Digital Commons Network^™

Wealth, Public Goods, And Terror Damage, Annie Ackerman Speers, Kendra Pinegar

Sigma: Journal of Political and International Studies

The connection between macroeconomic status and terrorism is disputed; some find links between macroeconomic status and terrorism while others find no link between overall economic status and terrorist occurrence. We theorize that a country’s economic status, defined as overall GDP, is linked to the damage that terror groups do. However, we theorize that this link is contingent on public goods distribution by terror groups. More specifically, we theorize that terror groups provide public goods to compensate for a lack of public goods spending by governments. Using OLS and instrumental modeling, we find a negative link between GDP and terror damage, …

Tribal Health Self-Determination: The Role Of Tribal Health Systems In Actualizing The Highest Attainable Standard Of Health For American Indians And Alaska Natives, Vanessa Ann Racehorse

Publications

In this Article, I explore the concept of Tribal self-determination in the context of systems that serve American Indian and Alaska Native communities. I investigate the vast health disparities that exist in Tribal communities, as well as the history and current legal framework for the provision of health care in Indian Country. Part of this discussion also provides information on the federal laws and policies that have fractured the traditional lifeways of Native communities and contributed to the disparate health outcomes that now exist. I also provide background on the fundamental federal laws and policies, particularly the Indian Self-Determination and …

From Gods To Google, Rebecca Aviel, Margot Kaminski, Toni M. Massaro, Andrew Keane Woods

Publications

The First Amendment has become a significant barrier to sensible technology regulation. The conventional explanation for this is the Court's deregulatory turn in free-speech law. But the Lochnerization story is incomplete. The Court's profound solicitude for religious speakers plays a central role in the current digital-free-expression landscape. By protecting the speech of certain religious dissidents, the Court has created a set of constitutional entitlements that logically extend to technology firms. Along the way, the Court has eroded its ability to apply the First Amendment sensibly to novel technologies.

This Feature draws the doctrinal through line from gods to Google. We …

Loyalty Disarmament And The Undocumented, Pratheepan Gulasekaram

Publications

Since the Supreme Court's District of Columbia v. Heller decision in 2008, lower federal courts have wrestled with Second Amendment claims raised by categories of people excluded from gun possession. Among those cases, several have been brought by noncitizens challenging their prosecutions under 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(5), the federal criminal ban on possession by unlawfully present noncitizens. In the post-Heller § 922(g)(5) cases, judges have opined on whether unlawfully present noncitizens were among "the people" who had the right to bear arms and whether the government regulation met the appropriate level of constitutional scrutiny. More recently, however, the Supreme Court …

Suspicion, Deference, And The First Amendment, Helen Norton

Publications

No abstract provided.

Dangerousness And The Undocumented, Pratheepan Gulasekaram

Publications

The Supreme Court's most recent Second Amendment opinion, United States v. Rahimi, centers the question of dangerousness in right to bear arms challenges. There, the Court upheld 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(8), the federal criminal prohibition on possession of firearms by those subject to a civil domestic violence order, opining that legislatures could regulate the right to bear arms of those who were proven credible threats to public safety. Rahimi, however, left open the question whether dangerousness might be imputed to an entire group, absent individual determinations of threat or danger. The several lower federal court cases adjudicating 18 U.S.C. § …

Yars 18(32)

Yearbook of Antitrust and Regulatory Studies

YARS Vol. 18(32)

Public Protest And Civil Unrest, Timothy Zick

Faculty Publications

Governments and officials must respond to protest-related civil unrest. How they do so is both an index of official respect for dissent and a measure of how committed governments are to democratic accountability. This Article examines official responses to civil unrest in connection with several recent high-profile demonstrations. In general, it concludes that governments and officials have relied on aggressive and increasingly draconian measures to quell protest-related civil unrest. Among other things, they have invoked emergency powers and used aggressive protest policing methods; dispatched federal agency personnel and threatened to deploy military forces to police demonstrations; enacted successive waves of …

Against The Sliding Scale, Alan J. Meese

Faculty Publications

Gavil and Salop claim that the Chicago School’s “conservative critique of antitrust law” has peddled numerous pro-defendant economic assumptions, misleading courts in their assessment of alleged exclusionary conduct. The resulting legal standards, they say, require plaintiffs to adduce too much evidence to establish a prima facie case, for instance, producing false negatives and thus allowing restraints that injure purchasers to avoid condemnation. Drawing on decision theory, they propose reforms to the rule of reason analysis applied to exclusionary agreements to extirpate the Chicago School’s baneful influence. In suggesting these reforms, they hope sometimes to alter the parties’ respective burdens of …

