Digital Commons Network^™

Understanding Terrorist Psychology, Randy Borum

Mental Health Law & Policy Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Anhui’S Barefoot Aids Doctors, Annie Ye Ren

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

For the past four years, I have periodically worked with a Chinese grassroots HIV/AIDS non-governmental organization (NGO) that serves children in Fuyang Prefecture, Anhui Province. The Fuyang AIDS Orphan Salvation Association (AOS)gives aid directly to local communities, addressing local needs that are often overlooked or underfunded by large-scale government projects.

Tunisia–The Imprisonment Of Fahem Boukadous (Part One Of A Series), Rob Prince

Human Rights & Human Welfare

To most Americans with the exception of those few who, for whatever reason, have an attachment to the North African country of Tunisia, the name Fahem Boukadous, foreign to American ears, means nothing. It means a good deal more to "Reporters Without Borders” and to the US State Department that actually issued a statement (half way down the page) on his behalf, to the US intelligence agencies and military that have carefully followed the Spring, 2008 uprising in the Tunisian region of Gafsa–deemed the most extensive and militant social protest in that country’s history in the past quarter century.

© …

Dangerous Obscurity: A Study Of The Female Suicide Combatants Of Sri Lanka, Jessica Santala

Political Science Theses and Capstones

Since 1991 the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam have used female suicide operatives in their civil war with the Sri Lankan government. Gaps in research about these phenomena suggest that it’s not seen as a gender specific problem and that female suicide bombers can be compared toe to toe with their male counterparts. I contend that the situation surrounding female suicide terrorism is unique and that certain discernable socioeconomic indicators can explain the reasons behind why some women of Sri Lanka become more active in suicide terrorism. I have compiled a suicide terrorism dataset out of terrorist acts perpetrated by …

Arbitrary Arrest And Detention Of Human Rights Defenders In Iran: Subduing The Voices Demanding Rights, Sachchi Karki

Human Rights & Human Welfare

Arbitrary arrest and detention, oftentimes used to curtail the freedom of opinion and expression, as well as the right to association and peaceful assembly, has continued to characterize Iranian regimes since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Such arrest and detention of human rights defenders (HRD)–who individually or with others act to protect and promote human rights—has demonstrated the repressive nature of the Iranian regime. Human rights lawyers, civil society representatives, journalists, and women’s rights movements and trade union activists are among the most commonly targeted HRD.

“Revolution By Eradication:” On The Khmer Rouge’S Making Of The Tragedy Of Cambodia, Matthew S. Weinert

Human Rights & Human Welfare

A review of:

The Killing of Cambodia: Geography, Genocide and the Unmaking of Space . By James A. Tyner. Aldershot, England: Ashgate Publishing, 2008. 209pp.

The Abuse Of Child Domestic Workers: Petites Bonnes In Morocco, Joanna Miller

Human Rights & Human Welfare

The International Labor Organization (ILO) classifies child domestic labor as a “worst form of child labor” for a very good reason. Driven by dire poverty and lack of access to education, children are sent away from their homes, often moving to large and unfamiliar cities to work for wealthier families. Morocco has one of the worst child domestic labor problems in Northern Africa with an ILO estimated 66,000-88,000 children between the ages of 7 and 15, 70% of whom are under age 12, working in Morocco today (Rinehart 2007). Many of these child laborers are young girls working as maids, …

Persecution Of Coptic Christians In Modern Egypt, Alla Rubinstein

Human Rights & Human Welfare

The Christian community of Egypt dates back to the seventeenth century and comprises 12 per cent of the population today. As one of the oldest churches of the world, the Coptic Christian Church, first formed in Alexandria, has stood resilient and faithful to its traditions against intolerance, siege and persecutions. Having been present in most institutions of the state among the overwhelmingly Sunni-Muslim population, Copts are not new to the slow process of Islamization that Egypt has been undergoing for the last twenty years. What has been unique to the recent Coptic experience is the forced integration of Shari’a law …

