Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

The Distrust Of Experts, Noah Smith

Student Scholar Symposium Abstracts and Posters

This paper will compile demographic data and analyze their correspondence with trust of expert opinion in order to develop a profile of individuals who mistrust expert opinions. I will be using the American National Election Survey of 2020 as the central data source for this paper. I will also be using supplementary data from research into trust of expertise to create my profile. The mistrust of expert opinions has been an issue simmering in the background of American politics for quite some time. Previously its largest impact was on the discourse and policy surrounding climate change. Now it is also …

The Rise Of Social Media And The Fall Of Internal Peace: How Do Media Influence People's Fear Of Mass Shootings?, Christian Grevin

Student Scholar Symposium Abstracts and Posters

The impact of traditional versus social media on people’s fears of a mass shooting is a matter worthy of study given the scarcity of research and analysis, as well as the prominence mass shootings have gained in American society and media. Many studies have been conducted evaluating the connection between local TV news and fear, showing that the consumption of local TV news has increased people's fear of crimes. However, there have been few studies examining the relationship between social media usage and one’s fear of crime. In this paper, I will examine the correlation between fear of mass shootings …

Friend Or Foe: Explaining The Antagonism Towards Immigrants In The United States, Skyelar Andrews

Student Scholar Symposium Abstracts and Posters

Following the 2016 election in which immigration became a leading political issue, fear of immigrants has fueled greater divides amongst the American citizenry. Building off group threat theory, I examine the extent that party affiliation, age, income, and geography impact one’s fear of immigrants. Utilizing the Chapman Survey of Fears from 2016, 2018, and 2021, an online nationwide survey conducted with a representative national sample of US adults, I expect to find an increase in fear of immigrants in all independent variables as time passes from 2016 to 2021, paralleling immigration’s rise to the national stage during the 2016 election. …

Behind The Belief: Predictors Of Why People Believe In Conspiracy Theories, Erisa Castillo

Student Scholar Symposium Abstracts and Posters

Many people have used conspiracy theories as explanations to justify situations or events that the United States Government has carried out; however, many have no reliable evidence. These theories are often made by power groups that are usually politically motivated. So why do people believe in conspiracy theories? One reason may be our lack of confidence, trust, and transparency between our government and us as American citizens. Using the Chapman University Survey of American Fears, I will look into the various variables that play leading factors in why people are influenced into believing conspiracy theories. Also, whether one conspiracy theory …

Covid 19 & Qanon: Enter The World Of Conspiracies, Gianluca Allesina

Student Scholar Symposium Abstracts and Posters

From Covid-19 to Qanon to a global warming hoax, we live in a world drowning in misinformation spread on the internet. Q-anonymous, a purposed government “leaker” is an alleged high-level government informant, according to Qanon followers, who posted cryptic messages about a satanic government on the now-defunct forum website, 8chan. This project will examine the possible relationship between a belief in various conspiracy theories associated with Qanon and how the Coronavirus affected rates of belief, utilizing the Chapman Survey of American Fears, a national study using a representative sample of U.S. adults. I expect to find that partisanship will play …

Gender Quotas And Women's Substantive Representation In The National And Local Governments Of The Dominican Republic, Marcial Amaury Pineda Moquete

Dissertations

Although women's political representation has increased during the first part of the twenty-first century, the number of female politicians in legislative assemblies worldwide remains low. When well-designed and enforced, gender quota laws can increase women's representation. In tum, the election of female politicians brings about better outcomes for women. Further, female politicians elected by quota are likely to feel more committed to representing women than counterparts elected without quotas. This study tests whether and how quota-elected women can represent women's interests better than men and women elected without quotas. Using the rare natural experiment of the Dominican Republic's Congress and …

Collateral Damage: How Expanding Public Charge Policy Influences Adult Esl Enrollment, Allison M. Eckert

Master's Theses

This study used statistical analysis of enrollment records for ESL programs at community colleges throughout California from 2015-2019 to determine whether adult immigrants’ participation in public ESL programs was reduced under President Donald Trump. Immigrant families’ lesser use of public education services and means-tested federal benefits has been widely documented in the wake of Trump’s expansion of the public charge rule, which counted immigrants’ use of a wider array of public benefits against their case for residency in the United States than had any previous iteration of the rule. Failing the public charge test can block an immigrant’s entry into …

