Political Science Commons^™

Female Militarization And Women's Rights: A Case Study Of The Peshmerga And Ypj, Margaret Morgan

Honors Undergraduate Theses

Since 2012, there has been an increase of media attention on the Kurds, particularly women who are active in the YPJ and Peshmerga. Various publications have equated women's militarization with women's liberation. In an effort to more accurately measure this, the following question must be asked; what is the effect of women's military involvement on women's rights? Women that are active in both nationalist movements and traditional state armies are presented with changing gender roles. Post conflict, there is a struggle for women to transfer their newfound autonomy into political activism. The theory outlines a chain in which women participate …

Governments' Adoption Of Native Cryptocurrency: A Case Study Of Iran, Russia, And Venezuela, Rose Mahdavieh

Honors Undergraduate Theses

The emergence of digital currency is becoming prevalent in the age of globalization – specifically, cryptocurrencies. Cryptocurrencies and blockchain are two recently discovered concepts currently being explored by researchers and developers. Cryptocurrency is a subset of digital currency that encompasses revolutionary technology, shifting political and economic spheres in nation-states. Certain governments are more prone to the adoption of cryptocurrencies and three comparative case study countries, Iran, Russia, and Venezuela, have shared attributes that result in adoption. Observed factors that result in the adoption of cryptocurrencies include corruption, GDP level, economic volatility, and Western sanctions. These factors will be applied in …

Pro-Government Militias And The Legacy Of Military Rule In Latin America, Alexander Mendelsohn

Honors Undergraduate Theses

Currently Latin America experiences a phenomenon of widely varying levels of violence across the region. Many countries, such as El Salvador and Honduras, have exceptionally high murder rates upwards of 40 homicides per 100,000 people (UNODC 2015). Other countries, such as Uruguay and Argentina, have relatively low rates, below 10 homicides per 100,000 people (UNODC 2015). I believe this variation stems from the use of pro-government militias specifically employed in the past by military governments as tools of suppression. Under the guise of combating subversive elements within their countries, these groups were used to silence and repress those who opposed …

Chinese Economic Development And Its Global Implications, Robert T. Hill

Honors Undergraduate Theses

While Chinese economic development is often at the forefront of conversations by scholars shaping economic policy, further investigation into the state of China's economy has left a gap in research. Through analyzing the 13th Five Year Plan (FYP) and looking specifically at the effect it will have on unemployment, international trade, overcapacity rates, and the Belt and Road Initiative, the goal of this research is to understand if China will be able to obtain sustained economic growth. In order to achieve this, this research employs a qualitative discourse analysis, focusing on pre-existing works that discuss Chinese economic development. It will …

Political Knowledge And Political Engagement In The United States, Brittany Shaul

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examined the impact of political knowledge on forms of political engagement in the United States. Prior literature has established a relationship between political knowledge and political engagement, where those with higher political knowledge were more likely to engage politically through acts such as voting. This study distinguished between the various forms of political engagement and political knowledge, and seeks to provide relevant data on who is more likely to have political knowledge, and what impact having political knowledge has. This served to reexamine trends found in past literature, in order to see if these trends have persisted or …

Florida's Rising Tide: Income Inequality Effects By County, Alyson E. Johnson

Honors Undergraduate Theses

Income inequality in Florida is higher than in many states and has been getting worse over time. Inequality has been argued as responsible for a wide-ranging array of economic and social problems, including suppression of lower- and middle-income growth, social fragmentation and separatism, urban sprawl, poor health and mental illnesses, violence, and shortened life expectancy. What explains variance in Florida county income inequality as measured by the GINI coefficient? Bivariate and multivariate weighted least square regressions are conducted for the years 2000 and 2016, and for the change between 2000 and 2016. Three variables achieve statistical significance in all three …

The Nuclear Taboo: A Real Effect On Public Perception?, Cody Marlin Kennedy

Honors Undergraduate Theses

This research experiment investigated whether the nuclear taboo was more influential on participants when considering the use of nuclear weapons, or if the participants were influenced more by cost-benefit analysis when deciding to use nuclear weapons. In this study, we presented a fake military scenario to respondents with a total of eight different versions that either did or did not include: genocide, high casualties, and nuclear weapons. Participants could then select whether they agreed, disagreed, or needed more information as there answer. Breaking respondents down into these three groups, the results show that for all three respondent groups the independent …

21st Century Engagement Among Ucf Students: Exploring Metrics & Platforms, Daniel N. Robles Duprey

