Digital Commons Network^™

No Child Left Behind?: The Relationship Between Education Policy And Student Success, Brittany Resmann

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study investigated how education policy influences student success, and if there are linkages between K-12 education policy and higher education. Historically, education has primarily been a function of state and local governments. The role of the federal government drastically changed with the passage of the No Child Left Behind Act in 2001. This thesis focused on the influence of No Child Behind on several indicators of student success in K-12 and postsecondary education. All fifty states were examined in this study. This approach is rather unusual since it is typical to focus on one state or a small group …

The Unique Silencer, Christofer Ditscheit

Honors Program Theses

For decades people have been puzzled by the sudden drop in voter turnout that occurred in the 1970's and continued through the 1980's and 1990's. The demographics of those voting and not voting have been analyzed repeatedly for some clue as to why people were not turning out in the same numbers. Repeatedly, different factors have been addressed as contributors to the reduction of voter turnout. Studies have found that the United States has a unique factor contributing to the low voter turnout. Even after controlling for socioeconomic and institutional factors, there is something about the United States that has …

International Resources Selected Websites, Steven Alan Samson

Faculty Publications and Presentations

No abstract provided.

South Park And Absurd Culture War Ideologies, The Art Of Stealthy Conservatism, Drew W. Dungan

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

South Park serves as an example of satire and parody lampooning culture war issues in the popular media. Since it targets culture war issues, it is relevant to analyze its political and social stance on the issues as presented within. Both extremes in political and social ideology are targeted. Although the program notes an ideological absurdity in extremist points-of-view, the presentation of the issues attempts to create a sense of moderate ideology criticizing both the far left and far right, when in fact, closer analysis provides evidence that South Park serves a stealthy conservative perspective. Stealthy conservatism presents itself as …

The Last General Of The Red Army, Ed Jocelyn

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

General Xiao Ke, who died last month in Beijing at aged 101, was the last surviving commander of the Chinese Red Army that made the legendary Long March. Only 27 when he led his troops out of their Communist base in south China, Xiao never reached the career heights promised by his youth and ability. Instead, his later life became notable for a commitment to principle that put him at odds with political reality.

Xiao Ke was born in Hunan Province to a scholarly family that had fallen on hard times. Three of his eight brothers and sisters died in …

Islamism, State Control Over Religion And Social Identity: Turkey And Egypt, Alper Y. Dede

Dissertations

In post Cold War politics, as a powerful alternative to the authoritarian "status-quo" regimes of the Muslim World, Islamism has become among the most critical political issues as various Islamist movements increasingly challenge governments for more political reforms, democratization, and greater participation and in the political process.

The current debates on Islamism, though useful, often emphasize the issues of security, democracy, or stability. However, they seem to overlook the importance of processes and the mechanisms of Islamism as well as how Islamists' concerns for preserving their Islamic social identity (Muslimness) and government control over religion contribute to their politicization. Thus, …

Transdisciplinary Conflict Of Laws Foreword: Cavers's Double Legacy, Karen Knop, Ralf Michaels, Annelise Riles

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

.

Nuclear Technologies In The Great Basin Oral History Project, Danielle Endres

Native American Forum on Nuclear Issues

Abstract:

The United States currently faces a nuclear waste crisis. According to a 2002 report by former Secretary of Energy Spencer Abraham, “We have a staggering amount of radioactive waste in this country.”1 The Department of Energy (DOE) estimates that by 2035 the U.S. will have approximately 115,000 metric tons of high-level nuclear waste, which exceeds the capacity of the proposed federal storage site at Yucca Mountain.2 Deciding where and how to store nuclear waste is a significant nuclear, environmental, and health policy issue. The decisions that we make about nuclear waste siting greatly impact the future of nuclear technologies …

Tribes And Yucca Mountain: Native American Forum On Nuclear Issues, Fred Dilger

Native American Forum on Nuclear Issues

Abstract:

-Yucca Mountain: Extensive history of social-cultural studies

-No interaction on transportation

-Unsuccessful effort began in 1993 and ended in 1995

-DOE tribal policy was a very good start

-Restarted again in 2004-DOE invites tribes to TEC meeting

-Shape future interaction between DOE and other Tribes

-Tribes identify themselves as affected by DOE differently than DOE defines affected tribes

Naccs 35th Annual Conference, National Association For Chicana And Chicano Studies

NACCS Conference Programs

Poesía, Baile y Canción: The Politics, Implications, and Future of Chicana/os' Cultural Production
March 19-22, 2008
Hyatt Regency Hotel

Why Was Yao Ming Fined?