Language And Cultural Identity In Post-Soviet Frozen Conflicts, Irina Paquette

Graduate Program in International Studies Theses & Dissertations

How we, as humans, define ourselves and our national and ethnic distinction often centers on visible characteristics—physical features, group traditions, and language. Of those, language is both mutable and plays such a central role in daily life that it is often a hotly contested and manipulated factor in defining national identity. This paper examines the role language has played in the formation of crisis situations in the former Soviet Union. Linguistic identity has been used as a basis to establish the legitimacy of independence for both Soviet republics and separatist groups within those republics. As such, it is a highly …

The Second-Order Impact Of Relative Power On Outcomes Of Crisis Bargaining: A Theory Of Expected Disutility And Resolve, Tatevik Movsisyan

Graduate Program in International Studies Theses & Dissertations

How does structure shape behavior and outcomes in crisis bargaining? Formal bargaining models of war rely on expected utility theory to describe first-order effects, whereby the payoffs of war determine actors’ “resolve” to fight as a function of costs and benefits. Value preferences of risk and future discounting are routinely treated as predefined and subjective individual attributes, outside the strategic context of bargaining or independent from expected utility. However, such treatment fails to account for context-conditional preferences sourcing from actors’ expectations of relative gain or loss. Drawing on a wealth of experimental evidence from behavioral economics, but without departing from …

Norm Contestation And Its Effects On Emergence Of A New Norm, Khadijeh Salimi

Graduate Program in International Studies Theses & Dissertations

The objective of this study is to propose a theoretical model to investigate the mechanism by which contesting of a harmful legal norm by powerless individual actors results in the emergence of a new norm. While much work has been done on norm contestation at the “actor level” in the field, the structural conditions under which contesting of harmful norms by powerless individual actors lead to emergence of a new norm have been insufficiently studied, especially in the non-democratic cultural context. I developed a model that combine existing causal theories in one frame to reproduce observe conditions in the real …

Mobilizing Discomfort For Water Security As A Human Right: A Newspaper Analysis Of Social Conflict In South Africa, Madison Gonzalez

Graduate Program in International Studies Theses & Dissertations

There are 884 million people globally that do not have access to improved drinking water, while 2.5 billion do not have improved access to sanitation (Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, 2010). Those living in informal settlements and slums—what I call the ‘solidaric disaffiliated’ zones—represent one such location where individuals around the world have found themselves in a situation of neglected crisis as their geographic, economic, and social expulsion pushes them beyond the reach of opportunity and access to basic human rights such as water and sanitation. As individuals feel their dignity deteriorating due to the extreme precarity …

Moving Beyond Theory Into Practice: The Application Of The Human Rights Based Approach To Development By Egyptian Ngos, Reham Welson

Archived Theses and Dissertations

Human Rights based development is a central but vague and contested approach in development theory and practice. There is considerable rhetoric about its broad conception, techniques, mechanisms and its effect of constructing just relationships and empowering the weakest. In contrast, this thesis argues that existing interpretations and applications of the approach have overlooked the effect of relationships, power interactions, and dynamics of constructing a world view of the meaning, process and realization of the right. This relational perspective is utilized to investigate the work of four Egyptian NGOs working with the Participatory Development Program of the Canadian International Development Agency. …

Israeli Nuclear Deterrence: The Failure Of A Concept: "How Did The Change In Israel's Strategic Context Affect The Usefulness Of The Israeli Nuclear Deterrent?", Amr Nasr El-Din

Archived Theses and Dissertations

This study will aim at examining how the changes in Israelâ s security environment affected the strategic usefulness of its nuclear deterrent. The Israeli nuclear deterrent was developed during the 1950s and the 1960s when Israelâ s strategic setting was, mainly, dominated by state-centered security threats. Consequently, Israel, at the time, was mainly concerned with the possible symmetrical military confrontations with its Arab neighbors; something that would have created strategic value for the Israeli nuclear deterrent. Yet, a closer examination of the evolution of the Israeli security environment since 1982 will reveal that Non-State Actors (NSAs) and asymmetrical forms of …

Cave! Hic Dragones: Understanding Neocolonialism In China’S Economic Diplomacy Towards Angola, Ghina Salsabila, Indra Kusumawardhana

Global: Jurnal Politik Internasional

China is experiencing a fast and dynamic phase of economic development driven by its fast pace of industrialisation. The vast energy demand has pushed China to import energy from other countries with plentiful natural resources. To this aim, China conducts economic diplomacy worldwide, including Angola, a country with plentiful natural resources in Africa. The main concern of this research is China's economic diplomacy which is considered as a form of neocolonialism in this globalisation era. Therefore, the research question of this research is why China's economic diplomacy towards Angola constitutes neocolonialisation. To this aim, this study utilises the Neocolonialism theory …

