Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Unvarnished Inhumanity: America’S Factory Farm Industry, Caitlin Rowley

Honors Program Theses and Projects

As exposed through a variance of media outlets, the United States is often inept in its endorsement of farm animal welfare laws; while incidents depicting the cruel mistreatment of farm animals are plentiful, the federal government enforces only two laws that address the issue directly. The 28 Hour Law and the Humane Methods of Slaughter Act, however pure in intent, are severely limited in scope, and according to reports from the USDA, handling violations are frequent yet rarely result in longstanding consequences. Consequently, this research provides a comprehensive overview of the activity within the factory farm industry so that, in …

Public Perceptions Of Police Interactions With Juveniles, Jillian Orr

Honors Program Theses and Projects

While previous research shows how different people respond differently to situations regarding police use of force on juveniles (Michael Brown, Tamir Rice, etc) this paper delves into what aspect each person has that influences the way they feel the police officer should respond to a juvenile suspect. I surveyed a group of about 300 people and asked them to give their responses to a vignette in which they were the acting police officer. Then, I analyzed the public opinion results through the lens of authoritarianism and compared them to the variables of age, gender, employment, and education.

Does International Law Change State Behavior?, Brett Franzie

Honors Program Theses and Projects

Human rights treaties are the main legal instrument used by the United Nations to advance human rights. While many treaties are ratified by the world, rights violations still happen, especially for women. The purpose of this study is to discover if states obey and follow international human rights law on women’s rights and protect the rights defined in the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women. This analysis employed a case study methodology that compares four states: Sweden, Latvia, Libya, and the United Arab Emirates and their women’s rights practices. The United Nations Universal Periodic Review …

Examining The Varied Impacts Of Economic Globalization: A Comparative Analysis Of Four American States, Marina Smoske

Honors Program Theses and Projects

As a subject of extensive scholarship and a potent political buzzword, globalization is a deeply polarizing concept that inspires conflicting views about its effects. In the United States, popular debate often describes globalization as having uniformly positive or negative impacts on the country’s economic health. This line of reasoning is employed particularly with respect to shifts in the labor market and its implications on Americans’ economic prosperity. This reasoning, however, is not a theoretically sound or an empirically useful way to describe and understand the economic impact of globalization, for it implies that a complex, multifaceted phenomenon produces uniform results …

Department Of History And Political Science Registration Newsletter Fall 2018, Department Of History And Political Science, University Of Southern Maine

Department of History and Political Science Registration Newsletter

In this issue:

• Political Science majors Shaman Kirkland and Hamdia Ahmed help organize March for Our Lives
• New World Languages Options
• Screening of the film “Of Many: Then and Now” and moderated discussion with Rabbi Yehuda Sarna and Imam Khalid Latif
• (De)Constructing Race, Equality, and Power at SPACE Gallery
• Registration information
• HTY/POS Courses Offered Fall 2018
• HTY/POS Internship Fall 2018
• Ron Schmidt's forthcoming book Reading Politics with Machiavelli

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 …

Zero Textbook Cost Syllabus For Psy 3103/Pol 3101 (Political Psychology), Nicholas Juszczak

Open Educational Resources

This course is an exploration of political behavior from a psychological perspective, with special attention devoted to selected topics. What is Political behavior and what shapes it? Is it the situation in which we find ourselves, or our internal psychological makeup such as our beliefs and values? Perhaps neurology and physiology contribute as well? We will explore political psychology from within this situational-dispositional framework. Thus, we will look at behaviorism, obedience, personality, groupthink, cognition, affect, emotions and neuroscience as they relate to topics such as voting behavior, racism, terrorism, and more!

More Than Just Words: Credible Strike Threats In The Us, 2012-2016, Robert Ovetz

Faculty Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activity

According to our on-line survey conducted during the Winter and Spring of 2017, between 2012-2016 the number of workers threatening to strike was 199 percent higher than the number who actually did strike according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. In our analysis of 48 on-line survey respondents and 10 in depth phone interviews we found that while the number of strikes has continued on a steady decline over the past few decades, the evidence points to more workers ready and willing to strike. We call the willingness to strike, and the capacity to do so, a credible strike threat, …

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.

Women In Parliament: A Study Of Issue-Specific Female Coalition Building In Morocco, Lura Morton

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Currently, 81 out of 395 members of the House of Representatives, Morocco’s lower chamber of Parliament, are women. In other words, roughly 20.5% of the representatives are women. For comparison's sake, the world average is 23.8%.1 Morocco is near the world average in terms of representation, but what does female representation accomplish? Are the women in parliament effective at representing Moroccan women, their rights, and their concerns? This paper explores the concept of female parliamentarians as substantive representatives of female citizens. Specifically, this paper examines if female members of parliament (MPs) form coalitions around issues that are specific to women, …

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 …

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 …

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 …

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 …

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 …

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 …

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

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

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 …