Political Science Commons^™

Global Tax Governance And The Digital Economy: The Limits Of Democratizing From Below?, Yujia He, Michael Tyrala

Patterson School of Diplomacy and International Commerce Faculty Publications

As Big Tech firms exploit existing rules to minimize their tax obligations, calls to reform the institutions of global tax governance that have historically favored capitalist elites in advanced economies have amplified. Progressive movements have garnered international pressure on the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) to undertake major reforms and address uneven power relations in international negotiations, which have historically produced a skewed distribution of taxing rights. Despite increasing democratization of global tax governance, substantial challenges remain, particularly as intensifying hegemonic resistance threatens to negate reform efficacy and perpetuate power asymmetries. This essay outlines this complex issue and …

Editor-In-Chief's Note, Surekha K. Rao

Midwest Social Sciences Journal

No abstract provided.

Time And Money: Patterns Of Nonstandard Work Across The First Year Of Covid-19, Ellen M. Whitehead, Alison Winiarski, Emily Wornell, Justin Schupp

Midwest Social Sciences Journal

The COVID-19 pandemic had a well-documented impact on the formal economy, with the extent of these consequences varying across industries and sociodemographic groups. Less attention has been paid to whether the nonstandard economy, including informal and gig work, mirrored this broader economic fallout. We draw on 2019 and 2020 data from the Survey of Household Economics and Decisionmaking to assess participation in, time spent on, and money earned from nonstandard work across the first year of the pandemic. We find evidence of an overall decline in participation in nonstandard work during this time. However, our results indicate heterogeneous experiences across …

George C. Roberts Award Recipients

Midwest Social Sciences Journal

No abstract provided.

Submission Guidelines

Midwest Social Sciences Journal

No abstract provided.

Volume 29, Issue 1 Full Contents

Midwest Social Sciences Journal

No abstract provided.

Statement From The Indiana Academy Of The Social Sciences And Board Of Directors

Midwest Social Sciences Journal

No abstract provided.

Author Biographical Notes

Midwest Social Sciences Journal

No abstract provided.

Eating Disorders & Meat Consumption: A Meta-Analytic Review, Urska Dobersek, Laurel Standiford-Reyes, Tyler Robinson, Alex Antony Edwin, Sarah Siebers

Midwest Social Sciences Journal

In this meta-analytic review, we examined the current evidence on eating disorders in relation to meat consumption and meat abstention. We systematically searched six online databases in December 2025 for primary research on eating disorder-related variables in meat consumers and meat abstainers. Fifty-one studies with 55,984 participants (n_{meat consumers} = 44,282, n_{meat abstainers} = 9,751) met the inclusion/exclusion criteria. The outcomes were eating disorders and orthorexia nervosa. Meat consumption was associated with lower eating disorder (g = 0.20, 95% CI [0.08, 0.32], p = .001) and orthorexia nervosa symptomology (g = 0.47, 95% CI [0.33, …

Learning By Doing To Teach Research Skills In Econometrics, Christie Byun

Midwest Social Sciences Journal

This paper examines a revision in an introductory econometrics course at an undergraduate liberal arts college. The instructors have incorporated extensive use of data from the Integrated Public Use Microdata Series from the Current Population Survey (IPUMS-CPS), with applied examples that demonstrate econometric theory. The key element is a short empirical paper assignment in which all students work on a common research question, but with different data sets. The paper assignment includes a series of scaffolding assignments using IPUMS-CPS data. This approach has several benefits, including ease of implementation into any course that has an empirical paper component, significantly streamlined …

Call For Papers

Midwest Social Sciences Journal

No abstract provided.

Mission And Editorial Policy

Midwest Social Sciences Journal

No abstract provided.

Editorial History

Midwest Social Sciences Journal

No abstract provided.

Why Publish With Mssj?

Midwest Social Sciences Journal

No abstract provided.

Reviewers And Referees

Midwest Social Sciences Journal

No abstract provided.

