Law Commons^™

Containerization Of Seafarers In The International Shipping Industry: Contemporary Seamanship, Maritime Social Infrastructures, And Mobility Politics Of Global Logistics, Liang Wu

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation discusses the mobility politics of container shipping and argues that technological development, political-economic order, and social infrastructure co-produce one another. Containerization, the use of standardized containers to carry cargo across modes of transportation that is said to have revolutionized and globalized international trade since the late 1950s, has served to expand and extend the power of international coalitions of states and corporations to control the movements of commodities (shipments) and labor (seafarers). The advent and development of containerization was driven by a sociotechnical imaginary and international social contract of seamless shipping and cargo flows. In practice, this liberal, …

Bearer Negotiable Instruments: Addressing A Financial Intelligence Gap And Identifying Criminogenic Weaknesses, Hollis B. Kegg

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Bearer Negotiable Instruments (BNI) are a long-standing category of financial instruments used to transfer large amounts of money in ways that may not be subject to regulation, reporting, tracking, review, or oversight. There is limited information available on BNIs, and no evidence that any studies have been undertaken on BNIs alone, much less reported. Increasingly, BNIs are being used for illegal purposes including money laundering. This study gathers information about their characteristics, nature, purpose, legal status, and numbers. It also focuses on the crime risks associated with BNIs, the crime opportunities they facilitate, and the criminal weaknesses in the financial …

Ascriptive Nationalism, Demagoguery, And The Modern Presidency: A Case Study In Constitutional Decay, Christopher J. Putney

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This study is an account of the modern presidency as a source––and under Donald Trump, an accelerant––of systemic problems in American politics. Against the prevailing scholarly view of the Trump presidency as an unqualified aberration, I argue that the signal features of his efforts at governance are actually the product of converging patterns of political and institutional order. Building on seminal (but previously disjointed) work on ascriptive Americanism and the rhetorical presidency, I show that Trump represents the political synthesis of America’s ascriptive tradition and a form of presidential leadership inaugurated more than a century ago by Woodrow Wilson. Moreover, …

Investigations Of Fraud, Waste, Abuse, And Corruption In The Public Sector: A Survey Of Organizational And Software-Based Aids And Obstructions, Lawrence Kom

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Fraud, Waste, Abuse, and Corruption present significant challenges to the efficient use of public resources and stifle government service improvement by detracting from policy development and undercutting funding for important initiatives. The purpose of this study is to better understand the aids and impediments to investigations of these offenses and provide a generalizable definition for the mission of Inspectors General, the group tasked with monitoring and addressing these offenses. This study also sought to identify the material role of software in investigations of Fraud, Waste, Abuse, and Corruption. Through a purposive sampling, 18 Inspectors General from the federal, state, and …

Cosmopolitan Democracy: Re-Evaluation Of Globalization And World Economic System, Muhammad Dalhatu

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis examines cosmopolitan democracy theory as a method of addressing the problems of globalization. I begin by introducing the concept of “cosmopolitan democracy.” I then proceed to discuss contemporary political climate and its relation to critiques of globalization. Finally, I conclude by examining the elaborations of cosmopolitan democracy by various theorists as a way of addressing these problems. Chapter 1 introduces the work of David Held who introduced the concept in his book, Cosmopolitan Democracy and the Global Order: Reflections on the 20^th Anniversary of Kant’s “Perpetual Peace.” Cosmopolitan democracy refers to global governance through democratic theory. Held …

Sweeping Exposures: Lead Poisonings And Black Working Poor Populations In The United States, Shirley Reid

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The focus of my thesis is to explore some of the realities that the impoverished urban black poor populations face in America today. The goal of my thesis is to illustrate how poverty is reproduced within impoverished neighborhoods through the idea and mechanism of lead exposure, by recognizing how specific exposure to the element lead and its by-products is both a symbol and a material cause of black urban poor illness and disability. There is no mistake that people living in the U.S. are aware of the social injustices against black populations in the form of racial injustice. However, …

