Political Science Commons^™

Naccs 40th Annual Conference, National Association For Chicana And Chicano Studies

NACCS Conference Programs

Advancing From Sea to Shining ¡Sí!: Learning From Our Past, Defending Our Rights in the 21st Century
March 20-23, 2013
Omni San Antonio Colonnade

A Field Study Of Consociationalism In The Northern Ireland Assembly: A Moderating Influence Or Threat To Democracy?, Ellen Noble

The Macalester Review

This paper is the outcome of a month-long exploratory study on whether consociationalism has a moderating influence on politics in Northern Ireland. I analyzed the impact of consociationalism on policymaking, party platforms and voter choice to determine if it strengthens and enlarges the middle ground or bifurcates the political community into two extreme and conflicting political agendas. Data was obtained through a literature study and eight interviews with academics as well as political representatives and advisors. This research tested two competing theories of consociationalism: David Horowitz’s theory of consociationalism as a centrifugal force and John McGarry’s and Brendand O’Leary’s theory …

Urban Forest Justice And The Rights To Wild Foods, Medicines, And Materials In The City, Melissa R. Poe, Rebecca J. Mclain, Marla R. Emery, Patrick T. Hurley

Environment and Sustainability Faculty Publications

Urban forests are multifunctional socio-ecological landscapes, yet some of their social benefits remain poorly understood. This paper draws on ethnographic evidence from Seattle, Washington to demonstrate that urban forests contain nontimber forest products that contribute a variety of wild foods, medicines, and materials for the well-being of urban residents. We show that gathering wild plants and fungi in urban forests is a persistent subsistence and livelihood practice that provides sociocultural and material benefits to city residents, and creates opportunities for connecting with nature and enhancing social ties. We suggest that an orientation toward human-nature interactions in cities that conceptualizes the …

Teori Kekuasaan Michel Foucault: Tantangan Bagi Sosiologi Politik, Abdil Mughis Mudhoffir

Masyarakat: Jurnal Sosiologi

Power is often discussed in political discourse or in political sociology. In this context, power is understood as the attribution, capacity, or capital to achieve certain goals of the owners. Foucault does not reject this argument, but this perspective would not be able to expose the invisible subjugation. The more critical view of power appears in cultural studies. Gramsci’s concept of hegemony is often used to dismantle the cultural establishment in the process of domination that was veiled. The more sophisticated findings, power has surpassed even the hegemonic ways, which is factually or coined by Foucault as governmentality. This paper …

Citizens For Peace Activities & Accomplishments 2012, Ann Abdoo

Citizens for Peace

No abstract provided.

Leading From Behind The Gap: Post-Racial Politics And The Pedagogy Of Black Studies, Seneca Vaught

Faculty Articles

An Associated Press Poll released on the eve of the 2012 presidential election revealed that more Americans are overtly racist today than four years ago.

Whose Sense Of Place? A Political Ecology Of Amenity Development, Patrick T. Hurley

Environment and Sustainability Faculty Publications

Using a political ecology framework, this chapter examines the ways in which sense of place and amenity migration contribute to alternative residential development, which relies on uneven use of conservation subdivision features in the American West. Using case studies from Central Oregon, this chapter demonstrates how senses of place and developer decision-making are tied to wider political economic changes. It highlights the roles that amenity migrants and developers, two groups that are sometimes identical, play in landscape transformations that simultaneously draw on a particular sense of place and commodify landscapes in new ways.

Gathering, Buying, And Growing Sweetgrass (Muhlenbergia Sericea): Urbanization And Social Networking In The Sweetgrass Basket-Making Industry Of Lowcountry South Carolina, Patrick T. Hurley, Brian Grabbatin, Cari Goetcheus, Angela Halfacre

Environment and Sustainability Faculty Publications

Despite the visibility of natural resource use and access for indigenous and rural peoples elsewhere, less attention is paid to the ways that development patterns interrupt nontimber forest products (NTFPs) and gathering practices by people living in urbanizing landscapes of the United States. Using a case study from Lowcountry South Carolina, we examine how urbanization has altered the political-ecological relationships that characterize gathering practices in greater Mt. Pleasant, a rapidly urbanizing area within the Charleston-North Charleston Metropolitan area. We draw on grounded visualization—an analytical method that integrates qualitative and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) data—to examine the ways that residential and …

