Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Book Review: Thieves Of State, Hugh E. Breakey

Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal

No abstract provided.

Navigating The Arab Spring: The Power Of Food Prices And The Stability Of Monarchies, Evan Andrew Buck

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

The Arab Spring shocked the world of political science and international relations due to the collapse of many regimes that were commonly seen as stable. This research seeks to uncover how food pricing, which acted as a “threat multiplier,” incentivized unrest. Through the study of five nations from the Arab Spring—Egypt, Syria, Libya, Tunisia, and Jordan—two things are apparent. First, the monarchy of Jordan is the only regime that remained stable. Second, food prices played an important role in the mobilization of protest. This leads to a quantitative analysis between state fragility, food prices, and monarchies in the Middle East …

The House That Propaganda Built: Historicizing The Democracy Promotion Efforts And Measurement Tools Of Freedom House, Emily A. Zerndt

Dissertations

Democracy promotion has been an overt objective of American foreign policy ever since Woodrow Wilson declared it the goal of WWI. This dissertation examines the influence of Freedom House on those policy decisions as well as academia. Freedom House was created in 1941 with the “quiet encouragement” of both Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt to combat the pervasive isolationism in the United States. Erected as the Western counterpoint to the Braunhaus, the Nazi propaganda center, Freedom House has distinctly political origins. Over the course of its institutional life, Freedom House has evolved from keeping a “balance sheet” on the level of …

Terrorism Turnover: An Assessment Of Radicalized Extremism From Al Qaeda To The Islamic State, Zachary R. Schwermann

Arts and Sciences Dean's Office Undergraduate Honors Theses

Terrorism has become a hot button topic since the rise of the radicalized Islamist organization Al Qaeda, in the late 1990’s. However, the infamous attacks on September 11^th, 2001 are what truly brought this organization and its ideals to the forefront of the world’s attention. This paper provides a comprehensive and in depth analysis of the creation of Al Qaeda and traces the path of its connections to the Islamic State, which is currently the dominant radicalized Islamist organization. The Islamic State grew out of the Al Qaeda branch in Iraq and in addition to covering how that …

Old News: A Historical Analysis Of Criticism Of Venezuela's Press Freedom, Emilee Lamb

Chancellor’s Honors Program Projects

No abstract provided.

Comparative Study Of British-Argentine Relations And Chinese-Argentine Relations: A Look At Core-Periphery Models, Maggie Flynn

Undergraduate Theses and Capstone Projects

This paper addresses the exploitative relationship seen amongst core-periphery areas as described in world systems theory through analyzing relations between Argentina and China as well as other trade partners. Looking at trends in trade, including general commodity trade statistics and trade of primary versus non-primary products, this study aims to demonstrate the growing treatment of Argentina as a periphery in relation to China as a core in contrast to Argentina’s relatively fixed status with the rest of its trade partners. The study also looks at Chinese investments in infrastructure that help support the idea of a core-periphery relationship from China’s …

U.S. Congressional Committee Hearings On Korea During The 113th Congress 2013-2014: Overseeing Multifaceted Aspects Of Washington's Peninsular Interests, Bert Chapman

Libraries Faculty and Staff Scholarship and Research

Numerous U.S. government agencies are involved in developing and implementing U.S. policy toward Korean Peninsula events, trends, and developments. Those studying U.S. government policies toward this region need to pay particular attention to the role played by U.S. Congressional committees in this policymaking. Congressional committees are responsible for approving new legislation, revising existing legislation, funding U.S. government programs and conducting oversight of these programs. This work examines Congressional committee hearings and debate during the 113th Congress (2013–2014) and reveals that multiple Congressional committees with varying jurisdictions seek to shape U.S. government Korean Peninsula policy and that this policymaking covers more …