Cultural Heritage Preservation In The Context Of Climate Change Adaptation Or Relocation: Barbuda As A Case Study, Martha B. Lerski

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This case study introduces an arts camp methodology of engaging communities in identifying their key cultural heritage features, thus serving as a meta study. It presents original research based on field studies on the climate-vulnerable Caribbean island of Barbuda during 2017 and 2018. Its Valued Cultural Elements survey, enabling precise identification of key tangible and intangible art forms and biocultural practices, may serve as a basis for further studies. Such approaches may facilitate future research or planning as climate-vulnerable communities harness Local or Indigenous Knowledge for purposes of biocultural heritage preservation, or towards adaptation or relocation. I report on findings …

A Study Of Factors Influencing Hiring Decisions In The Context Of Ban The Box Policies, Ronald F. Day

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation investigates whether NYC employers adhered to Ban the Box by removing the question about criminal history from employment forms, by refraining from inquiring about an applicant’s criminal record during the interview process, and by complying with other aspects of the policy. The study also documents employer perspectives on Ban the Box and on the hiring of individuals with criminal convictions, and examines whether more individuals with a criminal record were hired after the policy was implemented.

Using a mixed-methods approach, surveys were administered to companies in the nonprofit and private sectors, and semi-structured interviews were conducted with a …

Bias-Motivated Homicides: Toward A New Typology, Lindsey Sank Davis

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Despite significant progress towards equal protection under the law for women, LGBT individuals, and people of color in the United States, hate crime remains a pervasive problem, and rates appear to have increased in recent years. Bias-motivated homicide – arguably the most serious form of hate crime – is statistically rare but may have far-reaching consequences for marginalized communities. Data from the Uniform Crime Reports and the National Crime Victimization Survey have suggested that, on average, fewer than 10 bias-motivated homicides occur in the United States per year; however, data from open sources indicate that the rate of bias-motivated homicide …

The State And Future Of Autonomous Vehicle Regulation In The United States, Nikolay Nyashin

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Autonomous vehicle technology is poised to revolutionize transit around the world. There are currently tens of private companies either testing or building autonomous vehicles, including industry juggernauts like Ford and Google. This new mode of transportation falls into a regulatory grey area. Once cars reach full autonomy, governments will have to decide what entities will regulate them, where they will be allowed to drive, who will be responsible for them and a host of other issues. In some municipalities like San Francisco and Phoenix, autonomous vehicles (AVs) are being tested on public streets in real life conditions. Meanwhile, in 2017, …

The Politics Of Shorter Hours And Corporate-Centered Society: A History Of Work-Time Regulation In The United States And Japan, Keisuke Jinno

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Shorter working hours drew much attention as a means of fighting unemployment and crisis in capitalism during the first half of the twentieth century. Nowadays, shorter work-time is rarely considered a policy option to fix economic or social issues in the United States and Japan. This dissertation presents a history of work-time regulation in the United States and Japan to examine how and why its developments and stalemate took place.

In the big picture, developments of work-time regulation during the first half of the twentieth century were a part of concessional modifications of class relations, a common phenomenon in many …

The Legacy Of Slavery And The Continued Marginalization Of Communities Of Color Within The Legal System, Julia N. Alvarez

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The aim of this thesis paper is to demonstrate how the history of slavery in the United States continues to marginalize communities of color. The history of slavery in America was the result of various factors. Some of these factors included but were not limited to; economic, legal, and social. Slavery provided a reliable and self-reproducing workforce. The laws enacted during slavery ensured the continuation of the social order of the time. This social order was based on the generalized understanding that blacks were born into servitude. Those born into slavery were not given the same legal or economic status …

Beyond Vulnerability: Refugee Women’S Leadership In Jordan, Widad Hassan

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

While both men and women are affected by conflicts and humanitarian crises, 80 percent of the world’s refugees and internally displaced persons are women and children, indicating that women experience conflict and war differently. The emphasis on women’s vulnerability during conflicts and humanitarian crises leads to their exclusion from leadership roles and decision-making on humanitarian programs and issues that impact them. Though women experience numerous socio-cultural barriers to exercising leadership in humanitarian settings, they have taken on important roles in emergency response and in refugee camps. This paper traces the progress of UN and humanitarian agencies recognition and development of …

