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2010

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Articles 931 - 942 of 942

Full-Text Articles in Political Science

Minarets Vote Compromises Human Rights For Everyone, Anna Talbot Jan 2010

Minarets Vote Compromises Human Rights For Everyone, Anna Talbot

Human Rights & Human Welfare

Minarets, like church steeples, are a physical manifestation of religion. There is little doubt, then, that their recent banning in Switzerland following a referendum constitutes a breach of the right to freedom of religion, with respect to the right to manifest ones religion. This right is protected under a number of instruments, including the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (Article 18), the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) (Article 18), and the European Convention on Human Rights (Article 9). Under these instruments, the right to manifest ones religion can only be limited if such a limitation is necessary …


Doubting Thomas: A Study Of Thomas Hobbes's Post-Restoration Dialogues, Adam George Yoksas Jan 2010

Doubting Thomas: A Study Of Thomas Hobbes's Post-Restoration Dialogues, Adam George Yoksas

Dissertations

This study explores the possibility that Thomas Hobbes's post-Restoration writings have a teaching that is somewhat different than the teaching contained in his scientific treatises. Specifically, Hobbes seems to express doubt in his dialogues that his science as outlined in Leviathan and elsewhere is a realistic solution to the problems of the commonwealth. His knowledge of the English Civil War and the peace that followed may have been instrumental in reorienting Hobbes towards a more pragmatic and realistic philosophy that recognized the limits of science to create stability in the political arena. The Hobbes of the dialogues seems to focus …


Sea-Cards For The Impetuous Muse: A Reading Of Shaftesbury's Characteristicks, Travis Sean Cook Jan 2010

Sea-Cards For The Impetuous Muse: A Reading Of Shaftesbury's Characteristicks, Travis Sean Cook

Dissertations

Characteristicks of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times, by Anthony Ashley Cooper, Third Earl of Shaftesbury, marks an important dissent from the general trend of early modern philosophy. This dissertation argues that Shaftesbury's book undertakes a restoration of the classical understanding of philosophy in contradistinction to the understanding presented by the writings of Descartes, Hobbes, Locke, and other modern thin0kers. According to Shaftesbury, modern philosophy introduces a method of radical skepticism in order to combat the moral and political effects of Christianity. This methodical skepticism, however, turns out to be at least as corrosive to moral and political life as the worldview …


Affection, Anger, Or Ambivalence? An Examination Of Tunisian And Two Groups Of American Students' Attitudes Toward American Politics And Popular Culture, Jonya Leverett Jan 2010

Affection, Anger, Or Ambivalence? An Examination Of Tunisian And Two Groups Of American Students' Attitudes Toward American Politics And Popular Culture, Jonya Leverett

Master's Theses

Attitude ambivalence is the attitude actor's simultaneous possession of both negative and positive affect toward an attitude object. The competing affect produces tension, creating attitude ambivalence. In the present project, the attitude object is the United States of America. Students in Tunisia (a predominately Muslim nation) were asked specific questions about American foreign policy and American popular culture (n = 17). These two aspects of the `America' attitude object are expected to produce attitude ambivalence as the Tunisian students should express positive affect toward American popular culture and negative affect toward American foreign policy. A pencil and paper survey featuring …


The Rule Of Law Unplugged, Daniel B. Rodriguez, Mathew D. Mccubbins, Barry R. Weingast Jan 2010

The Rule Of Law Unplugged, Daniel B. Rodriguez, Mathew D. Mccubbins, Barry R. Weingast

Faculty Scholarship

The "Rule of Law" is a venerable concept, but, on closer inspection, it is a complex admixture of positive assumptions, inchoate political and legal theory, and occasionally wishful thinking. Although enormous investments have been made in rule of law reformism throughout the world, advocates of transplanting American-style legal and political institutions to developed and developing countries are often unclear about what they are transplanting and why they are doing so. The concept of rule of law has become unplugged from theories of law. Scholars clearly have more work to do in understanding the rule of law and designing institutions to …


American First Ladies As Goodwill Ambassadors, Wendy W. Tan Jan 2010

American First Ladies As Goodwill Ambassadors, Wendy W. Tan

Publications and Research

Quite a few First Ladies took very active moves regarding international interests, and they often weighed in their opinions on their husbands’ decisions on related issues. My research was mainly conducted in five Presidential Libraries associated with five well-traveled First Ladies. After studying hundreds of journeys they made, my descriptions were focused on five, one for each lady, of them only. All of these trips shared a common trait, which was under the calling of humanitarian cause.