Moral Bonds, Modern Subjects: Pecúlio, Property Rights, And The Abolition Of Slavery In Rio De Janeiro, 1822-1888, Alexander Joseph Lundberg

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

This dissertation examines the role of enslaved persons’ savings for self-purchase manumission (pecúlio) within the process of gradual abolition in the province of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Article IV of the 1871 Rio Branco Law granted enslaved persons in Brazil the legal ownership of their savings and, with those savings, the right to purchase freedom. Article IV supplemented the “free womb” provision of the Rio Branco Law, which declared that all children henceforth born to enslaved mothers were free. In the Brazilian Parliament, the law’s proponents argued that the savings provision would help reduce the enslaved population by codifying long-standing …

Moral Injury In First Responders: The Potential Ameliorative Role Of Self-Disclosure, Peter Tappenden

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

Perceived social support is a well-established buffer between trauma exposure and adverse outcomes like PTSD. One important aspect of this relationship may be that individuals with strong support networks may be more likely to discuss (“self-disclose”) the traumatic event to members of their support network. Two important aspects of self-disclosure that impact its potential for symptom alleviation following trauma exposure may be: 1) the discloser’s perceived response of the disclosure recipient and 2) whether the trauma-exposed individual repeatedly dwells (co-ruminates) on the traumatic event with the recipient in an unproductive manner. In recent years, a different type of traumatic event …

Carceral Bonds, Tyler E. Dougherty

Faculty Publications

Over the past 50 years, the U.S. financed a massive physical and fiscal expansion of prisons via the municipal bond market—with devastating results. This project is the first to shine a light on the role of municipal debt in state-level carceral decision making, spotlighting the ways that the municipal bond market affects states’ capacities to incarcerate.

This Article argues that the two primary controls of states’ use of the carceral bond market—(1) market discipline and (2) states’ fiscal constitutions—are particularly ineffective at limiting states’ spending on prisons. This failure to restrain states’ spending through the carceral bond market enables private …

Mechanisms For Including Publics In Administrative Governance, Nina-Simone Edwards

Library Scholarship

This project’s fourth concept paper rethinks public participation in administrative processes. Although participation mechanisms are theoretically designed to enable those affected by regulations to influence their development, it is often extremely difficult for members of the public to meaningfully engage with agencies. After discussing institutional failures of current participation mechanisms, this report develops a set of principles to guide the redesign of public participation mechanisms. These include involving publics earlier in the process, building both public and regulatory capacity for meaningful, two-way communication, and reframing expertise as a public good.

The paper then proposes specific mechanisms to optimize communication between …

Tribal Authority To Issue Search Warrants To Non-Tribal Entities Or On Non-Indian Land Within Reservation Boundaries, Ivy K. Chase

American Indian Law Review

No abstract provided.

Nine Dragons, Bailey Fraser

Comm-entary

No abstract provided.

Addressing Society’S Needs Through Research, Kazi S. Salsabil

High Impact Practices Student Showcase Spring 2025

The Focused Volunteer Community Service course, part of the U-LEAD program at the University of Central Florida (UCF), is a service-learning course. This course emphasizes the significance of community service, engagement, and leadership, all of which I applied in my volunteer role as a research assistant at the Adult Development and Decision-Making Lab. In this role, I participated in research projects exploring the impact of misinformation, specifically examining whether individuals can accurately distinguish between real and fake information based on personal characteristics and neural mechanisms. The goal is to utilize the findings to inform future interventions designed to reduce the …

How Different Questioning Methods Allow For More Productive Discussions In And Out Of The Classroom, Sabrina A. Califano

High Impact Practices Student Showcase Spring 2025

This presentation explores the impact of different questioning methods in promoting more productive discussions both inside and outside the classroom. As an undergraduate learning assistant in CHM2046, I reflect on how open-ended and close-ended questions can shape student interactions. Open-ended questions encourage diverse responses and allow for deeper discussions, while close-ended questions direct conversations towards specific answers.

