Political Science Commons^™

Poor People's Beliefs And The Dynamics Of Clientelism, Miquel Pellicer, Eva Wegner, Lindsay J. Benstead, Ellen Lust

Political Science Faculty Publications and Presentations

Why do some poor people engage in clientelism whereas others do not? Why does clientelism sometimes take traditional forms and sometimes more instrumental forms? We propose a formal model of clientelism that addresses these questions focusing primarily on the citizen’s perspective. Citizens choose between supporting broad-based redistribution or engaging in clientelism. Introducing insights from social psychology, we study the interactions between citizen beliefs and values, and their political choices. Clientelism, political inefficacy, and inequality legitimation beliefs reinforce each other leading to multiple equilibria. One of these resembles traditional clientelism, with disempowered clients that legitimize social inequalities. Community connectivity breaks this …

Judicial Review As An Instrument Of Natural Rights Theory: An Intellectual History, James M. Masnov

Dissertations and Theses

The unique and antidemocratic power of judicial review by the United States Supreme Court is not a bug, but a feature. Its role was critical in establishing and affirming a separation of powers horizontally among the federal branches as well as vertically between the federal government and the individual states. More than this, the Court's power of judicial review acts as an instrument of rights theory and is informed by a rich and rarely-discussed intellectual history. Though judicial review as a mode of constitutional law and the legal history surrounding it has been discussed by various legal scholars, political scientists, …

Globalizing Noncitizen Detention, Jaye Balentine

Anthós

This inquiry seeks to establish that the global expansion in regimes of noncitizen detention represents a contemporary expression of imperial subjectification under Western liberalism and that such regimes serve a key role in maintaining the capitalist social order. While several efforts have been made to explain the globalization of noncitizen detention practices stemming from the United States, there exists serious shortcomings in the proposed analyses. Namely, existing literature on the subject has failed to adequately account for the history of Western imperialism and the centrality of liberalism as a political ideology in this imperial project. By intervening in the existing …

Scratch A Desert, Produce A Garden: The American Failure To Facilitate A Two-State Solution, Sophie Myers Concannon

University Honors Theses

A majority of Americans support a two-state solution with an independent Palestinian state for the first time since 2012, according to Gallup polling data from February 2020. In February 2021, Gallup found that the majority was maintained at 52%, indicating a momentous shift in American public opinion. Through careful examination of the historical precedent between the United States and Israel, culminating in a shared American-Israeli narrative that has permeated public opinion for decades, I investigate why this shift has occurred, as well as why this shift has not been reflected in foreign policy objectives and party platforms.

How To Escape 130 Years Of Being Unnatural, Incompetent, And Unviable: American Women Presidential Candidates Take To Social Media, Izabella Becherer

University Honors Theses

For 130 years, American media coverage on women in presidential races remains unchanged despite the drastic difference in women's rights. While male candidates receive commentary on their policy, women often fall into discussions about their hair, their hemline, or their husband. Three core narratives about women then stem from their media characterization: unnatural, incompetent, and unviable. Unnatural, in that women, by nature, are not meant to be in political office. Incompetent, implying women are not smart enough for political office. Unviable, arguing that America is not ready to elect a female or females are "unelectable". The key to escaping this …

Suppressing Our Vote: How Vote-By-Mail Affects Latino Voter Turnout, M. Karen Casas-Gonzalez

University Honors Theses

Voter suppression has damaged our democracy and will continue to do so until citizens are given accessibility to voting through various means such as vote-by-mail. Voter suppression has disproportionately and historically affected people of color. The basis of this thesis is to highlight the effects of voter suppression in the Latino community, but more importantly to look at the possible benefits of vote-by-mail as a new political reform system to increase voter turnout. The 2020 election was a unique and historical moment for further research on this topic due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Previously, only a handful of states had …

The Significance Of Christian Iconography In Communist Mexican Muralism Of Diego Rivera, Rachel Renee Amaro

University Honors Theses

This study compares two of Rivera's fresco mural paintings; Liberation of the Peon (1923) at the Secretaria de Educación Publica building in Mexico City, Mexico and Agrarian Leader Zapata (1930) located at Palacio de Cortés in Cuernavaca, Mexico to two Renaissance Christian paintings to highlight the similar use of Christian iconography. This analysis argues that although groundbreaking in style, Rivera's art relied heavily on Christian iconography that not only came from his own background of knowledge, but also enabled him to speak to the people of Mexica in a time when they relied heavily on his art to tell the …

The European Union: Data Protection For Economic Competition And Regional Security, Matthew D. Wurst

