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Preserving The Family In The Globalized Era: Explaining State Discouragement Of Women’S Rights And The Gap Between Law And Family Realities In Tajikistan, Ivy Alexandra Raines

Dissertations - ALL

This dissertation is guided by a two-part research question, which begins by asking why Tajikistan exhibits low levels of gender equality within the family despite strong international commitments and a formally secular legal framework. The second question builds on the first by asking why a state that offers legal guarantees in line with its international commitments, as outlined by Article 16 of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), invests significant energy in discouraging divorce rather than in safeguarding women’s rights that would support their ability to leave harmful marital situations. Employing qualitative discourse …

Talking From The Soul: Exploring The Impact Of African American Vernacular English (Aave) In Digital News On Black Youth Political Behavior, Ananda Collins

Dissertations - ALL

Black youth have a long history of political engagement yet consistently report the lowest levels of traditional forms of political participation in the entire U.S electorate. While social media has emerged as an alternative political space, structural and linguistic barriers continue to limit their engagement. This dissertation examines whether African American Vernacular English (AAVE) in digital political news media influences the political behavior of young Black Americans. Using a mixed-methods approach that combines a survey experiment and in-depth interviews, this study tests whether political news written in AAVE, compared to Standard American English (SAE), affects political engagement, information retention, and …

Papers On American Elections, Murat Abus

Dissertations - ALL

The transfer of executive power through free and fair elections is the cornerstone of democracy. However, losers' consent is a fundamental requirement for the peaceful transfer of power through elections. In advanced democracies, due to the long series of free and fair elections and frequent electoral turnovers, there is an implicit assumption about the status of elections as the mechanism to shape the structure of representative government and resolve societal conflicts. Voters naturally occupy a central role in the maintenance of this societal consensus. Therefore, factors that affect the voter experience - voter satisfaction and voter confidence - are normatively …

Feed-Ing Identity Item Development, Observational, And Experimental Analysis To Study The Relationship Between Algorithm-Based Short Video Platforms And Identity, Sarah Elizabeth Hogenboom-Jones

Dissertations - ALL

Short video social media platforms (SVPs) such as TikTok and YouTube Shorts are distinguished from other forms of social media by two key features: video delivery and explicit algorithm-driven selection. In this project, I argue that these platform features make SVPs particularly potent at reinforcing individuals’ identities and enable more effective persuasion relative to other media. These media are sufficiently unique that to study their effects I develop novel survey items designed specifically around the key features of SVPs. These items assess both usage of SVPs and their impact on identity. I find that users of SVPs are particularly likely …

The Political Culture Of Taxation, Steven M. Karceski, Steven Pfaff

Sociology Faculty Articles and Research

In My Tax Dollars: The Morality of Taxpaying in America, Ruth Braunstein explores the political culture of taxation in contemporary America. Calling our attention to the origins of contemporary tax debates, she shows how morality and American civil religion influence how citizens understand taxation, citizenship, and the proper scope of government. In this article, we review Braunstein's main arguments and the evidence she presents in support of them. We take stock of the book's theoretical frame work and the applicability of the concepts it borrows from the sociology of religion. For all there is to like about Braunstein's book, …

Interview With Orca Winner John Hibbing, Political Science; How Political Attitudes Correlate With Physiological Traits, Mark A. Griep, John Hibbing

UNL ORCA Interview Series

Dr. John Hibbing was awarded the ORCA in 1993. John was born in 1953 in Paullina, Iowa. He earned a bachelor's in secondary education from Dana College in Blair, Nebraska, but then realized that teaching high school wasn't for him. Instead, he attended the University of Iowa, where he earned a master's and doctorate in political science. In 1981, he joined the University of Nebraska-Lincoln as an assistant professor of political science and rose quickly through the ranks. Initially, he studied the reasons that members of the U.S. Congress retire. This led to a longer-term collaboration with Kevin Smith and …

The 1778 Fort Pitt Treaty: U.S. Relations With The Lenni-Lenape Nation And The Unraveling Of Early Promises, Veronica E. Riddle

