Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Ambivalence, Legality, And Social Activism: How Daca Survived Donald J. Trump, Pamela V. Jaramillo

Senior Projects Spring 2023

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Social Studies of Bard College.

Corporate Lobbying: A Corporate Perspective To Lobbying And The Ecosystem Behind It, Noah R. Gulla

Senior Projects Spring 2023

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Social Studies of Bard College.

Ya Llegamos | We Are Here, Audrey Hermila Salgado

Senior Projects Spring 2023

ya llegamos | we are here, a Senior Project submitted to The Division of Arts of Bard College, is piece on gender and migration. It is a play that explores how family dynamics, class issues, education, and gender play a role in why people leave their home country. It explores the journey and relationship of Saturnina and Francisco as they travel across the Mexico/U.S. border.

Surveillance And Tyranny: The Dismantling Of The Private And Public Spheres Of American Democracy Through The Use Of Surveillance By Tyrannical Forces, Riley Julianna Truchel

Senior Projects Spring 2023

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Social Studies of Bard College.

On Your Mark, Get Set, Gender, Emilia Vella

Senior Projects Spring 2023

Women in sport is a territory that is seldom included in politics, yet “woman,” as an identity, is one that comes with political meaning. This thesis will be discussing the inadvertent politicality of women in sport, and the legislation, as well as systems that declare the identity as so.

Exclusionary Spillage: A Reckoning Of Belonging And Mass Incarceration, Valentina Flores Mayen

Senior Projects Spring 2022

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Social Studies of Bard College.

Who Is Anointed? The Psychological And Social Justice Implications Of Gifted And Talented Programs In The United States, Emma Caroline Gossett

Senior Projects Spring 2022

This paper explores the repercussions of gifted and talented programs in the United States, looking specifically at resulting psychological effects and social justice implications. This analysis is positioned within the discussion of global power struggles for technological advancement. After the success of the Russian Sputnik satellite in 1957, the United States bolstered initiatives in education to ensure they were producing students who could contribute to the prowess of the nation. Gifted programs allowed for a more in-depth focus on those children deemed useful to the labor market. This resulted in additional pressures placed on certain students to excel. The anointment …

Prefigurative Politics Of The Black Panther Party, Howard Kraskow

Senior Projects Spring 2022

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Social Studies of Bard College.

Comparing Political Implications Of Punitive Paradigms In Digital Surveillance And Data Driven Algorithms Between The Polities Of The United States Of America And The People's Republic Of China, Shedelande Lily Carpenter

Senior Projects Spring 2022

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Social Studies of Bard College.

What Happened To The Republican Party? The Right-Wing Media Ecosystem And The Rise Of Right-Wing Populism, Hannah Eisendrath

Senior Projects Spring 2022

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Social Studies of Bard College.

From The Black Panther Party To Black Lives Matter: Lessons From The Arab Spring And The Prospects For Social And Political Change In The Post-Ideological World, Raphael Lewis

Senior Projects Spring 2021

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Social Studies of Bard College.

Veterans And Disaster Relief: Charity And American Welfare, 1920-1960, Gordon Stearns

Senior Projects Spring 2021

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Social Studies of Bard College.

The Intersection Of Socioeconomic Segregation, The Black Voter, And Redistricting Within Tallahassee, Florida, Tsion Kiros

Senior Projects Spring 2020

This thesis explores answering the question of why Tallahassee is considered one of the most economically/racially segregated cities within America. This thesis also wants to create the argument on why and how socioeconomic segregation, black voting behavior, and redistricting all intersect with each other and help perpetuate the issue of economic stagnation among black people in Tallahassee. The first chapter consists of providing the historical context within Tallahassee dating all the way back to slavery in the mid-1800s when it was the slave trading capitol of the state. From there I focus on the transition from there to the era …

I Pledge Allegiance To One Global Nation: Redefining Citizenship Through The Institutionalization Of Cosmopolitan Principles In Response To The U.S. Immigration System, Giselle Lucia Avila

Senior Projects Spring 2020

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Social Studies of Bard College

The Parallax View: How Conspiracy Theories And Belief In Conspiracy Shape American Politics, Liam Edward Shaffer

Senior Projects Spring 2020

Conspiracy theories have become a fact of American political discourse. It seems at times that we are inundated by conspiracy theories that are being raised and addressed before being consigned to the dustbin in favor of the next batch. Our media outlets devote precious time and resources to debunking these theories and our politicians seem more willing than ever to traffic in conspiracy theories when it is politically convenient. It is tempting to find a scapegoat for this dynamic, to identify a few discrete actors who have introduced it into our politics. If this were the case, then all we …

Origins Of The Government Shutdown: The American Budget's Greatest Inefficiency, Samuel Francis Huggins

Senior Projects Spring 2020

Over the last 40 years, the American budget system has become increasingly inefficient and detrimental to the American People. The biggest issue within the budget system is the occurrence of government shutdowns and their increasing severity over time. Government shutdowns are a uniquely dangerous phenomenon that directly affects all Americans, hurting public workers, public infrastructure, removing social services, and creating chaos all across the country. The unprecedented harm caused by government shutdowns is well known and the shutdowns themselves are entirely avoidable, yet they continue to not only happen but increase in magnitude. I theorize that these shutdowns are caused …

The Race For Time: Experiences In The Temporality Of Blackness, Eboni Cymone Grooms

Senior Projects Spring 2020

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Social Studies of Bard College.