Hatfield Graduate Journal of Public Affairs

The collection and use of personal data is being increasingly scrutinized by governments and the European Union (EU) has been attempting to handle the development of data protection based progressive protections to protect its citizens data and right to privacy. With the reemergence of Russia in challenging the state of affairs within Europe, their illegal seizure of the Crimea from Ukraine demonstrated the lengths Russia will go to in order to preserve its sphere of influence. Furthermore, Russia’s use of cyber tactics and hybrid warfare has caused many in Europe to become more concerned for their security. When viewed through …

Security Concerns Vs. Monied Interests?: The Role Of Agenda Setting In Homeland Security, Andrew Christopher Ziegler

Hatfield Graduate Journal of Public Affairs

This paper applies public policy concepts such as agenda setting, resource allocation, lobbying, and campaign rhetoric to the field of homeland security. The analysis examines the allocation of resources among the U.S. federal government’s five broad homeland security priorities during the fiscal years of 2012-2017. An overemphasis on border security has led to a disproportionate allocation of resources among these various priorities. The uneven distribution is the summation of electoral ambitions, campaign contributions, and corporate lobbying. This analysis highlights the negative consequences that are a direct result of an unbalanced allotment, cumulating in a slow and uncoordinated federal response to …

The Amungme And The Environment: Environmental Justice History And Consumerism, Kole A. Dawson

Phi Alpha Theta Pacific Northwest Regional Conference

The Amungme are one of hundreds of Papuan people groups who lived in the Indonesian province in New Guinea for thousands of years. This group subsisted in their environment by hunting, cultivation of small crops, and practicing pig husbandry. In the late 1960s, seeking foreign capital to boost the nation’s economy, the president of Indonesia signed a contract with Freeport McMoRan Copper and Gold. Freeport began mining in the early 1970s, eventually opening one of the world’s largest gold mines. Excavating sacred Amungme sites, Freeport’s massive pollution to the land and water destroyed the indigenous people’s environment both spiritually and …

Born And Bred In Blood: The Fall Of The Aztec Empire, Melina Arciniega

Phi Alpha Theta Pacific Northwest Regional Conference

The fall of the Aztec Empire in 1521 was a surprising feat given the well-known, vast power, and fighting capabilities of the Aztec people. Many questions since then have arisen as to how such a mighty empire had so rapidly fallen. These theories hold implications that the Aztecs were victims to the incoming disease, famine, and domination inflicted by the Spanish conquistador, Hernan Cortes. Alongside these proposals I suggest that by examining archaeological and historical evidence, the Aztec traditional practices were also responsible for its society’s collapse. By identifying the significance of the human sacrifices, the cultural, political, and economical …

'They’Re Building A Wall': The Separation Barrier In Palestine/Israel, Tyler Durbin

Phi Alpha Theta Pacific Northwest Regional Conference

Despite international legal consensus declaring the separation wall in Palestine/Israel as illegal, Israel has continued this geopolitical project unchallenged. Examining the judicial decisions of the International Court of Justice and Israel’s High Court of Justice on the wall reveals that Israel’s project, which began in 2002, was motivated by a political desire to protect illegal settlements in the Occupied Territories, confiscate Palestinian land, and constrict their movement and space. Analyzing the entirety of the wall through the lens of containment illuminates how the wall’s fracturing of Palestinian land created the material conditions, or the ‘facts on the ground’, for Israel’s …

Influence Of The Federal Government On The Diffusion Of Victims' Rights State Constitutional Amendments, Vicki Rose Jeffries-Bilton

Dissertations and Theses

This dissertation examines the factors associated with the diffusion of state constitutional victims' rights amendments across the United States in the twenty-year period of 1982 to 2001 to understand the impact of the federal government on state constitutional change. Because each branch of the federal government took prominent actions in the area of victims' rights on the national policy stage during this era, it is important to know whether these actions influenced policy change at the state level. This dissertation examines whether one form of prominent federal action, the president's use of rhetoric to acknowledge support for victims' rights, influenced …

Theory(Ies) Of Culture And Compassion: Indian Writers Call Out Local And Global Politics Under The Pall Of Covid-19, Priya Kapoor

International & Global Studies Faculty Publications and Presentations

Theory(ies) of culture and compassion: Indian writers call out local and global politics under the pall of Covid-19 This paper is a reading of essays by Indian writers who are writing in the backdrop of the Covid-19 pandemic beginning with the first phase of the Lockdown initiated by Indian Prime Minister Modi in March 2020. Globally read writers, Arundhati Roy, Pankaj Mishra, Arjun Appadurai, Amitav Ghosh, and Nobel laureate Amartya Sen assess the state of affairs both domestically and globally in their respective essays. Empire, disease, neo-liberalism, democracy, poverty, climate change and migrant workers are the hot button issues on …