Masters Theses

This study examines the Treaty of Fort Pitt (1778), signed in present-day Pittsburgh, as the first formal diplomatic agreement between the United States and the Lenape (Delaware) Nation during the American Revolutionary War. Formed amid the military and political instability of the Revolution, the treaty promised mutual military assistance, recognition of Lenape sovereignty west of the Alleghenies, protection from settler encroachment, and the unprecedented possibility of Native representation within the emerging American confederation. However, following the deaths of key Lenape leaders, escalating frontier violence, and the failure of the Continental Congress to ratify or uphold critical provisions, the treaty rapidly …

From Hashtags To Regime Change: How Ai-Driven Social Media Algorithms Fueled Youth Protests Against Authoritarianism In Bangladesh But Stalled In Pakistan (2020-2025), Rafia Nishan Abbasi

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In this research, it has been investigated that how and why youth protests were amplified by AI based social media algorithms in Bangladesh; however, their impacts resulted in occasional and isolated resistance in Pakistan during 2022-25, taking in account the differences in state regulations, platform governance, and civil society networks. While utilizing Mixed-methods approach, this study employs comparative discourse analysis, a structured survey (N=466), semi-structured interviews, legal and policy tracing, and platform data. This research has proposed a novel theoretical framework of Algorithm Regime Mediation (ARM). ARM considers platform algorithms as politically intermingled intermediaries which can determine socio-political outcomes by …

Articulating The Future: How The Techno-Optimist Manifesto Constructs Ai Hegemony, Christian Noel Yeomans

Master's Theses

This paper analyzes two recently published digital manifestos—the Techno-Optimist Manifesto (TOM) by Marc Andreessen and the Bitcoin Whitepaper (BW) by Satoshi Nakamoto—and how they articulate political visions for the respective rising technologies of artificial intelligence (AI) and cryptocurrency. I apply Laclau and Mouffe’s discursive articulation theory to both manifestos, analyzing how they contribute to the formation of hegemonic ideological visions among the elites of these two technological sectors. In the context of AI elites, TOM transforms an existing Silicon Valley ideology, techno-optimism, into a radical new form of accelerationism, which I coin t/opt. This shift is examined within the context …

Spotting Power: Reframing Media Literacy In Civic Education, Kason Kendall

Democracy & Education

This article analyzes and critiques the tendency to frame media literacy as a neutral skill set concentrated on verifying sources, or "spotting the error." While this approach emphasizes cognitive habits of checking for bias and accuracy, it does not adequately prepare students to understand intentional misinformation as a political strategy. Building on Matthew's (2020) response to Curry and Cherner (2019), I propose that limiting media literacy to error correction hides the strategic production and intentional spread of disinformation by powerful organizations, corporations, and media outlets. Rooted in curriculum theory and the work of scholars such as Gramsci, Hall, Habermas, and …

“The Blue Party? No, Wait, Is There Really A Blue Party?” A Study Of Young Norwegian Children’S Perceptions Of Politics, Stine Johansen Utler

Democracy & Education

The study investigates Norwegian primary school children's immediate responses to “What do you think of when you hear the word ‘politics’?” It examines children’s perceptions of the concept of politics, their emphasis, and how they communicate their perceptions, providing information about children’s political socialization, knowledge, and understanding as well as early conceptual learning. The data come from group interviews with 36 children (20 second-graders and 16 fourth-graders). The study was not longitudinal but emphasized differences in the content of children’s perceptions. The analysis identifies four different categories of children`s perceptions. These vary according to their emphasis, their apparent associative political …

Exploring Border Rhetoric, Resistance, And The American Dream: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez' First House Address, Candice L. Ruh Phd, Cassandra Hightower

Feminist Pedagogy

Border rhetoric can be a “muddy” topic for undergraduates, as borders are often taught as fixed, factual lines that divide places and people. However, from a communication perspective, borders are fluid, symbolic, and socially constructed. This difference between viewing borders as physical dividers versus rhetorical constructs creates a valuable opportunity for students to think critically about how meaning is shaped by borders of land, language, and identity.             This original teaching activity uses Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’ (D-NY) first House speech—the most-watched C-SPAN video within 12 hours of release (Gajanan, 2019)—as a central case. It invites students to analyze a key moment …