Bedouin Women In The Naqab, Israel: Ongoing Transformation, Marcy M. Wells

Human Rights & Human Welfare

Since its inception in 1948, the state of Israel has based development plans on an agenda of nation-building that has systematically excluded Palestinian Arab citizens such as the indigenous Bedouin. Policies of relocation, resettlement, and restructuring have been imposed on the Bedouin, forcing them from their ancestral lands and lifestyle in the Naqab (or Negev, as it is called in Hebrew) desert of southern Israel. The rapid and involuntary transition from self-sufficient, semi-nomadic, pastoral life to sedentarization and modernization has resulted in dependency on a state that treats the Bedouin as minority outsiders through unjust social, political, and economic structures. …

Women's Leadership And Third-Wave Feminism, Kathleen P. Iannello

Political Science Faculty Publications

Leadership is a term that women strive to claim as their own. Whether in the halls of Congress, the corporate boardroom, or the privacy of the home, women’s leadership challenges traditional notions of the concept. Throughout the ages images of leadership feature men in uniform and men in positions of power, whether it be military, government, or market. The traditional view of leaders is imbued with male images of “heroes,” who issue orders, lead the troops—save the day. But leadership has another face. It is the face of Abigail Adams admonishing her husband to “Remember the Ladies” in the formation …

What Are You Afraid Of?, Rebecca Minton, Linnea Christine Kennedy, Chapman University, Candy Rodriguez, Rachael Bridgens, Chelsey Coleman, Krista Xvx, Leticia Dessire Mayorga, Stephanie Bovis, Lorene Spiller Gambill

Women’s Studies, Feminist Zine Archive

Writings and art about self-care, the judicial system, Adrienne Rich, the portrayal of women in advertising, Andrea Dowrkin, sex roles and pornography, rape culture, Rita Gross, human trafficking, welfare, contraception, Margaret Sanger, The Vagina Monologues, Guerilla Girls, feminism and religion, Sandra Harding, tenure at Chapman based on gender, and Delores Huerta.

Therapeutic Discourse And The American Public Philosophy: On American Liberalism's Troubled Relationship With Psychology, Clifford D. Vickrey

Honors Theses

I explore the main currents of postwar American liberalism. One, sociological, emerged in response to the danger of mass movements. Articulated primarily by political sociologists and psychologists and ascendant from the mid-fifties till the mid-seventies, it heralded the "end of ideology." It emphasized stability, elitism, positive science and pluralism; it recast normatively sound politics as logrolling and hard bargaining. I argue that these normative features, attractive when considered in isolation, taken together led to a vicious ad hominem style in accounting for views outside the postwar consensus. It used pseudo-scientific literature in labeling populists, Progressives, Taft conservatives, Goldwaterites, the New …

Family Ties: Mainstream Environmentalists' Understanding Of Radical Environmentalism In America, Zachary W. Ezor

Honors Theses

Environmentalism in the United States manifests itself in numerous ways. While American environmentalists have been grouped into broad camps over the years, observers have struggled to accurately classify the different components of the movement. Lately, environmentalists have been characterized based on their chosen modus operandi. Environmentalists who employ typical interest group tactics of policy advocacy and accept the notion of political compromise can generally be called 'mainstream.' Alternatively, those environmentalists who employ non-conventional strategies like direct action and take a no-compromise stance on environmental issues are typically described as 'radical.' Despite these distinctions, both radical and mainstream environmentalists are parts …

Law And Ideology In The U.S. Courts Of Appeals Judicial Review Of Federal Agency Decisions, Jerry D. Thomas

University of Kentucky Doctoral Dissertations

The attitudinal model of judicial behavior dominates judicial politics scholarship, including studies of federal courts and agencies. Extant research finds limited support for legal constraints as determinants of judge behavior when agency decisions are under review. Attitudinal scholars suggest judges substitute their policy preferences in place of agency preferences. Contrarily, the legal model suggests judges defer to agencies because of procedures and doctrine rooted in the rule of law.

