Digital Commons Network^™

Contests As A Tool Of Public Diplomacy: The “India Is…” Global Video Contest, Navdeep Suri

Exchange: The Journal of Public Diplomacy

There is a growing recognition amongst public diplomacy practitioners for the need to reach young people. In large parts of the developing world - in Africa, in South and Southeast Asia, in the Caribbean and elsewhere - persons below the age of thirty-five constitute approximately seventy percent of the population. Among them, the educated, urbanized youth are growing up in an era in which connectivity and information on the go are taken for granted. India or Indonesia, Nigeria or Nicaragua, the phenomenon is rapidly gathering momentum.

How do we engage with this new generation? How do we encourage them to …

A Different Way Home: Resettlement Patterns In Northern Uganda, Sandra F. Joireman, Adam Sawyer, Juliana Wilhoit

Political Science Faculty Publications

After decades of civil conflict leading to massive internal displacement of people, Northern Uganda is peaceful again and hundreds of thousands of displaced people have returned to the area. Using data from maps and satellite imagery, we examine the placement of homes before, during and after the conflict. Examining two study sites, one that experienced a great deal of violence over an extended period of time and one where the experience of violence was more limited, we observe the clustering of home placement in the post-conflict period. As resettlement occurs, there is also evidence of increased location of homes in …

On Caricom And The Varying Levels Of And Motives For Integration Among The Member States, Joshua J. A. Scriven

HIM 1990-2015

In an era of rapid transport and communication, spectators have come to expect a bridging of the classic political, social, and economic divide between states. It is taken for granted that states have more to work together than to strive independently for. CARICOM is the Caribbean's experiment at regional integration and it member states have pledged their ostensible support. This study is aimed at gauging the true levels of enthusiasm of the member states, which have varied among them and over time. By analysing the trade pattern of the Members with each other in comparison with the rest of the …

A Study Of The Relationship Between Trade Liberalization And Human Development In Sub-Saharan Africa's Least Developed Countries, Stephanie A. Rash

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between trade liberalization, measured using the Heritage Foundation’s Trade Freedom indicator, and human development, measured using the United Nations Development Program’s Human Development Index, in subSaharan Africa’s Least Developed Countries between 1990 and 2011 as data allows. In addition to exploring the relationship between these two variables, alternative factors that influence human development are examined in bivariate correlations with human development as well as used as control variables in a multiple regression analysis. Namely, this study includes government effectiveness, the percentage of the labor force employed in the agricultural sector, …

Elements Of Azeri's Independent Foreign Policy: Energy, Geography, And Global Powers Rivalry., Muniz Omar Vera

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This work applies geopolitical concepts to elucidate how geography, energy, and rivalries among global powers affect the Azeri foreign policy. This research work uses a deductive method of qualitative research and a longitudinal analysis of qualitative variables. This study first reviews the most significant academic works in the field to delineate the framework of Azerbaijani foreign policy. Next, it discusses the geographical features of the Azeri landlocked territory and its influence over foreign policy. Then the study presents how Azerbaijan uses its energy as a leverage tool in its foreign policy. The fourth chapter analyzes the current competition between two …

Do Political Contributions Purchase Regulatory Discretion In Mining Inspections?, Neil K. Malani

CMC Senior Theses

A vast literature acknowledges the corruptibility of regulators; however, empirical tests on the matter have been limited to two-agent models examining the rulemaking process and price regulation of natural monopolies. It remains an open question whether political contributions, by driving legislative pressure, can entice laxity from regulators in their application of the rules. To remedy this issue, I observe the highly-regulated coal mining industry for which there exists several points for inspector discretion. By comparing the outcomes with Congressional coal mining contribution levels, I am able to ascertain capture across several dimensions. Specifically, I find that contributions are associated with …

How Level Of Globalization Affects Public Opinion Towards Globalization In Particular Nations, Nickolaus Bizzio

LSU Master's Theses

This thesis seeks to understand how the level of globalization affects the public opinion towards globalization. The reviewed literature traces the history of the most significant developments of the current global capital system as well as the public opinion literature which discusses relevant issues pertaining to the subject. Since globalization is highly correlated with modernization, much of the literature will involve examination of modernization as well as its critics. To test the presented hypotheses, Pew’s Global Attitudes Project Survey 2010 was used. The question used as the basis of the dependent variable asks if the respondent believes increasing business and …

Analyzing The Effects Of Policy Options To Mitigate The Effect Of Sea Level Rise On The Public Health And Medically Fragile Population: A System Dynamics Approach, Rafael Diaz, Joshua Behr, Anna Jeng, Hua Liu, Franceso Longo

