Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

The Importance Of The United Nations Peacekeeping Operations: A Study On Mali, The Democratic Republic Of Congo, And South Sudan, Tess Whitehurst

Honors Theses

This thesis presents the history of UN peacekeeping and how it has evolved over time to create more effective solutions to peacebuilding. This is done by providing a comparison of the backgrounds of three different peacekeeping missions, the United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS), the United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA), and the United Nations Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo (MONUSCO), with a historical and demographical background on the host country in order to demonstrate the importance of peacekeeping on that country. Through critical research of peer reviewed sources and contextual information from …

The Fall Of The Pakatan Harapan (Ph): Contesting Nationalism In Malaysia, Cheng Kidd Sun

Honors Theses

The collapse of the 22 months-old Pakatan Harapan (PH) coalition-government in 2020 was the ultimate manifestation of contestations over nationalism that have continued in Malaysia since the nation’s inception more than six decades ago. The “middle ground” platform — a political moderation strategy to win across ethnic lines to obtain multiethnic support — that helped the PH coalition to win the 14th Malaysian General Election was shattered due to identity tensions. The current political discourse has persistently insisted that the betrayal of politicians and political parties, along with economic insecurity and media fragmentation, had contributed to the downfall of this …

Campaigning In The Digital Age: How Social Media Changed The Framework Of Elections, Faith Hamelin

Honors Theses

Throughout the 21st century, it is normal for social media users to see politics on virtually every platform an individual uses, ranging from LinkedIn to TikTok. Broadcast news, including television and radio have always aired political discussions, as mass communication became the most common and favorable way for politicians to communicate with constituents. However, politics were not a prominent aspect of social media use until less than a decade and a half ago. As the internet became further integrated into our daily lives, through radio, television, and cellular or smart phones, we found ourselves invested in politics at a previously …

Litigating Reproductive Rights: The Evolving Support Structure In The United States, Allison Anker

Honors Theses

The Supreme Court of the United States functions as the highest judicial body in the country, with its decisions having the capability to reverberate change across the nation. Understanding why they make certain decisions has long been a point of scholarship, with multiple theories emerging as to what exactly influences their rulings. One such theory is the support structure, proposed by Charles Epp in The Rights Revolution (1998), which is a theory exploring how social movements influence litigation and the establishment of certain rights. This theory states that legal mobilization at the Supreme Court rests “on resources, and resources for …

Factors Influencing The Political Activity Of Social Workers: A Comparative Study Among Swiss And United States Social Workers, Tobias Kindler, Jason Ostrander

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

Various international and national social work ethical principles call social workers to participate in politics, yet not much research exists in the field of a political social work. Little is known about the actual voluntary political engagement of social workers as well as factors influencing their political activity. Especially, few studies with an international comparison focus have been conducted. Consequently, this study used cross sectional survey design to better understand the factors influencing the political activity of social workers in Switzerland (n = 1242) and in the United States (n = 3033). The results indicate that the political activity of …

The Struggle For Self-Determination: A Comparative Analysis Of East Timor And Western Sahara, Emma Baratta

Honors Theses

Self-determination is accepted as an international right of all people, yet in many cases it still takes decades of struggle to achieve it. Through comparative analysis of the selfdetermination and independence struggles of East Timor and Western Sahara, conclusions can be drawn as to why some former colonies are able to achieve these goals while others do not. In order to better understand the challenges associated with self-determination, I evaluate the two cases based on four overarching factors which influence the process: statehood criteria and imagined community status, colonialism and occupation, presence of natural resources, and international recognition. I argue …

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 …

Cities Leading The Way: Municipal Climate Policy In The Us, Naomi Bick

Dissertations

Understanding cities is a key feature for understanding responses (or lack thereof) to a collective action problem like climate change. In the absence of federal climate change policies in the United States, many city and state governments have adopted and implemented policies to mitigate and adapt to climate change. As mayors, city managers, and city councils increasingly become central actors, scholars have shifted their studies to focus on city climate change policy (Yi et al. 2017a, Hughes 2017). Descriptive case studies have identified a broad range of factors; however, the causal mechanisms of whether cities adopt and implement climate change …