The Survival Of Sugar In Post-Emancipation British Guiana: East Indian Indentured Immigration And The Cheapening Of Labor, Wazir Mohamed

Midwest Social Sciences Journal

This Paper revisits the post-emancipation changes in the labor market of British Guiana. British Guiana, Mauritius, Trinidad and Tobago, Fiji, and several other locations were spaces where East Indian Indentured Immigrants from Idia became pivotal in the economy.[1] In the decade after emancipation (1838-1848), the rise of global free trade in sugar spurred by the equalization of duties in sugar factored in the search for a cheaper and the importation of a more pliable labor force to keep the wheels of sugar turning in British Guiana. With this background in mind this paper focuses on indentured immigration of East …

Political Linguistics And Epistemic Agency: Universal Write Publications And The Defense Of Global Black Knowledge, Ayo Sekai

Wagadu: A Journal of Transnational Women's & Gender Studies

As linguistic erasure intensifies across the African world, the preservation of African-centered knowledge systems has become both a scholarly and political imperative. This article examines the relationship between linguistic imperialism, epistemic agency, and scholarly sovereignty through the intellectual trajectory of Dr. Ayo Sekai, political linguist and founder of Universal Write Publications (UWP), a Black woman–owned academic press dedicated to culturally grounded scholarship. Expanding traditional understandings of linguistic imperialism, Dr. Sekai advances political linguistics beyond structural language dominance to examine who holds linguistic power and how that power operates through dog whistle politics, signaling terms, and policy language code—discursive patterns embedded …

The Startup: Critical Perspectives On Technology Entrepreneurship And Digital Labor, Kochav Koren

All Duquesne Faculty Scholarship

Communication and media studies are rapidly reshaped by socio-technological forces within the framework of informational capitalism, where startups emerge as key drivers of the global creative economy. This study critically examines the global startup movement through political economy, classical sociology, and Southern perspectives to assess whether digital entrepreneurship fosters genuine, decentralized innovation or perpetuates speculative financialization and labor precarity. Employing a multi-layered theoretical framework—including Schumpeterian creative destruction, Marxist commodity fetishism, and Weberian charismatic authority—and qualitative fieldwork across North and Latin American tech hubs, the analysis reveals startups as network enterprises that both disrupt markets and reproduce structural inequalities. The findings …

Religious Practice And Attitudes Toward Immigration And Racial Justice In America, Amya Douglas

Graduate Theses and Dissertations (2019 - present)

This study aims to understand how Christians’ knowledge of Scripture and involvement in the church have an impact on their social-political views, specifically, racial justice and immigration. By using the survey responses from the 6th wave of the Baylor Religion Survey, more frequent church attendance and reading Scripture were correlated with a greater recognition of racism in terms of being against white supremacy and white nationalism, supporting racial justice when asked about racial gaps, and possessing greater support for immigrants. This study highlights the distinction between religious affiliation and religious practice, and it suggests that certain policy sentiments can be …

Ethics Under Siege: The Conflict In Tigray Through The Lens Of Just War Theory, Daniela Widya Purba

Journal of Strategic and Global Studies

This research article explains the ethical principles of the conflict in Tigray based on the Just War Theory. By using the descriptive qualitative methodology, this research article draws data from secondary sources which includes; academic journals, news reports, as well as international legal instruments to analyze the moral trajectory of the conflict. This research begins with jus ad bellum, to assess Ethiopia’s government justification in declaring conflict within Tigray. While the government fulfilled the criteria of just cause and legitimate authority, the question stands on the ambiguous political intentions and the failure to enact peaceful alternatives before resulting in waging …

Presidential Visits As Foreign Policy Instruments: U.S. Indo-Pacific Strategy In Trump’S Second Term, Atar Thaung Htet

Journal of Strategic and Global Studies

Through an analysis of President Donald Trump's October 2025 travel to Asia, this study investigates the consequences of U.S. Indo-Pacific strategy under his second-term diplomacy. The paper examines three significant diplomatic encounters—the ASEAN Summit in Malaysia, bilateral meetings in Japan, and the APEC Summit in South Korea—using a qualitative case study methodology based on role theory and foreign policy analysis. The results show that alliance-centered security cooperation, strategic balancing toward China, and selective economic engagement were U.S. Indo-Pacific goals. Through extremely transactional and bilateralized relations, presidential diplomacy allowed the United States to fulfill a number of foreign policy responsibilities, such …

Artificial Intelligence And Technology - Joni Full Issue July 2026, Angie Holzer

Journal of Nonprofit Innovation

No abstract provided.

Digital Infrastructure Implementation For Nonprofit Sustainability, Yana Kuzina

Journal of Nonprofit Innovation

Nonprofit organizations in the United States operate within a constrained regulatory and financial environment that limits their ability to invest in marketing, donor acquisition, and digital infrastructure. Federal funding regulations, particularly under 2 CFR Part 200, restrict the use of grant funds for advertising and public outreach, creating structural barriers to growth and long-term sustainability. This paper presents a scalable methodology for overcoming these constraints through the design and implementation of cost-efficient digital infrastructure systems.