VMASC Publications

A critical question related to climate change concerns to how rising sea level will affect underserved populations and medically fragile population in coastal zones and floodplains. As sea levels rise, coastal waters will regain near-tidal areas and co-mingle with human-made pollutants, resulting from decades of industrial and commercial activity. This poses potential threat and risks to public health and the environment. It is critical that decision makers will initiate a process of parsing resources to the mitigation and management of these issues. The purpose of this research is to model the inherent dynamics of this process and understand how near-term …

"Twitter Diplomacy": Engagement Through Social Media In 21st Century Statecraft, Owen Henry

Honors Papers

In the Quadrennial Diplomacy & Development Review (QDDR) issued by the U.S. State Department in 2010, there is a stated commitment to expanding interaction with foreign populations. Through statements made by other officials in various venues, it is clear that social media is seen as having a part in this aim. But how effectively are officials now using social media to connect? Are they managing to achieve "two-way dialogue" or are they underutilizing the medium? This paper attempts to start to answer and analyze this question through a review of the existing literature and theories as well as original research …

Immigrant Integration Into Host Societies: The Case Of Yemeni Immigrant Communities In Metro Detroit, Samra Abdulla Nasser

Wayne State University Dissertations

This study is intended to extend our understanding of immigrant political integration by analyzing Yemeni immigrants' attitudes toward integration into North American society, exploring the case of Yemeni-Americans, a group reputedly resistant to integration, in both Dearborn and Hamtramck, Michigan, and comparatively assessing those data with already published data on Lebanese-Americans, retrieved from the U.S. Census Bureau and the Detroit Arab American Study (DAAS). Relying on an existing theoretical framework on immigrant integration based on sociological and cognitive approaches and my own theoretical model on transnational dimensions related to political, economic, and cultural integration, I will examine a series of …

Prudence And Decorum And The Invention Of American Democracy: An Examination Of The Ratification Debates For The Federal Constitution In 1787-88, Robert Bryan Brito

Wayne State University Dissertations

Abstract

This dissertation examines the ratification debates for the federal constitution in 1787-88. The goal of this project has been to examine the use of the rhetorical strategies of prudence and decorum as they are employed within the debates in Massachusetts, Virginia and New York.

In Massachusetts, classical notions of representation are challenged by the use of binding instructions given to delegates sent to the ratification debates. In addition, Massachusetts federalists had to overcome objections to the proposed constitution based on the system of representation, as well as the absence of a Bill of Rights. Federalists Challenged these views, and …

Substituting The End For The Whole: Why Voters Respond Primarily To The Election-Year Economy, Andrew Healy, Gabriel S. Lenz

Economics Faculty Works

According to numerous studies, the election-year economy influences presidential election results far more than cumulative growth throughout the term. Here we describe a series of surveys and experiments that point to an intriguing explanation for voter behavior that runs contrary to the standard explanations political science has offered, but one that accords with a large psychological literature. Voters, we find, actually intend to judge presidents on cumulative growth. However, since that characteristic is not readily available to them, voters inadvertently substitute election-year performance because it is more easily accessible. This “end-heuristic” explanation for voters’ election-year emphasis reflects a general tendency …

The Effects Of Chinese Petroleum Diplomacy On Us Energy Policy Objectives In Nigeria (1993-2010), Jennifer Lynn Leapley

Browse all Theses and Dissertations

The United States and China have turned to Africa as an additional source of oil to ensure reliable, secure access to oil supplies in the future. While China stresses noninterventionist foreign policies, the US, at least rhetorically, if not in practice, links its energy policy in Africa to its foreign policy goals. China's petroleum diplomacy in Africa has raised concern among some scholars and policymakers about the effect an increased Chinese economic presence will have on American foreign policy objectives.

The question arises: What impact has Chinese petroleum diplomacy had on US foreign policy objectives? More specifically, how strongly, if …

Ngo-State Relations: Freedom House Status And Cooperation Versus Conflict, Jacquelyn Ann Schroeder

Browse all Theses and Dissertations

Based on previous academic literature, relationships between non-governmental organizations and governments are categorized as being either generally cooperative or generally conflictual, and vary state to state. Considering an assumption that more freedom afforded to a state provides space in society for a more vibrant third sector, it seems intuitive that states with more freedom will experience more cooperative relationships with the NGO sector than states with less. However, six case studies illustrate that this may not always be a correct assumption. To test this hypothesis, Freedom House statuses between 1991 and 2011 are averaged to provide an overall status of …

How The City State Fares Under State Capitalism In The Prc: Local And State-Wide Reform, Alex Gregory Elkins

