Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Presidential Instability In A Developing Country: Reassessing South Korean Politics From A State-Society Relations Perspective, Kyung-Hwa Kim

Dissertations - ALL

This study attempts to explain why ALL of South Korean presidents, without exception and notwithstanding their individual major contributions to the process of Korea’s development, have fallen victim to disgraceful downfalls.

For the analysis, I employ S.N. Sangmpam’s middle-range theory that establishes a causal link between society-rooted politics and political outcomes. Building on his analytical frameworks that non-Western countries are characterized by over-politicization in politics as a function of social context, I argue that patterned downfalls of all Korean presidents are an institutional outcome of over-politicization in Korean politics, which is itself a function of not fully entrenched capitalist society. …

Building The Airplane While It Flies: A Case Study Approach Of Police Development In Kosovo, Liberia, And Timor-Leste, Kevin Krupski

Dissertations - ALL

This dissertation examines the development of police forces during post-conflict reconstruction to determine what makes some police development interventions more successful than others. It addresses three questions: First, does goal incongruence between donors and host states have a negative impact on the outcome of police development? Second, does the structure of organizations, political power, and international agreements predetermine the outcome of police development? Third, does the agency of individuals have an effect on the outcome of police development? The dissertation aims to fill a gap in our understanding of how the international community develops policing institutions by examining the interaction …

Social Security Under Decentralized Authoritarianism: Politics Of The Public Pension Program In China, Jing Lin

Dissertations - ALL

Welfare provisions are commonly regarded as an intrinsic product of democracy. Why do authoritarian rulers provide welfare programs to the people? How do authoritarian rulers promote welfare development under decentralized authoritarianism? This dissertation investigates these theoretical puzzles through a detailed study of the urban pension program for enterprise employees in authoritarian China. The decentralized fiscal and administrative structure in China makes the operation of the pension program a particularly challenging one. What are the redistributive incentives of the Chinese rulers? How does the central government differ from local governments in their redistributive calculation? How do these two levels of governments …

Privacy Vs. Security: Fear Appeals, Terrorism And The Willingness To Allow Increased Government Surveillance, Angela Marie Rulffes

Dissertations - ALL

This study investigates the relationship between fear and privacy by using the Extended Parallel Process Model (EPPM) to examine whether there is an association between fear appeals and the willingness to allow increased governmental surveillance of online and phone communications. Research suggests that, in the United States, privacy is important. Moreover, courts have inferred privacy rights in the U.S. Constitution, including protection from intrusions by the government. However, the threat of terrorism is also very real. There are indications that some people may be willing to allow intrusion by the government if it means keeping them safe. This study uses …

Families Designed Through Art: Exploring Embodied Experience And Conception Disclosure Based On Sexual Identity, Natalee Mayonne Simpson

Dissertations - ALL

This dissertation uses data from an original online survey including a diverse sample of individuals across different sexual and gender identities, who have given birth to at least one child successfully conceived using ART (N=114). I use a mix of qualitative and quantitative techniques to examine parents’ experience undergoing fertility treatment as well as conception disclosure. My research has two overall research objectives: first, to explore and analyze variations in the experience of fertility treatment process based on sexual identity; second, to examine differences in attitudes towards conception disclosure as well as disclosure importance and behaviors based on sexual identity. …

Developmental Pathways Between Low Birth Weight Status And Children’S Academic And Socioemotional Competence: The Role Of Parenting Processes As A Moderator, Sangita Pudasainee-Kapri

Dissertations - ALL

The present study examined the longitudinal associations among moderate low birth weight (MLBW), parenting factors, and children’s developmental outcomes within an at-risk sample (N= 1,809), using secondary data from Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing (FFCW) study. Of particular interest was whether parenting factors moderate the associations between MLBW and indicators of both socioemotional and cognitive/academic competence. Birth weight and prenatal data were taken from medical records. Parenting factors were assessed during in-home assessments at ages 3 and 5. Mothers and teachers reported on externalizing behaviors and teachers reported on social skills at age 9. In addition, cognitive/academic outcomes were assessed …

Impact: The Supreme Court In American Politics, Logan Ray Strother

Dissertations - ALL

In this dissertation I seek to answer the question: when, how, and under what conditions does the Supreme Court make or influence policy and politics in the United States? In working to answer this question, I demonstrate that the Supreme Court has significantly more power and influence than scholars have typically given it credit for. I argue that the nature of the Court’s power is interpretive: it is the power to say what the law is. This power gives the Court the ability to make policy routinely, in every case that comes before it. Often the exercise of this policymaking …

