Digital Commons Network^™

What Guides The Iscsc?, Lynn Rhodes

Comparative Civilizations Review

Clear and well-defined bylaws are the backbone of any nonprofit organization, ensuring transparency, accountability, and effective governance. For organizations like the International Society for the Comparative Study of Civilizations (ISCSC), bylaws serve as a guiding framework that outlines decision-making processes, leadership roles, and the responsibilities of members.

The Fragrance Muse: Musk As A Symbolic Tapestry In Classical Persian Poetry, Akbar Shirini, Shen Xudong, Zhao Dan

Comparative Civilizations Review

This paper explores the symbolic representation of musk in classical Persian poetry, uncovering its role as a multifaceted emblem of Iranian cultural identity and human experience. Drawing on a qualitative analysis of primary texts from the Ganjoor archive and secondary sources, the study traces musk’s historical significance across China, Iran, and Islamic world. In China, musk is prized for its rarity, medicinal properties, and metaphysical roles; in Iran, it intertwines with mythology, Zoroastrian cosmology, and trade; in Islamic contexts, it holds commercial and therapeutic value, cherished by figures like Mohammad. Within Persian poetry, musk transcends its material origins, symbolizing blackness …

Full Issue

Comparative Civilizations Review

No abstract provided.

The Imperial Gaze: Affective Governance, Hybrid Cartography, And China’S U-Shaped Line, William A. Callahan

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

This article develops ‘the imperial gaze’ concept to explore how maps not only represent the world, but also do things in geopolitics, even provoking mass demonstrations. It examines China’s early-modern and contemporary maps to highlight how they create an imperial gaze that guides Chinese understandings of world order. If your cartographic ‘view of the world’ produces your ideological ‘worldview’, then it is important to see how China’s early-modern maps inform the PRC’s twenty-first-century claims in the South China Sea. The article argues that Chinese cartography does things in geopolitics by mobilising the affective governance of an assemblage of hybrid combinations …

A Critical Literature Review Of Canadian Anti-Trafficking Policies And Their Impacts On Sex Work, Autonomy, And Marginalized Communities, Gabriella Raslic

Social Justice and Community Engagement Major Research Papers

No abstract provided.

B. Assignment One: U.S. Voting Rights Character Card Assignment With Presentation, Frankie Nicole Weaver

Frankie Nicole Weaver, Comparative Twentieth Century South African and United States Civil Rights and Voting Rights Histories

This assignment requires students to think like curators and research their assigned historical figures. Figures are tied to the women’s suffrage and anti-suffrage movements in the United States. Museums and historic landmarks want visitors to engage in history and to consider the complicated, interesting backgrounds of figures who acted in unique ways, shaped by their notions of class, race, gender, culture, power, education, religion, democracy, and citizenship. Often, museums ask their visitors to imagine they are historical figures. One way to achieve this is by providing wearable lanyards with character cards that feature an image of a historical figure on …

C. Assignment Two: South Africa Voting Rights Character Card Assignment With Presentation, Frankie Nicole Weaver

Frankie Nicole Weaver, Comparative Twentieth Century South African and United States Civil Rights and Voting Rights Histories

This assignment requires students to think like curators and research their assigned historical figures. Figures are tied to the women’s suffrage movements in Southern Africa. In Southern Africa, women’s suffrage campaigns were less central as male-dominated white political agendas and non-white struggles for emancipation eclipsed them. Yet, the history of women’s suffrage and enfranchisement of new segments of South Africans, including white women in 1930, is important to examine when considering voting rights and civic engagement in Southern Africa. Non-white women in South Africa would be forced to persevere in their struggle for political rights; some would vote in the …

E. Assignment Four: Scopes Trial History Lesson & Class Activities, Frankie Nicole Weaver

Frankie Nicole Weaver, Comparative Twentieth Century South African and United States Civil Rights and Voting Rights Histories

Build on introductory context and engage with themes tied to the 1925 Scopes trial, particularly highlighting public discourse and civic engagement in culture and politics, TN law and state judicial proceedings, science and technology, religion and Christianity in the US, notions of evolution and human evolution, public education, journalism and media, national politics or political ideologies, and US Constitutional liberties of speech, press, and religion.

F. Assignment Five: Scopes Trial Creative Assignment, Frankie Nicole Weaver

Frankie Nicole Weaver, Comparative Twentieth Century South African and United States Civil Rights and Voting Rights Histories

This creative assignment encourages students to reflect on independent exploration, class group learning, discussions, and to use research to think critically and to present their ideas in a 5-6-page essay. Students will also think like educators and create 8-10 PowerPoint slides.

