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The False Promise Of International Financial Institutions In Building Stable Democracies In Third World Countries, Foday Sulimani

Browse all Theses and Dissertations

The available literature on the democratic process in third world countries shows that there is a strong correlation between the strength of a country's economic and social infrastructure and the successful promotion of democratic principles. It is my assumption that democracy can not be established without strong economic and social infrastructures. Furthermore, the current aid programs as operated by international financial institutions (IFIs) like the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) give false hope to third world countries that fail to develop sound socioeconomic policies and yet want to establish …

The Value Of Deliberative Democratic Practices To Civic Education, Brooke M. Shannon

Browse all Theses and Dissertations

The causal relationship between measures of deliberative democratic practices and quality of citizen participation were examined using selected variables from the International Association for the Evaluation of Education Achievement's (IEA) 1999 Civic Education Study (CivEd). Logit regression for survey data was used to analyze whether a causal relationship existed between two indicators of deliberative democratic practices and a total of four measures of both current and expected student participation using data from three countries, the United States, England, and Australia. One independent variable, the degree to which students believed their teachers encouraged discussion of controversial political or social issues, had …

Katrina, Rita, Challenger And Columbia: Operationalizing A Knowledge Analytic In Nasa And Dhs Crises, Terence Garrett

Political Science Faculty Publications

The knowledge analytic is based on the reality of organizations that are clearly defined by the people who inhabit them: executives, managers, and workers. Each level of the organization possesses people who have a way of knowing how to do their work. Problems in organizations arise when there is conflict, or incompatibility, of knowledges (plural). Hummel (2006) submits that those at the higher echelons of the organization, the executives, use numbers as power over subordinates. Problems are accentuated with the problem of “forced commensurability” where numbers become more real to the organization than the actual work experienced by the employees …

Off The Welfare Rolls And Back Into Poverty: A Look At 11 Years Of Illinois Welfare Reform, Amber Williams

Masters Theses

In 1996, the Republican-lead 104th Congress passed into law the most sweeping welfare reforms the United States had experienced in 60 years. The legislation, the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act, ended the decades-old Aid to Families with Dependent Children welfare and instituted the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families system. The new system ended entitlements, cut benefits to legal immigrants, set a two-year time limit for people to receive welfare benefits without working, and a five-year lifetime limit. In Illinois, the time limits for receiving cash benefits cut thousands of people off of the welfare rolls in the years …

Civil Society Engagement In Free Trade Negotiations: Cafta Opposition Movements In El Salvador, Rose J. Spalding

College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences Faculty and Staff Works

This article analyzes civil society participation in the free trade debate by focusing on networks that opposed the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) in El Salvador. Drawing on documents, observations, and semi-structured interviews with civil society leaders, two kinds of opposition coalitions are identified. “Critic negotiators,” emphasizing active engagement and policy research, used the limited participation space opened by authorities to push for reform. “Transgressive resisters,” repudiating the formal consultation process, deployed confrontational tactics and posed more fundamental challenges. This work uses social movement theory to explore coalition resource mobilization, the role of movement entrepreneurs, strategic decision-making, mechanisms linking …

Freeing All God’S Children, Clifford Bob

Human Rights & Human Welfare

A review of:

Freeing God’s Children: The Unlikely Alliance for Global Human Rights by Allen D. Hertzke. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2004. 419pp.

“I’M Just Talking About The Law”: Guantánamo And The Lawyers, Marten Zwanenburg

Human Rights & Human Welfare

A review of:

Guantánamo: The War on Human Rights by David Rose. New York: The New Press, 2004.

The Ethics Of Torture, Rebecca Evans

Human Rights & Human Welfare

A review of:

Torture: Does It Make Us Safer? Is It Ever OK? A Human Rights Perspective. Edited by Kenneth Roth and Mindy Worden. New York: The New Press, 2005. 201 pp.

