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Property Rights And International Trade: An Institutional Determinant Of Export Structure, Gregory Alan Bonadies

Dissertations

This work investigates the connection, independent of other factors, between a country’s system of law and property rights and patterns of trade. Stronger property rights institutions are hypothesized to lead to greater diversity in exports and a greater proportion of higher value-added exports. Production and export possibilities depend on capital, labor, and technology. Technology is the way in which capital and labor resources can be organized for productive purposes. Property rights condition expressions of technology and thus production possibilities and export potential. Consequently, if property rights vary between countries, then technological expression, production possibilities, and export potential vary as well. …

Natural Disasters In Latin America: The Role Of Disaster Type And Productive Sector On The Urban-Rural Income Gap And Rural To Urban Migration, Madeline Alice Messick

Dissertations

This research provides insight into the impact of natural disasters as drivers of rural to urban migration in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC). Disasters of varying types are predicted to have differing impacts on the productive sectors of agriculture, industry, and services; which due to the concentration of the various productive sectors in either urban or rural areas, subsequently changes the urban-rural wage differential. Changes to the wage differential (as measured by the urban-rural income gap) are predicted to lead to movement between urban and rural areas until a new equilibrium wage is reached.

This dissertation first identifies a …

The House That Propaganda Built: Historicizing The Democracy Promotion Efforts And Measurement Tools Of Freedom House, Emily A. Zerndt

Dissertations

Democracy promotion has been an overt objective of American foreign policy ever since Woodrow Wilson declared it the goal of WWI. This dissertation examines the influence of Freedom House on those policy decisions as well as academia. Freedom House was created in 1941 with the “quiet encouragement” of both Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt to combat the pervasive isolationism in the United States. Erected as the Western counterpoint to the Braunhaus, the Nazi propaganda center, Freedom House has distinctly political origins. Over the course of its institutional life, Freedom House has evolved from keeping a “balance sheet” on the level of …

The Role Of Money And Endorsements In Same-Sex Marriage Ballot Initiatives, Jessica Lorraine Loyet Gracey

Dissertations

This research examines how well certain theories of direct democracy explain outcomes of ballot measures on gay marriage bans. Most theories of direct democracy focus on the types of issues that are quite dissimilar from gay marriage bans. Therefore these theories will likely not do a good job of explaining the results of these elections. In particular I examine the role of campaign spending and elite endorsements in campaigns for gay marriage ban ballot initiatives. In candidate elections, voters commonly use heuristics such as party labels and past performance to help them decide. In most ballot initiative contests voters rely …

The Impact Of Globalization On Global Civil Society Expansion, Barbara Jean Hosto-Marti

Dissertations

In recent decades, global civil society (GCS) actors have emerged as important players in global governance. Global civil society organizations have elevated the policy agenda profile of human rights, women’s rights, and environmental concerns. Global civil society has overcome the objections of powerful countries to establish the International Criminal Court and the Mine Ban Treaty and successfully opposed the Multilateral Agreement on Investment and WTO’s Doha Development Round. These notable successes demonstrate the need for a better understanding of global civil society’s motives and its role in international public policy. This dissertation, uses a 29-year panel regression of 122 countries …

Fascism Revisited Or Millennial Eurosceptic Populism? Analysis And Rationale For A New Political Movement In The 21st Century, Prebble Q. Ramswell

Dissertations

Euroscepticism has steadily increased since the late 1990s, culminating in the emergence and success of numerous Eurosceptic and anti-establishment parties at the national and international level. Though often considered fascist and extremist, these groups have successfully achieved recognition and mainstream support as their once non-traditional ideas have become the norm. It is argued that these groups are a new class of social movement organization, a modern-day manifestation of fascism to be called Millennial Eurosceptic Populism. What conditions have allowed for these groups to emerge and attain such levels of success? Analysis utilizing fsQCA will test variables from McAdam’s Political Process …

Remittances As Contributor To Risk Management And Poverty Reduction In Grenada, Dianne Jntl Rosemary Forte

Dissertations

A Small Island Development States (SIDS) viewpoint is underrepresented in the existing migration literature. That perspective is necessary because SIDS geography creates a unique set of social and economic circumstances that predisposes small states to high vulnerability to external shocks from environmental events and influences emigration decision making. Like other SIDS, Grenada is characterized by small land mass, small population, limited opportunities for productive labor, and limited resources to efficiently support all the requirements of modern institutions. This has resulted in high levels of emigration and a pattern of circularity as Grenadian households make rational decisions to manage risk and …

Choral Theatre, Albert Joseph Wolfe Jr.

Dissertations

Jamaica gained its independence from Great Britain in 1962, after some 300 years of colonization. Prior to Independence, the standard arts education curriculum was decidedly British and Western European. That which was labeled Caribbean or Jamaican “folk” by the British was deemed inferior and was not taught, demonstrated, or performed in formal settings. Thus, generations of Jamaicans never observed or imagined a Caribbean aesthetic in the visual and performing arts. Instead, pre-Independence Jamaicans were taught British and Western European music and performed it the “British” way.

