Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

The Development Of International Law In Relation To Crimes Against Humanity, Nikki Redelijk

Global Tides

This paper will look at the development of international law in relation to crimes against humanity. First, juridically applied at the Nuremberg Trials, crimes against humanity has historically offered a compelling juxtaposition between naturalist and positivist law. Hence, this paper attempts to shed light on these juxtapositions, as seen by the respective arguments taken up by the Allies and Germany at Nuremberg. Likewise, this paper will illustrate the complexities within the definition itself. Finally, this paper will clarify the differing definitions taken up at the various tribunals following Nuremberg, leading up to the Rome Statute. It is a hope, that …

Christian Nukes: The Effects Of Christian Ethics On Support For Nuclear Strikes, Jack Jogerst

Seaver College Research And Scholarly Achievement Symposium

Over the last several decades, constructivist and realist scholars of international relations have acknowledged the empirical holes in deterrence theory and debated the conditions contributing to the non-use of nuclear weapons since 1945. While constructivists have argued that a strong norm of non-use has constrained state behavior through a logic of appropriateness, realist scholars have contended that a logic of consequences prevents their utilization. In the last decade, a wave of survey experiments have measured the validity of these theories. Though these studies generally seem to reaffirm the realist perspective, the literature largely overlooks the micro-level variables that might be …

She Speaks For Millions: The Emergence Of Female Diplomatic Voices In The Russo-Ukrainian War, Amber Brittain-Hale

Education Division Scholarship

This research critically investigates the public diplomacy strategies deployed by a cohort of influential female European leaders on Twitter during the Russo-Ukrainian War of 2022-2023. The study comprises eight leaders - Kallas (Estonia), Marin (Finland), von der Leyen (President of the European Commission), Metsola (President of the European Parliament), Sandu (Moldova), Simonyte (Lithuania), Zourabichvili (Georgia), and Meloni (Italy) - representing millions of constituents. By mirroring the analytical attention given to Ukraine's President, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, this study scrutinizes the distinct approaches and dif erences in emotional, cognitive, and structural language use between these influential female figures and President Zelenskyy in their …

Clausewitzian Theory Of War In The Age Of Cognitive Warfare, Amber Brittain-Hale

Education Division Scholarship

We can reconceptualise warfare by contrasting Clausewitz with the modern practice of cognitive warfare, as evidenced by Ukraine’s defence methodologies. The strategic orchestration of ‘infopolitik’ and the sophisticated use of social media can shape narratives and public perception. This article revisits Clausewitz’s tenet of war as a political instrument and juxtaposes it with contemporary conflict’s multidimensional tactics. By scrutinising Ukraine’s digital and psychological warfare tactics, one may question the applicability of Clausewitz’s framework, seeking to understand if these novel dimensions of warfare compel a redefinition or an expansion of his thesis to navigate the complexities of contemporary geopolitical confrontations.

A Computational Analysis Of Volodymyr Zelenskyy's Public Diplomacy Discourse In Times Of Crisis, Amber Brittain-Hale

Education Division Scholarship

In this study, we delve into the public diplomacy discourse of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy during the ongoing crisis of the Russo-Ukrainian War. We aim to conduct a computational analysis of Zelenskyy's English, Russian, and Ukrainian speeches, exploring the linguistic patterns and code-switching employed in his discourse. The study period encompasses Russia’s build-up to and full-scale invasion of Ukraine from May 2019 to May 30, 2023. This time frame is crucial as it captures the dynamic development of the crisis and the expansion of Zelenskyy's presidency, providing a unique context for analyzing his public diplomacy efforts. By utilizing Linguistic Inquiry …

A Fake Future: The Threat Of Foreign Disinformation On The U.S. And Its Allies, Brandon M. Rubsamen

Global Tides

This paper attempts to explain the threat that foreign disinformation poses for the United States Intelligence Community and its allies. The paper examines Russian disinformation from both a historical and contemporary context and how its effect on Western democracies may only be exacerbated in light of Chinese involvement and evolving technologies. Fortunately, the paper also studies practices and strategies that the United States Intelligence Community and its allied foreign counterparts may use to respond. It is hoped that this study will help shed further light on Russian and Chinese disinformation campaigns and explain how the Intelligence Community can efficiently react.

