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Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences
Direct Democracy And Political Engagement Of The Marginalized, Jeong Hyun Kim
Direct Democracy And Political Engagement Of The Marginalized, Jeong Hyun Kim
Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations
This dissertation examines direct democracy's implications for political equality by focusing on how it influences and modifies political attitudes and behaviors of marginalized groups. Using cases and data from Sweden, Switzerland, and the United States, I provide a comprehensive, global examination of how direct democratic institutions affect political participation, especially of political minority or marginalized groups.
In the first paper, I examine whether the practice of direct democracy supports women's political participation. I theorize that the use of direct democracy enhances women's sense of political efficacy, thereby promoting their participation in the political process. I test this argument by leveraging …
Designing And Teaching With Role-Playing Games And Simulations In College Classrooms, Xavier Royer
Designing And Teaching With Role-Playing Games And Simulations In College Classrooms, Xavier Royer
Theses/Capstones/Creative Projects
Role-Playing games and simulations are growing in popularity as pedagogical tools in college classrooms. This capstone examines the current research on this type of teaching method and on how to design them successfully. Then, it will document the author’s own games that he designed throughout the course of semester. This capstone will examine three games done by other over various topics. The paper concludes with a brief statement by the other of lessons he learned not covered in previous sections and his findings on the application of role-playing and simulations in college classrooms.
Abandoned By Home And Burden Of Host: Evaluating States' Economic Ability And Refugee Acceptance Through Panel Data Analysis, Ummey Hanney Tabassum
Abandoned By Home And Burden Of Host: Evaluating States' Economic Ability And Refugee Acceptance Through Panel Data Analysis, Ummey Hanney Tabassum
Browse all Theses and Dissertations
This research examines the relationship between the number of refugees hosted by states and the economic ability of host states by using UNHCR’s refugee data and World Bank’s GNI per capita data. To identify the relationship between these two variables, this study uses two sets of panel data covering 145-178 countries, around 43-55 years and 3000-5000 observations. For the two sets of panel data, four models are produced to test the null and alternative hypotheses. In all four cases, results show that there is a statistically significant negative correlation between the number of refugees hosted by states and GNI per …
Masculinity (De)Construction And Policing: A Comparative Study Of Representation, Policies, And Legitimacy, Sarah Huffman
Masculinity (De)Construction And Policing: A Comparative Study Of Representation, Policies, And Legitimacy, Sarah Huffman
Senior Independent Study Theses
The culture of policing oftentimes equates police competency with masculinity, valorizing physicality and bravery, but at the expense of other characteristics included in policework such as service and protection. The introduction of more female officers into police services leads the question as to how their increased representation (de)constructs traditional masculinist attitudes and affects gender inclusive policy and actions of a police service, encompassing police response to cases of domestic and sexual violence. This study investigates whether higher gender equity in a police service increases gender inclusive policy and actions by the police and whether this factor, in turn, increases public …
Politics Of International Recognition: The Case Of Aspirant States, Wais Mehrabi
Politics Of International Recognition: The Case Of Aspirant States, Wais Mehrabi
Browse all Theses and Dissertations
Separatist polities that have managed to break away from their parent states and meet the basic criteria for statehood seek other states’ formal recognition to achieve full statehood and membership of the international society. There is no established pattern to explain external recognition of statehood empirically and theoretically. Kosovo declared independence and attained widespread recognition while Somaliland, despite successful separation from Somalia, has not. What factors explain states’ recognition decisions, or the selective conferring of recognition? The existing literature indicates that national interests, domestic politics, systematic level factors, international legal and normative standards, regime type, and identity politics shape recognition …
Revisiting Afghanistan's Modern History: The Role Of Ethnic Inclusion On Regime Stability, Rahimullah Akrami
Revisiting Afghanistan's Modern History: The Role Of Ethnic Inclusion On Regime Stability, Rahimullah Akrami
Browse all Theses and Dissertations