Honors Undergraduate Theses

This research analyzes the political and social engagement of UCF College of Business students in order to grasp a better understanding of what youth engagement looks like in the 21^st century. Through the implementation of a survey, data is collected on the level of students' social involvement, political participation, and civic engagement – the three vital metrics of citizen engagement. These metrics are then split across the online and offline realm, as well as across key demographics of race, gender identity, political ideology, and party affiliation. Data is also collected about which social media platforms students engage most on, …

Appropriate Adjective: Executive Authority And The Classification Of Enemy Combatants, Taraleigh Davis

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Is the term enemy combatant an established legal category of persons under international law? Has the President exceeded his constitutional authority in classifying United States citizens who are suspected terrorists as enemy combatants? In 2018 a U.S. citizen was released after being held for 13 months as an enemy combatant. He was detained without being charged with a crime and without the ability to challenge the legality of his detention. This thesis serves two purposes. First, it will seek to trace the history of the term enemy combatant and highlight the evolution of its use by the executive branch. This …

Commitment And Credibility In Fdi, Kathleen Sullivan

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

How can firms in foreign direct investment (FDI) best protect their assets from host government contract beach? FDI is the largest and most stable form of external financing to less developed countries (LDCs). It increases job growth, technological development, and efficiency in the host country, subsequently increasing economic development. Companies prefer to invest in countries that are less prone to contract breach. I propose that credibility of commitments can help explain variation in contract breach. I propose that firms are most likely to avoid contract breach when they are involved in supply chains and when the host country has a …

More Guns, Less Butter, And Officers At The Table: Understanding The Nexus Between The Military's Integration Into Politics And Resource Allocation In Democracies And Non-Democracies, Salah Ben Hammou

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The civilianization of government is often seen as a necessary prerequisite for successful democratization and healthy civil-military relations. This thesis explores the impact of integrating the military into political decision-making on the distribution of "guns" and "butter" – military spending and social spending - across dictatorships and democracies. Whereas a general consensus suggests that autocracies allocate greater goods to the military and fewer goods to the general public relative to democracies, an understudied variable is the military's integration into politics in both democracies and autocracies. Given that military elites have greater incentives relative to civilian elites to prioritize military spending …

Reexamining The Relationship Between Divided Government And Voter Turnout, Heidi Beck

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis reexamines the effect of divided government on voter turnout originally posited by Franklin and Hirczy de Miño (1998), which suggested that each year of exposure to divided government resulted in a cumulative negative effect on voters leading to alienation and lower turnout. It reconsiders this argument using more recent data, given that voter turnout in U.S. presidential elections (as measured by the Voting Eligible Population) has increased since 2000, even though divided government has occurred during this period. This thesis also uses new data and methods to address concerns about the original aggregate level research design. The research …

How Political Violence Helps Explain Organized Crime: A Case Study Of Mexico's "War On Drugs", Alanna Fulk

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines research from the disciplines of political science and criminal justice to develop a theory that explains geographic variation in violence related to organized crime. Large-scale organized crime violence exhibits characteristics of both ordinary crime violence and political violence, but these subjects are generally analyzed separately. However, as large-scale organized crime has become more prevalent and violent in recent years, most notably in Latin America, studies, including this one, have attempted to cross disciplinary boundaries in order to better explain trends in organized crime onset, termination and violence. This thesis argues that although the overall goal of organized …

Government Respect For Human Rights And Their Relation To Shadow Economic Activity, Christopher Gahagan

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Shadow economic activity can have detrimental effects on many aspects of a society including trust in government policies, quality of public institutions, government revenues, and economic growth. Empirical studies have generally employed a rational actor approach and focused on economic factors. Most studies in this literature claim that when individuals do not receive the right economic stimuli from the government, it damages the relationship between individuals and the state and citizens opt to move into the shadow economy. A small but growing body of research, however, suggests that certain political factors can also lead to shadow economic activity because of …

Comparative Analysis Of The Relationship Between State Security And Ethnic Minority Oppression, Grayson Lanza

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This research investigates the relationship between the state economic outlook, state security apparatus and the presence of ethnic minority oppression within the state's borders. Modern states have developed extensive security apparatuses as they have developed their economies and this research intended to identify the possibility of a connection between the development of these aspects of the state in relation to ethnic minority repression. The research is broken up into a research design and introductory section, a case study section, and a final analysis and conclusion section. Each of the four case studies studied a and ethnic minority relationship, and in …

