and contrasted.

Jfk: Covered And Smothered, Donald E. Wilkes Jr.

Popular Media

"If we could run the Zapruder film in reverse, patch up the president’s gruesome head wound, send the bullets flying back to the chambers whence they came, return the assassins to their sinister underworld and back up the Lincoln convertible so that Jack and Jackie are once again waving to the crowds in the Texas sunshine, then we could also walk backwards through the last 30 years, becoming younger and more hopeful, forgetting tragedies one after the other, arriving finally at a point of innocent stasis where we can stand forever watching the American sunrise with immortal delight. But we …

Nordic Cooperation In The Post-Cold War Era: A Case Study Of Institutional Persistence, Pavla Landiss

Dissertations

Long-lasting cooperation among a group of nations is rare. Scholars of different traditions disagree about the possibilities of sustained cooperation. This dissertation focuses on the cooperation among the five nations in Northern Europe sometimes referred to as the Nordics – Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden, plus three self-governing territories – the Faroe Islands, Greenland, and the Åland Islands. They form a distinct region with a common identity and a well developed cooperation. The overarching norm is cooperation based on respect for national sovereignty. It started emerging in the 19th century, but was formalized first after World War II. The …

Troubling Questions About Obama’S Drone Warfare, Nicholas Hayes

University Chair in Critical Thinking Publications

No abstract provided.

The National Security Presidency In The Post-9/11 World, Thomas C. Scandlyn

Chancellor’s Honors Program Projects

No abstract provided.

Deciding To Divert: Domestic And International Sources Of Constraints On Leader Decision-Making, Norris Thomas Feeney

Doctoral Dissertations

Domestic unrest is a constant feature in the international system. Aside from the impact unrest has on domestic populations, political turmoil also has consequences for other states in the international system. A long-held belief, backed by anecdotal evidence, is that leaders use aggressive foreign policy to divert public attention in periods of declining domestic political fortunes. However, consistent evidence for this pattern of behavior has not emerged across large-N analyses in the extant diversionary literature. This dissertation advances the search for evidence of diversion by assessing the likelihood leaders of various regime types will divert, comparing not only non-democracies with …

How And Why Do Dictatorships Survive? Lessons For The Middle East, Erica Frantz

Bridgewater Review

Political events in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) have dominated news headlines for the past two years. Since the revolution in Tunisia in December 2010, one dictatorship after the next has appeared on the verge of collapse, as citizens gather en masse to voice their demands for democratic governance. In countries such as Libya and Egypt, though relatively successful democratic elections were held following the collapse of long-standing dictatorships, it is uncertain whether the new political system being installed will be democratic or autocratic. When looking to the future of the region beyond the Arab Spring, one thing …

Why Some Muslim Countries Are Democracies And Some Are Not, Shaheen Mozaffar

Bridgewater Review

The transitions to democracy in Tunisia and Egypt shortly after the popular uprisings of the Arab Spring, and subsequently in Libya, provide an opportunity to test the empirical validity of the conventional wisdom that democracy cannot be established and sustained in Muslim countries. This article undertakes this task through a systematic comparative analysis of 56 countries classified as Muslim countries by virtue of their membership in the Organization of Islamic Countries (OIC). It first maps variations in the incidence of democracy among the 56 Muslim countries based on the widely used Freedom House Rating (FHR, www.freedomhouse.org) of countries into “Free,” …

Will The Arab Spring Succeed In Bringing Bread, Freedom, And Dignity?, Sandra Popiden

Bridgewater Review

Economic discontent fueled the political dissatisfaction that erupted in the Arab Spring uprisings in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, and Yemen in 2011. Demonstrators blamed repressive authoritarian governments for slow economic growth, increasing poverty and social inequality, high youth unemployment and rampant corruption. Alongside demands for increased political freedom, greater participation in politics, and an end to repression were calls for economic freedom and improved well-being. The uprisings, which spawned democracy in Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya, continue to reverberate across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) by opening up previously closed public spaces to wider popular participation in national debates over …

Social Media And Political Changes In Al-Alam Al-Arabi, Jabbar Al-Obaidi

Bridgewater Review

The Arab countries are typically described as lacking democratic traditions, freedom of the press, human rights and civil liberties. The utilization of social media for political purposes became crucial to the widespread expression of pent-up social discontent that precipitated the Arab Spring. Uploaded videos, photos, and Twitter feeds served to outrage people in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Yemen, Bahrain, and Syria. This volatile combination of a young population, authoritarian rule, corruption and poverty is prompting youth to spearhead political demonstrations and the demand for regime change.

Can A Financial Crisis Occur Under The Rules Of Islamic Finance?, Michelle Walton

Political Science

No abstract provided.