Divided Diasporas: Southern Africans In Canada, Jonathan Crush, Abel Chikanda, Wade Pendleton, Mary Caesar, Sujata Ramachandran, Cassandra Eberhardt, Ashley Hill

Southern African Migration Programme

The protracted economic and political crisis in Zimbabwe led directly to a major increase in mixed migration flows to South Africa. Migrants were drawn from every sector of society, all education and skill levels, equal numbers of both sexes, and all ages (including unaccompanied child migration). Many migrants claimed asylum in South Africa which gave them the right to work while they waited for a refugee hearing. Many others were arrested and deported back to Zimbabwe. Migrants who were unable to find employment in the formal economy turned to employment and self-employment in the informal economy. These migrant entrepreneurs used …

Hegemony And Humanitarian Norms: The Us Legitimation Of Toxic Violence, Eric Bonds

History and American Studies Articles

Despite widespread beliefs that the United States has not used chemical weapons since the distant past of World War I, this study suggests a more complicated history by examining U.S. use of herbicides and incapacitating gases in the Vietnam War and its use of herbicides in the "War on Drugs." This article places such use of toxic violence within a context of U.S. hegemony, by which U.S. officials have used contested forms of violence to secure geopolitical goals, but have also been pressured to comply with humanitarian norms or-when there is a gap between norms and state policy-to do legitimating …

Law Enforcement Personnel And Lawmaking, Katrina Roberts

A with Honors Projects

Police officers have the difficult job of reconciling two deeply held but conflicting values: our desire to be safe and secure and our strong belief in the right of individuals to be free from government coercion and excessive control. How law enforcement officers and departments handle this conflict has a direct bearing on how the public sees them. As a culture, we expect our police officers to be able to balance these goals, but when they veer off too far we criticize them. At the extreme, too heavy a focus on order and safety may border on police brutality.

Managing The Polarities Of Democracy: A Theoretical Framework For Positive Social Change, William J. Benet

Journal of Sustainable Social Impact

People around the globe have embraced democracy to bring about positive social change to address our environmental, economic, and militaristic challenges. Yet, there is no agreement on a definition of democracy that can guide social change efforts. The Polarities of Democracy model is a unifying theory of democracy to guide healthy, sustainable, and just social change efforts. The Polarities of Democracy model consists of ten elements, organized as five polarity pairs: freedom & authority, justice & due process, diversity & equality, human-rights & communal-obligations, and participation & representation. In this model each element has positive aspects and negative aspects and …

Political Applications Of The Geoweb: Citizen Redistricting, Jeremy W. Crampton

Geography Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Introduction To The Naked Communist: Cold War Modernism And The Politics Of Popular Culture, Roland K. Végső

Department of English: Faculty Publications

The first half of The Naked Communist is devoted to the theoretical and historical foundations of my reading of anti-Communist fictions. After the theoretical introduction, I examine anti-Communist aesthetic ideology by first analyzing its political and then its aesthetic components.

In the second half, I examine the way the culture of anti-Communism defined the “world” as the ultimate horizon of political imagination. Included is a brief overview of some of the most popular texts of the given genre.

Finally, I conclude these chapters with a reading of particular authors.

Parenting, Peregrination, And Politics: A Study Of Family Policy And Immigration In West European Welfare States, Jeremy Lee Jackson

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

The title of this thesis is "Parenting, Peregrination, and Politics: A Study of Family Policy and Immigration in West European Welfare States." The author's name is J.L. Jackson, a candidate for a Master of Science degree in cross-disciplinary studies (foci in sociology and political science) at Minnesota State University, Mankato, located in Mankato, Minnesota, United States. This thesis was published in 2013. This writing seeks to answer the question "does an increase in immigration cause family policy spending and coverage in advanced West European democracies to expand?" Qualitative methods, including content analysis, as well as quantitative analysis of existing data …

The Impact Of Business Elite Cohesion On Public Policy Alternatives : A Comparative Examination Of Banking And Telecommunication Legislation In The 1930s And 1990s, Geoffrey Lee Wood

