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Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons

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Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

The Bush Administration’S Torture Policy: Outright Disregard For The Rule Of Law And Human Rights, Lyndsay Wehrum Jun 2009

The Bush Administration’S Torture Policy: Outright Disregard For The Rule Of Law And Human Rights, Lyndsay Wehrum

Honors Theses

September 11, 2001 was an infamous day in American history that shocked not only the U.S. but also the World; it generated turmoil and distress for the economy, security, citizen’s lives, and U.S. power. The Bush administration’s response was a “war on terror” which involved a complete manipulation and disregard for national and international laws and the essential authorization of torture at U.S. controlled foreign detention centers. These policies spread by moving down the “chain of command” and into the hands of guards and interrogators that abused, humiliated, and in some cases killed detainees in U.S. control. If anything, the …


The Role And Growth Of Celebritization In Presidential Campaign Coverage, Johnathan Bradford Long Jun 2009

The Role And Growth Of Celebritization In Presidential Campaign Coverage, Johnathan Bradford Long

Honors Theses

The thesis covers the growing role of entertainment and celebrity-style news in the domain of hard presidential campaign television news coverage. Having done prior research on such entertainment news outlets as E! News, Entertainment Tonight, Access Hollywood, among others, I found that I was seeing the same treatment of celebrities as hard news programs were giving to presidential candidates. In light of this thought, the study covers what has been written about the evolution of presidential campaigns and the integration of celebrity news elements into campaigns. This study also performs a media analysis on the network news …


Cyclicality Of State Budgeting: A Political-Economy Analysis., Ian W. Cummins Jan 2009

Cyclicality Of State Budgeting: A Political-Economy Analysis., Ian W. Cummins

Honors Theses

This paper disentangles the effect of political ideology and budget rules on fiscal cyclicality across the U.S. states. Using panel data from 1963 to 2006, liberal states are found to be significantly less procyclical than conservative ones. The impact of balanced budget constraints is contingent on the ideological orientation of the state in which they are imposed. Tight balanced budget rules are not binding on conservative states, but are binding on liberal ones. Where they are binding, budget rules mediate the link between voter preferences and policy outcomes skewing them toward greater procyclicality.