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The Ones Who Watched: Technology, Proxy Warfare, And The Testing Ground Hypothesis, Sean J. Oliver

Graduate Theses/Dissertations

Great powers need laboratories for war. This thesis argues that great powers find these laboratories in proxy forces. Proxy warfare is not just a tool for strategic influence. It is a machine for experimentation. This study posits a central testing-ground hypothesis. It contends that great powers deliberately use surrogates to vet emerging technologies, doctrines, and mobilization schemes under the pressure of real combat. The analytical methodology is historical. It traces patterns from the ancient world's proxy forces and the innovations of the Crusades to the Cold War and the digital age. The thesis examines enduring patterns, including the tension between …

Simulating Social Attitudes With Llms: Accuracy, Demographic Effects, And Refusal Behavior In The Sensitive Domain Of Suicide Prevention, Cristina J. Perez, Michael P. Vasquez Jr., Philippe J. Giabbanelli, Patrick Y. Wu

VMASC Publications

Large language models (LLMs) are increasingly used to simulate public opinion, yet their validity in sensitive policy domains remains underexplored. We evaluate whether LLMs can reproduce attitudes toward suicide prevention policies using 32 questions drawn from seven nationally representative U.S. surveys (2023-2025). We systematically vary demographic conditioning (race/ethnicity, gender, age, education, income, party), prompt framing (direct elicitation, respondent embodiment, specialist embodiment), and model architecture (GPT-5 Nano, DeepSeek V3.2, Meta Llama 3.1 8B, Mistral Small 24B). Across 811,560 prompts, the mean absolute error—the average gap between predicted and human response distributions—is 23 percentage points. We also find that LLM responses to …

News Media Sentiment Toward Chinese Ai: A Comparative Analysis With Belt And Road Initiative Involvement And Public Opinion On China, Asya Vaisberg

Pomona Senior Theses

This study evaluates different countries' news media’s sentiment towards Chinese AI, between May 2023 and May 2024, by using Microsoft Azure NLP Sentiment Analysis. The results are then compared with the country’s public opinion on China and its involvement in the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). For this study 12 countries have been selected which are USA, Australia, Pakistan, Peru, Russia, Romania, Italy, Greece, Portugal, Philippines, Brazil, and Egypt. For each one, GNews Application Programming Interface (API), which has access to more than 60,000 global news sources, was used to aggregate relevant news articles based on queried keywords. The collected …

Elite Perceptions Of The Us’ Commitment To Nato After Russia’S Invasion Of Ukraine: “The Direction Of Travel Is Clear”, Jason W. Davidson

Political Science & International Affairs Articles

This article seeks to explore elite perceptions of the US’ commitment to NATO in the leadup to the 2024 election. It presents findings from ninety-two interviews from 2023 and 2024 with policymakers and analysts from six leading NATO allies. Analysis of the interviews demonstrates that only roughly half of interviewees were concerned with the US’ future commitment to NATO. The bulk of the article seeks to make sense of the variety of responses by categorizing them according to five different worldviews. A domestic political worldview provides an explanation for why some elites were concerned with the prospect of Donald Trump’s …

Toward A World History Of Pre-Modern Coin Imitations, Niv Horesh

Comparative Civilizations Review

Among historians, it has become axiomatic that coinage over three millennia served three purposes: as a medium of exchange, as a store of value, and as a unit of account. The communicative aspects of coinage, i.e. the imagery it carries often by way of issuer propaganda, have been of less interest even if it remains the mainstay of numismatists. But in the world of numismatics, globally framed studies of imagery or iconography are rare. This article is aimed at correcting this imbalance, at least provisionally. It will explore the main archetypes of coinage imitation by way of inferring commonalities or …

An Academic Civilization?, Inbar Gotlib-Rivkin, Uri Cohen

Comparative Civilizations Review

Can institutions of higher education be defined as constituting a civilization that has emerged from modern civilization? This theoretical study defines a new concept of academic civilization and demonstrates how prominent characteristics that define the collective identity of modern civilization are manifested in institutions of higher education. The study focuses on six specific characteristics: expansion, flexibility and diversification, center-periphery relations, academic culture, autonomy and academic freedom, and the monopolization of professional training and the professional middle class. The conceptual analysis presented here provides a significant addition to sociological discourse, offering a refined conceptualization of civilizations. The goal is to expand …