Local Immigration Enforcement Entrepreneurship In The Punishment Marketplace, Daniel L. Stageman

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The contemporary neoliberal economic order plays a significant role in American social organization and policy-making. Most importantly, neoliberal ideology drives the creation and imposition of markets in public goods and services and the valorization of free market ideology in cultural life. The neoliberal ‘project of inequality’ is in turn delimited and upheld by an authoritarian system of punishment built around mass incarceration, surveillance, and an unprecedented level of social control directed at the lowest strata of American society – a group that includes both the urban underclass, and unauthorized immigrants.

This study lays out the theory of the punishment marketplace …

Capitalism And Unfreedom: Louis D. Brandeis And A Liberty Of The Left, Eric L. Apar

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The American Right features a well-developed—and well-heeled—infrastructure for promoting a conception of freedom as inextricable from capitalism. The American Left, by contrast, has seemed content to cede the territory, abandoning the ground of freedom for the terrain of “equality,” “justice,” “fairness,” and “prosperity.” This paper is an effort to address this asymmetry in the public discourse over the meaning of freedom. Its principal objective is to capture the vision of freedom embodied in the political and economic thought of Louis D. Brandeis, one of the American Left’s ablest expositors of freedom.

In addition, the paper has three subsidiary objectives. The …

Better Work And Global Governance, Paul Alois

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation is a case study of Better Work, a program run by the International Labor Organization and the International Finance Corporation. It aims to improve working conditions and productivity in the apparel industry. The purpose of this case study is to examine the role that international organizations can play in global governance. The research presented here comes from interviews, document analysis, and an examination of quantitative data on factories’ working conditions. In-person interviews were conducted in the United States, Switzerland, Vietnam, and Indonesia; many phone interviews took place with individuals in other countries. Both publicly available documents and internal …

Headhunting: Evaluating The Disruptive Capacity Of Leadership Decapitation On Terrorist Organizations, Ted Clemens Iv

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Leadership decapitation -- the practice of removing a leader from a position of authority through targeted killing (i.e. assassination) or arrest -- has long been a feature of counter-terrorism and counter-insurgency strategies the world over. Still, how effective is the practice of leadership decapitation in actually bringing a halt to, or even impeding, terrorist activity? Can removing top leaders of terrorist enclaves from power disrupt their groups to the point of organizational degradation or dissolution? And lastly, because no two terrorist groups are the same; when a terrorist group experiences leadership loss, how can the group be expected to react? …

Is Burglary A Violent Crime? An Empirical Investigation Of Classifying Burglary As A Violent Felony And Its Statutory Implications, Phillip Kopp

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Under the common law, burglary is defined as a crime committed against the property of another, and is listed as a property offense for purposes of statistical description by the Uniform Crime Reports (UCR) and the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS). However, burglary is prosecuted and sentenced as a violent crime under habitual offender laws at the federal level, and can be regarded as violent in state law, depending on varied circumstances. Using a mixed methods approach, the current study compared state and federal burglary and habitual offender statutes to an empirical description of the offense. First, a comprehensive content …

In Harm's Way: How Philadelphia's Urban Renewal Practices Steered Marginal People To Marginal Land, Katera Ya'shea Moore

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The dumping of locally unwanted land uses (LULUs) on marginal communities has been well documented, however environmental justice scholars have rarely written about how marginal groups have come to occupy their landscapes, particularly when natural hazards lie beneath.

This dissertation research focuses on a broad definition of the environment that includes the built, social, and physical. I am interested in extending Logan and Molotch's Growth Machine theory to consider how the political and economic elite guided the urban renewal process to place particular communities on particular landscapes, despite the presence of a flooding hazard. To understand this issue, I examined …