A Survey Of Terrorism And Human Rights In Uganda, Arika Long

Human Rights & Human Welfare

Tragically, Uganda is a primary example of a country dominated by terror and human rights violations. In a 2006 interview with Integrated Regional Information Networks IRIN, the news department of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA), Under Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Jan Egeland, called the conflict in Uganda “the worst form of terrorism in the world.” Defining terrorism as indiscriminate violence against civilians, he declares that nowhere in the world is there a more concentrated area where so many people are being terrorized, and have been for such a long period of time. According to …

Chechnya: Human Rights Issues, Latife Bulur

Human Rights & Human Welfare

Chechnya is a country plagued by terrorism and human rights abuses. A primary source of these issues is the unsettled situation between local insurgents and the Russian military. This conflict, increasing in magnitude over time, makes it incredibly difficult to negotiate the terms of Chechnya’s independence perpetuating the crisis. Rising violence fuels Russia’s frustration in addressing the conflict with Chechen groups. Russia has and continues to employ various tactics to minimize the violence, but such tactics have all so far been unsuccessful.

Civil Society And Human Rights, Ken Bonneville

Human Rights & Human Welfare

A dynamic civil society is essential to a functioning democracy. After the fall of the Soviet Union there was hope that Russia could create a robust civil society to compliment its burgeoning democracy, but 15 years after the fall neither occurrence appears to be the case. Instead of an open society, Russian civil society faces challenges of oppression, threats of violence, an overbearing bureaucracy, and a constitution open to interpretation. The following research outlines some of the obstacles facing Russia’s civil society and addresses how the government is restricting civil society functions.

Violations Of Human Rights In The Russian Military, Cathy Smith

Human Rights & Human Welfare

In 2005, an estimated 450 deaths were caused by injuries due to internal military violence. The degradation inflicted on Russian soldiers within their regime necessitates reformation by the government and implementation of resolutions. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Russian military has been experiencing heightened levels of personnel decline despite the compulsory draft. The prestige that the Soviet Army of the 1950s received through the late 1980s is dwindling rapidly. Despite the military code of conduct, today’s army is afflicted with perpetual violations of human rights. For the future of the Russian military, extensive action must include systemic …

Totalitarianism: The Case Of Turkmenistan, Hayden Gore

Human Rights & Human Welfare

With the disintegration of the Soviet Union in 1991, Saparmurat Niyazov, the former First Secretary of the Communist Party of Turkmenistan and self-styled “Turkmenbashi” (Father of All Turkmen), became the country’s first president, quickly fashioning Turkmenistan into one of the most repressive regimes in the world. Declared president-for-life after a dubious parliamentary election in which he selected all of the candidates, Niyazov has created a Stalinistic personality cult to glorify his image and to solidify his control over the state. His “reforms” have outlawed political dissent, marginalized ethnic and religious minorities, gutted the public health system, and enforced a campaign …

Ethnic Conflict, Kristina Libby

Human Rights & Human Welfare

Since the fall of the Soviet Union, Russia has experienced high levels of ethnic conflict with regard to exit claims by former satellite states that no longer want to be part of the federation. Exit claims often antagonize the state. However, political leaders of titular ethnicities maximize ethnic revivals to keep traditions alive, and to minimize the amount of exclusion vis-à-vis the center. Massive human rights violations have resulted because of misperceptions between the center and the periphery, especially in Chechnya, the Volga-Ural’s Region and Eastern Siberia.

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 …

Globalization, The Developmental State, And The Politics Of Urban Growth In Korea: A Multilevel Analysis, Yooil Bae, Jefferey M. Sellers

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

This article explores the politics of urban growth in a transitional society. Korea, which is experiencing rapid industrialization, urbanization and democratic transition exemplifies a set of conditions that may seem to favor the emergence of an urban growth politics and business-led growth coalition much like that found in urban areas at the time of industrialization, and still prevalent in much of the US and other western democracies today. Yet our multilevel case analyses show that the transformations in Korea as a late industrializer, late democratizer and late adopter of urban policy have helped to consolidate more restricted policies toward urban …