Artificial Intelligence And African Studies, Gloria Emeagwali

Comparative Civilizations Review

African Studies is a conglomerate of multidisciplinary academic fields that include paleontology, history, literature, linguistics, philosophy, African Traditional Religion and theology, art, and Afrofuturism, as well as African Indigenous Knowledge Systems. This paper focuses on the latter, namely African Indigenous Knowledge Systems (AIKS), and African Studies, in general, from the viewpoint of two chatbots, namely, ChatGPT-4, and DeepSeek v.3. Do these models make a break with Eurocentrism and prevent unbiased information on AIKS? Are the underlying conceptual issues underpinning AIKS fully grasped, and if so, what are some relevant examples of this accomplishment? How do these programs respond to specialized …

Civilizational Nationalism And The Rise Of The Civilization State: A Response To Stephen Satkiewicz, Nicholas Morieson

Comparative Civilizations Review

The previous issue of this journal discussed the phenomenon of civilization-states. As several authors observed, over the past two decades leaders from Beijing to Moscow, from New Delhi to Ankara, have increasingly portrayed the nations they govern as civilization states, or heirs to and continuations of great civilizations (Greenfeld 2025; Cross and Okunev 2025; Alalykin-Izvekov 2025; Satkiewicz 2025). In doing this, they often summon deep time, speaking of thousands of years of cultural continuity, and present their states as guardians of cultural traditions in an age of immense social change.

End Matter

Comparative Civilizations Review

No abstract provided.

Extending Norbert Elias: Adjacency And The Dynamics Of Civilizations, Arthur Michelino

Comparative Civilizations Review

Civilizations have rarely been approached as systems of interdependence and strain. Most modern theories have oscillated between cyclical visions of rise and fall and static conceptions of blocs defined by cultural essence. Both perspectives have offered sweeping interpretations, but both also detached civilizations from the environments of pressure and interaction in which they have always existed. To reframe civilizations as relational processes requires both recognition of their internal dynamics and attention to the external conditions that compel their transformation.

Religiosity And Political Affiliation As Moderators For Climate Change Belief, Jenna L. Hiljus

Doctor of Psychology (PsyD)

Climate change remains a polarized issue in the United States despite broad scientific consensus. The present study examined how specific variables within political ideology (social and economic conservatism) and religiosity (belief, praxis, and morality) relate to climate change belief among undergraduate students at a private Christian university. Participants (N = 130) completed measures of climate change perceptions, multidimensional religiosity, and social and economic conservatism. Correlational analyses showed medium-sized, negative relationships between climate change belief and both social and economic conservatism, with no significant difference between the two domains. This finding suggests that political conservatism may operate as a unified construct …

Genocide, Memory & Prevention: Ethical Inquiry And Critical Thinking Through Research & Ai, Linda Humes

Open Educational Resources

This assignment engages students in ethical inquiry and critical analysis by examining lesser-known or silenced genocides within a global and historical context. Using academic sources alongside responsible use of generative AI, students compare dominant and marginalized narratives, analyze recurring patterns and causes of genocide, and reflect on prevention strategies. The assignment emphasizes ethical AI use, historical memory, and the development of civic awareness, empathy, and critical thinking in the study of race, power, and inequality.

Crimes Of The Powerful And The Looting Of Contemporary Nigeria: An Integrated Theoretical Perspective, Charles Ubah

African Journal of Criminology and Justice Studies

Crime of the powerful is a humongous social problem with the potential to ravage development and threaten the corporate existence of nation states. The case of contemporary Nigeria is the focal point of analysis in this paper. The objective of the paper, therefore, is to investigate the menace in Nigeria from an integrated theoretical perspective. The methodology was exploratory survey and review of literature which were content analyzed. The theoretical framework is a kind of Modified Multiple Reinforcing Social Forces Theory. Findings indicate that, beside its high prevalence rate, elite criminality in the various forms of corruption, property and environmental …

Cultural Dissonance: Western Hierarchical Structures In Unesco’S Representative List Of The Intangible Cultural Heritage Of Humanity, Chumnan J. Sangsvang Iii

CMC Senior Theses

This paper explores how the heritage ideologies of the academic and legal traditions of the “West” have exerted influence over the modern conception of heritage in order to fulfill their own ideas of value. It uses a combination of anthropological theory, ethnographic research, and international law to analyze this phenomenon, first identifying the theory and history behind culture, heritage, and civilization in international law. The paper then goes on to analyze UNESCO’s ICH designation and the consequences of Western heritage construction from 4 case studies, each variably removed from the West: Cases from Greece, Uruguay, Malawi, and Tonga will identify …

