Digital Commons Network^™

Romney Fights Cold War, Obama Fights Not To Overreach, Nicholas Hayes

University Chair in Critical Thinking Publications

No abstract provided.

Politics Or Policy? How Rhetoric Matters To Presidential Leadership Of Congress, José Villalobos, Justin Vaughn, Julia Azari

Departmental Papers (PS)

In this study, we examine the linkage between presidential policy proposal messages and legislative success. Employing a dataset on presidential legislative proposals that covers the years 1949-2010, we find that politics matters less than policy. Purely political messages that reference the electoral logic of mandates or appeal to a sense of bipartisanship appear to have no impact on presidential legislative success, nor does policy signaling, though highlighting the role of agency-based policy experts in crafting legislation does. From these results, we conclude that although the way presidents communicate their messages to Congress represents an important component of presidential-legislative relations, it …

Ghosts Of Ballots Past, Richard M. Valelly

Political Science Faculty Works

No abstract provided.

The Periclean Diamond: Linking College Classrooms, Campuses, Communities, And Colleagues Via Social And Civic High Engagement Learning, Ben Berger

Political Science Faculty Works

No abstract provided.

United Front For Reforms In Myanmar, Bridget Welsh

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

No abstract provided.

How Hip-Hop Fell Out Of Love With Obama, Erik Nielson

School of Professional and Continuing Studies Faculty Publications

Barack Obama was once hailed as America's first hip-hop president. Why have so many rappers now given up on 'B-rock'?

Statehouse Mosaics And The American Electorate: How State Legislatures Affect Political Participation, Robynn Kuhlmann

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Comparatively few studies have explored how variations in state governing institutions influence voting behavior. Utilizing lower chamber state legislative election returns from the years 2000 through 2010, and the 2002 through 2010 GSS data series, this dissertation focuses on how US state legislatures influence voting behavior and political attitudes of the American electorate. Specifically, this research takes on a comparative approach and illustrates how institutional differences in the size, capacity, and composition of the US state legislatures affect the electorates’ propensity to vote and how politically efficacious people feel.

Islamophobia, Euro-Islam, Islamism And Post-Islamism: Changing Patterns Of Secularism In Europe, Peter O'Brien

Political Science Faculty Research

Modern secularism, as theorized by prominent liberal philosophers such as John Rawls and Jürgen Habermas, prescribes that the state should treat all religions equally on condition that they and their adherents relinquish their theocratic aspirations and recognize the political sovereignty and superiority of man-made law. Convinced that the secular bargain undermines the moral virtue of society and its members, a small, fragmented, but nevertheless conspicuous number of Islamists in Europe prefers to observe Islamic law in all walks of life, private and public. Alarmed by Islamists and informed by Orientalist readings of Islam, an increasingly vehement and vociferous contingent of …

Scott, Ian. American Politics In Hollywood Film (Book Review), James Castonguay

Communication, Media & The Arts Faculty Publications

Book review by James Castonguay.

Scott, Ian. American Politics in Hollywood Film. 2nd ed. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2011. ISBN 9780748640249, ISBN 9780748640232 (pbk.)

A New Civics In The Digital Age: Connecting Online And Offline Activism In Lithuania, Liepa Gust

All Dissertations

Political participation is critical for the legitimacy of democracy, yet the majority of Lithuanians refrain from participating 20 years after the restoration of independence. Low rates of participation have been reinforced by adverse mass beliefs, including deep-rooted mistrust and political powerlessness. Given that the development of civic culture in a democratic Lithuania is occurring simultaneously with the spread of new information and communication technologies, Lithuania serves as an interesting case study of the potential of online spaces for facilitating participation. Empirical knowledge regarding the relationships between online engagement, civic attitudes, and offline activism would strengthen campaigns to promote democracy through …

Lawyers Need Law: A Study Of Constitutional Arguments Made To State Supreme Courts, Richard S. Price

Political Science - Dissertations

Dismayed over the increasing conservatism of the U.S. Supreme Court, state judges, lawyers, and scholars in the 1970s argued for a new judicial federalism. State courts, using state constitutions, may provide protections exceeding the federal minimum. In addition to allowing states to experiment with solutions to rights disputes, and recognizing unique state traditions, judicial federalism had instrumental value in ensuring state level protections that were protected from review at the federal level. While supporters saw judicial federalism as a means of realizing the principle of dual constitutional rights protection through principled development of a body of state law, the reality …

Objectivity And Balance In Conflict Reporting: Imperatives For The Media Amid The Tensions In The South China Sea Dispute, Huong Thu Thi Vu

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This cross-cultural study explores practice of journalists during June and July of 2011, the most recent peak period of the multi-national conflict in South China Sea. It examines factors that influence journalists and news media outlets when reporting a conflict in which their country is a party, using the theory of news framing process and war journalism.