To Condone Or Condemn? Regional Enforcement Actions In The Absence Of Security Council Authorization, Monica Hakimi

Faculty Scholarship

The U.N. Charter establishes that regional arrangements may not take enforcement actions without authorization from the Security Council. Yet the international community does not always enforce this Charter rule. Major international actors repeatedly tolerate deviations from it even as they assert that it allows no exceptions. This Article examines that practice, arguing that two different legal systems govern enforcement actions taken by regional arrangements. One system is reflected in the Charter text and publicly endorsed by major international actors. The second, more nebulous system is based on expectations and demands in the absence of Security Council authorization. Under this second …

Why Has Violence Come To Dominate Images Of Png Elections? The 2002 Elections In The Highlands Region, Krisztina Matefy

Theses : Honours

This thesis examines the problem of election-related violence through a number of meta-theories, which have recently emerged in the social sciences to explain intrastate conflicts. By using the case study of the 2002 elections in the Highlands region of Papua New Guinea (PNG), this thesis examines the applicability and usefulness of primordialism, modernization theory and weak state theory in explaining election-related violence in PNG. Critically examining the theories, the thesis analyses a wide range of information about the historical, cultural, social and political factors that played a significant role in the surfacing of election-related violence in the PNG Highlands. By …

A Sense Of Place: An Analysis Of The Role Of Environmental Factors In Presidential Speeches, Timothy Michael Mccue

Honors Program Theses

My research will address some of the unspoken communication that happens when presidents give speeches. In particular I will be addressing environmental factors encountered when presidents give speeches. I have identified a few components that are most important to the environment when a president gives a speech. First I will look at the topic of the speech and the peripheral factors that influence what a president talks about in public. I will only be looking at topic and some of the factors such as timing and other political climate factors that influence topic selection rather than what the president says …

Deliberative Dilemmas: A Critique Of Deliberation Day From The Perspective Of Election Law, Chad Flanders

All Faculty Scholarship

My paper deals with two subject areas - deliberative democracy theory and election law - that have had surprisingly little contact with another. My paper tries to remedy this lacuna by looking at how the two fields intersect and can contribute to the understanding of one another. In particular, I look in detail at a particularly prominent proposal by two political theorists, Bruce Ackerman and James Fishkin's Deliberation Day, and how the aims of that proposal might be frustrated by the present structure of American election law. I argue that because they fail to take into account certain structural features …

Deracialization Or Racialization: The Making Of A Black Mayor In Jackson, Mississippi, Byron D. Orey

Department of Political Science: Faculty Publications

In 1997, Harvey Johnson made history by becoming the first black to be elected as mayor of Jackson, Mississippi. Four years prior, Johnson failed to make the Democratic primary runoffs. The following research question is addressed: what explains Johnson’s victory in 1997, when compared to his defeat in 1993? In answering this question, I rely heavily on elite-level interviewing and newspaper accounts. I also examine the black and white vote for Johnson, using aggregate-level election and census data. Gary King’s Ecological Inference technique is used to examine these data. Based on the findings, I conclude that Johnson ran a deracialized …

Meeting Minutes, Wku Student Government Association

Student Government Association

Meeting regarding Charles Keown dedication, professor accountability, special event parking, budget and legislation.

Meeting Minutes, Wku Student Government Association

Student Government Association

Meeting regarding elections, football conference, John Carpenter, Dialogue Day, provide-a-ride and legislation.