D. Assignment Three: Scopes Trial Introductory Assigned Activities: Learning From Tennessee’S Scopes Trial 100 Years Later, Frankie Nicole Weaver

Frankie Nicole Weaver, Comparative Twentieth Century South African and United States Civil Rights and Voting Rights Histories

This assignment encourages students to engage actively with scaffolded pre-learning necessary for the Scopes Trial unit. Students are introduced to the history of the 1925 Scopes Trial and the folk history connected to Inherit the Wind, in its various forms.

Sociological Dichotomies Of Mława, Poland, Over Time: Misplaced Concreteness, Individual Triumph, Social Tragedy, Joseph Drew

Comparative Civilizations Review

For many years, I have been an active member of the International Society for the Comparative Study of Civilizations and Editor-in-Chief of its journal, the Comparative Civilizations Review. Since the 1960s, I have also been a university administrator and a professor, globe-trotting to learn about societies near and far, their rises and falls. Yet even though I lived and worked in Prague, as president of a university, not far from the Polish border, I had never set foot in that country, notwithstanding that my paternal grandfather came from there.

Socioeconomic Stasis And Racial Immobility In The United States: How Does American Political Polarization Contribute To African American Poverty?, Carmel Agnant

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

African Americans in the United States presently exist in a poverty-stasis, a perpetual social and economic underclass positioning despite a constantly evolving American economy, society, and bodies of legislations due to political polarization. This follows a lengthy history of racial immobility (preventing a racial group from economic mobility) and stagnation since America’s era of sectional polarization over slavery. African Americans lack access to build wealth and have always struggled with societal exclusion. Legislation created and enacted that would support them politically, legally, socially, and/or economically are consistently met with legislative gridlock or countervailing measures to reverse and nullify advancements in …

Reduce, Replace, Reframe: How Civil Society Organizations Build Resilience In The Face Of Financial And Political Pressures, Merrill Sovner

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In order for civil society organizations (CSOs) to perform essential functions to support democracy and prevent democratic erosion, they must operate sustainably, maintaining resources and legitimacy to carry out their missions. CSOs experience financial and political pressures when resources and legitimacy are withdrawn. CSOs facing both pressures may reduce their activities, replace lost funding, or reframe their work to engage new audiences. How CSOs respond in the face of financial and political pressures has implications for their role in hindering democratic erosion. Yet civil society organizations weather these pressures in ways that are not straightforward; the most targeted organizations may …

Transitional Justice And Counter-Productivity: A Case Study Of Serbia And Croatia, Michael F. Curry

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In the post-Cold War era, transitional justice emerged as a method to reconcile societies that had suffered large-scale human rights abuses through autocratic oppression and/or intra-state conflicts. During this time, the concept of what transitional justice meant and what problems it could resolve expanded exponentially. However, the empirical results of such initiatives have been mixed. Many states subject to transitional justice initiatives have failed to liberalize or develop domestic governance capacities. Why do transitional justice initiatives fail even under the most favorable conditions?

The most common answer to this question is that these initiatives are often ineffective, hindered by a …

Crisis Narratives And The Vicissitudes Of Haitian Foodways: A Critical Comparison Of Three Food Items, Marc S. Gabriel

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Polities and media external to Haiti direct a lot of narrative focus on the country being the source of its own protracted crises. This represents a powerful narrative hegemony that casts the post-colonial nation as a zone of perpetual disasters or crisis. To maintain that narrative domination over Haiti, opportunistic observers of Haiti’s media spectacles of crisis only need to atomize the country’s newest crisis or natural disaster from the history that situates it. The elision of the Haitian memory – a memory of structural adjustment programs, systematic displacement, foreign-sponsored paramilitary violence, erosion of peasant foodways and agriculture – from …

Compensation, Horizontal Diffusion, And Bottom-Up Pathways: State Climate Policies In The United States And Australia, Ian Bailey, Roger Karapin

Publications and Research

Recent years have seen growing interest in subnational governments as arenas of climate governance, but limited systematic research exists on the extent, conditions, or pathways through which subnational climate policies can influence, or compensate for deficits in, national policies. This article addresses this gap by examining options for states to influence climate policy in the United States and Australia, two countries where federal governments have made limited progress in developing national climate policies. As an analytical framework, it conceives a typology of state government approaches to climate policy that distinguishes among compensating, horizontal diffusion, and bottom-up pathways. It then uses …