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

A colleague here at the Beijing Sport University whom I have known for over ten years, Yi Jiandong (易剑东), is one of the two most vocal media commentators on Chinese sports in the academic world (along with Lu Yuanzhen 卢元镇). He has reached an exalted status that an American professor like myself can only marvel at from afar. He is one of the “Big-Name Bloggers”(名人博客) on the Qzone blogsite, where he shares space with the likes of Feng Shuyong, head coach of the national track and field team (whose main purpose seems to be to report on Liu Xiang, 2004 …

5 Good Short Reads On China Beat Topics–All By People Who Aren’T China Specialists

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

Academics focusing on China, like other area specialists, tend to place a high value on formal training in the language and culture of the place we’ve devoted ourselves to teaching and writing about. We think (and I’m no exception) that most of the best scholarly work on Chinese issues has been done by people with this kind of training. And the people outside of the academy that we pay the closest attention to—journalists, free-lance writers, business commentators, policy analysts, etc.—tend to be those who have had some training in Chinese studies, or know the language and have demonstrated a primary …

Five Good Short Books On China: A Guide For Readers With Limited Attention Spans

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

This list is for an imaginary couple who are about to take their first trip to China and have made it clear to me that they only have a limited amount of time to spend reading up on the country in advance. Or, perhaps better yet, they’ve been honest enough to tell me that they won’t start to read up on China until their plane actually takes off, and they want some ideas of what to cram into the limited space of their carry-on bags. Though busy, these imaginary friends (I do have real ones, but none that have asked …

Beyond Liberals And Conservatives To Political Genotypes And Phenotypes, John R. Alford, Carolyn L. Funk, John R. Hibbing

Department of Political Science: Faculty Publications

In the past, most political scientists have been oblivious to the growing empirical evidence challenging environmental determinism. Professor Charney, apparently as a result of the fact that genes and the environment interact in a complex fashion, advocates that this passive unawareness be replaced by active denial. Science, however, does not advance by avoiding important relationships merely because they are complicated and, fortunately, science is not heeding Charney’s ideologically-based fears. Molecular geneticists, often working in tandem with political scientists, are quickly moving beyond twin studies to identify the specific suites of genes and biological systems that predict variation in core political …

Naccs 34th Annual Conference, National Association For Chicana And Chicano Studies

NACCS Conference Programs

Sociological and Ideological Shifts: Chicana/o Migratory Movements and Immigration Passages
April 4-7, 2007
Fairmont Hotel

Exploring Universal Rights: A Symposium, Jamie Mayerfeld, Brooke Ackerly, Henry Shue, Jack Donnelly, Kok-Chor Tan, Charles Beitz

Human Rights & Human Welfare

A review of:

Which Rights Should Be Universal? by William J. Talbott. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2005. 232pp.

Nationalism, Civilization, And Transnational Relations: The Discourse Of Greater China, William A. Callahan

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

This essay examines the interplay between nationalism and foreign policy in China—but with a twist. It seeks to loosen up analytical categories to expand from cultural nationalism to see how civilization constructs identity in national and transnational ways. It examines the limits of Chinese trans/nationalism according to the main Chinese expression of inside/outside—‘civilization/barbarism’—as it constructs Chinese nationalism and Greater China. The purpose is to both critically examine Chinese nationalism and to trace what our focus on the nation-state obscures: namely, transnational politics. Rather than recounting one master narrative of Chinese nationalism, the essay argues that civilization and barbarian define Greater …

Disability Rights, Annika Johnson

Human Rights & Human Welfare

Disability rights are often ignored in discussions of human rights. Recently, however, scholars and activists have begun producing a body of literature on disability rights in Russia and the former Soviet bloc states. Much of the literature focuses on children’s rights with an emphasis on the right to inclusive education. The literature addressing adult issues includes articles considering civil society, civil rights, and community integration. Finally, several articles address the intersection of disability rights with gender rights and ethnic minority rights.

The Social Nature Of Natural Resources - The Case Of Water, Jamie Linton

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

Of all things, water is among the most difficult to pin down. It is nevertheless characteristic of modernity that we ascribe to it an essence, on which basis particular kinds of human-water relations are made possible while others are denied. The ascription of an essential identity to water constitutes a social and political act by which it is both made known to people and made available for people. This paper explores the implications of ascribing to water an identity as "resource." Water was pronounced a resource in the United States early in the last century in the context of the …

I Am What I Wear: The Use Of Dress In Constructing And Evaluating Sexual Identity, Jean Stevens

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

This thesis explores different disciplinary studies and discussions of dress, and more specifically, the use of dress in constructing a gendered identity and sexual identity. To conduct this research, I performed a literature review and referenced various social psychological, sociological, and/or feminist theoretical frameworks. I argue that dress cannot serve as any sort of innate or accurate indicator of sexual identity; rather, the meanings associated with dress are socially produced and vary across time and place. Evidence for this argument emerges only after a literature review, as one can recognize a common theme linking the literature, or perhaps a commonly …

Three Kinds Of Culture In Mainstream Civilizations, Kazutake Miyahara

Comparative Civilizations Review

No abstract provided.