This study tests hypotheses predicting whether federal agency review decisions in the U.S. Courts of Appeals during 1982-2002 are a function of judges‘ attitudes, namely ideology, or a function of legal …

Human Rights Abuses In 1970s Argentina, Vanessa Gomez

Calvert Undergraduate Research Awards

In this paper I address various components to the human rights abuses in Argentina in the 1970s. The domestic political situation is analyzed with particular attention paid to the political culture and the history of the regime. Media outlets and interviews by victims are used to facilitate first-hand accounts of the regime. The international arena and the efforts of human rights groups are mentioned as a means to demonstrate the international implications of the regime. I wrote this paper to further my knowledge on human rights abuses and further the knowledge of all who read my attempt. This essay marks …

Separated Children Fleeing Persecution: A Comparative Study Of Asylum Policies In The U.K. And The U.S., Sarah M. Howe

Government and International Relations Honors Papers

No abstract provided.

White College Student’S Attitudes Toward The Use Of Torture, Abigail Omojola

Honors Capstones

No abstract provided.

The Unity Of Division: A Rhetorical Analysis Of Selected Speeches From Barack Obama's 2008 Presidential Campaign, Reymond Levy

Department of Writing and Communication Theses

No abstract provided.

Encyclopedia Of Psychology: “Political Psychology”, Aubrey Immelman

Psychology Faculty Publications

Political psychology is an interdisciplinary academic specialty focusing on the study of psychological processes that influence political behavior. Accordingly, a more precise label for the discipline might be the psychology of politics or psychological political science. Contemporary political psychology draws from all cognate areas of psychology, with the strongest emphasis on social, cognitive, personality, and developmental psychology; motivation and emotion; and cognitive neuroscience. It also draws abundantly from its other parent discipline, political science, including the field of international relations. Furthermore, it has ties with political communication, economics, philosophy, sociology, and other related disciplines.

The encyclopedia entry briefly traces …

How Not To Lie With Judicial Votes: Misconceptions, Measurement, And Models, Daniel E. Ho, Kevin M. Quinn

Faculty Articles

In Part I, we describe the formal spatial theory often invoked to justify the statistical approach. While spatial theory has the nice feature of synthesizing theory and empirics, legal scholars may remain skeptical of its strong assumptions. Fortunately, measurement models can be illuminating even if the spatial theory is questionable.

To illustrate this, Part II provides a nontechnical overview of the intuition behind measurement models that take merits votes as an input and return a summary score of Justice-specific behavior as an output. Such scores provide clear and intuitive descriptive summaries of differences in judicial voting.

Confusion abounds, however, and …

Ideological Voting On The Supreme Court: An Analysis Of Judicial Activism On The Burger And Rehnquist Courts, 1969-2004, Tiahna Larsen

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The influence of ideology and attitudes on the decision-making process of Supreme Court justices has been well documented, such that the attitudinal model has emerged as the dominant paradigm for understanding judicial behavior. When ideology and personal preferences seem to eclipse legal factors, such as adherence to precedent and deference to the democratically-elected branches, outcries of 'judicial activism' have occurred. Previous studies (Lindquist and Cross 2009) have operationalized judicial activism and have provided measures for studying behavior that may be considered activist (as opposed to restrainist), further supporting the premise that ideology trumps other extra-attitudinal and legal factors in the …

The Effects On A State When They Lose Their Senior Senator, Adam J. Morris

CMC Senior Theses

The Primary purpose of this paper is to examine the role and importance of Senior Senators in the US Senate. Many states rely on Senators to bring in federal spending in the form of pork. When states lose their Senior Senator and the power they accumulated through increased tenure, they risk losing certain benefits in terms of pork. We use federal expenditures per dollar of tax and analyze how it is affected by Seniority in the Senate. Population, Income, and unemployment rates in each state were controlled for in our regression analysis. It is concluded that increased tenure significantly increases …

Short Term Strategies For Long Term Power: The Rise And Potential Fall Of Hugo Chávez, Linden E.S. Schult

CMC Senior Theses

This thesis explores the route to power of Venezuela's President Hugo Chávez and the methods by which he has remained in power throughout his presidency. Also, it explores the potential for Chávez to lose power, given the current economic and political situation in Venezuela. The importance of the oil industry, Chávez's suppression of the opposition and control of the media, and constitutional changes and reforms are all discussed as keys to Chávez's continuance in power.