Linking Descriptive Assessment To Functional Analysis And Treatment Of Transition-Related Problem Behavior, William Edward Sullivan

Dissertations - ALL

Activity transitions are difficult for many children with developmental disabilities, leading to problem behavior and decreased instructional time in schools. Assessing the function of transition-related problem behavior, especially in the school setting, requires special attention. Functional analysis methodology has been employed and can demonstrate functional relations. However, functional analyses may not always capture the naturally occurring contingencies or detect idiosyncratic variables. Thus, the current study examined the concurrent validity and treatment utility of assessing transition-related problem behavior descriptively. Two boys with autism (8 and 11-years-old) and one boy with Down syndrome (6-years-old) participated. All sessions were conducted at an outpatient …

Three Essays On Returns To Education, Health And The Spatial Wage Curve In Turkey, Haci Mevlut Karatas

Dissertations - ALL

This dissertation comprises three papers on wage and health returns to education and spatial wage curve in Turkey. The second and third chapters make use of the exogenous variations generated by the 1997 Eight-Year Compulsory Schooling Law and the accompanying middle- school class openings to estimate economic and health returns to education. The findings suggest that the reform and the intensity of the reform substantially increased the educational attainment. The second chapter investigates the wage returns to education. Results show that one additional year of schooling increases individual wages by around 9 percent. The third chapter examines the causal impact …

Who Participates And Why? What Do They Expect And What Do They Accomplish? An Evaluation Of The Superfund Technical Assistance Grant (Tag) Program, Lance R. Cooper

Dissertations - ALL

Abstract

This research was performed to investigate public participation in highly technical policy

scenarios and the outcomes of this participation. A detailed evaluation of community

involvement at Superfund sites (via the Technical Assistance Grant, or TAG, Program) was

performed by researching a specific type of complex, highly-technical policy problem, using a

mixed methods approach, incorporating a quantitative econometric evaluation and qualitative

multiple case study of selected Superfund sites.

The existing literature on public participation argues that citizen involvement is central to

democratic decision-making and is an important part of the policy process. This study was

rooted in a series of …

Research Brief: "Mental Health Of Transgender Veterans Of The Iraq And Afghanistan Conflicts Who Experienced Military Sexual Trauma", Institute For Veterans And Military Families At Syracuse University

Institute for Veterans and Military Families

This brief is about the relationship between identifying as a transgender veteran, military sexual trauma, and mental health disorders. In policy and practice, transgender veterans who have experienced military sexual trauma should discuss the trauma history with a mental health provider, and health care providers should work with transgender veterans to connect them with proper counseling services. The DoD should work to reduce gender identity stigma within the military and the VA should research MST treatment effectiveness among transgender veterans. Suggestions for future research include using self-rated identity as a variable and determining more about the effectiveness of MST treatments …

Research Brief: "Impact Of Military Trauma Exposures On Post-Traumatic Stress And Depression In Female Veterans", Institute For Veterans And Military Families At Syracuse University

Institute for Veterans and Military Families

This brief is about the relation between combat stressors, depression, and PTSD among female veterans. In policy and practice, health providers should refer female veterans to services if they have experienced military sexual trauma; the DoD and VA should conduct analysis on the experiences of service and veteran women, and how they can best support service women who experienced military sexual trauma. Suggestions for future research include using an expanded sample and more sampling strategies, as well as use clinical interviews to collect data.

I Am A Post-9/11 Student Veteran, Institute For Veterans And Military Families At Syracuse University, Student Veterans Of America

Institute for Veterans and Military Families

This report addresses the unique situation of post-9/11 student veterans as the arrive on college campuses.

Student Veterans: A Valuable Asset To Higher Education (Data Brief), Institute For Veterans And Military Families At Syracuse University

Institute for Veterans and Military Families

The data brief summarizes the findings about student veterans in higher education.

Research Brief: "Military Service And Marital Dissolution: A Trajectory Analysis", Institute For Veterans And Military Families At Syracuse University

Institute for Veterans and Military Families

This brief summarizes an analysis of the effect of military service on the likelihood of divorce during the volunteer's period of service and the years following.