Counterterrorism Legislation And Its Impacts On Human Rights In Malaysia, Noor Maarof Bin Idris, Ying Hooi Khoo

Indonesia Law Review

In the aftermath of 11 September 2001, terrorism overshadowed other global security concerns. Since then, there has been significant growth in security and counterterrorism legislation and policies worldwide. The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) Resolution 1373 (2001) and 1456 (2003) authorized states to implement national legislative measures to combat terrorism while emphasizing the promotion and protection of human rights and the rule of law. In Malaysia, counterterrorism efforts have been reinforced through the Security Offences (Special Measures) Act 2012 (SOSMA), the Prevention of Crime Act 1959 (POCA) (as amended in 2015), and the Prevention of Terrorism Act 2015 (POTA). This …

Schools As Geopolitical Spaces: Violence Against Education During The Bosnian War (1992-1995), Allyson Bachta

Graduate Doctoral Dissertations

Attacks on education have long been a feature of conflict, yet their strategic use by state and non-state actors remains underexamined. Despite global concern and growing documentation efforts by the international community, the motivations and patterns behind school attacks are not well studied. This project investigates the strategic use of such violence by Bosnian, Serbian, and Croatian state and non-state armed actors during the Bosnian War (1992-1995) and challenges the assumption that attacks on schools are simply collateral damage. Drawing from political and anti-civilian violence literature, this study situates schools as both symbolic and strategic geopolitical targets, targeted not only …

Crisis Convergence, Sarah Medina Camiscoli

Northwestern University Law Review

Progressive jurists and legal scholars have called the Supreme Court’s doctrine of colorblind constitutionalism that dismantled affirmative action in Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. President and Fellows of Harvard (SFFA) a crisis for constitutional democracy. However, scholars have not yet tended to students, particularly students mobilized for racial justice, to understand their interpretation of this race-evasive ideology and what insights those mobilized students might offer in this pivotal moment. Given the fact that a small coalition of dissenting conservative jurists, scholars, and mobilized students—the Federalist Society—spent decades crafting the doctrine, scholarship, and resources that drive colorblind constitutionalism …

Subsidiarity In The Shadow Of Sovereignty, Loren King

Political Science Faculty Publications

Subsidiarity frustrates. It admits of clear articulation as an ideal (‘vest authority as close as feasible to those most affected’) but then invites conflicting interpretations and elaborations. As a workable principle, subsidiarity seems to founder exactly when we need it: when we ask what, precisely, that principle regulates. As a regulative moral precept, subsidiarity promises a politics sensitive to diverse needs and responsive to local knowledge, yet in practice any implementation of the ideal pulls us back toward an authoritative center to regulate disputes and coordinate all of this local wisdom. I love subsidiarity for these frustrations and ambiguities. In …

Tough Decisions: Balancing Statutory Authority With Moral Obligation In The Federal Law Enforcement Community, Carl J. Lepard

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

Following the 2022 tragedy at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, where an armed assailant killed 21 people and injured 17 others, the U.S. Department of Justice released a critical incident review of the law enforcement response. Absent in the Justice Department’s response was an analysis of the lack of statutory law enforcement authority for the 150 federal law enforcement officers who responded to the school that day. This qualitative phenomenological study aims to examine federal law enforcement officers’ understanding of their statutory authority to exercise police powers. It sought to understand the decision-making process of federal law enforcement officers …

Turkey And The Exit From The International Monetary Fund Predicament: Stages Of Transition From Dependence To Independence, Bassmah Tom

Jordan Journal of Applied Science-Humanities Series

The study aims to identify the reasons for Turkey's borrowing from the International Monetary Fund and its implications for the country's economic reality. It explains how the AKP managed to pull the country out of its economic crisis and achieve a state of prosperity, ultimately enabling Turkey to pay off its entire debt to the International Monetary Fund in 2013. The study is based on a key assumption: "There is a correlation between the ability of the AKP to extract Turkey from the IMF's predicament and to pay off the entire Turkish debt in 2013, and the economic policies implemented …

The Changing Dynamics Of India-China Relations Since 2014 : A Shift From Asymmetric To Symmetric Security Dilemma?, Soumyodeep Deb

Lingnan Theses (MPhil & PhD)

The new global geopolitical order has shifted from the Atlantic to the Indo-Pacific at the dawn of the twenty-first century. Given the fact that both China and India are currently regarded as major rising powers, the relationship between the two countries is among the most important concerns in the contemporary geopolitical landscape. Therefore, it is of utmost significance to have a comprehensive understanding of the dynamics of their relationship. The dynamics of the relationship between China and India have been marked by the presence of a security issue for a considerable amount of time. It has been suggested that the …