Thomas Middleton And The Plural Politics Of Jacobean Drama, Mark Kaethler

Late Tudor and Stuart Drama

Thomas Middleton and the Plural Politics of Jacobean Drama represents the first sustained study of Middleton's dramatic works as responses to James I's governance. Through examining Middleton’s poiesis in relation to the political theology of Jacobean London, Kaethler explores early forms of free speech, namely parrhēsia, and rhetorical devices, such as irony and allegory, to elucidate the ways in which Middleton’s plural art exposes the limitations of the monarch’s sovereign image. By drawing upon earlier forms of dramatic intervention, James’s writings, and popular literature that blossomed during the Jacobean period, including news pamphlets, the book surveys a selection of …

International News From Differing National Perspectives: Spanish-Speaking Newspaper Coverage Of The 2019 Venezuelan Presidential Crisis Protests, Lauren Lalonde

Honors Theses

On January 23, 2019, the streets of Venezuela became flooded with protests in response to the head of Venezuela’s National Assembly, Juan Guaidó, announcing his claim to the Venezuelan presidency. The protests were largely in support of his announcement, though some supported Nicolás Maduro, the president of Venezuela since 2013. This day marked the beginning of the Venezuelan presidential crisis, which left Venezuela, and the world, debating the legitimacy of each leader. This investigation focuses on how Spanish-language news sources from three different countries reported on the protests surrounding the Venezuelan presidential crisis on January 23, 2019, and how the …

The Evolution Of The Slave Trade In South-East Asia, Rosanna Pathmanathan

Honors Theses

Modern slavery has managed to persist through the 21^st century as it has shape-shifted into new occupations and various forms of entrapments. However, my research will prove that despite its seemingly different situations, multitudes of modern industries continue to employ harsh and unfair working conditions which utilize labor laws that restrict protections for employees. To fully comprehend how these new-age jobs are in fact new forms of old-age slavery, it is paramount to look into past forms of enslavement – primarily looking into Columbus’ discovery of Hispaniola and the Atlantic Slave Trade. To aid us easing into modern-day enslavement, …

Sustainability Trends In Higher Education: An Analysis Of The International Journal Of Sustainability In Higher Education, Jessica Poling

Honors Theses

Since the onset of the Industrial Revolution, human activities have substantially harmed the biosphere and, if continued, pose a substantial risk to life on Earth. Recognizing this, educated people have advocated widespread adoption of sustainable practices and, in particular, have increased the amount of sustainability efforts associated with higher education. The International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education, established in 2000, is devoted to such practices. For my honors thesis, I examined articles published in the journal from 2010 through 2019 to determine the countries, and the institutions within those countries, that were the primary contributors to the journal. …

Political Scandal And Party Identification, Michael Sekich

Honors Theses

How do voters react to political scandal, especially when a like-minded partisan is involved? We look to answer that question by utilizing the concept of self-monitoring. Before collecting the data, expectations were that high self-monitors would identify as an independent when exposed to the partisan political scandal. But, when presented with a non-partisan political scandal, high self-monitors would feel more comfortable identifying as their own partisanship. This study offers mixed results. We found that high self-monitors had the only meaningful differences, and low self-monitors did not display significant differences across the versions. The Republican scandal yielded the most meaningful response, …

The Peaceful Transition Of Spain: How Authoritarianism Became Democracy, Emma Haiser

Honors Theses

The peaceful transition from authoritarianism under Francisco Franco to a democratic constitutional monarchy after Franco’s death stands as a critical juncture in modern Spanish history because of the uniqueness of the historical event. The transition occurred without direct foreign intervention to manipulate Spanish politicians into passing democratic legislation; instead, the transition was initiated by Francoist leaders who willingly enacted the regime’s change which undermined their initial place in society. The Spanish transition was caused by three main factors: societal opposition to the Francoist regime, democratic international influence, and progressive leaders taking office after Franco’s death. This paper will explore the …

How Do Israelis And Palestinians Interpret Their Own Histories As Evidence That They Have Claim Over Israeli Held Territory?, Jacob Kubiak

Honors Theses

The Israeli-Palestinian War over Israeli-held territories has been a major controversy for many years. The modern conflict has been raging on since 1948. This conflict has caused the displacement of 1.4 million Palestinians, uprooting them from what they believe to be their ancestral home. Along with this displacement, the conflict has caused infrastructural collapse and the rise of terrorist organizations within Israel and Palestinian territories. Both groups have their own evidence in claiming the Israeli-held territory, including archaeological history and ancient texts to argue that they are the rightful owners of this land. The narratives of land claim belief are …

Inequality, Patronage, Ethnic Politics And Decentralization In Kenya And Botswana: An Analysis Of Factors That Increase The Likelihood Of Ethnic Conflict, Rei Gordon