Advocate, November 2006, Vol. [18], No. [3], Gc Advocate

The Advocate

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

Hunter, City Fight to Grab Beloved School. Chad Turner (p. 1)

From the Editor’s Desk: “What are We Gonna Do Now?” (p. 2)

GC Technology: GC Paper Use Getting Out of Control. (p. 2)

Academic Repression in the First Person: Lies, Damn Lies, and David Horowitz. Grover Furr (p. 4)

Dispatches from the Front: Writing to the Test: A Cautionary Tale. Ethan Campbell (p. 6)

Fixing the Academic Labor Crisis: Lessons from History. Carl Lindskoog (p. 7)

A GC Refugee Finds Respect — in Canada. Tony Monchinski (p. 8)

Make a Diff: Volunteer for the Holidays. Advocate …

Effects Of "In-Your-Face" Television Discourse On Perceptions Of A Legitimate Opposition, Diana C. Mutz

Department of Political Science: Hendricks Symposium

How do Americans acquire the impression that their political foes have some understandable basis for their views, and thus represent a legitimate opposition? How do they come to believe that reasonable people may disagree on any given political controversy? Given that few people talk regularly to those of opposing perspectives, some theorize that mass media, and television in particular, serve as an important source of exposure to the rationales for oppositional views. A series of experimental studies suggests that television does, indeed, have the capacity to encourage greater awareness of oppositional perspectives. However, common characteristics of televised political discourse cause …

Balancing Ambition And Gender Among Decision Makers, Christopher W. Larimer, Rebecca Hannagan, Kevin B. Smith

Department of Political Science: Hendricks Symposium

Survey research from political science indicates that people are quite suspicious of ambitious decision makers; that people who desire power are self-serving and not to be trusted. In this paper, we use an original laboratory experiment to test not only whether people prefer nonambitious decision makers, but also whether people will seek to balance ambitious decision makers with non-ambitious decision makers, allowing for interactions with gender. In the experiment, participants are told two decision makers will be dividing some valuable resource on their behalf. One decision maker (either high or low in ambition) is “appointed.” Participants vote from a slate …

Maria Falco, Ed.: Feminist Interpretations Of Niccolò Macchiavelli, Mindy Peden

Political Science

Book review of: Maria Falco, ed.: Feminist Interpretations of Niccolò Macchiavelli

The Scholarship Of Vietnameseness: The Dialectic Of “National Identity” Between Self And Society In Vietnamese Education, Amber North

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

This study explores how college aged youth from various regional time and space identities access “national identity” in Vietnam. The study uses a theoretical framework as follows (1) Benedict Anderson’s theory that “nation” is in an “imagined” community (2) Keith Taylor’s theory of how surface orientations of linear time and space do not accurately characterize history. (3) Subaltern Studies: a field of Postcolonial Criticism that considers the alternative historical narratives of subalterns (non-elites, and for our purposes the nationally marginalized). Using this theoretical framework, I then explore how the youth access this “national imagination.” How is it that students connect …

Advocate, October 2006, Vol. [18], No. [2], Gc Advocate

The Advocate

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

Excessive Force and James Fyfe’s Long Shadow. Charles Lieberman (p. 1)

Columbia Protesters Oust Minuteman (p. 1)

From the Editor’s Desk: Of Devils and Democracy (p. 2)

The Present and Future of University Podcasting. Advocate Staff (p. 4)

GC Technology: Working Towards the Future. Lindsay Sarah Krasnoff (p. 5)

On the Horizon: The One-Year Plan. (p. 5)

Academic Repression in the First Person: The Dangers of a Timid Administration. Timothy Shortell (p. 6)

Graduate Student Workers: Help the Adjunct Project Serve You Better. Carl Lindskoog, Adjunct Project Coordinator (p. 6)

Jesus Camp NYC: Les Frères Corbusier Do …

Changing Nature: Globalization And Economic Reforms In Brazil, Lucas Gimenes Loureiro

Theses and Dissertations

Globalization is affecting our lives in ways that we never expected before. Greater interdependence, some scholars argue, weakens the ability of nation-states to retain their authority over individuals and corporations. However, nation-states are highly adaptable and they have the power to maintain their primacy .

Governments have the ability to choose which model of development their economies should pursue. Thus, based on the choice of economic model, nation-states shape their economies and the way business operates within it. In other words, governments will essentially steer their economies in a certain direction, even though they cannot determine the exact path that …