The Dao In China’S Growing Presence In The South Pacific, Yulian Maulida Khasanah, Mohamad Rosyidin, Marten Hanura

Global: Jurnal Politik Internasional

The rise of China as one of the great powers in the international politic has been the hottest topic in the 21st century. Following the economic reform led by Deng Xiaoping in 1978, China re-emerges stronger than ever with its influences covering major parts of the world. One region particularly stands out since the prior dominance of United States therein, the South Pacific. The study of this research will be limited to 10 PICs recognising China, Vanuatu, Cook Island, FSM, Fiji, Niuee, PNG, Samoa, Tonga, Solomon Islands and Kiribati. Under the Western International Relations Theory (IRT) however, the rise of …

Asean Way: Managing Expectation In The Code Of Conduct For The South China Sea, Naifa Rizani Lardo

Global: Jurnal Politik Internasional

Pessimistic perspectives on the ASEAN Way process frequently undermine the role of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in resolving the South China Sea (SCS) dispute. These justifications are addressed through the notion of power balance, which undermines the norm institutionalism framework that underlines the ASEAN Way’s foundation. This droves various conversations on ASEAN capabilities ahead of the ASEAN Way principle throughout the Code of Conduct for the South China Sea (COC for SCS) process, which questioned its expectations as a regional security body. This article offers insight on ASEAN’s regional security role in the SCS dispute peace process, …

The Roles Of Who In Handling Yemen Humanitarian Crisis During The Covid-19 Pandemic, Ghita Fadhila Andrini

Global: Jurnal Politik Internasional

Yemen is noted to have the worst humanitarian crisis in the world. This condition is due to the civil war for the past six years, exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, which emerged as a health security threat. This research aims to analyse the WHO’s role in responding health crisis in Yemen. By using qualitative methods and literature review approach, this article uses Atlas.ti to collect data regarding WHO’s activity in Yemen throughout the pandemic analysed by the international organisation’s role concept according to Clive Archer. The health security concept is also used to explain the health situation in Yemen during …

Muslim Community In The Atmosphere Of Populism In Norway, Gilang Mahadika

Global: Jurnal Politik Internasional

In the European nations, there has been a lot of discussions and arguments regarding the community who have a ‘migration background’. Migrants nowadays are more capable of competing against local residents in terms of looking for better employment and participating in the political activities in European countries. Consequently, it creates fear within ‘mainstream’ society since it is presumably able to threaten their way of life. This interesting moment can benefit the populist political parties for gaining voices from the majority population. But, in the aftermath of 22/7 terror attacks in Norway, it also created tension between locals and those who …

Transnational Corporations And Human Rights, Muhammed Hamid Muhammed

Global: Jurnal Politik Internasional

International trade has introduced many features in its classical or contemporary practice wherein peoples respectfully exchanged goods and ideas. Unfortunately, the legacy of large multinational corporations, concerning human rights, has generally been dismal. It is recognised that states are the primary bearers of responsibility to respect, protect, fulfill, and promote human rights and freedoms. Current developments in the field of international human rights law, however, designated transnational corporations (hereafter TNCs), organisations, and individuals in a diagonal and/or horizontal responsibility on the respect and protection of human rights. The need to make these non-state actors, especially TNCs, responsible under international law …

Addressing The Role Of Climate Change In Agriculture And Mexico-Us Immigration, Xiaoxin Liang

Binghamton University Undergraduate Journal

Among the greatest threats of climate change is the significant impact on mass displacement, particularly as it relates to Mexico-US immigration. Low crop yields from worsening climate conditions have been linked to increased migration of Mexican farmers. With a projected 4.2 million additional migrants in the foreseeable future, it poses a contemporary environmental, social, and political dilemma. This policy brief analyzes several provision proposals to be adopted into the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), as evaluated under economic cost, equity, environmental impact, and feasibility criteria. My research concludes that the most effective and direct provision proposal is the implementation of adaptive …

A Qualitative Analysis Of The South China Sea Dispute, Nalanda Roy

Political Science & International Studies: Faculty Publications

This project summarizes my doctoral dissertation concerning the South China Sea (henceforth SCS) dispute by utilizing a qualitative research design. The purpose of this study was to explore why the SCS dispute has long been regarded as one of the most complex and challenging ocean-related maritime disputes in Southeast Asia. This case study provides the opportunity for readers to examine whether this dispute has the potential of escalating into serious international conflicts because of its geographic position in major oceanic routes as well as for both tapped and untapped natural resources. The study is designed to create an understanding as …