Eco-Critique And Thought As A Force Of Nature, Stephanie Erev

Political Science Faculty Publications and Presentations

It occurred to me not long ago that each time I read something new I pay special attention, without really meaning to, to how the work projects forward into a future or futures. This has been going on, I now think, for some years. Perhaps this quasi-conscious reading practice has played a part in the recalibration of my own orientations to the future, which, with every new climatic event, seem to grow dizzier and more disorganized, feeling some of the time like players in a game of musical chairs. Whether it is in relation to “All Around the Mulberry Bush” …

Human Confusion: Why There Must Be Justice For Non-Humans, David Johns

Political Science Faculty Publications and Presentations

Over the last twelve millennia—since agriculture first emerged—humans have increased their exploitation and efforts to control other species and to colonize the Earth. Human on human hierarchy and colonization of other humans follows on the colonization of the natural world. The task of conservation is to undo that colonial relationship. We have been causing the extinction of other life-forms, including hominid species, since we left Africa at least 60,000 years ago. In the last 50 years, or just about two human generations, nearly 68% of all vertebrate animals have disappeared due to human activity (WWF 2020). Humans go into an …

The Investor-State Dispute Settlement (Isds) Debate: Do Savings Provisions Influence Arbitration Outcomes?, Ryan Manning Moore

Dissertations and Theses

Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS), an instrument of international trade and investment law, today leads perceptions regarding the integrity of international dispute resolution and its administration. If confidence in international economic institutions to render judgements which are impartial to political influences become suspect, then their durability will erode. This inquiry investigates whether or not power imbalances are reflected inordinately within ISDS arbitration outcomes between host nations and their foreign investors. Although there have been clear instances which question any observer's view of ISDS impartiality, these outcomes have also served to distort a complicated fabric of case results that have changed and …

The “End Of Poverty” Illusion: Global And East Asian Realities In The Covid-19 Pandemic, Mel Gurtov

Political Science Faculty Publications and Presentations

The World Bank’s “International Poverty Line,” a politically driven standard, obscures the reality that, in East Asia as elsewhere, poverty is increasing alongside enormous wealth for the richest ten percent. The COVID-19 pandemic is driving tens of millions more people into poverty in East Asia than would otherwise be the case, challenging all governments to meet the crisis where it most counts: in health care, food, aid to small businesses, and income. For that to happen , however, requires a dramatically different approach to economic globalization by governments and international lending agencies. Two events, the COVID-19 pandemic and the climate …

Understanding Evangelical Support For, And Opposition To Donald Trump In The 2016 Presidential Election, Joseph Thomas Zichterman

Dissertations and Theses

This thesis addressed the conundrum that 81 percent of evangelicals supported Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential election, despite the fact that his character and comportment commonly did not exemplify the values and ideals that they professed. This was particularly perplexing to many outside (and within) evangelical circles, because as leaders of America's "Moral Majority" for almost four decades, prior to Trump's campaign, evangelicals had insisted that only candidates who set a high standard for personal integrity and civic decency, were qualified to serve as president.

In order to deal with this problem, I conducted a qualitative study, which followed …

Catholic Social Teaching And Sustainable Development: What The Church Provides For Specialists, Anthony Philip Stine

Dissertations and Theses

The principles of Catholic Social Teaching as represented by the writings of 150 years of popes as well as the theorists inspired by those writings are examined, as well as the two principal schools of thought in the sustainability literature as represented by what is classically called the anthropocentric or managerial approach to sustainability as well as the biocentric school of thought.

This study extends previous research by analyzing what the Catholic Church has said over the course of centuries on issues related to society, economics, and the environment, as embodied in the core concepts of subsidiarity, solidarity, stewardship, the …

Follow The (Electronic) Money: How Bitcoin And Blockchain Technology Are "Shaking The System", Jim Robert Mignano

Dissertations and Theses

Bitcoin is the first digital medium to allow global, "purely peer-to-peer" exchange. At the height of the Great Recession, Bitcoin's pseudonymous creator introduced the electronic cash to sidestep political and economic institutions. Today, it is praised as an opportunity for the unbanked, a liberating force, and a pioneering technology. It is also infamously associated with volatility, illicit activities, and profligate energy consumption.

Bitcoin has also flown under the radar of political science, whereas computer scientists, economists, and legal scholars have written extensively about it. To address the gap in the literature, I describe Bitcoin as an actor in global affairs, …

Troublemaker: An Exploration Of Praxis In Leftist Political Theory, Emerson Hamlin

University Honors Theses

This project seeks to make recommendations on praxis, or the actions that embody theory, to present and future leftist organizers. I will do so by completing a literature review: in this case, reading and analyzing works of some of the foundational thinkers in leftism, and by reading the works of the leftist thinkers of today. By doing this review, I seek to find my own, and other activists’ answers to Lenin's eternal question: What is to be done?