The Contentious Politics Of Abortion: Understanding The Black Protests And Women’S Strikes In Poland, Taubie Sanders

Undergraduate Theses, Capstones, and Recitals

In 1993, the Polish Parliament, the Sejm, passed a law called ‘The Abortion Compromise’ permitting abortion only in cases when there is a serious threat to the life or health of the woman, pregnancy is the result of a crime, or prenatal tests show the fetus to be severely or incurably damaged. The current abortion laws in Poland are the most restrictive in all of Europe. Poland’s abortion laws have undergone much contestation in recent years. In 2016, the Black Protests erupted across the country in opposition to a proposed total ban on abortion. In 2020, the Women’s Strikes commenced …

Explaining Variation In Medical Aid In Dying Policy Across U.S. States, Abigail Hopper

Undergraduate Theses, Capstones, and Recitals

This paper asks why Medical Aid in Dying (MAiD) policy in the United States does not follow a simple partisan pattern between states. Existing scholarship on morality policy emphasizes ideological conflict and partisan alignment, but this framework cannot fully explain why states with similar political compositions have adopted different MAiD policy outcomes, indicating that some key mechanisms shaping the variation have been overlooked. To address this, this paper combines a national dataset of MAiD policies across all fifty states with a comparative case study of Montana, Colorado, and West Virginia, focusing on differences in institutional venues, framing strategies, and coalition …

“Three In A Jeep”: Exploring The Conditions For Successful Peacekeeping Through United Nations Special Political Missions, Audrey Duff

Undergraduate Theses, Capstones, and Recitals

This thesis examines a specific type of United Nations peacekeeping operation, referred to as Special Political Missions (SPMs) and their progress in transitions from war to peace. While traditional peacekeeping has made advances in separating conflict and human rights development, SPMs provide concentrated specialization in areas, including electoral support, government mediation, and disarmament. Through a structured focus comparison of three unique SPM case studies, this research explores what key dimensions are involved in successful Special Political Missions. By comparing the United Nations Mission in Nepal, United Nations Mission in Colombia, and United Nations Observer Mission in Bougainville, this thesis intends …

Identity-Conditioned Rewards For Gender Quotas In Autocracies: A Cross-National Conjoint Experiment, Zixuan Diana Wang

Quantitative Social Science Undergraduate Senior Theses

Do gender quotas in autocracies increase international public support for providing foreign aid to those regimes, and are such rewards conditioned by identity? A recent study by Bush et al. (2024) finds that quotas increase public support for foreign aid to autocracies among the U.S. public. I replicate their study beyond the U.S. to test the generalizability of their findings. I also extend their study by examining how religious and racial identities condition the reputational benefits associated with quotas, as recent studies show that identity shapes foreign aid preferences and support for democracy. I fielded a harmonized conjoint experiment in …

"What About Me?": Explaining Voting Patterns Among Young Men In The 2024 Election, Camille Moore

University Honors Theses

This study analyzes the recent rightward shift in voting patterns among Gen Z men in the 2024 election cycle and beyond. Drawing on procedural justice theory, it argues that deterrence from the Democratic party, rather than appeals from the opposition, was the primary driver of the shift, and that this deterrence reflects perceptions of procedural unfairness and exclusion from Democratic party agendas and policymaking platforms. A qualitative empirical analysis, including interviews with a politically and demographically diverse sample of men aged 21-26 in Oregon, supports this argument. Participants felt unjustly excluded from the left based largely on identity-related concerns and …

Political Power In The Digital Shadows: The Surveillance State And Far-Right Party Strength In Central And Eastern Europe, Abby K. Finley

Political Science Honors Projects

The recent rise of far-right leaders, from Donald Trump challenging democratic institutions in the United States to Viktor Orbán's fifteen-year autocratic reign in Hungary, has led me to my main research question: Why are some far-right parties stronger than others? Conducting process tracing analysis of Hungarian, Polish, Slovak, and Czech far-right politics from 2005 to 2025, I argue that far-right parties are stronger when they utilize the surveillance state to limit democratic institutions and actors. My findings clarify how far-right parties use the surveillance state and other tactics to maintain power within their nation.