Social Issues, Authoritarianism, And Ideological Conceptualization: How Policy Dimensions And Psychological Factors Influence Ideological Labeling, Christopher J. Devine

Political Science Faculty Publications

Ideology's crucial theoretical and empirical role in explaining political behavior makes it imperative that scholars understand how individuals conceptualize and apply ideological labels. The existing literature on this topic is quite limited, however, because it relies almost exclusively upon data from the 1970s and 1980s, and it does not examine how psychological factors influence conceptualizations of ideological labels. This article uses data from two original laboratory experiments to test the relative impact of four major policy dimensions on participants' evaluations of candidate ideology and to test authoritarianism's role in shaping ideological conceptualization. These analyses indicate that individuals most often define …

Caught In The Immigration Cross-Fire: The Changing Dynamics Of Congressional Support For Skilled Worker Visas, Maryam Tanhaee Stevenson

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This project examines the congressional politics associated with legislation on skilled foreign workers, specifically the H-1B visa which was created by the Immigration Act of 1990. It attempts to explain why legislative policies were successful on a small scale between 1998 and 2004 and completely unsuccessful after 2004.

Specifically, this study is a longitudinal qualitative analysis that uses Krehbiel's pivotal politics model (1998), Cox and McCubbins' party politics models (2005; 2007), Sinclair's (2007) unorthodox lawmaking theory, and Gilmour's (1995) strategic disagreement model to explain four key periods of H-1B legislation: (1) the passage of the Immigration Act of 1990; (2) …

China’S Strategic Futures: Debating The Post-American World Order?, William A. Callahan

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

This essay examines how China’s “harmonious world” foreign policy has unintentionally created opportunities for citizens to challenge elite discussions of foreign policy. Although they are relative outsiders, the essay argues that citizen intellectuals are a growing influence as a source of ideas about China’s future—and the world’s.

International Human Rights Law And Social Movements: States' Resistance And Civil Society's Insistence, Kiyoteru Tsutsui, Claire Whitlinger, Alwyn Lim

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

This review examines recent scholarship on the rise of international human rights law and proposes that social movements have played critical roles both in elevating the standards of human rights in international law and in leveraging these standards into better local practices. Institutionalization of universal human rights principles began in the immediate post–World War II period, in which civil society actors worked with powerful states to establish human rights as a key guiding principle of the international community and to ensure the actors' continuing participation in international human rights institutions. The subsequent decades saw various hurdles arise in international politics, …

United State House Elections Post-Citizens United: The Influence Of Unbridled Spending, Laura Gaffey

Res Publica - Journal of Undergraduate Research

After the Citizens United decision in 2010 allowed corporations and unions to spend freely in elections, much media attention was given to the influence of unlimited and undisclosed donations during the 2010 midterm elections. This research attempts to determine the impact of increased outside spending by super PACs and other groups post-Citizens United by comparing United States House races in 2006 and 2010. The analysis controls for other factors that influence election outcomes in order to determine the influence of outside spending, confirming that outside money did have a small measurable effect in both elections when spent to support …

Author's Biographies

Res Publica - Journal of Undergraduate Research

No abstract provided.

1968: That Was Then, This Is Now..., Dana L. Cooke

Syracuse University Magazine

No abstract provided.

National Security Policy Constraints On Technological Innovation: A Case Study Of The Invention Secrecy Act Of 1951, Dorothy K. Mcallen

Master's Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

Recent studies indicate that the United States is trailing other countries in technological innovation and competitiveness. This case study examined national security policy constraints on technological innovation, specifically the Invention Secrecy Act. It focused on the social constructs of collaboration and interdisciplinary knowledge in the aerospace industry. The methodology included historical research, data collection, and semi-structured interviews with experts from academia, general industry, government and public policy, aerospace/defense industry, and federal government. The results of the study suggested that since World War II, national security policies have not been clearly and consistently defined, interpreted, or implemented. This lack of clarity …

Letter From Russia: Putin’S A Brute, But The Opposition Can’T Be Serious, Nicholas Hayes

University Chair in Critical Thinking Publications

No abstract provided.

Eiu Political Science Review -- Fall 2012, Eastern Illinois University Department Of Political Science

EIU Political Science Review

The EIU Political Science Review is a new online journal created specifically for undergraduate students of political science. The journal consists of a variety of high-quality, peer reviewed undergraduate papers. Nearly any type of political science paper from a EIU political science course (3000-4000) can be submitted to the journal including: position papers, analytical critiques, research papers, book reviews, case briefs, and many more. If you're interested in submitting one of your own pieces of work please read below for more information.