Masters Theses

Scholars have recommended numerous institutional arrangements for mitigating ethnic conflict in divided societies. Electoral systems are often considered to have an impact on ethnic conflict, and scholars have recommended both proportional representation systems and majoritarian systems for their respective effects on mitigating ethnic tensions. However, in a cross-national analysis of 18 sub-Saharan democracies, I find no impact of electoral systems on ethnic conflict. Countries employing proportional representation systems and majoritarian systems are compared according to three measures of ethnic conflict, yet neither electoral system correlates with higher or lower levels of conflict. In the interest of identifying factors that do …

Deliberation For Devolution In The Public Sphere: A Case Study From Pakistan, Beenish Kulsoom

Dissertations

Genuine democratic deliberation on design of institutional rules is possible only when the state apparatus and political and civil society are engaged in communicative interexchange, exchanging ideas, and speaking in a language understood and accepted by all others. Moreover, in such an exchange the interlocutors do not hold back their thoughts to achieve strategic control in order to subvert the communicative engagement. The deliberative theory of democracy advocates communicative engagement between state and society actors that results in institutional rules that are accepted by all.

The advocates of the theory of deliberative democracy argue that while the state is the …

Analysis Of The Demands Of A Student Athlete, Jaret Curtis

Honors Theses

College athletics has become a staple in our society today. In this analysis, I do a detailed analysis of the demands of a collegiate student athlete. To be more specific, I look at how participating in college athletics affects hirability post-graduation. I am currently a football student athlete here at WMU so I have first person access to this information and can relate very well to this topic. I obtained information by taking an autobiographical approach and applying my experiences as a student athlete and using outside research to answer the question of whether or not being a student athlete …

Outside Looking In: Non-Standard Work And The Politics Of Labor Market Segmentation, Kathleen Bolter

Dissertations

Since the 1980s, major structural and demographic changes in the OECD have encouraged the proliferation of nonstandard work (part-time and temporary jobs). The increase in nonstandard work is viewed as a key cause for income and social inequality. Inequality creates many issues for states including the erosion of trust in institutions and a weakening of civic society as economic growth fails to benefit all of those involved in its production. Up to this point, there have been few studies examining why states vary in employment protection and regulation for nonstandard work. This study seeks to answer how the insider/outsider divide, …

A Case For A Moral Theory Of Property: How Digital Copyright Reveals The Insufficiency Of Hume's Pragmatic Justification Of Ownership, Mattew Davis

Honors Theses

This paper addresses the following questions: Why does property exist? How does one come to own something? In it, the author attempts to answer these questions by comparing the property theories of political theorists John Locke and David Hume with modern U.S. copyright law, with a special focus on digital copyrights. The purpose of this comparison is to identify principles and explanations of property that are consistent between seventeenth- and eighteenth-century political theories and modern laws. The product of this comparison is the discovery that Locke, Hume, and U.S. Copyright Law either use labor as a metric for ownership or …

The Relationship Between Droughts And The Tourism Industry: A Case Study On Cape Town, South Africa, Katelyn Drummond

Honors Theses

The Cape Town water crisis has been a worsening problem for the city since its start in 2016, although there has been some alleviation in the second half of 2018. Several researchers have developed a framework for analyzing the impact that droughts have on a location, with some insight into the impact of this occurrence on the tourism industry specifically. This thesis aims to examine the relationship between droughts and the tourism industry through the case study of the Cape Town water crisis. The hypothesis of this study was that the number of tourists visiting Cape Town has been lower …

Who Is In The “We”? Interrogating The African Union’S Agenda 2063 And Youth Political Participation., Job Shipululo Amupanda J.S

International Journal of African Development

Most analyses of the African Union (AU) focus on the politics of the state and presidents. There are very few analyses that focus on aspects such as youth development. This article departs from that tradition. It argues that although the youth were always part of important historical developments in Africa, they have remained on the periphery. In recent times, particularly since the transformation of the Organization of African Unity into the AU in the 2000s, the youth development agenda has begun to receive attention at the policy level. In 2015, the AU through Agenda 2063 went a step further by …

Indigenous Knowledge And The Development Debate In Africa, Fidelis Ewane, Samson Ajagbe

International Journal of African Development

This research employs Bourdieu’s theory of habitus to explain the disposition of the donor community to integrate indigenous knowledge systems and practices into development projects. The theory’s objectivist perspective specifies the mechanism that links structural conditioning to social practice and regularities. It holds that power is culturally and symbolically created, and it is constantly re-legitimized through the interplay of agency and structure. This facilitates an analysis of the development field as social space characterized by indigenous and donor power relations. It argues that the reinforcement of indigenous knowledge as the main channel for development will generate transferable local capacities and …