The Sustainable Autonomy Framework: Explaining Autonomy In Aceh And Southern Yemen, Abdulsalam Saad, Arie Kusuma Paksi

Jurnal Politik

This article examines why post-conflict autonomy consolidates into durable self-governance in some cases while remaining fragile and externally dependent in others. While Aceh has maintained stable self-governance since the 2005 Helsinki Agreement, Yemen’s Southern Transitional Council remains a fragmented authority sustained by external patronage. To explain this divergence, the article develops the Sustainable Autonomy Framework (SAF) and asks: under what conditions does post-conflict autonomy become viable and sustainable? The SAF argues that durability depends on the alignment of three mutually reinforcing pillars: elite legitimacy, resource sovereignty, and mediation credibility. Using a most-similar systems comparison of Aceh’s Free Aceh Movement and …

Closing Time?, Aziz Z. Huq

Michigan Law Review

A review of No Democracy Lasts Forever: How the Constitution Threatens the United States. By Erwin Chemerinsky.

A Hot Topic:
Congressional Polarization And Climate Change, Mercedes R.P. Wilby

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Scholars offer competing explanations for how congressional polarization develops and operates. The literature variously points to shifting agendas, procedural change, or member adaptation or replacement. In this project, I study how congressional polarization occurs by asking what mechanisms account for the emergence of climate policy polarization. Climate policy is a useful test case to evaluate these competing theories. As a relatively low-salience, highly technical issue that is neither new nor inherently ideological, it is not an obvious candidate for deep partisan division. Yet climate policy has become sharply polarized, extending partisan disagreement even to the underlying science.

In order to …

Gramsci’S ‘Democratic Philosopher’ And The Concept’S Foundations In Marxian Social Ontology, Eli Recht-Appel

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis deals with the term ‘democratic philosopher’ from Antonio Gramsci’s Prison Notebooks. In order to lay the groundwork for my distinct interpretation of the ‘democratic philosopher,’ I begin by providing an overview of Gramsci’s theory of the role of intellectuals in civil and political society. I then argue that the ‘democratic philosopher’ emerges from Gramsci’s typology of intellectuals but is a category which is both temporally and ontologically distinct from his more well-known concept of ‘organic intellectuals.’ ‘Organic intellectuals,’ intellectuals who co-develop alongside their fundamental social group or class, occupy a variety of cultural and political roles in …

The New York City Fields Of Calcio Libero: Where Protagonists Activate Counter-Hegemony, Olivia Soderini

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Derivative from a deeply rooted calcio (“football”/ “soccer”) passion, with years of associated empiricism in diverse contexts, as well as from a profound intellectual interest in examining (im)migratory trends through interdisciplinary lenses, stems the development of this project’s topical focus and multi-dimensional argument. My calcio experiences, further combined with my interest in and knowledge of political and critical theory, served as the converged impetus of recognizing what already exists and is thriving: (im)migrant protagonism and counter-hegemony by way of New York City (“NYC”) calcio libero.[1] This project embarks on a creative autoethnographic and analytical journey to explore pickup’s …

Beyond The Veil Of Modernity: René Guénon, Prophet Of The Metapolitical Imaginary, Frederic Colier

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Heralded by some as one of the greatest intellectuals of the 20th century, French metaphysician René Guénon (1886-1951) is also the controversial father of Primordial Tradition, a metaphysics designed to remedy the decline of Western civilization. Guénon viewed the West in the grip of a prolonged cycle of degeneration. He sought to implement a pseudo-authoritarian spiritual reset that required a total rejection of its Western intellectual heritage and an embrace of Eastern doctrines.