This approach of varying question types based on the student’s needs helped students feel more confident and engaged. This encouraged one-on-one interactions, improving students' understanding and participation. This experience also helped build my own communication skills, influencing my approach in various situations beyond …

Confirming The Factor Structure Of The Police Officer Stigma Scale, Daniel R. Horning

Graduate Thesis and Dissertation post-2024

First responders routinely face exposure to critical incidents within the line of duty, resulting in higher prevalence of psychopathological conditions compared to the general population. However, a growing body of research identified a severe underutilization of mental health-related services among this population, with stigma towards mental illness being the most cited barrier to seeking care. Stigma as a construct is being actively measured, but the factor structure of stigma towards mental health remains contested in literature. Optimal model fit for Stuart’s Police Officer Stigma Scale is an example of these empirical debates, as both single-factor and two-factor models are offered …

Firefighter Syndrome: Improving The Identification And Classification Of Firefighters In Need, Michael A. Schlenk

Graduate Thesis and Dissertation post-2024

Firefighters (FFs) exhibit a multitude of behavioral and physical health concerns as well as fluctuating social support due to their occupation. Despite the fire service enacting preventative approaches to health and wellness, FFs still report increased prevalences of health concerns at the end of their career. Firefighter syndrome was created to identify FFs in need of medical care (e.g., behavioral and physical health services, Frueh et al., 2022b). The purpose of this study is to validate the construct of FF Syndrome by using statistical classification techniques to investigate whether there is a latent group of firefighters that have the symptoms …

A Path To Trust: Addressing Performative Engagement And Building Authentic Relationships Between Cities And Communities, Marika Reese

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

This qualitative study examines how Minneapolis City employees and community members perceive and experience the efforts of the City to engage them in public safety reform through community engagement initiatives. Although the City has pledged to prioritize racial equity and inclusion, many community members describe these engagement practices as manipulative and tokenizing. Grounded in the theoretical frameworks of Critical Race Theory and Arnstein’s Ladder of Citizen Participation, and guided by participatory action research and narrative inquiry, this study centers community voices. Data were collected through a community learning exchange involving City employees and residents, followed by semi-structured interviews with four …

Challenges And Future Strategies For B-Schools, Anatoly Zhuplev, Francisco J. Valle, Jose Rincón, Max Plithides

Management Faculty Works

This chapter examines the evolution of American higher education (HE) and business schools (B-schools) in the historical and contemporary strategic context. It explores the influence of the Humboldtian model on the contemporary HE industry in America. The chapter analyzes the current HE landscape, revenue sources, and global reach. The chapter investigates strategic disruptors like demographic shifts, skyrocketing costs of college and student loan burden, technological impacts, including proliferation of IT and AI, eroding public confidence in HE, and political and regulatory trends. The chapter explores solutions like accreditation reform and diversified credentials. It examines pressures on B-schools, including slow technology …

Jurisprudence Of Problem-Solving Courts: A Study Of Structure, Success, And Sociological Theory, Lauren M. Boos

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

In response to the failures of mass incarceration and its disproportionate impact on marginalized communities, Problem-Solving Courts (PSCs) have emerged as alternatives to traditional prosecution. These courts employ therapeutic-informed and rehabilitative practices aimed at addressing the root causes of criminal behavior. While widely regarded as more effective than traditional courts, PSCs have developed largely without a formal theoretical foundation. This is notable given their alignment with Sociological Jurisprudence (SJ) and Therapeutic Jurisprudence (TJ), which view the legal system as a vehicle for promoting individual and community well-being.

Despite being celebrated as therapeutic innovations, PSCs often embody these principles unevenly. Using …

Visual Semiotics In Parks: Assessing Pictorial Symbol Effectiveness In Outdoor Recreation Settings, Miranda Jane Foster

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

As interest in outdoor recreation grows, so does the need for effective communication in parks and protected areas. With a larger, more diverse visiting population, managers face new challenges, including intensified recreational use, staffing demands, and barriers to communication presented by cultural and linguistic diversity (Manning et al., 2017; Perry et al., 2021). Effective, indirect communication tools, such as pictorial symbol signage, are essential for addressing these challenges. Pictorial symbol signs are widely used in recreational signage and serve as vital indirect management strategies for communicating to diverse visitors as a universal visual language (Davies et al., 1998). However, research …

California, Elizabeth Ford

Thin Blue Advantage: Police Exceptionalism and the Two-Tier System of Public Sector Collective Bargaining

In general, California may be the most hospitable state to public sector collective bargaining. The basic rules are far more favorable to placing matters within the scope of mandatory subjects than any other state. There are, however, serious differences in how police and non-police bargaining is treated.

