Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Corporate Lobbying And Esg Reports: Patterns Among Us Companies, 1999–2017, Huchen Liu, Sijing Wei, Jiarui Zhang

Political Science Faculty Publications

To lobby legislators, it is important for interest groups to signal their ability to help legislators win elections and provide them with policy-relevant information. We explore for-profit companies’ use of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) reports as a signaling device to promote their reputation to legislators and convey their ability to provide electoral and policymaking support, which is valuable for lobbying. To this end, we create a panel dataset by combining ESG reports issued by US companies and the same companies’ lobbying and campaign contribution records from 1999 to 2017. We expect companies to issue more ESG reports, as well …

For Hemispheric Unity, A Change In U.S. Foreign Policy Is Needed, Brett J. Kyle, Andrew G. Reiter

Political Science Faculty Publications

On March 10, President Joe Biden announced that the United States would designate Colombia as a Major Non-NATO Ally. This designation extends special military and economic privileges to Colombia, including participation in joint defense research and training, and the ability to purchase weapons, ammunition, vehicles, and other surplus war material from the United States. This came on the heels of a U.S. delegation traveling to Venezuela for the first time since the United States broke off diplomatic relations and closed its embassy there in 2019. Motivating the U.S. overture is the potential to resume purchasing Venezuelan oil to compensate for …

Why Have Military Courts Become Such As Popular Tool Of Repression?, Brett J. Kyle, Andrew G. Reiter

Political Science Faculty Publications

In November, the Taliban government in Afghanistan announced the establishment of a military tribunal to enforce Sharia law. It will also handle complaints against Taliban police, army, and intelligence units. The developments in Afghanistan are not unique. Military courts have been a key feature of human rights abuses in India, Pakistan, Libya, Egypt, Tunisia, and many other countries. Why are regimes of all types increasingly turning to military courts as a tool of repression?

A New Dawn For Latin American Militaries: Across The Region, Militarization Is On The Rise, Posing A Major Threat To Democracy And Justice. What Can Be Done?, Brett J. Kyle, Andrew G. Reiter

Political Science Faculty Publications

On July 26, 2018, thousands of protesters, led by the Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo, marched in Argentina to oppose President Mauricio Macri's plans to empower the military to engage in domestic policing. In a country where a military regime killed thousands of civilians between 1976 and 1983, the prospect of the military on the streets again has opened old wounds and incited a heated debate. Macri defended the change, which was implemented by two executive decrees, as being necessary to enable Argentina to face the security challenges of the 21st century, including drug trafficking and terrorism.

Militarization Redux: Across The Region, Latin America's Militaries Are Regaining Power Through The Court System, Brett J. Kyle, Andrew G. Reiter

Political Science Faculty Publications

On November 11, 2017, eight civilians were killed in a joint police and army security operation carried out in São Gonçalo, Brazil. Survivors and witnesses reported seeing special forces, dressed in black with laser-scoped rifles, being deployed by helicopter and shooting from a wooded area. The military, however, has refused to investigate the case or cooperate with civilian authorities. Thanks to a new law passed the previous month, it has the legal right to do so.

Ethnic Conflict And Gender Inequality In Education: The Case Of Turkey, Ramazan Kilinc, Jody L. Neathery-Castro, Selin Akyuz

Political Science Faculty Publications

Although conflict remains a major obstacle to development in many areas of the world, its impact on education has been rarely studied. This article investigates the relationship between conflict and gender equality, focusing on the schooling of the girls in the conflict-ridden regions of Turkey. Patriarchy is the most important determinant of low educational levels among girls in Southeastern Turkey. However, ethnic conflict exacerbates male-dominant traditions and blocks economic development, reinforcing patriarchal norms and limiting girls’ school attendance. Yet, by provoking political mobilization around a Kurdish identity, ethnic conflict may undermine patriarchy and unintentionally promote girls’ education.

Towards A Requirement Framework For Online Participation Platforms, Astrid Hellsmanns, Claudia Niemeyer, Margeret A. Hall, Tom Zentek, Christof Weinhardt

Interdisciplinary Informatics Faculty Proceedings & Presentations

Online participation platforms (OPPs) are frequently used by public institutions to involve citizens in political opinion forming and decision making. A literature re-view reveals different approaches to evaluate these OPPs. These approaches focus only on partial requirements of participation processes. In this research in progress, we develop and pretest an interdisciplinary literature-based requirement frame-work. It includes the categories usability, security, information, transparency, inte-gration, and mobilisation. Our aim is to close the research gap of a context-specific analysis and evaluation of OPPs.

More Maple Leaf, Less Co2: Canada And A Global Geo-Engineering Regime, Elizabeth L. Chalecki, Lisa L. Ferrari

Political Science Faculty Publications

Learning Objectives

• To distinguish unique characteristics of transnational scientific issues.