Putin May Have Finally Run Out Of Gas, Joshua L. Wilczinski

In the Balance

No abstract provided.

Terrorism Warnings As Strategic Appeals: An Analysis Of Press Reporting And Public Reactions, Eric Whitaker

Department of Political Science: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Do politicians appeal to fear, and if so, how does the public respond to potentially fear-inducing messages? I reason that changes in the political environment necessitate entrepreneurial efforts if politicians hope to maximize positive attention. Scholarship indicates that presidents can often shape press coverage or move public opinion, particularly in the domain of foreign policy or during national crises. In this dissertation I conceptualize government-issued terrorism warnings as a type of fear appeal. Specifically, I examine the relationship between changes in aggregate presidential approval and the timing of terrorism warnings over the two and one-half years after the 9/11 attacks, …

The Political Personality Of 2012 Republican Presidential Candidate Mitt Romney, Aubrey Immelman

Psychology Faculty Publications

This paper presents the results of an indirect assessment of the personality of Willard Mitt Romney, Republican presidential candidate in the 2008 U.S. presidential election and Republican presidential nominee in 2012.

The study was conducted in 2007–2008 and 2012, from the conceptual perspective of personologist Theodore Millon. Information concerning Romney was collected from biographical sources and media reports and synthesized into a personality profile using the Millon Inventory of Diagnostic Criteria (MIDC), which yields 34 normal and maladaptive personality classifications congruent with Axis II of DSM-IV.

The personality profile yielded by the MIDC was analyzed on the basis of …

All Is Fair In War---Violent Conflict And The Securitization Of Rape, Sabine Hirschauer

Graduate Program in International Studies Theses & Dissertations

Systematic mass rape during conflict has for centuries met with global ignorance and political complacency despite its atrocious character. The conflicts in Bosnia and Rwanda in the 1990s altered the silence surrounding this long tolerated, dark underbelly of war. Applying Barry Buzan's and Ole Waever'sSecuritization Theory to the cases of Bosnia and Rwanda, this dissertation finds that rape during both wars was successfully securitized. Securitization Theory as a model and indicator of an effective shifting of rape from an apolitical or political perspective into the security realm was appropriate. Bosnia initiated the first convictions of rape as a …

Coalitions And Language Politics: Policy Shifts In Southeast Asia, Amy H. Liu, Jacob I. Ricks

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Why is it that some governments recognize only one language while others espouse multilingualism? Related, why are some governments able to shift language policies, and if there is a shift, what explains the direction? In this article, the authors argue that these choices are theproduct of coalitional constraints facing the government during critical junctures in history. During times of political change in the state-building process, the effective threat of an alternate linguistic group determines the emergent language policy. If the threat is low, the government moves toward monolingual policies. As the threat increases, however, the government is forced to co-opt …

Women's Political Representation In Europe: An Analysis Of Structural And Attitudinal Factors, Jenna Elaine Mcculloch

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In this mixed methods study, I explore the reasons for the low level of women in elected office in Europe. I analyze the impact of three structural factors (number of years since women's suffrage was enacted, type of electoral system, and presence of legal gender quotas) and three attitudinal factors (level of gender equality, percentage of female professionals, and level of religiosity) on the percentage of women in national legislatures in each of the European countries. Specifically, I pose the following research question: Which structural and/or attitudinal factors are more influential for women's political representation in European countries?

In order …

First Steps Towards Hearts And Minds? Usaid's Countering Violent Extremism Policies In Africa, Daniel P. Aldrich

PPRI Digital Library

The United States government has adopted new approaches to counter violent extremist organizations around the world. “Soft security” and development programs include focused educational training for groups vulnerable to terrorist recruitment, norm messaging through local radio programming, and job creation in rural communities. This article evaluates the effectiveness of one set of these multi-vectored, community-level programs through analysis of data from 200 respondents in two similar, neighboring cities in northern Mali, Africa. The data show that residents in Timbuktu who were exposed to the programming for up to five years displayed measurably altered civic behavior and listening patterns in comparison …

Lowther, Charles Ernest, B. 1951 (Sc 649), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Manuscript Collection Finding Aids

Finding aid and scan (Click on "additional files" below) for Manuscripts Small Collection 649. Photocopies of letters written to Charles Ernest Lowther, of Nortonville, Kentucky, and a history student at Western Kentucky University, from various members of the U.S. Congress in reply to Lowther’s letter regarding the Nixon-Cox incident.