Employment Status And Evaluation Of Government Performance In Covid-19 Containment : Evidence From China, Jinye Chen

Lingnan Theses (MPhil & PhD)

Evaluation of government performance of citizens is crucial for regime stability as it could help authoritarian regimes to identify and address brewing problems before they fuel public discontent. It can also act as a potential mechanism for improving government performance and public services and establishing a good image of government. Following the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic, Chinese government has adopted the zero-COVID policy to keep cases as close to zero as possible until December 2022. China’s job market also faced big pressure from the economic downturn caused by the Covid-19 pandemic. The pandemic is a shock that impact the …

Reforming The Indian Bar: The Limits Of Technological Solutions, Varsha Aithala, Karthik Suresh

Articles

A majority of Indians do not have effective access to legal services, despite the constitutional promise of access to justice. There are two intertwined reasons for this: the unavailability of a sufficient number of good quality lawyers, and the high costs of accessing legal services. The Indian legal profession is highly unequal, with ‘prestige’ being the currency of upward professional mobility. The professional regulator, the Bar Council of India, simply lacks the capacity to regulate quality. As a consequence, clients lack the information to access lawyers, and to understand the outcomes they desire from them, and the fees they have …

The State Of The Unions 2025: A Profile Of Organized Labor In New York City, New York State, And The United States, Ruth Milkman, Joseph Van Der Naald

Publications and Research

Organized labor has taken center stage in the 2020s, with workers leading successful organizing drives at Amazon, Starbucks, Apple, and across a range of industries from health care to higher education. Public approval of unions has reached its highest level in decades, and a new generation of workers is stepping forward as leaders in the movement. The State of the Unions 2025 provides the most comprehensive profile of organized labor in New York City, New York State, and the United States, highlighting where unions are growing, who is leading the charge, and how labor is shaping the future of work …

Statelessness As An Academic Concern: The Indian Supreme Court’S Engagement With Citizenship Policy In In Re: Section 6a Of The Citizenship Act, 1955, Aishwarya Birla

Articles

In October 2024, the Supreme Court of India (‘Court’) made a significant ruling regarding citizenship laws in Assam, a state in the north-east of the country. The case In Re: Section 6Aof the Citizenship Act, 1955(‘In Re: s 6A’)centred on s 6A of the Citizenship Act, 1955(‘Citizenship Act’), which pertains to granting citizenship to a specific class of migrants who entered Assam before ‘the 1stday of January, 1966’.The Supreme Court upheld the constitutional validity of s 6A in a 4:1 majority. In doing so, the Court also engaged with a multitude of important issues for constitutional law and citizenship in …

For Richer Or For Poorer: The Security Environment Index To Measure Effects Of Security Assistance, Lam Huynh

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation develops and validates the Security Environment Index (SEI), a multidimensional, empirically grounded framework to assess the political and military effects of U.S. security assistance—specifically Foreign Military Financing (FMF) and International Military Education and Training (IMET)—on partner nations. Drawing from the need for more robust monitoring and evaluation (M&E) frameworks in the security assistance space, this study addresses a longstanding gap in how policymakers measure the outcomes of military aid. The SEI consolidates publicly available indicators into a cohesive structure capable of capturing both internal and external changes in the recipient nation’s security environment.

This research employed an explanatory …

Essays On Economic Behaviour, Yiting Guo

Lingnan Theses (MPhil & PhD)

My PhD thesis comprises three studies. The first study examines prosocial behavior; the second analyzes vaccination behavior; and the third investigates communicative behavior in the context of trade. Specifically, the first study investigates the impact of donation visibility on individual prosocial behavior. It develops a sequential-move model based on the prosocial behavior framework proposed by Benabou and Tirole (2006). In Stage 1, individuals decide whether to attend a charity event, and if so, in Stage 2, decide on the amount to donate. In this model, an individual’s decision to engage in prosocial behavior is influenced by three main factors: intrinsic …

The American Politics Of Firearms - The Case Between Illinois And Missouri, Michael J. Thompson

Dissertations

The issue of gun control is a hot topic in the field of American politics. It is a huge issue in the field of political science and in American public policy. In 2023, there were 18,874 firearm deaths in the United States, excluding suicides. The highest was in 2021 with the firearm related deaths at 21,068. One side argues that firearms can cause serious harm and death while the other side argues they can also reduce the rates of gun violence. There are different opinions on how to resolve the issue of mass shootings across the country. According to prior …