Diversity In The American Church: A Case Focus On The Korean Immigrant Church, Claire Lee

Global Tides

There are ethnic factions that exist within the Christian Church in the United States, and every ethnic faction seems to be marked by a set of theological or cultural features that distinguish it from other factions. This paper explores the socio-political history, function, and future direction of the Korean Immigrant Church (KIC). Specifically, this paper analyzes the origins of the robust connection between the Korean immigrant population and Protestant Christianity, the functional importance of the KIC, and demographic changes within KICs in the 21st Century. This paper also discusses a broader application of the KIC to other ethnically homogeneous Christian …

Contradiction And Juche, Philosophical Deviations From Traditional Dialectical Materialism By Kim Il Sung And Mao Zedong Necessitated By Socio-Political Conditions, Thomas Bidewell

Global Tides

This work will attempt to attribute the deviations from the traditional Marxist dialectic in the cases of Mao Zedong and Kim Il Sung to their necessitated governing philosophies, and thus their geopolitical conditions. In the case of Mao, this governing philosophy is ‘State-Building Socialism’, a hyper-materialist reappropriation of Marxist materialism crafted to raze internal cultural and economic hierarchy through isolating Contradictions, a rebranding of dialectics. In the case of Kim, a framework of ‘Ethnic Anti-Colonialism’ is adopted through the creation of Juche, an anti-materialist philosophy with references to Hegelianism to wrestle back the agency of ethnic Koreans against Imperialism.

Slava Ukraini: A Psychobiographical Case Study Of Volodymyr Zelenskyy’S Public Diplomacy Discourse, Amber Brittain-Hale

Theses and Dissertations

Volodymyr Zelenskyy's public diplomacy during the Russo-Ukrainian conflict was examined in this dissertation. Zelenskyy’s discourse emphasized his action-oriented traits, Ukrainian identity, and nationalism. The study employed LTA, and LIWC-22, for natural language processing analyses of Zelenskyy's public speeches and diplomatic discourse. Zelenskyy demonstrated agency, adaptability, collaboration, and positive language patterns, suggesting confidence and optimism, according to the data. In addition, the research emphasizes how domestic and international factors influence state behavior, as well as how political demands, cultural, historical, and political factors influence Zelenskyy's decision-making.

This dissertation sheds light on a global leader's psychobiographical characteristics, beliefs, and motivations during a …

Governing The Pandemic: A Comprehensive Policy Analysis Of The $4.1t Strategy, Sean D. Jasso

Education Division Scholarship

From January 2020 to March 2021, the U.S. Government implemented five laws to marshal the federal response to the December 2019 outbreak of the Coronavirus. For context, past federal emergency policies include the New Deal $1T, World War II $4T, Hurricane Katrina $120B, AIDS $100B, $2.4T Iraq War, $90B Ukraine War, $44B Climate Change, Covid Vaccines $30B and, the largest emergency spending allocation in U.S. history, Covid-19 $4.1T. An evaluation of the government’s strategy to confront the pandemic is framed into two segments: legislative function – how the Congress mobilizes emergency legislation; and, executive function – how the administration manages …

The Fuel For Neo-Nazism, Brandon M. Rubsamen

Global Tides

This paper attempts to explain the cause of support for far-right extremism movements in Europe. It takes a comparative approach in explaining that support by first analyzing Germany and Luxembourg. In each country, politics, history, economics, and society are explored in order to elicit a root cause. Once that main factor is found, Norway and Greece are also analyzed to see if the hypothesis holds. Political stability is hypothesized to be the root cause in far-right support in Germany (and lack thereof in Luxembourg), and the examples of Norway and Greece support this hypothesis. By comparing and contrasting aspects of …

Victims Of Terrorism At The Intersection Of Race And Gender, Charlotte Lang, Candice Ortbals

Seaver College Research And Scholarly Achievement Symposium

El-Nawawy and El-Masry (2017) argue that media “devalue black lives” and “race, then, cannot be ignored as a factor” when considering the media and political treatment of terrorism’s victims (2017, 1810). Furthermore, media give less coverage to victims of terrorism in attacks occurring in countries outside the Global North (Nevalsky 2015). In this paper, we theorize race and terrorism along with gender. We discuss the ways that scholarship, media, and political actors give (or do not give) attention to victims of terrorism. We show through a historical analysis of Rapoport’s waves of terrorism and an analysis of recent cases of …

Domestic Politics Of International Organizations, Clara Keuss

Seaver College Research And Scholarly Achievement Symposium

How does domestic politics affect U.S. participation in international organizations? Most of the scholarly attention on participating, influencing, and funding of IOs has focused on overall decisions at the state level. But the 2016 election and subsequent timeframe have highlighted that U.S. voters and their representatives have preferences about IOs that are obscured by this high-level focus. Anecdotal evidence shows that U.S. legislators push decisions at IOs like the World Bank and UN to satisfy the domestic political preferences of their constituents rather than the US’ national interest. (Yet beyond one-off cases, we know very little about how legislators’ votes …