The Military And The Akp: A New Confrontation Line In Turkey's Bid For Democratic Consolidation, Samy Asfour

Archived Theses and Dissertations

The power struggle between the Justice Development Party (AKP) and the military in Turkey has been crucial in Turkey's bid for democratic consolidation. In the past, the military as a guardian of the Kemalist establishment has intervened four times in Turkey's domestic politics ousting elected civilian governments with the justification of safeguarding the secular and unitary nature of the Turkish Republic. After each intervention, the military reshaped the political system and expanded its legal-constitutional prerogatives at the expense of the civilian authorities' in decision-making autonomy- halting the establishment of a fully-fledged democracy based on complete civilian control over the military. …

Sovereignty And Integration Across The Taiwan Strait: A View From Taiwan, Thomas S. Misenti

Archived Theses and Dissertations

This thesis will analyze the policy of cross-strait rapprochement and negotiation that the administration of Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou has pursued with mainland China in relation to Taiwan's de facto sovereign independent status. The initial focus of this thesis will be on the evolution of Taiwan's political identity in the broader historical context of its relationship with China and the One China principle. This will include an analysis of the US-Taiwan relationship and Taiwan's position in international institutions. I will then analyze the Ma administration's China policies, dialogues, and agreements. I will specifically focus on the negotiations for and establishment …

Infrastructure Investment And Jobs Act, Onu Institute For Civics And Public Policy, Caleb Clayton

Critical Questions

On November 15, 2021, President Joe Biden signed the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act into law, ending a protracted bipartisan battle, ultimately resulting in a compromise between parties. The $1.2 trillion bill serves as the first major project of President Joe Biden’s “Build Back Better” plan. Although it has not received much attention from most citizens, it will have far-reaching effects for many years to come.

Listening To Queens: Ghana's Women Traditional Leaders As A Model For Gender Parity, Kristen M. Vogel

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

A movement begun in 2011 inspired multilateral organizations such as the United Nations to collaborate with Ghana’s women traditional leaders on an inherently postcolonial indigenous and transnational feminist project, promoting Queens’ national recognition. Despite the initial power of the movement, it faded over time. Yet it spurred the formation of various new Queens’ associations throughout Ghana. The associations have grown and continue to grow, and the National Council of Women Traditional Leaders that spurred the first movement has returned stronger and with new strategies. As Ghana’s Queens seek their traditional right, an equal voice at all levels of leadership, it …

From A Weak State To A "Rogue" State: The Emergence And Phases Of State Decay In Afghanistan (1978-2001), Abdullah Chenzaie

Archived Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

American Democracy Assistance In Egypt: Understanding Neoliberalism In Decentralization And Democratic Governance, Ahmed Badawi

Archived Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

The National Council For Women: Reassessing The Social, Economic And Political Empowerments For Egyptian Females, Wesam Hamdy Mostafa

Archived Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Canadian-Organized Airlift Needed To Bring Food, Medical Provisions To Afghanistan, Erika Simpson

Political Science Publications

The crisis in Afghanistan has raised concerns globally about NATO's role, humanitarian aid, and international responses. As the Taliban took control, questions about aid and refugee flows grew. The U.S. and NATO's withdrawal left behind advanced weapons now used by the Taliban, sparking criticism and discussions on global responsibilities.

Canada's past involvement and current debates on helping Afghans highlight challenges in international intervention and ethical duties. This crisis shows how complex geopolitics and human rights issues can be in conflict zones.

With uncertainty ahead for Afghanistan's future and implications for global security, the crisis reminds us of the challenges and …

Leading The Way, But Also Following The Trend: The Slovak National Party, Tim Haughton, Marek Rybář, Kevin Deegan-Krause

Honors Scholarly Publications

Despite spells outside parliament, with its blend of nationalist and populist appeals the Slovak National Party (SNS) has been a prominent fixture on Slovakia’s political scene for three decades. Unlike some of the newer parties in Slovakia and across the region, partly as a product of the point of its (re-)creation, SNS has a comparable organizational density to most established parties in the country and has invested in party branches and recruiting members. Although ordinary members exercised some power and influence during the fissiparous era of the early 2000s, SNS has been notable for the role played by its leader …