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

ABSTRACT

Beyond Fear And Loathing: Tea Party Organizers' Continuum Of Knowledge In A Racialized Social System, Meghan Burke

Scholarship

Making use of fieldwork and 25 open-ended interviews with Tea Party organizers in the state of Illinois, I argue that Tea Party organizers draw from a continuum of knowledge, combining personal knowledge and experience with a conservative corporate media and Tea Party network frame. I draw upon the work of Weber to show how this continuum connects to various types of rational social action. Widening this scope of analysis allows not only for a more complex analysis of how corporate interests are connected to the grass roots movement, but also how the core frames of the movement are located throughout …

North Dakota’S Oil Boom And Its Effect On North Dakota Politics, Nick "Nick" Nelson

Political Science Theses and Capstones

North Dakota’s oil boom is causing some of its countries to experience significant population increases. I study the effect this is having on the politics of North Dakota. To assess the effect of increased oil production on the population of counties and its effect on the politics of those counties I gathered statistics at the county level in the areas of oil production, populations including total, black, Hispanic, white, and male populations, and voting behavior (Republican or Democrat) from the United State Census, the North Dakota Secretary of State, and the North Dakota Industrial Commission, Department of Natural Resources. My …

Latino Party Id: Inherited Or Learned?, Dylan Davison

Political Science Theses and Capstones

The purpose of this research is to find out whether political party identification is learned or inherited in Latino voters in the United States. Latino voters are the largest growing minority group in the United States. Understanding this growing block of voters will yield dividends in elections to come. I utilized a 2008 dataset from a post‐election survey by Pew Research group on Latino voters. I hypothesize that recent immigrants learn their party identification while more established Latino voters are more likely to have inherited their political views. If Latino party identification is learned it is more likely that they …

The Press, Democracy And History: Journalism And Democracy In Transitional Societies, Michael Foley

Doctoral

In 1989 the Berlin Wall came down signalling the beginning of the end of the post World-War-Two settlement that had divided Europe and created the Cold War. The communist world crumbled over a few years, but at a cost. There was a bitter war in the Balkans, shorter, but equally bitter conflicts in the Caucuses as well as in Central Asia. The Soviet Union fell apart leaving in its place new states varying in size from huge countries like Ukraine to the tiny states of the Baltic coast and Kyrgyzstan in far Central Asia. There was also enormous poverty as …

Sharing What Works Through South-South Cooperation: The Case Of The Risk Reduction Management Centre Replication Project, Rachel M. Cohn

Capstone Collection

The Risk Reduction Management Centre (RRMC) Replication Project, an initiative of the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), aims to take a Cuban best practice in disaster risk reduction and adapt it to the local context of five other Caribbean countries. This project differs from most development projects in that the individuals and institutions providing the assistance (in this case technical training and know-how) are themselves from a developing country (Cuba). This model, wherein developing countries provide resources, information, and training to other developing countries, is known as South-South Cooperation (SSC).

This capstone uses the case of the RRMC Replication Project …

Sex Trafficking: The Influence Of Cultures, Socio-Economic Structures And Law & Order On Sex Trade In Asia, Saanya Dua

Political Science Theses and Capstones

Sex trafficking and prostitution are both matters of concern in today’s world. Trafficking of human beings is a global phenomenon and has been a topic of increased discussion and attention. It is believed that the sex trade industry is considered to be the fastest growing criminal industry in the world, currently it is second to drug trafficking in terms of profits through an illegal industry. Several initiatives have been made to prevent trafficking, through significant legislative and other actions provided to aid victims and those vulnerable in the world. However, the lack of systematic research is a big issue. Asia …

Here, We Are Walking On A Clothesline: Statelessness And Human (In)Security Among Burmese Women Political Exiles Living In Thailand, Elizabeth Hooker

Dissertations and Theses

An estimated twelve million people worldwide are stateless, or living without the legal bond of citizenship or nationality with any state, and consequently face barriers to employment, property ownership, education, health care, customary legal rights, and national and international protection. More than one-quarter of the world's stateless people live in Thailand. This feminist ethnography explores the impact of statelessness on the everyday lives of Burmese women political exiles living in Thailand through the paradigm of human security and its six indicators: food, economic, personal, political, health, and community security. The research reveals that exclusion from national and international legal protections …