The New “Duck-And-Cover” — School Security As Contemporary Civil Defense And Mimetic Of The National Security State, Justyn C. Díaz

Senior Projects Spring 2020

The purpose of this project is to interrogate the parallels between school and state security policies. The project also positions these similarities ultimately as part of the program of schooling that seeks to create citizens in the interest of national security through the mimicry of the state security practices, inculcating a fear in students across the country that serves to constitute state power.

Beyond Moral Condemnation: Confronting Ideological Populism In Democratic Politics, Maggie Holloway

Senior Projects Spring 2020

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Social Studies of Bard College.

Myth Busting: Rethinking Social Contract Theory And Reorienting Sovereignty From John Locke To Georges Bataille, Mandalay Maelee Win

Senior Projects Spring 2019

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Social Studies of Bard College.

Delivering Identities: A Symbolic Interactionist Study Of Doulas And The Decline Of Medical Professional Dominance, Madeline Lucie Firkser

Senior Projects Spring 2019

Doulas are non-medically affiliated people who provide emotional, physical, and informational support to people before, during, and after childbirth. The purpose of this study is to understand the role of the doula beyond its typically-assumed value as a superficial or consumerist entity and in relation to the broader maternal health care system available within the United States. Through six in-depth interviews with doulas about their conceptions of their personal identities, as well as their relationships with their medical counterparts and their clients, this project contributes to extant literature on symbolic interactionist linkages between identities and occupations. I examine how doula …

In Fear We Trust: Anxious Political Rhetoric & The Politics Of Punishment, 1960s-80s, Stella Michelle Frank

Senior Projects Spring 2019

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Social Studies of Bard College.

A History And Analysis Relevant To The Us Border: A.K.A. "Fuck The Border”, Cole Rainey-Slavick

Senior Projects Spring 2019

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Social Studies of Bard College.

Borders are proliferating throughout the world today; dividing the core from the periphery, racially excluding vulnerable peoples, and facilitating the exploitation of labor. But, it has not always been like this. Borders were once limited only to a small scattering of city states, and even these borders looked little like those of today in terms of their enforcement or function. Where do borders come from? What do they do? What social forces produce and alter them? What is the history of the US border? What is the border …

The Fortress State: How The American System Protects Vested Interests And The Status Quo, Axel Clavier

Senior Projects Spring 2019

The Founders consciously designed the American system to divide majoritarian energies, gridlock the government, and skew the political game towards vested interests and knowledgeable insiders. The result is a political system which disproportionately caters to small and intensely-motivated constituencies while raising the bar very high for majoritarian change. But, if majoritarian forces are persevering enough, if their repeated assaults are able to muster the forces needed across many places and long stretches of time, the system is able to integrate and domesticate change without breaking, and without fundamentally altering itself. Judged by its longevity, the Fortress State is the most …

How To Earn And Lose Your Constituency: A Case Study Of New Jersey's Fifth Congressional District, Christopher R. Blake

Senior Projects Spring 2019

In 2016, Donald Trump inspired a "red wave" of voting that granted the Republicans control of the House and Senate for the first time since 2006. This seemingly should be a great time to be a Republican incumbent, especially in a Republican district. However, Scott Garrett, a long term conservative incumbent in New Jersey's fifth congressional district, fell to Josh Gottheimer, a Clinton-backed Democrat. So what happened? I conclude that Garrett fails to capture a new base that comes into his district after redistricting, loses his original base after failing to correctly achieve a Dual Constituency approach, and is hindered …

Gerrymandering And The Impossibility Of Fair Districting Systems, Danielle Degutz

Senior Projects Spring 2019

Voting district boundaries are often manipulated, or gerrymandered, by politicians in order to give one group of voters an unfair advantage over another during elections. To make sure a system of voting districts is not gerrymandered, the population size, the shape, and the voting efficiency of each party in each district should be taken into consideration. Following recent work of Boris Alexeev and Dustin G. Mixon, we discuss mathematical criteria for each of these three aspects, and we prove how problems arise when attempting to apply all three at once to a districting system--first to a simplified districting system and …

Puerto Rico's Unique Relationship To The United States An Overview Of The Historical Relationship, The Island's Evolving Political System And Immigration To The Mainland, Steven T. Marotta

Senior Projects Spring 2018

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Social Studies of Bard College.

Punishing Assemblages: A Queer, Decolonizing Theory Of The American Prison, Liam Hopkins

Senior Projects Spring 2018

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Social Studies of Bard College.

Newsroom Action During The Lebanon War: A Look At American And Israeli Media Coverage, Ciara Collins

Senior Projects Spring 2018

Since 1948, the birth of the Jewish state has been broadcasted by news media outlets all over the globe. Most audiences and viewers are driven by an ideological bias, one that influences the daily consumption of media, impeccably catered to the viewer and their political, social, and moral understandings. This paper explores biases embedded within Israeli and Western news industries through literature, news stations, and language. I will unpack these biases in media representation with concern to the hierarchical structures that exist behind the unquestioned voices or “factual” sources. Israel has been viewed and criticized as a modern Nation-State by …

On Citizenship: The Evolution Of Civic Education From Mann To Meier, Benjamin R.E. Faller

Senior Projects Spring 2018

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Social Studies of Bard College.