Bitcoin And The American Conflict Over Money And Property, Jacob Smagula

CMC Senior Theses

I argue that Bitcoin is the latest expression of the recurring American conflict over who controls the terms of money and property, and that the political coalition formed around Bitcoin shares the same characteristics as earlier coalitions formed around this struggle. I review three historical cases that each produced a coalition opposing the existing monetary order: the Bank War of the 1830s, the Free Silver movement of the 1890s, and the populist backlash against the Federal Reserve during the 1979 Farm Crisis and the 2008 Great Recession. I find that Bitcoin’s architecture, which allows for self-custody, permissionless access, and an …

Moving The Goalposts: Saudi Arabia, Football, And The Changing Rules Of Global Legitimacy, Sanskriti S. Kumar

CMC Senior Theses

Most commentary on Gulf state sports investment concludes that sportswashing fails: Saudi Arabia's favorability ratings remain low, its human rights situation has deteriorated, and Western public opinion shows no measurable improvement. This thesis argues that this conclusion applies the wrong standard. Asking whether Saudi Arabia has become more admired misses the more consequential question of whether it has become more accepted, and treating those two outcomes as equivalent produces misleading results. This thesis develops an original Normalization-Attraction Framework to evaluate whether the Saudi Public Investment Fund's October 2021 acquisition of Newcastle United Football Club has generated measurable political returns. The …

From Collective Punishment To Collective Action, Samuel N. Johnson-Saeger

CMC Senior Theses

Regime change may be sought in two primary ways, absent a turn to internal or external violence: through nonviolent resistance, from within, and sanctions, from abroad. This paper is about how those two pathways are intertwined. I challenge two different strands of the existing literature. First, I show that Liou et al. (2022)'s finding that sanctions increase the predicted probability of nonviolent resistance movement progress is subject to substantial upward bias from country heterogeneity. Incorporating country fixed effects, I show that sanctions, on average, have no statistically significant effect on resistance outcomes. Second, I challenge Chenoweth and Stephan (2008)'s argument …

Sinking City To Breakthrough City: A Political Analysis And Evaluation Of Indonesia's Capital City Relocation From Jakarta To Nusantara, Yuji Jones

CMC Senior Theses

This paper analyzes Indonesia’s national decision to move its capital city from Jakarta to Nusantara. Indonesia is facing a dire catastrophe in its most populous city. The land surrounding Jakarta is sinking, and without significant mitigation efforts, the streets will be submerged by 2045. This is a slow-motion disaster coming for Indonesia and Jakarta. This left the country with a crucial decision: to save the capital city. In response to this environmental crisis, Indonesia’s government has committed to making a nationwide and ambitious decision to move the capital to Nusantara, a smaller city bustling with tropical forests 1,000 kilometers away, …

Politics Of A Silent Pandemic: Antimicrobial Resistance And State Capacity In India And Nigeria, Mia Kelly

CMC Senior Theses

Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) has emerged as one of the most pressing yet widely underestimated health threats of the 21st century; this thesis explores the potentially devastating global impact of this “silent pandemic”, exposing how deeply health outcomes depend on political choices, regulatory capacity, and economic constraints. Although the danger of spreading drug-resistant pathogens is now widely acknowledged in both the scientific and political communities, states differ in their abilities to contain the issue, with low- and middle-income countries facing the greatest obstacles to national action plan implementation. This thesis investigates these disparities through a comparison of India and Nigeria, two …

More Than Meets The Eye: Operation Blue Star & Us-India’S Deadly Exchange, Jannat Verma

Scripps Senior Theses

Operation Blue Star is often memorialized as an independent action carried out by India's Congress Party. While such an understanding is not entirely historically inaccurate, it fails to account for the role played by US influence in the operation. An examination of CIA files and America's involvement in the subcontinent during the Cold War calls for a re-interpretation of Operation Blue Star, not as a solo campaign, but rather as a product of counterinsurgent and deadly exchange between the US and India.

Appalachia In Presidential Campaign Rhetoric Since 1964, Meredith Morello

Scripps Senior Theses

This thesis examines how presidential candidates have invoked Appalachia in campaign rhetoric from Lyndon B. Johnson's 1964 election through 2024, arguing the region functions not as a geographic reference but as a strategically deployable political symbol. Through mixed-methods analysis of 83 campaign-period sources archived in the American Presidency Project, a structured thematic coding schema traces how candidates frame the region across six decades using two analytically distinct modes: objective-economic and moralized-culture framing.

