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Full-Text Articles in Other Political Science

India's Dalit Moment, Gabriel Kenneth Carroll Conlon Dec 2016

India's Dalit Moment, Gabriel Kenneth Carroll Conlon

Capstones

This summer a brutal attack on Dalit youths in the Indian state of Gujarat set off months of street protests. The attack and subsequent protests underscored the persistence of caste-based discrimination in rural India, and the often brutal manner in which Dalits – members of India’s lowest castes – are excluded from everyday society. “India’s Dalit Moment” is a field report examining the causes and protagonists of the revolt. With on-the-ground reporting in Gujarat, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and Bihar, this multimedia piece – including print, radio and photo elements – conveys a synthetic, but detailed window into the Dalit community …


Demise From Within: Factionalism In Maoist Parliamentary Politics In Nepal, Jehdeiah Mixon Oct 2016

Demise From Within: Factionalism In Maoist Parliamentary Politics In Nepal, Jehdeiah Mixon

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Over the last decade, the Communist Party of NepalMaoists Center (CPNMaoist Center) has suffered from fragmentation. Currently led by Prime Minister and chairman Prachanda, tensions within the CPNMaoist Center have resulted in former CPNMaoist Center chairman Mohan Baidya splitting with the party in 2012, followed by former Prime Minister Dr. Baburam Bhattarai in 2015. Prachanda, Baidya and Bhattarai, who are credited for igniting the Maoist People’s War (19962006), now lead three separate political factions within parliament. Standard explanations for the splits point to ideological differences as the basis of the splits, due to the CPNMaoist Center’s history of factionalism along …


Sovereignty Considerations And Social Change In The Wake Of India's Recent Sodomy Cases, Deepa Das Acevedo Sep 2016

Sovereignty Considerations And Social Change In The Wake Of India's Recent Sodomy Cases, Deepa Das Acevedo

All Faculty Scholarship

American constitutional law scholars have long questioned whether courts can really drive social reform, and this position remains largely unchallenged even in the wake of recent landmark decisions affecting the LGBT community. In contrast, court watchers in India — spurred by developments in a special type of legal action developed in the late 1970s known as “public interest litigation,” or “PIL” — have only recently begun questioning the judiciary’s ability to promote progressive social change. Indian scholarship on this point has veered between despair that PIL cases no longer reliably produce good outcomes for India’s most disadvantaged, and optimism that …


The Saltwater Theory: A Directed Study Of Failed Revolutions, James Gulliksen Apr 2016

The Saltwater Theory: A Directed Study Of Failed Revolutions, James Gulliksen

Student Works

From the Second World War to date, social scientists who study revolutions have engaged in a pivot from initially focusing on the conditions of the state to a more actor-centric model. In their eyes, the actors (revolutionaries, political parties, foreign nations) within a sphere decide a path for political change, rather than the existing conditions (political rights, economic conditions, repression, etc.) in the same environment. This essay counters this thinking by introducing a Saltwater Theory to explain how different forms of uprisings (the same as different species of animals) can survive in some environments but not others. Additionally, the paper …


Sustainable Development Goals Worth Sharing, Erika Simpson Mar 2016

Sustainable Development Goals Worth Sharing, Erika Simpson

Political Science Publications

The international community has agreed upon another set of goals for the next 15 years. On the table are no less than 169 objectives and 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The new aspirations are summarized and the merits and demerits of further elaboration and measurement including country-specific deadlines and targets are discussed. The hefty budget to achieve all 17 goals is estimated at more than $4 trillion US a year. North American policy-makers need to be aware of humankind’s shared aspirations as they consider the new and expensive SDGs. Foreign aid is one of the instruments of North American foreign …