Arab/American Relations And Human Security, Post-9/11: A Political Narrative Inquiry, Charlotte Moats-Gallagher Jan 2010

Arab/American Relations And Human Security, Post-9/11: A Political Narrative Inquiry, Charlotte Moats-Gallagher

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

This study explored eighteen women's views and experiences in the arena of Arab/American relations, post-9/11. The study engaged three groups of women: Arab women in Qatar, Arab American women in the U.S., and non-Arab women in the U.S. Qualitative narrative inquiry methodology was used complemented by an innovative use of freewriting to help prepare participants for interviews. Clarke’s (2005a) situational analysis was used to open up and analyze the data. Findings surfaced around the interconnected themes of identity, racism, discrimination and Othering, the role of the media, and how these ultimately influence a collective sense of and experience of human …


Timeless Strategy Meets New Medium: Going Negative On Congressional Campaign Web Sites, 2002-2006, James N. Druckman, Martin J. Kifer, Michael Parkin Jan 2010

Timeless Strategy Meets New Medium: Going Negative On Congressional Campaign Web Sites, 2002-2006, James N. Druckman, Martin J. Kifer, Michael Parkin

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

In a few short years, the World Wide Web has become a standard part of candidates' campaign tool kits. Virtually all candidates have their own sites, and voters, journalists, and activists visit the sites with increasing frequency. In this article, we study what candidates do on these sites in terms of the information they present by exploring one of the most enduring and widely debated campaign strategies: going negative. Comparing data from over 700 congressional candidate web sites, over three election cycles (2002, 2004, and 2006), with television advertising data, we show that candidates go negative with similar likelihoods across …


The Tale Of Two Narratives: Nato As A Collective Defense And A Collective Security Institution, Anna M. Rulska Jan 2010

The Tale Of Two Narratives: Nato As A Collective Defense And A Collective Security Institution, Anna M. Rulska

Graduate Program in International Studies Theses & Dissertations

The goal of this project is to determine NATO's present and future roles as a collective security organization and as a security alliance. In the past, NATO has dealt with both objectives under different and changing conditions. This paper argues that throughout the entirety of its history, NATO worked as both collective security and collective defense organization. The theoretical assumptions made within the paper are supported by the analysis of the past behavior of the Alliance in respect to the relationship between the narrative of collective security and that of collective defense, and changes within that relationship. Four specific periods …


Continuing The Gandhi Legacy: An Interview With Arun Gandhi, Geoffrey Kain Jan 2010

Continuing The Gandhi Legacy: An Interview With Arun Gandhi, Geoffrey Kain

Publications

“Arun Gandhi (1934- ) is the fifth grandson of Mohandas Gandhi. Arun’s father, Manilal (1892-1956), second son of Mohandas and Kasturba Gandhi, was sent by his father to run the Phoenix Farm ashram outside of Durban, South Africa, and this is where Arun Gandhi was raised…”


Othering Obama : How Whiteness Is Used To Undermine Authority, David S. Owen Jan 2010

Othering Obama : How Whiteness Is Used To Undermine Authority, David S. Owen

Faculty and Staff Scholarship

In this paper, I argue that the sociocultural structuring property of whiteness has been utilized to marginalize President Obama and effectively undermine his presidential authority. Whiteness functions in a largely invisible and ostensibly deracialized way to normalize the interests, needs, and values of whites, while at the same time marginalizing and devaluing the voice of people of color. Analyzing the health care debate through this theoretical lens generates insights into how the debate reproduced the system of racial oppression, and how whiteness functions in political discourse.


Five Supreme Court Cases Everyone Should Know, Ann K. Vaught Jan 2010

Five Supreme Court Cases Everyone Should Know, Ann K. Vaught

Honors Theses

Operating under the assumption that the average college student knows little to nothing about the Supreme Court and significant cases in the field of American constitutional law, the author hypothesizes that this ignorance is due not to an inability to understand the material, but an unwillingness on the part of the average student to expend the effort necessary to decipher the "legalese" of an average Supreme Court opinion. The author also hypothesizes that it is the high and lofty language of the opinions that generally disenchants the reader, and not the information itself. Therefore, as a means of testing this …