Recusal, Government Ethics, And Superannuated Constitutional Theory, Keith Swisher

Keith Swisher

Something good and something bad happened recently in government and judicial ethics; no one has truly noticed yet for some reason. The Supreme Court all but banned First Amendment analysis as applied to recusal laws, both legislative and judicial. That, actually, is the good thing, or so I argue. The bad thing is that the Court, in doing so, used a geriatric approach to constitutional theory. The approach is unduly reverent of anything “old;” and old is not limited to the practices of the Founding Fathers, but also includes “traditional” practices within some undefined range. But what is old is …

¿Qué Es Transparencia?, Rafael Ramírez Villaescusa

Rafael Ramírez Villaescusa

El reciente proceso de consolidación democrática experimentado por México en la última década ha estado acompañado de una serie de políticas públicas encaminadas a fortalecer la participación ciudadana dentro de la toma de decisiones, así como la rendición de cuentas gubernamental. Una de esas acciones consistió en la promulgación, durante el sexenio del Presidente Fox, de la Ley Federal de Transparencia y Acceso a la Información Pública Gubernamental. Lo anterior, además, se inscribió en el contexto de un movimiento global a favor del derecho a saber, impulsado por diversas organizaciones internacionales. Parece ser que la transparencia llegó para quedarse, lo …

Replacing And Amending Constitutions: The Logic Of Constitutional Change In Latin America, Gabriel L. Negretto

Gabriel L. Negretto

Since 1978, all countries in Latin America have either replaced or amended their constitutions. What explains the choice between these two substantively different means of constitutional transformation? This article argues that constitutions are replaced when they fail to work as governance structures or when their design prevents competing political interests from accommodating to changing environments. According to this perspective, constitutions are likely to be replaced when constitutional crises are frequent, when political actors lack the capacity to implement changes by means of amendments or judicial interpretation, or when the constitutional regime has a power-concentrating design. It is further argued that …

Wie Verändert Das Internet Die Demokratie?, Ralf Lindner

Ralf Lindner

Obwohl seit dem Aufstieg des Internets zum Massenmedium in den 1990er Jahren Ernüchterung über die Demokratisierungswirkung der neuen Medien eingetreten ist, werden regelmäßig weitreichende Erwartungen über der politische Transformationspotenzial des Internets formuliert. So wird häufig postuliert, dass das Internet demokratische Politik über kurz oder lang fundamental verändern werde, indem universeller Informationszugang ermöglicht, etablierte Machtstrukturen unterminiert und politische Partizipation gesteigert werde. Der Beitrag erörtert zunächst die Hintergründe für populäre Fehlschlüsse, die die Debatte um elektronische Demokratie begleiten. Auf der Grundlage einer kritischen Reflexion mit den ideologisch-normativ imprägnierten Erwartungen an das Internet werden theoretisch wie empirisch robustere Überlegungen zum Beitrag der neuen …

After Privacy: The Rise Of Facebook, The Fall Of Wikileaks, And Singapore’S Personal Data Protection Act 2012, Simon Chesterman

Simon Chesterman

This article discusses the changing ways in which information is produced, stored, and shared — exemplified by the rise of social-networking sites like Facebook and controversies over the activities of WikiLeaks — and the implications for privacy and data protection. Legal protections of privacy have always been reactive, but the coherence of any legal regime has also been undermined by the lack of a strong theory of what privacy is. There is more promise in the narrower field of data protection. Singapore, which does not recognise a right to privacy, has positioned itself as an e-commerce hub but had no …

Identity And Intersectionality For Big City Mayors: A Phenomenological Analysis Of Black Women, Constance J. Brooks

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The role of a mayor is integral within local governance. Their leadership and influence directly effectuates outcomes for the cities over which they preside. For big city mayors, their impact extends beyond local government and into the national policy arena. The way an individual demonstrates the role of mayor can be influenced by his/her perception of their own identity. However, within the realm of academic research dedicated to mayoral leadership and African Americans in politics, Black female mayors have largely been ignored. In particular, there are no known attempts at investigating the intersection of race and gender in understanding Black …

The Risks Of Outsourcing Security: Foreign Security Forces In United States National Security Policy, Eric Rittinger

Political Science - Dissertations

This study combines insights from international relations, diplomatic history, and civil-military relations to improve our understanding of the tenuous arrangement between the United States and its foreign military proxies. For over a century, the U.S. has armed and trained these proxies to assume responsibilities that its own military might otherwise have to bear. But throughout that time, critics have doubted whether the U.S. could or should delegate sensitive security responsibilities to "dubious" foreign soldiers. Such doubt highlights an international analog to the principal-agent problem normally associated with domestic civil-military relations. I examine why this international principal-agent problem arose, how it …