National Security And Political Polarization, Joseph Funderburke

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation explores how partisan polarization among the political elites (the President and key Members of Congress) impacts national security decision-making. The research examines the relationship over time beginning at the start of the Cold War through 2014. In doing so, the research tests several hypotheses to determine the nature of the relationship and what the implications might be for future U.S. national security policy-making. There are three different approaches used in the research centered on the same theory of partisan polarization. The first approach examines changes in the level of polarization and defense budgets each year. The second explores …

Political Participation And E-Petitioning: An Analysis Of The Policy-Making Impact Of The Scottish Parliament's E-Petition System, Ross Cotton

The Pegasus Review: UCF Undergraduate Research Journal

Worldwide, representative democracies have experienced declining levels of voter turnout, lower membership levels in political parties, and apathy towards their respective political systems. E-democracy, specifically e-petitioning, has been touted as a possible solution to this problem by scholars of electoral systems. In 1999, the Scottish Parliament reconvened for the first time in nearly three hundred years, and set out to innovate Scottish politics by launching the world's first online e-petition system. The Scottish Parliament's e-petition system serves as a litmus test to see whether it offers an effective medium for increasing public political participation, and whether it can be replicated …

A Comparative Study Of The Great Powers' Space Policies, Ari Litwin

The Pegasus Review: UCF Undergraduate Research Journal

Current manned space efforts are heavily invested in areas where cooperation is a key concern. The International Space Station program consists of seven international partners, and there is a renewed push to send unmanned probes to the moon in preparation for future sustained manned missions. Cooperation in space endeavors, much like in any area of international policy, has its own benefits and challenges that are unique to each participant and this comparative analysis will present the view of these benefits and challenges from the perspective of each of the great space powers. This research evaluates each of the great space …

Undervoting And Overvoting In The 2002 And 2006 Florida Gubernatorial Elections, Javed Khan

The Pegasus Review: UCF Undergraduate Research Journal

In a participatory democracy where every vote counts, voters expect that every vote will be counted. The voting machine is the instrument with which the voting public records its intent and appoints its representatives. In order for the democratic process to function, voting machines must properly function.

Do electronic voting systems that rely on touchscreens work better at reducing undervote and overvote counts than optical scan systems? To answer this question, an analysis of undervote and overvote counts in the 2002 and 2006 Florida Gubernatorial elections was conducted. The undervote and overvote counts across county, voting system, system manufacturer, and …

Government And The Intelligence Community: A Case Study On Russia And The United States Government's Effect On Intelligence Systems, Jessica M. Lago

Honors Undergraduate Theses

The United States and Russia are two major superpowers with governments that are run in different manners. Central to a government's and country's defense is their intelligence systems. The intelligence systems of these two countries are run as part of the government and are integral to its functioning. The purpose of this thesis is to discuss how both the governments and intelligence systems are structured and do they coincide with their respective systems. Using a case study on the United States and Russia, their intelligence systems and governments a comparison was drawn. While looking at the history of both governments …

Differences In Vote Margin Of Candidates In The Florida Legislature, Meghan L. Stevens

Honors Undergraduate Theses

What explains differences in the margin of victory in Florida legislative races? Data is collected for all 160 legislative races from 2016 (120 house contests and 40 senate elections) and two sets of analyses are conducted: all races and just competitive races. When looking at all races, five variables are statistically significant in the multivariate model. District party registration difference has a positive effect on margin of victory and the greatest relative impact. Races involving two major party candidates have a much smaller margin of victory, a contest with a major party versus a minor party (or No Party Affiliation …

The African Puzzle: A Study Of Democratic Backsliding In Sub Saharan Africa, Ailbhe Rice

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The following study examines the future of democratization and the apparent trend towards autocratization within the context of democratic backsliding in Sub-Saharan Africa. Initially, the findings indicate that regionally, backsliding is not acting fundamentally different in Sub-Saharan Africa when compared to other regions. The analysis finds that regime duration and civil conflict are both significant when it comes to the study of democratic backsliding. The variable for the prior military regime's is extremely significant in all of the models and is, therefore, a strong indicator of backsliding in Africa. The chief takeaway from the study is in the variable for …

The Effect Of Unemployment On Democratic Warfare, Andres Rakower

Honors Undergraduate Theses

This study was done to see the effects of a war on the economy and the internal politics of the United States. In selecting the engagement, we would study we agreed the Iraq War would be aided by a large amount of sampling of public opinion that was more nuanced than in previous wars. The Iraq War was a very complicated war, as it was controversial from the beginning and became a political issue while continuing to be a war fought by Americans abroad. Based on the literature, there were many starting effects and assumptions that were accounted for such …

