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Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

Do Voters Reward Incumbents For Service Provision? Electoral Accountability In South African Elections, Rory Mayne Devlin Jan 2023

Do Voters Reward Incumbents For Service Provision? Electoral Accountability In South African Elections, Rory Mayne Devlin

Honors Projects

Democratic theory suggests that voters reward or punish incumbent political parties in elections by evaluating parties’ ability to provide services. But do voters reward incumbent parties for service provision in practice? This project explores the relationship between municipal-level service provision and voting in the South African context. I test whether the local provision of services, such as electricity, piped water, internet, trash collection, and flush toilets, impact the performance of South Africa’s two major political parties, the African National Congress (ANC) and the Democratic Alliance (DA) in municipal and national elections between 2009 and 2021. I observe this relationship in …


Education Amid Stabilization: The Varied Effects Of Military Intervention On Public Schooling In Mali, Niger, And Burkina Faso, Arjun S. Mehta Jan 2021

Education Amid Stabilization: The Varied Effects Of Military Intervention On Public Schooling In Mali, Niger, And Burkina Faso, Arjun S. Mehta

Honors Projects

At the intersection of international relations, comparative politics, and war consequence studies, this paper seeks to evaluate the effects of supportive foreign military intervention on education provision in three neighboring Central Sahel countries: Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso. In the wake of a Tuareg insurgency and a 2012 coup d’état in Mali, the proliferation of jihadist violence in the tri-border Liptako-Gourma region has been met by a proliferation of foreign interveners. Does stabilization— the form of intervention in the Central Sahel— improve education provision, as measured by diminishing jihadist attacks on schools and school closures due to violence? This paper …


Beyond Urban Bias: Peasant Movements And The State In Africa, Connor Rockett May 2019

Beyond Urban Bias: Peasant Movements And The State In Africa, Connor Rockett

Honors Projects

Focusing on sub-Saharan Africa, this study tests the hypothesis that state intervention in agrarian economies causes peasant movements to engage in broad-based contention, on regional and national levels. The study traces the connections between government land and agricultural institutions and the characteristics of rural movements that make claims on them. Case studies of regions of Tanzania, Senegal, Côte d’Ivoire, and Ethiopia show the ways in which rural movements are constructed in response to the political and social environments in which they arise. That is, the comparisons demonstrate that the character of political authority and social organization are important determinants of …


Domestic Economic Freedom And Regional Integration In Sub-Saharan Africa, Brevin Anderson Jun 2018

Domestic Economic Freedom And Regional Integration In Sub-Saharan Africa, Brevin Anderson

Honors Projects

This paper examines the relationship between policies facilitating domestic economic freedom in Sub-Saharan African states and the degree of regional integration of those states into their respective regional economic communities. It conducts a linear regression analysis with data from the Economic Freedom of the World Report 2017 and the AFRICA Regional Integration Index to conduct a quantitative study of Sub-Saharan African states. The regression finds strong evidence that domestic economic freedom is a significant contributing factor, between 5% and 15% causality, to a state’s degree of regional integration. The paper hypothesizes that private sector political and economic activity is the …


Africa And The International Criminal Court: Behind The Backlash And Toward Future Solutions, Marisa O'Toole May 2017

Africa And The International Criminal Court: Behind The Backlash And Toward Future Solutions, Marisa O'Toole

Honors Projects

Fifteen years into its operation as the preeminent international institution charged with the prosecution of the most serious international crimes, the International Criminal Court (ICC) has faced and continues to face intense backlash from the African continent. Once the Court’s most fervent advocates, many African leaders now lambast the ICC. In recent months, three African countries and the African Union en masse have attempted withdrawal from the Court, thus pushing the ICC-Africa relationship into the international spotlight as a topic of acute global interest. This paper seeks to explore the critiques behind this backlash through both a historical and present-day …


Sweet Sacrament: Where Myth Meets Story In Ethiopian Christianity, Kelsey Ann Chase Jun 2015

Sweet Sacrament: Where Myth Meets Story In Ethiopian Christianity, Kelsey Ann Chase

Honors Projects

Tell me your favorite sports team is the Cinderella story of the century, and I understand they come from humble origins, the odds were stacked against them, and—in a serendipitous turn of events—they achieved victory. In this way, humans use the structure and vocabulary of cultural stories to make sense of their lives and describe their experience. Through three creative nonfiction short stories, this project aims to capture the synthesis of myth and personal story in the narratives of Ethiopian evangelical Christians. Gathered in Ethiopia in summer 2014, the narratives of torture, persecution, and conversion are each paired with an …


The Price Of Carbon: Politics And Equity Of Carbon Taxes In The Middle Income Countries Of South Africa And Mexico, Bridgett C. Mccoy May 2015

The Price Of Carbon: Politics And Equity Of Carbon Taxes In The Middle Income Countries Of South Africa And Mexico, Bridgett C. Mccoy

Honors Projects

This study provides the first analysis of the politics and ethics behind carbon taxation in South Africa and Mexico. Using the preexisting scholarly frameworks of climate change policy, tax policy, and Robert Putnam’s two level games, I determine that in both cases, international pressures from multilateral negotiations and international development funding sources initiated the carbon tax policymaking process within the environment and treasury ministries of both countries. Once environment ministry bureaucrats initiated the carbon tax a lack of politicization of climate change (both countries) and an additional gain of raising revenue (Mexico) allowed the taxes to become law. I then …