Browse all Theses and Dissertations

How do national political and economic policies impact the ability of cities to accomplish urban growth and economic goals? This study examines the state policies Shanghai operates under to assess the potential for software reform in China. Specifically, this study examines software by drawing on the corruption and rule of law theories of Larry Diamond and Randall Perrenboom. This study also uses Richard Florida's creative class theory to examine tolerance of lesbians and gay men in Shanghai and its impact on the city's priority industries. Additionally, this study examines Shanghai's placement on the 2008, 2010, and 2012 Global Cities Index …

The Political Ontology Of Race, Michael James

Faculty Journal Articles

Race theory is dominated by two camps. Eliminativists rely on a biological ontology, which contends that the concept of race must be biologically grounded, in order to repudiate the very term, on grounds that it is epistemologically vacuous and normatively pernicious. Conservationists use a social ontology, in which race is based on social practices, in order to retain racial categories in remedial social policies, such as affirmative action and race-based political representation. This article attempts to reorient this debate in two ways. First, it challenges the idea that racial identity is entirely unchosen by defending a political ontology of race …

Winning The Un-Winnable In Afghanistan? Counterinsurgency And Ethnic Strife, Joseph P. Bell

Masters Theses

After pursuing military actions in both Iraq and Afghanistan, the United States adopted a counterinsurgency policy to properly address these conflicts. After implementing this new strategy, it appears that the United States has been able to succeed against the insurgency, while losing more and more ground in Afghanistan. Upon examination, it was determined that the ethnic fractionalization in Afghanistan presented a unique challenge to the counterinsurgency effort that had not been present in Iraq.

The effects of this ethnic fractionalization were then analyzed on local counterinsurgency tactics and the overall nation building strategy in Afghanistan. Local counterinsurgency tactics had largely …

Maritime Pirates And Foreign Terrorist Organizations: Complicit Against The United States And Nato?, William Lusk

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Maritime piracy, a phenomenon which has plagued free maritime trade for thousands of years, has entered a new age of sophistication and global reverberation. These acts of illegal criminal activity in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries yield a significant profit margin for the perpetrators while creating considerable cost for ransom payments, security measures, capital, and human life. The classification of maritime pirates, as either criminals hoping to gain financial income or terrorists hoping to usher in political change, is warranted and compelling. If maritime pirates conduct their operations to institute political change, it is possible that flags of …

Nations And Organizations: Explaining The Mérida Initiative Through The Essence Of Decision, Richard Sebastian Flores

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

This thesis seeks to explain state behavior and underpinning influences paramount to the political development of the Mérida Initiative. To accomplish this task, it crafts distinct, yet complimentary narratives that illustrate how and why the formulation of this policy unfolded. Utilizing historical, archival and empirical evidence, this thesis maps out the manners in which the national governments, organizational hierarchies, and bureaucratic entities involved with Mérida's origins reacted to the changing landscape throughout the policy's development.

The Mérida Initiative is critical to understanding how nations are approaching the problem of illicit crime organizations and institutional instability in the U.S.-Mexico region. Encompassing …

German Views Of Amazonia Through The Centuries, Richard Hacken

Faculty Publications

An exploration of German conquistadors, missionaries, explorers, empresses, naturalists, travelers, immigrants and cultural interpreters who were conspicuous among Europeans over five centuries fascinated by the biodiversity and native peoples of the incomparably vast Amazon basin stretching from the Andes to the Atlantic, from the Guiana Highlands to Peru and Bolivia, from Venezuela, Colombia and Ecuador to the mouth of the Amazon at the Brazilian equator.

Recipes Of Resolve: Food And Meaning In Post-Diluvian New Orleans, Jessica Claire Menck

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

In 2005 the city of New Orleans experienced catastrophic flooding as a result of the failure of the federal levee system following Hurricane Katrina. This was an immediate disaster that evolved into a longer-term crisis as the city, state, and national government struggled to respond to the event. This study focuses on one part of managing crisis: meaning making. Specifically, the study investigates meaning making within the food community of New Orleans, asking the questions: is food a way for individuals and groups to make meaning following critical change events such as the failure of the federal levee system in …

International Competition For Satellite-Based Navigation System Services, Robert F. Donnelly

Graduate Program in International Studies Theses & Dissertations

The goal of this work is to review the current state of Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) development and its potential impact on the social, economic, and political dynamics of the various states fielding the systems. The most recognizable GNSS is the US GPS. It is the only operational system functioning at the time of this writing and has become part of the global commons. GPS, by virtue of its uniqueness, is considered the 'gold standard' of satellite based positioning, navigation, and timing systems. This uniqueness has also enabled the US to fully capitalize on the sizable economic dividends gained …

Do International Corruption Metrics Matter? Assessing The Impact Of Transparency International's Corruption Perceptions Index, Omar Elemere Hawthorne

Graduate Program in International Studies Theses & Dissertations

This dissertation examines the impact of Transparency International's (TI), Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) and whether or not the CPI and hence TI matter. It examines the impact of TI's CPI on policymakers. It explores three areas: world's political and economic responses and Jamaica's policy responses to the CPI. Jamaica is selected for a case study due to TI's high corruption perceptions index rating for the country: a country that legally has strong anti-corruption laws but, nonetheless, sees its CPI ranking worsen almost yearly.