Today, Jamaicans boast a number of artistic developments that are instantly recognized across the …

Police Contracting In St. Louis County: Focusing Events And Changes In Image And Venue In Five Case Studies, Alan W. Karr

Dissertations

St. Louis County, Missouri is a fragmented suburban area, covering 505 square miles, with ninety separate municipalities. Fifty-six municipalities maintain in-house police departments, while thirty-four contract police services from other governments. Previous research concerning interjurisdictional collaboration efforts has been rooted in the rational choice theory. However, the rational choice theory alone does not explain why some municipalities do or do not enter into contracts for police services. The purpose of this work is to examine police contracting decisions in St. Louis County, specifically the drivers behind contracting discussions and decisions in five sample municipalities in St. Louis County. The five …

Do Parties Matter? A Political Model Of Monetary Policy In Open Economies, Hulya Unlusoy

Dissertations

In this doctoral dissertation, I present an original political model of monetary policy in open economies that reframes the Mundell-Fleming model when party politics and long-term interest rates are examined with the three economic variables (monetary policy autonomy, capital mobility, fixed exchange rate) that form the basis of the Mundell-Fleming model. The Mundell-Fleming model explains that there is no monetary policy autonomy in the short term under high capital mobility and a fixed exchange rate system. To see whether I arrive at a different conclusion than the Mundell-Fleming model, I pose the following two research questions: 1. What explains variations …

The Behavioral Revolution In Contemporary Political Science: Narrative, Identity, Practice, Joshua R. Berkenpas

Dissertations

The behavioral revolution of the 1950s and early 1960s is a foundational moment in the history of political science and is widely considered to be a time in when the discipline shed its traditional roots by embracing its identity as a modern social science. This dissertation examines reference works published between 1980 and 2012 in order to gauge the contemporary significance of the behavioral revolution. The behavioral revolution is discussed in many foundation narratives throughout reference works like dictionaries, encyclopedias, and handbooks. After sixty years, why does the behavioral revolution still figure centrally in the way political scientists remember their …

Defect Or Defend? Explaining Military Responses During The Arab Uprisings, Timothy Hazen

Dissertations

The Arab uprisings demonstrated that a military's response to the domestic unrest had a significant impact on whether the protests were successful and triggered regime change. In Egypt and Tunisia, the militaries defected from the incumbent regimes, and as a result the ruling leaders were removed, whereas in Bahrain, the military defended the regime and used violence against protesters, which led to the continuation of the government's rule. Scholars identify numerous factors to explain Middle East and North African (MENA) military behavior during the Arab uprising but overall these arguments tend to overemphasize individual case studies and fail to provide …

The Responsibility To Protect And United States Intervention In The Libyan Civil War (2011), Paul Tang Abomo

Dissertations

ABSTRACT

On April 6, 1994, Rwandan president Juvenal Habyarimana’s plane was shot down. Soon after, there were reports that massive ethnic-based violence was unfolding, and the only way to stop it was the presence of an outside military force. The Clinton administration knew Rwanda was being engulfed by genocide but ignored the information to justify its inaction. Seventeen years later, on 15 February 2011, the arrest of Mr. Fathi Terbil, a well-known lawyer and human rights defender by the Libyan internal security forces (Jihaz al-Amn al-Dakhili) sparked a mass protest in Benghazi, Libya. When demonstrations began the Gaddafi government responded …

Neural Correlates Of Political Attitudes: Emotion And Ideology In The Brain, Dane Gorman Wendell

Dissertations

Do conservatives and liberals have differing sensitivities to avoidance, inhibition, and negative emotion? Do psychological factors beneath our conscious awareness underlie the political ideologies we embrace? Political science researchers have broken new ground over the past ten years in our understanding of the psychology and physiology of political ideology. However, large questions remain about how political ideology may be related to avoidance motivations and negative emotion. This work expands our current knowledge in this area by presenting three studies with multiple methodologies: original survey data, electroencephalographic measurements, and behavioral experiments in a lab setting. Working in the tradition of J.A. …

United States Foreign Policy Toward Hiv/Aids In Africa: The Role Of Pharmaceutical Companies In The Formulation And Implementation Of The President’S Emergency Plan For Aids Relief (Pepfar) 2003-2008, Toussaint Kafarhire Murhula

Dissertations

During his 2003 State of the Union Address, President Bush announced his Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) and asked Congress, over the next five years, to authorize the appropriation of $15 billion to provide treatment, prevention and care to people infected and affected by HIV/AIDS, mostly in Sub-Saharan Africa. Given the existing pattern of neglect and indifference in U.S.-Africa relations and the Bush campaign’s statement in 2000 dismissing Africa from his foreign policy priorities, what then justifies his administration’s undertaking of this massive foreign policy change?

My dissertation offers insight into the role played by private US pharmaceutical companies …