This study examines the role of ethnic inclusion as a factor of regime stability in Afghanistan through an historical case analysis from 1880 until 2009. By utilizing case study research methods, the goal of the study is to examine all the past regimes in order to show whether there is a relationship between the dependent variable regime stability and the independent variable ethnic inclusion. The study assumes the hypothesis that an ethnically inclusive regime will be stable while an ethnically exclusive regime will be unstable. Five indicators are used to measure each variable respectively. Each indicator is assigned a score …
How Do Voters Decide? A Study Of The Determinants Of Voting Behavior In Ghana, Richard Boateng Antwi
How Do Voters Decide? A Study Of The Determinants Of Voting Behavior In Ghana, Richard Boateng Antwi
Browse all Theses and Dissertations
What factors influence voting behavior in Ghana? This thesis investigates this question using a survey data conducted in four regions in Ghana. A descriptive analyses and logistic regression of the data show that candidate personality and campaign promises are the most important predictors of vote choice. The study further found that ethnic and economic variables are minor features of voting behavior in Ghana: they do not influence how the majority of the electorate make voting decisions. This finding challenges the conventional view on Ghana’s elections that presume that elections are simply an ethnic census. Additionally, the finding suggests that majority …
Power, Profit, And Political Participation: How Neoliberal Rationality Limits Citizen Influence In A Democracy, Emma Woods
Senior Independent Study Theses
Democracy’s promise is that citizens hold the ultimate power in government. However, the ascension of neoliberal rationality, an economic rationality that focuses primarily on economic growth with political activity being secondary or merely instrumental to economic growth, acts as a threat to that promise. This paper offers a critical analysis of political participation in a democracy, using two theoretical frameworks, liberalism and neoliberalism. Based in these theoretical frameworks, it provides an analysis of how changes in individual conceptions of self have institutional effects on politics. Laying out the framework of neoliberalism, tracing its ideological roots in liberalism and its subsequent …
You've Got A Friend In Me: The Effects Of Lgbtqia+ Legislators On Same-Sex Partnership Rights In Latin America, Danica Genners
You've Got A Friend In Me: The Effects Of Lgbtqia+ Legislators On Same-Sex Partnership Rights In Latin America, Danica Genners
Senior Independent Study Theses
Scholars have debated how descriptive representation might operate as a vehicle for furthering minority rights. Rarely discussed in this literature is the role that the election of LGBTQIA+ politicians can have on overall approval of LGBTQIA+ rights within a country. This study aims to identify the various effects that LGBTQIA+ sexual minority federal representatives in Latin America have on public opinion on pro-LGBTQIA+ policies. Using a multi-year, cross-national survey of eleven Latin American countries my study tests whether the election of a LGBTQIA+ representative is related to more progressive views on same-sex marriage. This study finds that the election of …
Real Fake News: The Colbert Report And Affective Polarization, Jeffrey J. Skoroda
Real Fake News: The Colbert Report And Affective Polarization, Jeffrey J. Skoroda
Senior Independent Study Theses
This Independent Study examines the relationship between political satire and affective polarization. Affective polarization is a newly growing form of political polarization wherein partisans are polarized based on mutual dislike for opposing partisans rather than ideological disagreements. Political news has been linked to this recent trend in polarization. Over the past two decades, political scientists have taken an interest in investigating the impact of political satire programs like The Daily Show and The Colbert Report through the same lens as traditional political news. These satirical news programs implement satire, a more complex form of comedy that can require more cognitive …
Inclusion Of Blocking Power For A Complete Voting Power Analysis In The Imf, Shiwani Varal
Inclusion Of Blocking Power For A Complete Voting Power Analysis In The Imf, Shiwani Varal
Senior Independent Study Theses
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) calculates the voting power of a country by dividing the total of one member's votes by the total of all members' votes. This method of calculating the power of a state judges power as voting weight. However, voting weights are the total number of votes a country has in an institution, while voting power is the influence a country has on a policy decision. A better approach to calculate this voting power within an institution is by using voting power indices. However, literature only calculates the winning power, while voting power is defined as the …