This study comprises mixed methodologies, using both qualitative and quantitative measures to assess the impact of the …

Examining The Relationship Between Participatory Democracy And Nonwhite Domestic Workers In Porto Alegre, Brazil: Issues Of Race, Class And Privilege, Alexis Nicole Mootoo

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Brazil is a nation that has professed to be a `racial democracy' such that race categories are not recognized. This implies that every citizen experiences equal access from a political, social and economic point of view, irrespective of skin color. Nevertheless, palpable racial inequalities exist in Brazil such that there is a primarily white elite class while Brazilians of African descent are typically poor. Male dominance is a worldwide phenomenon. When racial inequities are coupled with male dominance, Brazilian women of African origins suffer as they occupy the lowest socio-economic strata, which often remand them to work as domestics. Some …

Territoriality, Sovereignty And The Nation-State System In Israel-Palestine: The Creation Of The Palestinian Bantustan “State” And Shifting Palestinian Resistance Tactics, Sara Nichole Hughes

Master's Theses

The conflict in Israel-Palestine is over the sovereign control of territory and takes place within a global framework made up of clearly defined nation-states. It is within this framework that Israeli colonial expansion and construction of the separation barrier in the West Bank attempt to maximize Israeli annexation of the oPt while creating a Palestinian Bantustan “state” to contain and isolate the Palestinian people in non-sovereign territorial enclaves through the use of territoriality as a strategy for exercising sovereignty. In response to this obvious process of cantonization, Palestinians are resisting by supporting Israeli annexation – of the West Bank and …

Explaining Investment Policies In Microstates: The Case Of The Fiji Islands, Sudarsan Kant

Dissertations

Prevailing theories have failed to take into account the development of policy and institutions in microstates that are engineered to attract investments in areas of comparative advantage as these small islands confront the challenges of globalization and instead have emphasized migration, remittances and foreign aid (MIRAB) as an explanation for the survival of microstates in the global economy. This dissertation challenges the MIRAB model as an adequate explanation of investment strategy in microstates and argues that comparative advantage is a better theory to explain policy behavior of microstates. These small economies can take advantage of their exotic locations and natural …

The Influence Of Context On African American Political Participation And Partisanship, Andre L. Smith

Dissertations

What explains the intensity of African American partisan attraction to the Democratic Party? This dissertation investigates how environmental or contextually based theory informs our understanding of partisan affiliation and political mobilization in general and specifically for African Americans. The dissertation research focuses on the extent to which geographic context at the neighborhood level influences the strength of black partisan attachment. I hypothesize that interactions at the neighborhood level affect African American partisanship; specifically, the racial composition of neighborhoods affects the strength of Democratic affiliation. The data used in this study is based on survey data of individuals residing in concentrated …

Social Capital In Senegal: Bane Or Boom?, Laura Livesay

Capstone Projects – Politics and Government

In Senegal, at first glance, it appears that one’s social capital allows the individual to be able to survive, but not thrive. Social capital in Senegal appears to hinder local economic development. For my Capstone, I would like to focus more on what social capital means in Senegal, looking at both the benefits and drawbacks of its’ affect on local economic development. I will be focusing my research within my site, Dahra, population 40,000, and drawing upon case studies as I begin work. I will also be looking at the role of non-governmental organizations (specifically Peace Corps) in generating social …

Comparing Newspaper Coverage Of Climate Change During Election Campaigns In The United States, Canada And Australia, Dan Rowe

Mass Communications - Dissertations

This study compares newspaper coverage of climate change and global warming during the national elections in Australia, Canada and the U.S. during 2007 and 2008. Using a census of newspaper coverage and in-depth interviews with reporters, editors and columnists in the three countries, the study confirmed the findings of earlier studies that the political agenda shapes the news agenda when it comes to climate change coverage. However, the study did find that coverage of general climate change stories continued during the election campaign periods in the three countries. Reporters who cover either politics or environmental issues or both found it …

Army Transformation: What Does It Mean?, David Jerome

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The way in which senior U.S. Army leaders such as the chiefs of staff define transformative change is important, especially if the meaning of that term is to be interpreted as originally intended by Army field grade officers. An Army chief of staff is responsible for creating a vision and establishing goals for the future, and field grade officers are responsible for pursuing that vision and those goals by implementing objectives that endeavor to arrive at the desired ends. By using both qualitative and quantitative methods, this research analyzes what each of the three chiefs of staff, who have served …