Five major structural patterns emerge: Johnson's institutionalization of the region as bounded domestic poverty; strategic silence during national instability; reframings enabling rhetorical reentry; symbolic portability across ideological projects; …

The Politics Of Fatness And The Demand For Our Collective Joy, Sky Caldwell

Scripps Senior Theses

The Politics of Fatness and the Demand for Our Collective Joy aims to assess the political-economic reasonings behind the return of overt anti-fatness and its coincidence with the re-normalization of the far right. My research looks at the sudden mass marketing of GLP-1 drugs and the use of the body as a spatial fix during recession-era economic conditions. First, this interdisciplinary project asks why the body positivity movement has not been successful in the greater fight against anti-fatness. Then, through archival research, discourse analysis, ethnographic interviews, and photography, my project explores various case studies of successful spaces and collectives working …

Stitched In Precarity: Labor Exploitation, Immigration Policy, And Resistance In The L.A Garment Industry, Reyna Guadalupe Silva Carrillo

Scripps Senior Theses

Los Angeles hosts one of the largest garment manufacturing industries in the U.S., built on the labor of undocumented immigrants who often work under exploitative and unsafe conditions. This paper explores how the intersection of broken labor laws and punitive immigration enforcement creates systemic vulnerability for these workers. Despite recent reforms—such as California’s SB 62, which bans piece-rate wages and holds brands accountable—enforcement remains weak, and wage theft continues to persist. State-level protections for undocumented immigrants clash with federal policies that prioritize detention and deportation, leaving workers in a state of constant precarity. While grassroots movements have secured important legislative …

The Future Of U.S. Higher Education: Equity Implications Of Shifting Immigration Policies, Research Institute For Social Equity Rise

Research Institute for Social Equity

This report examines the impact of U.S. immigration policies on higher education and international students from 2000 to 2025. It traces five major policy eras, from the post- 9/11 security overhaul and Obama-era expansion to the restrictive turns of 2017–2020 and 2025, and analyzes how shifting regulations have influenced enrollment patterns, economic contributions, and student well-being. Despite hosting more than 1.1 million international students in 2023–2024, the U.S. share of the global student market has fallen from 20% to 16%, underscoring how policy volatility and restrictive measures weaken national competitiveness. Drawing on federal data, scholarly research, and institutional reports, this …

Breaking The Cycle: Substance Use Disorders, Recidivism, And The Role Of Reentry Programs, Sophia R. Veloz

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

This Honors Research Paper examines the relationship between substance use treatment and recidivism among justice-involved individuals, gathering from my academic background as a dual major in psychology and national security and my internship at Oriana House in Akron, Ohio. Oriana House is a private nonprofit organization that provides inpatient and outpatient services for adults with substance use disorders, including detoxification, motivational interviewing (MI), Substance Use Disorder (SUD) counseling, telehealth, and 12-step facilitation. Their mission emphasizes reducing recidivism by addressing substance use and supporting long-term recovery. The main research question in this study is whether taking part in structured, community-based treatment …

Ohio Redistricting And The Meaning Of Fairness, Elena G. Klingler

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

The failure of Ohio’s Issue 1, a redistricting reform amendment to the state constitution proposed in 2024, has been a topic of significant discussion. Though the controversial change to the language of the amendment made by the Ohio Ballot Board has often been identified as the consequential factor, the full implications of this change – why it was made, what it says about the meaning of ‘gerrymandering’ and ‘fairness,’ and why different groups define those words differently – have not been fully explored. This project will qualitatively assess whether the failure of Issue 1 was affected by definitional disagreements based …

Editors' Introduction, Emma Kudelka, Brady Poisal

Res Publica - Journal of Undergraduate Research

No abstract provided.

One Nation, Bound By Drag: Tokyo’S Drag Culture As A Modern Subentity Of National Identity, Emmeline Schubert

Res Publica - Journal of Undergraduate Research

Throughout Japan’s history, performance has played a significant role in the construction and expression of gender and identity; drag culture in 21st-century Tokyo represents a contemporary subcultural form of this tradition. As drag publics become increasingly visible in urban Japan, it raises the question of how subcultures, competing identities, and social rebellions relate to dominant understandings of national identity. This paper explores the idea that Tokyo’s drag culture functions as a counterpublic of imagined communities that negotiate belonging through performance. While Japanese national identity is frequently defined as homogeneous and ethnocentric, an examination of gender expression in kabuki, onnagata, and …

Political Elections In The New Wave Of Media: The Celebrification Of The Presidency, Camille B. Moore

Anthós

This article examines the impact of social media on journalism leading up to the 2024 United States presidential election and how expectations of candidates have changed. By exploring the degradation of discourse in news and how polarization and cognitive biases have intensified with the widespread adoption of social media, previous candidate conventions have begun to crumble. This has, and will continue to have, a large impact on voting and democracy in America, as scholars have noted since the beginning of the 2000’s, in examining a shift in news preferences as pop culture gains influence. This work further examines recent scholarship …

Table Of Contents

The Griot - Southern Conference on African American Studies, Inc.

No abstract provided.