The proposed framework integrates front-end digital acquisition channels with back-end data management and automated communication workflows. It is implemented through a two-stage model: (1) deployment …

Belonging's Influence On Volunteer Motivation In Faith-Based Nonprofit Organizations: An Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis, Adam Stockton

Journal of Nonprofit Innovation

Nonprofit organizations often overlook psychological belonging as a driver of volunteer retention and recruitment (Hurt, 2025; Mochin, 2022). The purpose of this qualitative Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) study was to explore how a sense of belonging influenced the intrinsic motivation of nine adults volunteering with a faith-based nonprofit organization in the southern United States. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews and analyzed using IPA best practices to identify themes from participants' experiences. The study was grounded in Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, self-determination theory, and organizational identification theory—frameworks that describe how individuals connect personal values and identity to the values and …

Ai-Powered Logistics For Small Nonprofits: A No-Code, Sub-$10 System For Real-Time Distribution Across 41 Locations, Rishi D. Chundury

Journal of Nonprofit Innovation

Small nonprofits often struggle to coordinate multi-site distribution campaigns with limited staff, tight budgets, and little access to technology. This article describes how Eye on July Corp., a 501(c)(3) nonprofit in Omaha, Nebraska, built an AI-powered system to manage the distribution of 20,000 free safety glasses across 41 community locations for July 4th. The system was built without any coding using three commercially available tools, where Airtable stores the data, Make.com runs the automation, and Anthropic's Claude API provides the intelligence, all at a total cost of under $10. The platform collects stock counts from partner locations, analyzes inventory to …

Summary & Discussion On United Nations Preliminary Report On Ai: Benefits And Harms Of Artificial Intelligence For Civil Society, Angie Holzer

Journal of Nonprofit Innovation

In July 2026, the United Nations' newly formed Independent International Scientific Panel on Artificial Intelligence released its first Preliminary Report, offering the first global, scientific assessment of AI's capabilities, risks, and impacts. This article examines the report's findings through the lens of civil society, organizing the Panel's evidence around three questions of direct relevance to nonprofit leaders and researchers: how rapidly AI capability is advancing, who controls its development, and where its benefits and harms are concentrated. Drawing on the Panel's data across societal applications, economic implications, human rights and information integrity, cultural flourishing and child safety, and AI governance, …

Academic Summaries - Artificial Intelligence, Angie Holzer

Journal of Nonprofit Innovation

No abstract provided.

Do Voters Understand The Benefits Of Taxes?, Benjamin Carter, Alessandro Del Ponte, Peter Discioli

Political Science Faculty Articles and Research

We use economic experiments to study a fundamental question in political economy: Do voters understand the benefits of taxes? Participants play an economic game as members of a virtual society composed of computer players. In each round, the players earn low or high income, see the distribution of income, and then vote for low or high taxes. We test whether participants vote rationally for high taxes when poor and low taxes when rich, following a classic model in political economy, or whether they focus on the burden of taxes more than the benefits. Across three experiments, poor players voted against …

The Institutional Production Of Ethical War Across Modern Conflict, Katerina Udov

Binghamton University Undergraduate Journal

This paper argues that modern warfare operates through an ethical infrastructure that enables, rather than restrains, the use of violence. Contrary to the common assumption that moral frameworks such as Just War Theory function as safeguards against harm, the historical record shows that ethical language, humanitarian rhetoric, and democratic narratives serve as mechanisms to legitimize intervention, manufacture consent, and naturalize civilian suffering. Through case studies including Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, U.S.-backed coups in Latin America, and French intervention in Mali, the paper traces how political leaders, media institutions, and corporate actors frame war as a moral necessity while pursuing strategic and …

Governing Algorithmic Attention: Attention Safeguard Models And The Cognitive Attentional Standard As System Level Interventions In Human Computer Interaction, Behavioral Economics, And Artificial Intelligence, Delante Clark

Graduate Scholarship and Creative Works

Algorithmic recommendation systems and interface designs shape attention by combining visually salient cues with uncertain reward timing and low friction interaction. These conditions can sustain anticipatory checking, extend time on task, and reduce natural disengagement points through patterns such as infinite scrolling and autoplay. This paper synthesizes research across neuroscience, human computer interaction, behavioral economics, and artificial intelligence to argue that attention capture is a predictable outcome of incentive driven design rather than an individual failure of self regulation. It advances the Attention Safeguard Models and the Cognitive Attentional Standard as system level interventions that regulate exposure conditions, pacing, and …