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Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons™
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Articles 1 - 9 of 9
Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences
How Ballot Measure Wording Affects Preference-Consistent Voting: Experimental Evidence From The United States, William M. Pierce
How Ballot Measure Wording Affects Preference-Consistent Voting: Experimental Evidence From The United States, William M. Pierce
Political Science Honors Projects
Why do some people vote for ballot measures that are inconsistent with their policy preference while others do not? It is important to explore this question in order to understand how well direct democracy translates the will of the people into policy outcomes. Drawing on electoral theories and cognitive science, I hypothesize that people are more likely to vote against their policy preferences when the language of a ballot measure is more complex. I test this hypothesis, along with causal mechanisms and heterogeneous treatment effects, using a survey experiment on a quasi-representative sample of voters in the United States.
Notoriously Ruthless: The Idolization Of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Lucille Moran
Notoriously Ruthless: The Idolization Of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Lucille Moran
Political Science Honors Projects
It is now a fixture of mainstream commentary in the United States that Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has become a popular idol on the political left. Yet, while Justice Ginsburg’s image and story has reached an unprecedented level of valorization and even commercialization, scholars have yet to give sustained attention to the phenomenon and to contextualize it: why has this idolization emerged within this context, and what is its impact? This paper situates her portrayal in the cultural imagination as the product of two political forces, namely partisanship and identity politics. Considering parallel scholarly discourses of reputation, celebrity, …
The Purple Wave: Gender And Electoral Outcomes In The 2018 Midterms, Semilla B. Stripp
The Purple Wave: Gender And Electoral Outcomes In The 2018 Midterms, Semilla B. Stripp
Political Science Honors Projects
This thesis offers an analysis of the relationship between gender and electoral outcomes in the 2018 midterm elections. What role did gender play in the success of candidates for the House of Representatives? In answering this question, I quantify women’s success by analyzing the extent to which female candidates’ vote shares can be attributed to their gender. I find that, while controlling for various electoral and biographical factors, female challengers and open seat candidates performed better than their male counterparts, while female incumbents had no advantage over male incumbents. These outcomes also divided along party lines, with Democratic women performing …
Why We Hear About It, And Why We Don't: Power Dynamics And Sexual Harassment Reporting In Us State Legislative Bodies, Halley Norman
Why We Hear About It, And Why We Don't: Power Dynamics And Sexual Harassment Reporting In Us State Legislative Bodies, Halley Norman
Political Science Honors Projects
The rise to prominence of the #MeToo Movement in October 2017 opened the floodgates to sexual harassment and assault allegations in all fields and levels of employment, across the United States and the world. This movement has crucially revealed is that women often wait months or even years before reporting, if they report at all. Looking at US state legislative bodies, I argue that gendered power dynamics between men and women suppress allegations and promote harassment. Using interviews and data analysis, this paper identifies different factors that may delay or hinder reporting, with a specific focus on gendered power dynamics …
Courtroom To Classroom: Judicial Policymaking And Affirmative Action, Dylan Britton Saul
Courtroom To Classroom: Judicial Policymaking And Affirmative Action, Dylan Britton Saul
Political Science Honors Projects
The judicial branch, by exercising judicial review, can replace public policies with ones of their own creation. To test the hypothesis that judicial policymaking is desirable only when courts possess high capacity and necessity, I propose an original model incorporating six variables: generalism, bi-polarity, minimalism, legitimization, structural impediments, and public support. Applying the model to a comparative case study of court-sanctioned affirmative action policies in higher education and K-12 public schools, I find that a lack of structural impediments and bi-polarity limits the desirability of judicial race-based remedies in education. Courts must restrain themselves when engaging in such policymaking.
No More 9/11s: Reconceptualizing National Security And The Creation Of An American Garrison State., Jacob M. Waxman
No More 9/11s: Reconceptualizing National Security And The Creation Of An American Garrison State., Jacob M. Waxman
Political Science Honors Projects
The NSA’s electronic surveillance program unsettled many Americans as an abuse of government power. In my research I reconcile this program with traditional American civil-military relations and conceptions of national security. I apply these theories to the Cold War and War on Terror, exploring how in both cases the US built a national security state using legislation, bureaucracy, and legitimizing rhetoric to respond to the Soviet and terrorist threats. I find that 9/11 expanded the American conception of national security, which precipitated the NSA surveillance program. Without significant public and Congressional pushback, the current national security state is likely to …
Deciphering A Duality: Understanding Conflicting Standards In Sex & Violence Censorship In U.S. Obscenity Law, Rushabh P. Bhakta
Deciphering A Duality: Understanding Conflicting Standards In Sex & Violence Censorship In U.S. Obscenity Law, Rushabh P. Bhakta
Political Science Honors Projects
This research examines the division in US obscenity law that enables strict sex censorship while overlooking violence. By investigating the social and legal development of obscenity in US culture, I argue that the contemporary duality in obscenity censorship standards arose from a family of forces consisting of faith, economy, and identity in early American history. While sexuality ingrained itself in American culture as a commodity in need of regulation, violence was decentralized from the state and proliferated. This phenomenon led to a prioritization of suppressing sexual speech over violent speech. This paper traces the emergence this duality and its source.
Whose Line Is It Anyway? Examining The Media's Coverage Of Cabinet Secretaries' Speeches, Matthew G. Mullarky
Whose Line Is It Anyway? Examining The Media's Coverage Of Cabinet Secretaries' Speeches, Matthew G. Mullarky
Political Science Honors Projects
Previous research suggests that politicians and the press spin news stories through their remarks and coverage of remarks to their own benefit — but is this also true for remarks made by Cabinet Secretaries? For this project, I compared remarks given by DHS Secretaries with newspaper articles about those remarks. I find that Secretaries’ ability to shape issues is initially limited by the press; however, Secretaries succeed in conveying their message eventually. This is important because citizens should know what government officials are saying and what those statements mean; therefore, media coverage of those statements should be critical and accurate.
Think Outside The Cell: Are Binding Detention Standards The Most Effective Strategy To Prevent Abuses Of Detained Illegal Aliens?, Federico D. Burlon
Think Outside The Cell: Are Binding Detention Standards The Most Effective Strategy To Prevent Abuses Of Detained Illegal Aliens?, Federico D. Burlon
Political Science Honors Projects
In the last twenty years the U.S. government has increasingly utilized detention to control illegal immigration. This practice has become controversial because it has caused numerous in-custody abuses and deaths of immigrants, asylum seekers, refugees and even citizens. Immigrant rights advocates have called for the passage of binding detention standards to prevent in-custody abuses. This thesis’s policy analysis reveals, however, that while they may finesse the practice of immigration detention, such binding standards would be ineffective in protecting immigrants’ rights. Instead this policy analysis calls for and explains the feasibility of discontinuing the practice of mass immigrant detention.