[Introduction To] Racism In The Nation's Service: Government Workers And The Color Line In Woodrow Wilson's America, Eric S. Yellin

Bookshelf

Between the 1880s and 1910s, thousands of African Americans passed civil service exams and became employed in the executive offices of the federal government. However, by 1920, promotions to well-paying federal jobs had nearly vanished for black workers. Eric S. Yellin argues that the Wilson administration's successful 1913 drive to segregate the federal government was a pivotal episode in the age of progressive politics. Yellin investigates how the enactment of this policy, based on Progressives' demands for whiteness in government, imposed a color line on American opportunity and implicated Washington in the economic limitation of African Americans for decades to …

Grounding The International Norm On Women, Peace And Security: The Role Of Domestic Norm Entrepreneurs And The Challenges Ahead, Ma. Lourdes Veneracion-Rallonza

Political Science Department Faculty Publications

One of the gaps in the study of international norms is the process by which they are institutionalized and accepted at the national level. As the international norm negotiates its way through various national (and even grassroots) levels, a point of inquiry would be how domestic norm entrepreneurs have enabled its localization. This study looks at the narrative of a loose network of peace and women’s human rights groups that worked together to localize United Nations Security Council Resolution (UNSCR) 1325 on women, peace and security in the Philippines. Specifically, it reviews how the network evolved to become a domestic …

Social Policy And Redistribution: Chile And Uruguay, Jennifer Pribble, Evelyn Huber

Political Science Faculty Publications

In this chapter we ask two questions: First, we ask whether these governments, exemplifying best-case scenarios in Latin America, have embarked on a viable path toward a sustainable social democratic welfare state. Second, we ask whether and why they differ in their approaches and progress on this path, paying close attention to how the parties' organizational characteristics influence this variation. In their introduction, Levitsky and Roberts classify the left parties in Chile and Uruguay as an "institutionalized partisan Left," distinguished between an "electoral-professional" Left and a "mass-organic" Left. Uruguay's FA is an example of a mass-organic left party, while Chile's …

The Predicament Of The Greek Diaspora: Economic Crisis, Immigrant Radicalism And Greek-American Ethnic Identity, Despina Lalaki

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

A Study Of Corruption, Foreign Aid, And Economic Growth, Amanda Deerfield

Theses and Dissertations--Public Policy and Administration

Foreign aid donors increasingly demand that aid is used efficiently and effectively. This study examines the effect of corruption levels, measured by the Corruption Perceptions Index, within a recipient country on the levels of economic growth. A growing literature outlines the mechanisms through which corruption impedes economic growth and is summarized within. Additionally, as longevity gains may result from foreign aid but are not captured in economic growth, this study computes a variable called the Life Quality Indicator (LQI) that combines such gains with economic growth and examines corruption’s effect on LQI growth. As any windfall, foreign aid has been …

Three Essays On Local Government Debt, Robert Greer

Theses and Dissertations--Public Policy and Administration

The local government tax-exempt debt market is a growing, and complex, sector of public finance. As local governments turn to debt financing the factors that contribute to interest costs of that debt have become important considerations for local government officials and politicians. Governance at the local level involves a network of overlapping governments some of which share a tax base. This system of overlapping governments that share a tax base are subject to externalities that arise from taxation, expenditures, and debt. These externalities are usually analyzed in terms of tax or expenditure reactions, but there are implications for local government …

To Produce Or To Buy? Exploring Determinants Of Local Government Privatization Decisions, Zhiwei Zhang

Theses and Dissertations--Public Policy and Administration

The U.S. is experiencing the worst recession since the Great Depression. All levels of government have been hit really hard, this is especially apparent at the local level since services provided at the local level are woven into people’s daily life. Thus, how to “do more with less” is more urgent than ever before. The use of privatization came to surface as a sound solution for deficit-plagued governments as it is thought to be more cost effective and outperform the public sector in most cases. This dissertation contains two empirical chapters that examine determinants of privatization and specify the conditions …