Reducing Recidivism In The State Of California: An Evaluation Of California's Prison And Parole Programs, Heidi C. Wolfgruber

CMC Senior Theses

Studies in the past few years have found that California has the highest recidivism rate in the nation. Until just a few decades ago, many did not believe that the rate of recidivism could be decreased for Robert Martinson’s 1974 study stated that “nothing worked” when trying to rehabilitate criminals. However, a renewed interest has proven that criminals can be rehabilitated. Thus, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR), as well as various independent researchers have begun to study the effects of programming on inmates. This thesis evaluates various California in-prison and parole programs in order to determine if …

The Impact Of Structural Adjustment Loans On Civil Conflict, Lue Anda Francis

LSU Master's Theses

This paper examines the impact of structural adjustment loans of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank on Civil Conflict. The paper argues that there are three major shortcomings to previous research on this topic. Previous research has focused more on grievances with little focus on the opportunities that may influence rebel behavior. In addition, previous research has placed little focus on the role of state capacity can play in affecting rebel behavior. As such previous research has not fully explained how both opportunities and willingness (Most & Starr 1989) are necessary conditions needed for civil conflict to occur …

Fairness, Justice And An Individual Basis For Public Policy, Douglas R. Oxley

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

Prior models of the policy process have examined how human characteristics can affect policy decision-making in such a way that it leads to aggregate effects on policy outcomes as a whole. I develop a model of the policy process which suggests that emotions related to fair and unfair experiences in the same policy domain are utilized by decision-makers as policy criteria. In the lab, I empirically tested this, and find that emotions and experience related to fairness do influence the policy decision to move away from the status quo alternative. Based upon this result, I simulated the evolution of a …

Transnational Political Participation Among Diasporic Migrants, Amanda Hanlin

Wayne State University Dissertations

Contemporary migrants participate in a variety of dual social, political, and economic processes. Sending and receiving states overtly encourage transnational practices when they allow migrants to maintain homeland citizenship regardless of their citizenship status in their receiving communities. Yet, we know little about migrants' ability to enact their citizenship and their propensity to participate in sending and receiving state networks and structures. We know also that diasporas experience and shape transnational spaces differently than other migrants, but we have much to learn about what influences a diaspora's desire and ability to maintain a political affiliation with their homeland and to …

Five Supreme Court Cases Everyone Should Know, Ann K. Vaught

Honors Theses

Operating under the assumption that the average college student knows little to nothing about the Supreme Court and significant cases in the field of American constitutional law, the author hypothesizes that this ignorance is due not to an inability to understand the material, but an unwillingness on the part of the average student to expend the effort necessary to decipher the "legalese" of an average Supreme Court opinion. The author also hypothesizes that it is the high and lofty language of the opinions that generally disenchants the reader, and not the information itself. Therefore, as a means of testing this …

We Call Ourselves By Many Names: Storytelling And Inter-Minority Coalition-Building, Celina Su

Publications and Research

Scholars debate whether new immigrants will join minority native-born groups, especially African-Americans, in battling racial disparities, income inequalities, and discrimination in the United States. Although scholars have investigated inter-minority coalition-building in the context of electoral politics, a substantial share of newer immigrant social and political action has not been formalized. Social change organizations play an integral role in less formalized politics. The article draws upon ethnographic data on two case study organizations to investigate how they built coalitions between immigrants and non-immigrants. It pinpoints the ways in which they engaged in storytelling to emphasize multiple identity – namely, how any …

Understanding Hayek, Chandran Kukathas

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Although some of this will be familiar to a number of you all,I will talk a bit about Friedrich A. Hayek since I am goingfirst. I’ll say a little bit about his life, how he came to theideas that he became so famous for espousing, and then a little bitabout his liberalism and the contribution he has made to liberaltheory and to intellectual life.