• To articulate Canada's interests in formulating policy about climate change.

• To explain the potential benefits and drawbacks of geo-engineering as a response to climate change.

• To identify a role for Canada in constructing an international response to climate change.

Introduction

Since the end of the Cold War, international structural factors have become less important to states' behaviour, while social constructions have become more important. The nature of scientific knowledge, including its formation and promulgation, means that science-based policies can be strongly influenced by the input and …

How Do Politicians Use Facebook? An Applied Social Observatory, Simon Caton, Margeret A. Hall, Christof Weinhardt

Interdisciplinary Informatics Faculty Publications

In the age of the digital generation, written public data is ubiquitous and acts as an outlet for today’s society. Platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and LinkedIn have profoundly changed how we communicate and interact. They have enabled the establishment of and participation in digital communities as well as the representation, documentation and exploration of social behaviours, and had a disruptive effect on how we use the Internet. Such digital communications present scholars with a novel way to detect, observe, analyse and understand online communities over time. This article presents the formalization of a Social Observatory: a low latency method …

Critical Junctures, Catalysts, And Democratic Consolidation In Turkey, Ramazan Kilinc

Political Science Faculty Publications

IN FEBRUARY 1997, THE TURKISH MILITARY INTERVENED in politics to protect secularism from the "rising Islamist threat." This inter- vention resulted in the toppling of the coalition government led by the Islamic-oriented Welfare Party (RP, Refah Partisi ). Many civil and political restrictions followed this intervention, including the closure of the RP by the Constitutional Court. Two years later, the Chief of Staff, Hüseyin Kivnkoģlu, stated that "the 28 February process," by which he meant the military-sanctioned political configuration, would continue for one thou- sand years if necessary.1 However, by 2012, only 15 years after the inter- vention, the military's …

Predicting Events Surrounding The Egyptian Revolution Of 2011 Using Learning Algorithms On Micro Blog Data, Benedikt Boecking, Margeret A. Hall, Jeff Schneider

Interdisciplinary Informatics Faculty Proceedings & Presentations

We aim to predict activities of political nature in Egypt which influence or reflect societal-scale behavior and beliefs by using learning algorithms on Twitter data. We focus on capturing domestic events in Egypt from November 2009 to November 2013. To this extent we study underlying communication patterns by evaluating content-based and meta-data information in classification tasks without targeting specific keywords or users. Classification is done using Support Vector Machines (SVM) and Support Distribution Machines (SDM). Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) is used to create content-based input patterns for the classifiers while bags of Twitter meta-information are used with the SDM to …

Militarized Justice In New Democracies: Explaining The Process Of Military Court Reform In Latin America, Brett J. Kyle, Andrew G. Reiter

Political Science Faculty Publications

While a large body of literature emphasizes the importance of judicial reform in new democracies, few scholars have examined the reform of military justice systems in these settings—despite the potential for these courts to compete directly with civilian courts and subvert the rule of law. This article focuses on Latin America to empirically examine how the process of reforming military courts has played out in each democracy following authoritarian rule. We outline two distinct pathways: (1) unilateral efforts on the part of civilian reformers, and (2) strategic bargains between civilian reformers and the military. Within the unilateral category, we further …

The Law, Security And Civil Society Freedoms, Mandeep S. Tiwana, Brett J. Kyle

Political Science Faculty Publications

In the past decade, civil society space across the globe has been challenged by pressing concerns about national security. The analysis in this chapter demonstrates that CSOs in the twenty-five countries of the CSI examined for this volume report a range of restrictive legal environments and illegitimate attacks from their local or central governments. International law provides for fundamental freedoms of association, but these guarantees have come under attack. As the data presented in this chapter show, CSOs in both democratic and non-democratic states report notable restrictions on their activities. This chapter proceeds as follows. First, it outlines recent trends …

Global Environmental Change And Human Security – Edited By Richard A. Matthew, Jon Barnett, Bryan Mcdonald, And Karen L. O'Brien, Elizabeth L. Chalecki

Political Science Faculty Publications

Global Environmental Change and Human Security . Cambridge, MA : MIT Press . 327 pages . ISBN 978‐026251308‐1 , $25.00 paperback . Richard A. Matthew, Jon Barnett, Bryan McDonald, and Karen L. O'Brien ( Eds .). 2010 .