Blog Consumption And International Relations, Michael A. Allen

Political Science Faculty Publications and Presentations

International relations professors have sought to incorporate current events into their curriculum through various mechanisms. A traditional way to incorporate the news into the classroom is to have students either subscribe and read a particular newspaper, or watch the nightly news, and hold them responsible for that information. However, with the growing body of professional political science blogs available to the general public, we now have access to immediate current event updates framed through the lens of political science. This manuscript tests to see if having students regularly read professional political science blogs increases student achievement on multiple choice exams …

The Fallacy Of Nonviolent Economic Sanctions, Andrew Kovach

The Downtown Review

The object of this paper is to provide a critical analysis of economic sanctions as weapons which tend to cause violence without effectively providing national defense or regime change. First, by describing the use of sanctions as a tactic of nonviolence and through a brief description of their historical use, it may be determined that sanctions are not as harmless as it may seem. Furthermore, this paper provides greater detail of two important instances of sanctions in U.S. foreign policy involving Iran and Cuba. Finally, through a synthesis of more modern research on the subject, the misperception of effective economic …

A Measure Of Net Dependency Between The Economies Of The Usa And Its Major Trading Partners, Demetri Kantarelis

Economics, Finance and International Business Department Faculty Works

How interdependent are the economies of the USA and its trading partners and how does their net dependency evolve through time? In an attempt to answer these questions, a measure of bilateral net dependency between the USA and a trading partner nation (i) is proposed where net dependency is defined as the difference between USA’s dependency on i minus i’s dependency on the USA. Dependency between the US and a trading partner is measured as the ratio of trade between them over respective GDP plus imports from the trading partner with imports weighted by a degree of importance. Based on …

Does Brexit Spell The Death Of Transnational Law?, Ralf Michaels

Faculty Scholarship

The British leave vote in the referendum on EU membership has important implications for how we think about law . The vote must be viewed as a manifestation of a globalized nationalism that we find in many EU member states and many other countries. As such, it is also a challenge of the idea of transnational law, forcefully introduced in Jessup’s book on Transnational law 60 years ago. In this paper, I suggest that the hope to return from transnational law to the nation state of the 19th century is nostalgic and futile. However, I argue that transnational law has …

Treaty Commitment And The Reconstruction Of Social Relations Among States, Youcheer Kim

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Does states’ treaty commitment promote the inter-state socialization? A gap exists in the existing constructivist International Relations literature as to which agents could promote the internalization of constitutive beliefs through which process. This project seeks to illuminate whether states’ treaty commitments have promoted the inter-state socialization in three dimensions: (1) the convergence of voting patterns in the UN General Assembly (2) the convergence of state practices in territorial disputes (3) the emergence of rules-oriented domestic governance. I draw on classical sociology, public law theory, the English School theory, and the Transnational Legal Process theory to develop the Social Theory of …

Early Prerogative And Administrative Power: A Response To Paul Craig, Philip A. Hamburger

Faculty Scholarship

What does English experience imply about American constitutional law? My book, Is Administrative Law Unlawful?, argues that federal administrative power generally is unconstitutional. In supporting this conclusion, the book observes that eighteenth-century Americans adopted their constitutions not only with their eyes on the future, but also looking over their shoulder at the past – especially the English past. This much should not be controversial. There remain, however, all sorts of questions about how to understand the English history and its relevance for early Americans.

In opposition to my claims about American law, Paul Craig lobs three critiques from across the …

Responses To Change In The Global Political Economy Of Innovation – The Role Of Sub-National States In Industrial Transition, Dan Herman

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

This dissertation seeks to explore how sub-national levels of the state promote the development of new industrial sectors. To do so this dissertation builds on a series of theoretical perspectives on the role of the state in the economy and develops a unique view of how sub-national states coalesce and contrast within these perspectives. It does so through a series of empirical case studies focused on sub-national jurisdictions in North America that highlight diverse varieties of state actions that contribute, if not lead, industrial transitions and the development of new innovation-oriented industrial sectors. In so doing, the dissertation presents a …