Developing A Conceptual Framework For Research On Social Media And Political Polarization, Audrey C. Sanders

University Honors Theses

Americans in 2020 live in a time of unprecedented political polarization. Scholars often study this trend of increased polarization in conjunction with the use of social media platforms, or social networking sites (SNSs). Despite a nearly twenty-year existence, however, the discourse community surrounding the relationship between SNS use and political polarization has yet to develop past a scattered and largely theoretical body of literature. What follows is a description of the current state of the literature followed by a description of a conceptual framework scholars can use when approaching the field and designing their own research in order to make …

Pregnancy And The Apocalypse: The Enlistment Of Reproductive Futurism In Aid Of Nationalism, Emily E. Horger

University Honors Theses

While America has long held a fascination for the end of the world, the apocalypse has enjoyed a surge in popularity over the past twenty years, rising the ranks from cult classic to mainstream media - many examples of which include representations of pregnancy. Reproductive futurism is exemplified in such varied recent sources as A Quiet Place, Bird Box, Train to Busan, The Walking Dead, and more through their representations of pregnant women in apocalyptic settings. The prevalence of this trope, in addition to specific messages found within the contexts of each example, coincide with recent …

The Lasting Effects Of U.S. Intervention In Guatemala, Katherine A. Gaffey

University Honors Theses

Guatemala today faces a national femicide, exceedingly high rates of human trafficking and drug trafficking, as well an increase in migration to the U.S. This paper attempts to understand the current situation in Guatemala through a historical analysis of Guatemala’s tumultuous relationship with the U.S. Specifically, it looks at the role of the 1954 CIA backed coup and the United Fruit Company as key causal factors in fostering the Guatemalan Civil War and the implications of that war for ongoing crime and instability in Guatemala today.

The Impact Of Vote By Mail On Native American Turnout, Nathaniel J. Torry-Schrag

University Honors Theses

When Vote by Mail was fully implemented by the state of Oregon in 2000, it quickly became the subject of study by the Political Science community. While there is not yet an academic consensus about the impact of vote by mail, its growing popularity is undeniable. Mail voting has now been fully adopted in four states, with several others extensively offering mail ballots as an alternative to in-person voting. As this form of convenience voting spreads across the county, it is important to once again try to determine its impacts. This study examines a voting group often overlooked by academic …

Co-Predatory Rule: International Cooperation With Respect To Cryptocurrency Taxation In Russia And Belarus, Jim Mignano

Hatfield Graduate Journal of Public Affairs

This article presents an example of how globalization and digitization force states to rely on international organization. Examining tax policy with respect to cryptocurrency—an innovative, global technology—the implication is that a state levying taxes on cryptocurrency must turn to international monitoring and enforcement regimes to support effective taxation. Based on Margaret Levi’s theory of predatory rule, I submit a theory of “co-predation” to explain international cooperation with respect to taxation of novel, cross-border technologies such as cryptocurrency. The Automatic Exchange of Information (AEOI), an anti-tax evasion framework promulgated by the OECD, serves as an example of international cooperation. A comparison …

International Migration, Development, And Policy: Reconsidering Migration Transition Theory—A Way Forward, Karin A. C. Johnson

Hatfield Graduate Journal of Public Affairs

Migration transition theories have been contested as they informed immigration policy in the Global North, which—based on assumptions that immigrants from developing countries may be a threat to social stability and economic opportunity—aimed to diminish emigration from the South. Development policies were proposed that could produce a “migration transition” in the South, where it was assumed that improved economic development would act as a substitute for migration and lead to minimal emigration, thus reducing overall immigration to the Global North. However, policies did not result in a migration transition. Acknowledging problematic rhetoric and contradictory policy and outcomes, this paper addresses …

You Don’T Need A Weatherman To Know Which Way The Wind Blows: The Prison Break Of Timothy Leary, Phoebe N. Holman

Young Historians Conference

This paper examines the revolutionary merit of the Weather Underground Organization’s prison break of LSD guru Timothy Leary. Was Leary truly an activist willing to risk everything to introduce the public to the healing powers of psychedelics? Or was he an unprofessional mad scientist using his students to further his own agenda? It also provides an explanation of how the WUO and other anti-war organizations like it brought the United States to the brink of a massive societal shift—and then disappeared.

A War Of Implicit Forces: The Algerian Revolution, Grace I. Graham

Young Historians Conference

The Algerian Revolution, Algeria’s fight against the colonial power of France epitomized the perseverance of the people’s voice. However, with few military battles won by the Algerians, against the resource rich France, how did Algeria ultimately become the victor? This paper explores the F.L.N.’s strategies in approaching the war and how France’s response to such tactics contributed to domestic and international sympathy for the Algerians’ cause, leading to the eventual liberation of Algeria.