Which Islam-Ism? Diversity In Islamic Society And Its Implications For Democracy, Christopher M. Ebsch

Masters Theses

This study aims to refute claims of Islamic exceptionalism in the midst of recent waves of democratization, thereby disproving assumptions of any incompatibility between democracy and Islam. My research will show that such sweeping assumptions gloss over significant, developmental democratic movements within Muslim nations as well as several uniquely Islamic supports for democratic ideals and institutions.

I begin by examining recent political activities conducive to democracy in Muslim states, by distinguishing between divergent principles in the Qur' an, some of which have been used by moderate, democratically-oriented Islamists, and by realizing the historical, political antecedents leading to a rise in …

Book Review, Robert W. Gordon

Journal of Legal Education

No abstract provided.

Cold War Games And Postwar Art, Claudia Mesch

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

During the Cold War both “superpowers” used games, particularly chess, in order to construct an ideology of complete conflict and irreconcilable division between East and West. This essay focuses on the broad cultural challenge to divisive Cold War zero-sum mentality issued by a number of artists—André Breton, Marcel Duchamp and Öyvind Fahlström, and Fluxus artists George Maciunas, George Brecht, Robert Watts, Takako Saito and Yoko Ono. These artists, in a second wave of game-focused art, returned to the concerns of surrealist art practice and to earlier cultural game theory. Even conceptual art production was impacted by the predetermined structure of …

Human Rights In Argentina, Scott Muttersbaugh

Human Rights & Human Welfare

The election of populist Juan Peron in 1946 brought expanded economic and social rights to the working class. Consequently his popularity continued to rise, although the armed forces staged a coup in 1955, resulting in Peron’s nearly twenty-year exile. By 1973 Argentina’s economy had fallen apart and the still popular Peronist party gained the support needed for Peron’s return. With terrorism on the rise, the government granted a special executive authority to the military, allowing Peron to imprison people indefinitely without a trial, signaling a change in the government's priorities towards human rights.

A New Agenda For The Cultural Study Of Law: Taking On The Technicalities, Annelise Riles

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

This article urges humanistic legal studies to take the technical dimensions of law as a central focus of inquiry. Using archival and ethnographic investigations into developments in American Conflict of Laws doctrines as an example, and building on insights in the anthropology of knowledge and in science and technology studies that focus on technical practices in scientific and engineering domains, it aims to show that the technologies of law - an ideology that law is a tool and an accompanying technical aesthetic of legal knowledge - are far more central and far more interesting dimensions of legal practice than humanists …

Naccs 32nd Annual Conference, National Association For Chicana And Chicano Studies

NACCS Conference Programs

Visión: Articulating, Imagining, and Contextualizing Chicana/o Spaces
April 13-17
Hyatt Regency

Neotrusteeship In Afghanistan, Melanie Kawano

Human Rights & Human Welfare

Afghanistan is currently under the tentative rule of an international administration, or neotrusteeship, thereby restricting its national sovereignty. However, self-determination and nonintervention have never been persistent features of Afghanistan. Foreign interventions, invasions and great power showdowns on its territory have made a truly autonomous Afghan state a shortlived phenomenon. The outcome at each stage of Afghan history has been an unstable state that seems to invite even more external involvement.

Cultural And Individual Influences On Foreign Policy, Emine Sunduz Demir

Masters Theses

The principle aim of this thesis is to examine how strategic culture affects foreign policy decision-making, as contrasted to the particular decree of influence the individuals have on the foreign policy process in the concept of an immediate extended deterrence. This thesis is based on three case studies that are tested separately using both Cha's notion of strategic culture and Allison's Bureaucratic Politics Model in order to find which model (if any) best explains foreign policy decision making. Cases are: The SemiVietnamese War in 1979 and Deng Xiaoping, the Taiwan Strait Crisis in 1996 and Jiang Zemin, and the Kosovo …

Colombia, Travis Ning

Human Rights & Human Welfare

The events of September 11 continued of the pattern of redefinition in the conflict in Colombia. The complex war of today actually began decades ago as a small political struggle, which has gradually developed into a large-scale civil war. The continuation and growth of civil strife in Colombia witnessed the emergence of several organized anti-government guerrilla movements. Some of these groups have since been defeated or have integrated themselves into the recognized political system. Others have continued to violently challenge Colombian government authority. Currently, the two most significant anti-government insurgency groups are the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC) and …