Environmental security is no longer a fringe field. It is a research domain “effectively established,” as the editors of this volume admit (p. 307). So it's time to stop turning out these same vague and overly theoretical “concept” books, and get cracking on how to actually solve some of the interrelated problems of global environmental change and human security. The Global Environmental …

On The Relationship Between Regime Approval And Democratic Transition, Jonathan Benjamin-Alvarado, Gregory A. Petrow

Political Science Faculty Proceedings & Presentations

Democratic transition scholars find a large number of factors associated with the likelihood of non-democratic regimes transitioning to democracy. Of these, three factors appear to be among the most potent: economic development, economic crisis, and the type of non-democratic regime (e.g. Geddes 1999, Brownlee 2009). However, another type of factor may matter as well - public approval of the regime. The chief limitation that prevents scholars from addressing this factor is the absence of data. However, we have access to the largest repository of international public opinion data that is comparable for all nations - the Gallup World Poll. The …

How Our Life Experiences Affect Our Politics: The Roles Of Vested Interest And Affect In Shaping Policy Preferences, Gregory A. Petrow, Timothy Vercellotti

Political Science Faculty Publications

Scholars investigating the role of self-interest in determining policy preferences find that self-interest has weak effects. However, researchers have refined their concepts of self-interest and are now finding a greater role for it (e.g., Crano 1995). We continue along this line of research, considering different mechanisms by which self-interest may come to be important. We argue that measuring people’s perceived self-interest in a policy (which we call vested interest) is important for understanding how people pursue their self-interest. We find that while life circumstances can cause people to endorse vested interest, emotion is an important mediator of this relationship. Finally, …

Dictating Justice: Human Rights And Military Courts In Latin America, Brett J. Kyle, Andrew G. Reiter

Political Science Faculty Publications

Militaries throughout the world operate their own courts to prosecute military crimes, such as insubordination, that are not part of civilian legal codes. Latin American militaries traditionally have extended this hermetic justice system to cover all crimes committed by their personnel, allowing the institution to sit in judgment of its own actions and escape punishment for human rights violations. This parallel legal system erodes the principle of equality before the law, threatens civilian control of the military, and nurtures a culture of impunity. This article develops a theoretical model to explain the state of military court jurisdiction over military personnel …

An Empirical Study Of Whistleblower Policies In United States Corporate Codes Of Ethics, Richard Moberly, Lindsey Wylie

Academic Publications

We often think about democracy only as a political system where we elect those who will make laws that affect us. Yet everyday decisions taken in all kinds of organisations impact on us just as much. Therefore we have to know when decisions taken in organisations are going to affect us in ways that differ from the official organisational discourse. Whistleblowing plays a role in providing that knowledge and thus is a means to democracy. This book is a collection of essays on recent organisational and legal developments on whistleblowing in the US, UK, Europe, and Australia.

Strategies Under Pressure: Usa-China Copyright Dispute, Dexin Tian, Chin-Chung Chao

Communication Faculty Publications

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore the Chinese and American efforts in keeping the balance of innovation and copyright protection, with an emphasis on China’s strategies under Western, especially American pressure. The research findings are expected to enhance mutual efforts from the two countries to protect copyright and boost innovation and facilitate genuine communication between both sides in their decade-long intellectual property right (IPR) disputes.

Design/methodology/approach – For data collection, this study adopted in-depth interviews of 45 participants who were either copyright holders as publishers and authors, or ordinary consumers in China. Under the theoretical guidance …

The Role Of Social Movements In The Macro Political System, Nathan J. Kelly, Gregory A. Petrow, Sarah A. Soule

Political Science Faculty Proceedings & Presentations

One of the central concepts in the study of social movements is that of the “Protest Cycle” (e.g., Tarrow 1998). The imagery of the Cycle is that of heightened protests, across issue areas and groups. Scholars have connected its rise to openings in the Political Opportunity Structure, which signals to early risers that the time may be ripe for collective action (e.g., Tarrow 1998). We find it striking that this core idea in the social movements literature has not been connected more explicitly to the literature on public opinion. This is especially striking because social movement scholars have begun to …

Riding Obama's Coattails: The Democrats Finally Take The Ohio 1st, Randall E. Adkins, Gregory A. Petrow

Political Science Faculty Publications

In 2006 the Democratic Party swept both houses of Congress. It was a tidal wave. For the first time since 1994, both branches of the legislature were under Democratic Party control. While many of his Republican colleagues lost in 2006, Steve Chabot survived by narrowly defeating Cin-cinnati City Council member John Cranley by roughly 9,000 votes. The political environment favored the Democrats again in 2008, and this year the Democrats believed that Steve Driehaus, the Minority Whip in the Ohio state legislature, was the person to unseat Chabot.

Climatic Cataclysm: The Foreign Policy And National Security Implications Of Climate Change – Edited By Kurt M. Campbell, Elizabeth L. Chalecki

Political Science Faculty Publications

Climatic Cataclysm: The Foreign Policy and National Security Implications of Climate Change . Washington, DC : Brookings Institution Press . 237 pages. ISBN 978‐0‐8157‐1332‐6 , $28.95 cloth. Edited by Kurt M. Campbell . 2008 .