Perspective Taking, Multicultural Course Completion, And Political Ideology Affiliation Effects On Zero-Sum Belief Endorsement By White Counseling Trainees, Lindsay A. Okonowsky

Dissertations

Research suggests many Whites tend to see racism as a zero-sum game, which means they believe gains for one group necessitate losses for another group (Wilkins, Wellman, Babbitt, Toosi, & Schad, 2015). Given the theoretical underpinnings of multicultural competence, and the notion that beliefs drive actions, adherence to zero-sum game-oriented beliefs may interfere with individuals in helping professions’ abilities to provide multiculturally competent services to their clients. The primary purpose of this study was to examine the effects of perspective taking and multicultural course completion as interventions with White, master’s level, counseling trainees’ endorsements of zero-sum beliefs (ZSBs). A secondary …

Book Review: Courtrooms And Classrooms: A Legal History Of College Access, 1860-1960, Mark A. Addison

Journal of College Access

Issues of college access are increasingly met with resolutions within social and economic contexts. Models such as cost of production output, and race and socioeconomic-conscious strategies form the basis of such analyses (Jenkins & Rodriguez, 2013; Henriksen, 1995; Treager Huber, 2010; Schmidt, 2012). We can expect retooling and reinventing of such models with increasing college costs and changes in student demographics.

Impact Of 2001 - 2016 Supreme Court Establishment Clause Cases, Nicole Cumming

Honors Theses

This study will look at United States Supreme Court Establishment Clause cases from 2001-2016. During those 16 years, the Court decided 1,276 cases. Only 10 of those cases dealt with the establishment clause.

At an absolute minimum, the Establishment Clause was intended to prohibit the federal government from declaring and financially supporting a national religion, which existed in many other countries at the time of America's founding. This idea has become vital to the values Americans hold dear. Throughout history, religious freedom and tolerance have been celebrated, and most of that is due to the Establishment Clause. However, there is …

The Changing Geopolitical Dynamics Of The Middle East And Their Impact On Israeli-Palestinian Peace Efforts, Daniel Bucksbaum

Honors Theses

In this thesis the status and feasibility of the two-state solution, the primary and most widely-accepted potential resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will be analyzed. It considers aspects such as physical challenges (geography and topography of the land), regressive and damaging actions to the peace process by Israelis and Palestinians, and the newly developing changes in regional alliances and interests in the Middle East. The status of the traditional two-state solution, due to its history, obstacles, and current regional developments, has implications for future negotiations and have changed the direction of peace talks. Dramatic shifts in regional interests and the …

Party Identification At Western Michigan University, Melissa Heinz

Honors Theses

A high self-monitor is an individual who changes his/her political views to improve an impression made to others. This past election contained very controversial candidates making individuals very reluctant to show strong support for either party. My thesis topic examines the link between self-monitoring and party identification after the controversial election. I will be testing to see Western Michigan University students’ willingness to disguise political views based on what others think of them by using three different versions of the same survey. Many students are in positions on campus as well as off campus that require them to present themselves …

Guide To Understanding Catalonian Dissent: From Proclamation To Referendum, Andrew Larkin

Honors Theses

"Guide to Understanding Catalonian Independence Efforts: From referendum proclamation to 1-O" explains and chronicles key events from June 9 to October 1, 2017 that have impacted Catalonia's ploy for independence. The northeastern region in Spain is situated on the Mediterranean coast and plays a strong role in the Spanish economy. Although the region is well situated and prosperous, some push for an independent Catalonia. The guide is written with readers from the United States of America in mind and includes excerpts translated into English so that the struggle between Spain and independence-minded Catalans can be easily understood. Official statements, speeches, …

The Effects Of Repealing The Estate Tax And Reducing The Corporate Tax Rate Coupled With A Repatriation Act, Trenton Vanderlende

Honors Theses

Given that significant U.S. federal tax reform is taking place for the first time in over 30 years, this paper examines how changing specific tax provisions may affect the average individual taxpayer as well as the wealthiest 1% of Americans. Three potential federal tax law changes are addressed: repealing the estate tax, reducing the corporate statutory income tax rate, and offering a repatriation holiday for remitting the foreign profits earned by U.S. businesses. These changes are analyzed using publicly available data from U.S. Congressional hearings, the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA), and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). Based on this …