Irgc And Iranian Soft And Hard Power Influence Within The Middle East, Daryl F. Urbina

Honors Undergraduate Theses

The IRGC, or the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, and Iran have utilized soft power to increase their influence within the Middle East. By using military superiority; ideological influence; and trade, both the Iran and the IRGC established dependency between themselves and patron states. Of these patron states, the research focuses on Iraq; Syria; and Yemen, and how Iran and the IRGC affect them through soft power. This research suggests that Iran and the IRGC is using the disability of the aforementioned states to increase their own influence by making them dependent on Iranian military supplies; cultural indoctrination to align with …

Explaining The Difference In Support For President Trump And Senator Rubio In The 2016 Election In Florida, Florencia Miguez Devesa

Honors Undergraduate Theses

What explains the difference between the county level vote received by President Donald Trump and U.S. Senator Marco Rubio in the 2016 Florida general election? Over the last couple of decades, Florida has earned a reputation for being a highly competitive state that impacts control of the White House and congress. As Florida’s electorate becomes increasingly diverse, will the Democratic Party begin to win more often as their usual base grows, or will the Republican Party figure out a way to remain competitive? The 2016 general election presents an opportunity to analyze the structure of support for two Republican candidates …

The Student Debt Crisis And Political Polarization In The Millennial Generation, Dylan Wallace

Honors Undergraduate Theses

According to the Pew Research Center, the modern wave of political polarization began in 1994, and is the strongest today than it has ever been during the 23-year period. (2007) Polarization in the US party system is evidenced by several factors including: growing consistent partisan views, partisan antipathy, ideological bubbles, growing difference in preferences, a shrinking political center, and the lack of political compromise. (Pew Research Center 2014) The question I attempt to answer in this thesis is on the factors associated with political polarization within the millennial generation. One of the most pressing issues to this generation is what …

When The Clocks Strike Thirteen: Political Repression In Modern America (1990-2015), Faiza Begani

Honors Undergraduate Theses

Abounding acts of repression committed in democracies have continued to be overlooked and under-analyzed by many researchers and scholars due to "democratic exceptionalism". As the United States enters yet another consecutive year of declining political satisfaction and freedom. It has become pertinent that as conflict study researchers, scholars, and readers alike that there is a basic understanding of coercion including acts that have been committed within our own countries. Countless scholars have focused conflict study research on underdeveloped or emerging democracies, yet many have overlooked the seamy side of developed ones. This article aims to explain the relationship between the …

The Political Development Of Central Florida's I-4 Corridor From 1944 To 2016, Ethan M. Conkwright

Honors Undergraduate Theses

The intent of this thesis is to analyze the political development of the six counties comprising the I-4 Corridor from 1944 to 2016. The literature review will develop an understanding of realignment theory and its application to Southern and Florida politics. The data analysis will analyze Presidential, Gubernatorial and Senate Election Results from the six counties, compared with census data for each of the six counties to show voting trends at a county-level basis. U.S. Census Data from 1940 to 2010 will also be used to analyze population and population density of the region at-large, and at a countywide level, …

Florida Nonpartisan Trial Court Elections: An Analysis Of Voter Turnout And Ballot Roll-Off, Shannon L. Fagan

Honors Undergraduate Theses

This research explains the variance in voter turnout and ballot roll-off in county and circuit nonpartisan judicial elections in Florida from 2014 and 2016. Based on theory, a collection of constituent (demographic and socioeconomic), candidate, competition, and contextual variables is gathered to construct four regression models. Two full regression models were constructed for turnout and roll-off and analyzed using SPSS software, in addition to two best regression models analyzing five statistically significant variables found within each full model. Presidential year elections and higher populations age 65 and up had positive impacts on voter turnout, while primary elections, campaign expenditures, and …

The Implications Of Domestic Party Ideologies On Refugee Policy: A Case Study Of Bangladesh And The Rohingya, Samuel S. Schiffer

Honors Undergraduate Theses

Why do some political parties in Bangladesh discriminate against the Rohingya, while some do not? Much has been written about the conflict in Myanmar, but the plight of Rohingya in Bangladesh remains understudied. This lack of understanding is underscored by the five million Syrian refugees fleeing their own civil war that dominates the news and the attention of scholars. The Rohingya, however, are stateless: they are denied citizenship in their native Myanmar and are forced to find refuge in whichever country will take them.

Much has been published that links immigration policy to security considerations and the national identity and …