The Effects Of News Media Bias On Affective Polarization, Timothy Song

Seaver College Research And Scholarly Achievement Symposium

In an age of divided media, levels of affective polarization, or personal dislike and preference against members of a different political affiliation, appear to have grown. Using a survey experiment, I examine the extent to which biased news media can inflame levels of affective polarization, and to what extent balanced news media can reduce affective polarization in audience members. I also examine the political and academic implications of my findings that affective polarization is present in even the youngest of American voters, and that balanced news coverage is able to somewhat mitigate rates of affective polarization.

Terrorism And Counter-Terrorism In Latin America: A Comparative Study Of Peru And Colombia, Reagan Shane

Global Tides

This paper investigates the counter-terrorism strategies employed against the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) in Colombia and the Shining Path (SL) in Peru and analyzes the effectiveness of those strategies. It begins by exploring the foundation of each organization and its respective goals, organization and tactics. Using this information, it then explores the counter-terrorism strategies employed by the government of each country in which the organizations were operating to determine the effectiveness of those strategies and how the structure of the terrorist organization might change that effectiveness. The paper concludes that military strategies have only been somewhat effective in …

Smoke Or Vapor: Regulation Of Tobacco And Vaping, James Prieger

School of Public Policy Working Papers

E-cigarettes and vaping raise new questions about the risks to health from their use and how they should be regulated and taxed compared to tobacco. The latter has a long history of taxation and a more recent history of regulation in the United States. E-cigarettes, on the other hand, have only recent begun to be regulated, but by treating them as “tobacco products” the federal regulator includes them by default in the regulatory apparatus design for tobacco control and is sending the tacit message that they are just as harmful as smoking. That is not likely to be the case. …

Rhetoric Of Conflict Towards A Schmittian Understanding Of The Public Sphere, Colin Kubacki

Featured Research

No abstract provided.

Surviving A Batterer: An Ideal Policy Approach To Combating Intimate Partner Violence (Ipv), Samantha Molisee-Sherman

Featured Research

Gender violence has plagued developed and developing societies for centuries, embedded in culture, structures, and ways of life. Women have been seen as pieces of property with no autonomy or individualism, just as extensions of their husbands. My research centers around finding an ideal policy solution to diminish rates of intimate partner violence (IPV) in the case of California. Interviews and data collection with legislators concerning education, rehabilitation or batterer intervention programs (BIP), and care providers in emergency shelters regarding victims’ services provided insight on a three-pronged approach targeted at curbing rates of IPV in California. My findings yielded that …

“Don’T Cry For Me, International Monetary Fund” How Politicians Sold Or Rebuked Imf-Loan Conditions In The 2019 Argentine Presidential Election, Chase Manson

Featured Research

This paper examines how politicians sell International Monetary Fund (IMF)-mandated economic reforms as a long term solution to constituents. IMF loans are difficult for citizens in the short term, and Argentina’s 2019 presidential election provides a natural experiment to examine how politicians get voters to accept short term costs for longer term gains. Two candidates for the presidency, President Macurio Macri and Alberto Fernandez, used different strategies in how they claimed they would, or would not, adopt conditions attached to Argentina’s 2017 IMF loan. By using a content analysis of politician speeches leading up to the October 2019 election, this …

Who Supports Wealth Redistribution? Self-Interest, Symbolic Politics And American Exceptionalism Approaches Towards 1990 Public Opinion, Maggie Wood

Global Tides

Economic inequality has been significantly rising in the United States, making it the most unequal advanced industrialized democracy. Understanding factors that influence public attitudes towards inequality and potential remedies such as redistribution of wealth, gives a reference point for tracking subsequent preference-policy links. This research utilizes survey data from the 1990 General Social Survey to explore factors influencing preferences towards redistribution as gross wealth consolidation among the top 10% was only starting to remerge. Empirically applying theories of economic self-interest, symbolic politics and American exceptionalism to wealth redistribution preferences, the research finds economic self-interest as having the biggest role in …

The Rise Of Left-Wing Populism In Europe: A Comparative Study, Daniel Iturri Calvo

Global Tides

The aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis left Europe in a state of shock, out of which political transitions occurred across the country. One of these transitions was the rise of left-wing populist parties. Their rise was most successful in Southern Europe, particularly in Spain and Greece. In these two countries, left-wing populist parties gained power swiftly and eventually began governing their respective governments. This essay compares the rise of Podemos in Spain and SYRIZA in Greece by looking at the main reasons for their mass popularity. The comparison reveals that the 2008 crisis was at the core of the …

Kulia I Ka Pono: The Relationship Between Economic Development And Native Hawaiian Culture, Makana Elaban

Featured Research

No abstract provided.