Awkward title notwithstanding, Climatic Cataclysm is the first attempt at a systematic generation of future climate scenarios and their possible security and foreign policy impacts, and as such is sorely overdue in the field of environmental security. Much of the scholarly literature in this field is devoted to statistical models and general theories; what is lacking is serious national security consideration of the best climate …

Exceptionalism As Foreign Policy: U.S. Climate Change Policy And An Emerging Norm Of Compliance, Elizabeth L. Chalecki

Political Science Faculty Publications

Climate change is not only an environmental problem but a foreign policy problem, for the United States and indeed any country. Our best scientific knowledge about the effects of global warming predicts negative changes, from precipitation to agriculture to disease vectors. As such, it is axiomatic that nations would want to mitigate this phenomenon as early as possible. However, our current system of international law places no involuntary obligations, such as compliance with a climate mitigation treaty, on any state. In the past, if a state refused to become party to a treaty, this refusal was assumed to be without …

The Human Face Of Economic Globalization: Mexican Migrants And Their Support For Free Trade, John Aldrich, Victoria Defrencesco Soto, Gregory A. Petrow

Political Science Faculty Publications

This paper presents the results from a focus group and an experiment conducted with Mexican immigrant farm workers as participants. The idea is to investigate free trade attitudes among a group little studied in the debate over immigration and its role in globalization. We can readily illustrate, as we do via our focus group participants, that many of these migrants understand their political situation. Our focus then turns to the political psychology of these workers: how does this understanding manifest itself in their political attitudes? The experiment exposes them to a standard set of arguments for and against economic globalization …

Political Geography: Special Issue On Climate Change And Conflict (Review), Elizabeth L. Chalecki

Political Science Faculty Publications

Given that the Nobel Committee awarded its 2007 Peace Prize to former U.S. Vice President Al Gore and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), and that greenhouse gas emissions continue to increase around the globe, practitioners of peace and security will have to familiarize themselves with climatic drivers of conflict. To that end, the journal Political Geography has devoted an entire issue to exploring the links between climate change and violent conflict.

The American Hegemonic Responses To The U.S.-China Mid-Air Plane Collision, Dexin Tian, Chin-Chung Chao

Communication Faculty Publications

This paper examines the major documents of the American side concerning the U.S.- China mid-air plane collision incident, which occurred April 1, 2001. Through the hegemonic theoretical lens of Robert Cox’s frame of action and via the research method of hermeneutics of the selected rhetorical artifacts, we aim to shed light on the understanding of the incident and provide insightful implications for handling similar international conflicts in the future. Our findings indicate that the United States has preserved the most resourceful material capabilities and established all the necessary human institutions to implement its shared notion of American hegemony all over …

Dual Enrollment Between High Schools And A Metropolitan University, Steve Bullock, Gregory A. Petrow, Daniel Patrick O'Dell

Political Science Faculty Publications

Concurrent/dual enrollment programs at postsecondary educational institutions have rapidly proliferated across the country during the last several years with wide variations in the structure and composition of such programs. Having recently completed a pilot phase of its first dual enrollment program, the University of Nebraska at Omaha (UNO) has enjoyed great success due to a relatively unique partnership formed between the university and Omaha area school districts.

Review Of One House: The Unicameral's Progressive Vision For Nebraska By Charlyne Berens, James B. Johnson

Political Science Faculty Publications

This is a book that needed to be written-a valuable, though flawed, addition to the literature on Nebraska's unique legislative body. It is the first addition to research on the Nebraska Legislature in some time and presents a new approach to the subject: has the Unicameral lived up to the promises of its founders? The answer is, by and large, yes.

Does French Matter? France And Francophonie In The Age Of Globalization, Jody L. Neathery-Castro, Mark O. Rousseau

Political Science Faculty Publications

THE ORGANISATION INTERNATIONALE DE LA FRANCOPHONIE (OIF) increasingly acts as a powerful French-speaking voice in defense of both French culture and language and in advancing French-speaking nations' multiple global, political and economic interests. While the OIF includes developed as well as developing¹ nations, its policies and financial resources come from its wealthier and more economically powerful members, fueling charges that it exists to represent those members' interests. The OIF is unique among international organizations in propounding economic policies based on assumptions different from those espoused by the World Trade Organization (WTO). These differences become most apparent in OIF's strong …

Different Regions, Similar Views, Gregory A. Petrow

Political Science Faculty Publications

U.S. regions have had radically different political histories. The South long has been seen as the nation’s most conservative region, while New England has been perceived as the most liberal.

An examination of 40 years of survey data generated by the American National Election Study, however, suggests that differences between the South and New England on social issues tend to be small, are getting smaller, and in some instances have disappeared.