• Choice of Forum for Police. Under California’s public sector collective bargaining law, most unions and employers must resolve their conflicts about the scope of bargaining through California’s Public Employment Relations Board (PERB). For police only, however, the parties can also bring the disputes to court.
• Los Angeles Labor Relations. The scope …

Massachusetts, Elizabeth Ford

Thin Blue Advantage: Police Exceptionalism and the Two-Tier System of Public Sector Collective Bargaining

In Massachusetts there are several areas of difference in the treatment of police and non-police collective bargaining. They include the following:

• Interest Arbitration. In Massachusetts police and fire bargaining units are entitled to interest arbitration to resolve bargaining disputes. Other employees have access to a less powerful non-binding fact finding process. All public employees are prohibited from striking.
• Transparency of Rules and Agency Processes. The rules that govern police impasse procedures are hidden in a law that was passed in 1987 and never codified, creating a “if you know, you know” process for police.
• Use of Impact Bargaining …

Florida, Elizabeth Ford

Thin Blue Advantage: Police Exceptionalism and the Two-Tier System of Public Sector Collective Bargaining

In general, Florida Public Employment Relations Commission (PERC) decisions and statute demonstrate a dramatic divergence between police and non-police mandatory subjects of bargaining, particularly in the area of discipline. In addition,

• Duty to Bargain Discipline More Expansive for Police. The duty to bargain disciplinary rules in the non-police setting is much more expansive in the police setting.
• Duty to Bargain Work Reassignment More Expansive For Police. The reassignment rules are dramatically different in the police and non-police context.
• Duty to Bargain Change of Duties Broader for Police. There are few cases about changes of duties, but those that exist are …

Missouri, Elizabeth Ford

Thin Blue Advantage: Police Exceptionalism and the Two-Tier System of Public Sector Collective Bargaining

Missouri law allows for both police and non-police collective bargaining, but before 2018 there were no agency mechanisms to adjudicate a failure to bargain.

In 2018, however, the state passed a statute dramatically constraining public sector unions, but the law exempted police. The Missouri Supreme Court found that exclusion to be an equal protection violation.

Hawai’I, Elizabeth Ford

Thin Blue Advantage: Police Exceptionalism and the Two-Tier System of Public Sector Collective Bargaining

In general, Hawai’i’s statute contains a broad management rights provision that appears to at least make permissive bargaining over a range of topics including discipline, duties, and any other decisions to “maintain efficiency.” Hawai’i’s Labor Relations Board issues a very small number of decisions and an even smaller number of cases interpreting the requirement to bargain over mandatory subjects. The small number of decisions that the Hawai’i Labor Relations Board (HLRB) issues tend to be lengthy, poorly written and reasoned, and difficult to understand. The Board itself is comprised of three, full-time members, each of whom is paid over $100,000 …

Connecticut, Elizabeth Ford

Thin Blue Advantage: Police Exceptionalism and the Two-Tier System of Public Sector Collective Bargaining

In general, the Connecticut commission is hostile to expansive definitions of mandatory subjects of bargaining, sometimes issuing decisions that are results-driven and an expression of a preference for the substance of the employer’s decision. There are a couple of distinctions between police and other units:

• The Commission is more likely to weigh safety on the side of bargaining for police than others.
• The Commission treats the requirement to bargain surveillance-based decision more expansively for non-police units than police-units.

The Commission is more likely to find subcontracting of police work to an outside agency to be a mandatory subject of bargaining.

Iowa, Elizabeth Ford

Thin Blue Advantage: Police Exceptionalism and the Two-Tier System of Public Sector Collective Bargaining

In general, the differences between police and non-police units are dramatic. This is mostly due to statutory changes in 2017, making the scope of bargaining much more constrained for non-police bargaining units. Those amendments also constrained the scope of an interest arbitrator’s decision, again excluding police units. There are not many Board decisions in Iowa, and even fewer after 2017, but in the cases that exist, there are differences even before the statutory amendment.