Understanding Information Use In Online Consumer-Health Support Groups: A Look Into Interactive Health Communications, Naybell Hernandez

Dissertations - ALL

UNDERSTANDING INFORMATION USE IN ONLINE CONSUMER HEALTH SUPPORT GROUPS: A LOOK INTO INTERACTIVE HEALTH COMMUNICATIONS

The exponential growth of the Internet in the past two decades has been accompanied by an increased interest by Internet users in communicating among each other electronically about all sorts of topics, including health-related issues. This increased interest in peer-to-peer communication for health topics raised lots of questions about the potential harmful effects of these communications on those participants who might take some health-related action without consulting with a doctor first. This potential problem has motivated the researcher to investigate how people with certain health …

Essays On Misspecification In High Dimensional Econometrics And Asset Pricing, Jaewoo Oh

Dissertations - ALL

This dissertation examines misspecification issues in two contexts: (i) signal (or equivalently factor) detection in high-dimensional factor models and (ii) the identification of the physical probability distribution of stock returns in the asset pricing literature.

The first essay revisits the panel information criteria (IC) proposed by Bai and Ng (2002), which is a popular estimator for the number of factors in high-dimensional factor models, and studies its over-detection risk in finite samples. First, we analyze the finite sample performance of IC by computing the over-detection probability bound. In particular, we specify the asymptotic over-detection condition of IC in terms of …

Enabling Justice: State Cooperation With The International Criminal Court, Franziska Boehme

Dissertations - ALL

This dissertation analyzes state cooperation with the International Criminal Court (ICC, or the Court). State cooperation is the precondition for the Court to bring perpetrators of genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity to justice. The Court does not have a police force of its own to enforce its arrest warrants and court requests. Consequently, the ICC depends on the cooperation and assistance of states and international organizations to arrest suspects and facilitate the Court’s work in various ways. Through qualitative methods, including case studies, content analysis, and process tracing, I investigate how states support or undermine the Court’s work …

The Roberts Court Constitution Of Freedom Of Speech: Preferences, Principles, And The Study Of Supreme Court Decision-Making, Brandon Metroka

Dissertations - ALL

Since the appointment of Chief Justice G. Roberts to the U.S. Supreme Court, political scientists and legal scholars have assessed the Court’s behavior in a diverse array of cases and issue areas, including those touching on federalism, reproductive rights, voting rights, and economic liberty (cases involving businesses and corporations). Few issues have proven as vexing as the Court’s constitution of the First Amendment’s command “Congress shall make no law…abridging the freedom of speech…”

In light of the Court’s ongoing constitution of the scope and coverage of the First Amendment, a narrative has emerged that paints the Court as distinctly conservative. …

Three Essays On Public Procurement, Zachary Steven Huitink

Dissertations - ALL

Abstract

The following dissertation presents three essays on the theory and empirics of public procurement—the process by which government defines its needs for goods and services and acquires them using contracts. The objective of this dissertation is to address three unresolved questions in the literature regarding how the characteristics of products governments procure, and the environments in which they are bought and sold, shape government and non-governmental actors’ decision making at different points in the procurement process.

The first essay develops an expanded theory of government’s decision to directly deliver public services—social welfare, energy utilities, select forms of security provision, …

Occupational Stress And Health Among Home Health Care Workers, Jeanette M. Zoeckler

Dissertations - ALL

Home health care workers fill an essential role in the daily lives of elderly persons. However, the work is physically and emotionally exhausting. This mixed-methods study explicates sources of stress found in agency-based caregiving in the post-industrial economy. Agencies operate under a highly regulated legal and organizational framework, but little is known about how to reduce sources of job strain to better protect workers’ health. Drawing on existing occupational health stress theories (Karasek; Siegrist; Landsbergis) and sociological stress theory (Pearlin; Fenwick & Tausig), this study explores how workers’ experiences and agency characteristics are related to home health care worker’s occupational …

Using Affirmation Theory To Further Understand The Distinction Between The Individual Self And The Collective Self, Gaven Allen Ehrlich

Dissertations - ALL

Research in social psychology points to a discontinuity between the individual self and the collective self such that operating at the collective level of identity leads one to be more biased, defensive, and hostile than when operating at the individual level of identity. One area of research where this distinction is particularly apparent is that of identity threat and affirmation theory. Although affirming the self has been shown to reduce individual-level biases in the face of threat, affirming the group in response to a collective-level threat has been shown to accentuate biased tendencies. This may be a result of the …

Over The Hurdle: A Quantitative Study Examining The Obstacles Of Achieving Professional Certification And The Perceived Effective Practices For Overcoming Them, John Patrick Stinnett

Dissertations - ALL

The purpose of this study was to identify the issues that Information Systems (IS) professionals face when pursuing professional certification as well as the perceived effective practices to overcome these issues. I have observed many students seeking professional certification while only a small subset achieves it. This document provides a review of relevant literature on the topic of professional certification and a research study that examined why some IS professionals achieve this certification and what obstacles they overcame to do so. The study has relevance to organizations that offer professional certifications, those firms who offer exam preparation for these certifications, …