Focusing on his landmark book The Crisis of the Modern World (1927), the dissertation examines how Guénon implemented his controversial reset. After outlining the religious, cultural, and …

News Media Coverage Of Measure Ula: How The Story Of La’S Big Project To Address Homelessness And Affordable Housing Got Sidetracked By The Story Of Big Real Estate, Christopher R. Martin

Faculty Publications

“Measure ULA,” named after United to House LA, was approved by voters in Los Angeles in 2022 to create a dedicated, long-term funding source for solutions to homelessness in LA, including funding the construction of affordable homes and preventing homelessness by helping tenants stay in their homes. The funding would come from a new tax on the most expensive real estate transactions in L.A. (i.e., mansion tax), and would affect fewer than 4% of all property transactions. At the end of three years of local news coverage about Measure ULA from the Los Angeles Times and LAist, the news audience …

Calibrations And Compliance: The Role Of Motivations In Policy Instrument Design, Panchali Guha, Ishani Mukherjee

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Most research on the role of policy calibrations in fostering policy target compliance has focused on the calibration of incentives and deterrents; less attention has been paid to examining the deployment and calibration of a wider range of policy instruments with the intention of eliciting a greater degree of compliance from policy targets with heterogeneous motivations. This article addresses this gap in the literature by empirically testing multiple hypotheses on the relationship between the calibration of different kinds of policy instruments and policy compliance for policy targets characterized by different motivations. Using data from a vignette experiment set in the …

The Struggle Of Indigenous Women From A Critical Feminist Perspective: A Literature Study Of The Indigenous Communities Of Lake Toba, Mudiyati Rahmatunnisa, Cusdiawan Cusdiawan

Jurnal Wacana Politik

This article explores the struggle of indigenous women in the Lake Toba region through a critical feminist perspective. Critical feminism is employed here not only to analyze the complexity of Indigenous women’s experiences in the Lake Toba region, but also as a theoretical framework for envisioning and advancing Indigenous women’s movements. Using a literature study method, this research analyzes various academic works, reports, and secondary data related to indigenous women, capitalism, patriarchy, and corporatist development. This study argues that indigenous women experience various forms of marginalization caused by the intersection of state-supported capitalist expansion, which has led to the loss …

The Impact Of Turkey’S Policy On Refugees (Case Study Of Syrian Refugees), Muhammad Kadhafie, Abdullah Haidar

Jurnal Wacana Politik

In the aftermath of World War II, the international community sought to establish a global order that guarantees the protection of human rights, formally declared through the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Fundamental principles such as the right to life, the right to security, and freedom from torture became central to the international human rights regime. However, contemporary realities demonstrate that human rights violations persist, particularly in situations of armed conflict. The Syrian conflict, which began in 2011, has evolved into one of the largest humanitarian crises of the 21st century, forcing millions of civilians to flee their country …

Jihad As Discourse: The Houthi Movement's Official Rhetoric On The 2023–2024 Red Sea Attacks, Moh. Iqbal Bulgini, Imam Khomaeni Hayatullah

Journal of Terrorism Studies

This study examines how Ansar Allah (the Houthi movement) constructs and legitimises a jihad discourse through official speeches and formal statements issued by military spokesperson Yahya Sarea and the movement's official platforms during the 2023–2024 Red Sea attacks. Employing Norman Fairclough's three-dimensional Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) framework—integrating textual analysis, discursive practice, and sociocultural context—the study analyses a purposive corpus of 45 verified institutional texts. Three dominant and mutually reinforcing discursive formations are identified: (1) the Humanitarian-Juridical Discourse, which reconstitutes armed attacks as legally and morally obligatory acts of protection; (2) the Anti-Hegemonic Resistance Discourse, which constructs the movement as a …

Critical Geopolitics And The Reconstruction Of Meaning: A Discourse Analysis Of The 'Terrorism' Label Applied To Hamas By Western Hegemony, Cahaya Mulyani Sakti, M.Hamdan Basyar

Journal of Terrorism Studies

The emergence of Hamas in 1987 cannot be separated from the configuration of modern colonialism and the continuity of occupation that shaped the political reality. Hamas’s early phase was rooted in socio-religious activities through education and community empowerment programs, before evolving into armed resistance against the occupation. The labeling of Hamas as a “terrorist” organization began in the mid-1990s in U.S. legal documents, which subsequently generated debate and gave rise to counter-narratives. This study employs the frameworks of critical geopolitics (Ó Tuathail & Agnew) and the Discourse-Historical Approach (Wodak) to analyze the labeling of Hamas as “terrorist” by Western hegemony. …