Climate Refugees: Can States Survive The Changing Climate?, Caroline Sisson

Featured Research

No abstract provided.

The Future Of Voting In A Technological Era, Anne Mummery

Featured Research

No abstract provided.

Charter Schools At An Impasse: Evaluating America’S Charter School System, Katie Pope

Featured Research

Through an analysis of resources from the State Departments of Education and state education codes, I argue that levels of state regulation of charter schools differ in California, Arizona, Texas, Florida, and New York. Specifically, I demonstrate that this regulation can be classified as low, moderate, or high, depending on the language of the state’s educational legislation. I also analyze the racial diversity of each state’s charter school and public school sectors, using race as a proxy for income levels. This data is used to assess the educational outcomes of the different sectors. It is evident that charter schools are …

Syrian Refugee Camps In Jordan: An Assessment, Athena-Rose Jennings

Seaver College Research And Scholarly Achievement Symposium

Syrian Refugee Camps in Jordan: An Assessment explores how and why the Government of Jordan created camps to house its 670,000 Syrian refugees. Examining Jordan’s four Syrian refugee camps, Jennings considers to what extent their different operating models are effective and why. Metrics of camp effectiveness include degree and type of support from non-Government of Jordan humanitarian actors, the availability of education and medical care in the camps, and the degree to which camp residents themselves engage in the camp communities. She posits that using the camp model affords Jordan greater internal security, and influence over refugee matters internationally by …

Suicide And Neoliberalism: An Imminent Critique Of Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy, Noël Ingram

Seaver College Research And Scholarly Achievement Symposium

In her paper, “Suicide and Neoliberalism: An Imminent Critique of Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy,” Noël Ingram, following the tradition of scholars such as Philip Cushman and Mark E. Button, challenges the dominant discursive framework of suicide through an examination of one of the dominant psychological therapeutic frameworks used to understand and treat suicidal ideation, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. Ingram argues that CBT assumes the site of disorder is situated in the atomized neoliberal subject whose failure to think and behave rationally has led to their suicide attempt. Further, Ingram discusses how the framework of CBT is influenced by inherent neoliberal assumptions with its …

Nudging The Needle: Foreign Lobbies And U.S. Human Rights Ratings, Felicity Vabulas Dr.

All Faculty Open Access Publications

Newspapers print alarming headlines when foreign governments hire U.S.-based lobbyists to promote their interests in Washington D.C. But does foreign lobbying systematically affect U.S. foreign policy? We provide an analysis of the influence of foreign lobbying on one important component of U.S. foreign policy: the evaluation of human rights practices abroad. U.S. human rights ratings can have a large impact on American foreign policy. They affect foreign aid, sanctions, and trade. Thus, we expect that many countries seek to tilt State Department Country Reports on Human Rights in their favor through information they provide to U.S.-based lobbyists. Our statistical analysis …

On The Efficacy Of Sanctions: Why Regimes And Motives Matter, Colette Faulkner

Global Tides

This paper seeks to explain not only the reasons and motivations behind why countries choose to use sanctions as a tool of foreign policy but also interrogates the efficacy of sanctions. Sanctions are a mechanism that countries generally use against another country in order to get a response. Sanctions can be used as either tools of economic coercion or as symbols of disapproval. With regards to the efficacy of sanctions extracting political concessions, sanctions are generally succeeding with more democratic regimes and fail with more autocratic regimes. As a symbolic tool sanctions often succeed at increasing the reputation of the …

The Legality And Illegality Of Russian Hegemony In Ukraine, Benedikt Munzar

Global Tides

The recent Russian annexation of Ukraine and the Russian support of rebels in southeastern Ukraine has been met with fierce international condemnation. In light of its violation of multiple international laws and agreements, Russia has argued that it’s acting merely to support the interests of Russian minorities abroad. Given Russia’s intimate history with Ukraine and recent questionable actions from Ukraine towards its Russian minority, the facts leading up to this standoff may provide some justification for Russia’s stance as well as criticism towards Ukrainian policies and Western interference in the Ukrainian referendum. Despite this discrepancy, Russia is still liable for …