Encounters With Authority: Tactics And Negotiations At The Periphery Of Participatory Platforms, Gabriel Mugar

Dissertations - ALL

Digital participatory platforms like Wikipedia are often celebrated as projects that allow anyone to contribute. Any user can sign up and start contributing immediately. Similarly, projects that engage volunteers in the production of scientific knowledge create easy points of entry to make contributions. These low barriers to entry are a hallmark feature in digital participatory labor, limiting the number of hoops a new volunteer has to jump through before they can feel like they are making a difference. Such low barriers to participation at the periphery, or edges of participatory platforms, have presented a problem for organizational scholars as they …

The Presence Of Groove In Online Songwriting Projects, David Lamar James

Dissertations - ALL

Collaboration for groups with members who are disconnected by geography or time is convenient for many reasons, but remains a challenge due to time zone differences, network congestion, and the attenuation of nonverbal communication cues. Virtual collaborators engaging in creative work often deal with these challenges, even more so when tasked with expressing their emotions to distant partners.

This study seeks to determine the social factors and tools that impact the quality of an online creative collaboration. Members of the Kompoz.com music composition community were surveyed to solicit projects that had the potential to be optimal collaborations. Judges listened to …

The Effect Of The Hope Scholarship Program On Interstate Migration, Can Zhou

Dissertations - ALL

The HOPE scholarship program, created by the state of Georgia in 1993, is the first large scale, merit-based higher educational scholarship program in the United States. In this research, I use border analysis and difference-in-differences estimates to test the hypothesis that the HOPE scholarship program attracts interstate education migration from Georgia’s neighboring states. My results support my hypothesis. I find that border areas in Georgia attract high school seniors from the adjacent areas in border states that do not have the HOPE scholarship program. In addition, I use the IPUMS dataset to provide further analysis to the effect of the …

Research Brief: "The National Veteran Sleep Disorder Study: Descriptive Epidemiology And Secular Trends, 2000–2010", Institute For Veterans And Military Families At Syracuse University

Institute for Veterans and Military Families

This brief is about the relation between sleep disorder diagnosis and cardiovascular disease, cancer, and mental health disorders among veterans. In policy and practice, physicians should familiarize themselves with signs of and screenings for sleep disorders and should discuss factors that affect sleep with their veteran patients; the VHA should continue recommending policies that help veterans receive a prompt diagnosis and treatment of their sleep disorders, policymakers should fund early intervention programs to help veterans learn how to cope with reintegration, and the VHA should create a database on sleep disorders in veterans. Suggestions for future research include studying veterans …

The Economic, Health, And Psychological Effects Of The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, Ilana Siegal

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

This paper analyzes the economic, health, and psychological impacts of conflict and the effectiveness of United Nations agencies and organizations in addressing these issues. I use the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as a case study, representing intractable conflicts due to disagreements regarding land, religion, politics, and ethnicity. Focusing on the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), I argue that the effectiveness of WHO and UNRWA programs depends on the economic wellbeing, conflict status, and the level of funding at the time. However, the largest factor impacting the economy, health, and psyche of the Palestinians is …

Please Forget To Floss: Developing An Assay For Identifying Tuberculosis In Dental Calculus From The Smithsonian’S Huntington Collection (1893-1921), Soleil Young

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

Tuberculosis is one of the most ubiquitous diseases in human history. Despite the long history of human interactions with the disease, tracking it retroactively is difficult because of its low rate of associated, diagnostic bony changes. Ancient DNA, also called aDNA, is a novel method for examining the presence of disease in the past. Currently, the only way to isolate tuberculosis aDNA is to drill and section bone, a method that is both invasive and expensive, limiting its use in the archaeological record. This capstone examines new ways of tracking and understanding tuberculosis in the past, utilizing the DNA trapped …

Coffee Powerhouses: Utilizing Pr And Marketing, Laina Pisano

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

Over the past few decades, a cup of morning coffee has transformed from a simple supplement, with cream and a dash of sugar, to a daily necessity, luxury and investment. In fact, consumers spent over $74.2 billion on coffee in 2015 alone (The Economic Impact of the Coffee Industry, 2016). Within this billion-dollar industry, a combined 4.3 billion cups are purchased from two coffee powerhouses, Dunkin’ Donuts and Starbucks Coffee (Lepore, 2011). These industry tycoons can be found brewing beans all day long, serving their daily out-the-door lines of loyal, eager customers. This capstone will take readers on a journey …