Political Science Commons^™

Truth Commissions And Collective Memory In Latin America, Mona Schwartz

Undergraduate Theses, Professional Papers, and Capstone Artifacts

Human rights violations have an enormous effect on future generations and have the potential to divide or unite society in their wake. My research examines how a national, collective memory is formed after human rights abuse occurs, and how the work of a truth commission contributes to this process. My hypothesis is that when a truth commission is instated after an experience of human rights abuse, a nation will be better able to reconcile conflicted memories and experiences and to create a unified, collective memory of that human rights experience. More specifically, my hypothesis is that, in order to be …

Exploring Potential Associations With The Presidential Discretionary Power Of Fema Funds Dispensation, Matthew Thomas Eagles

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

US presidential approval of Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) funding has been the subject of much research that largely has been inconclusive or contradictor as it relates to whether funds may have been distributed in a biased way through the use of presidential discretionary power. The purpose of this study was to explore if or to what degree US presidents acted in a potentially biased manner with the approval of FEMA approvals during election years in election battleground states. This study was an exploration of whether there was presidential political favoritism in approving FEMA funding from 1996-2012. The theoretical constructs …

Young Sceptics: The Role Of Youth Voters In Increasing Euroscepticism, Chase J. Ellinger

Undergraduate Theses, Professional Papers, and Capstone Artifacts

“Eurosceptic” or anti-European Union (EU) political parties are notably gaining traction in EU elections across the political bloc. The continued importance of the Eurosceptic phenomenon was most recently evidenced in the pan-EU elections of May 2014, when parties like the UK Independence Party and France’s Front National gained scores of seats – and, therefore, influence – in the European Parliament (EP). This trend is disturbing to pro-EU politicians and Europhiles alike. Based on my review of existing literature, however, there is a notable lack of research into the role of youth voters in electing these political parties. In this paper, …

Vishal Mangalwadi: The Book That Made Your World Study Guide, Steven Alan Samson

Faculty Publications and Presentations

No abstract provided.

Book Review: Polarization And The Presidency: From Fdr To Barack Obama, By Robert C. Smith., Michael A. Genovese

Political Science and International Relations Faculty Works

No abstract provided.

Book Review: Imperial From The Beginning: The Constitution Of The Original Executive, By Saikrishna B. Prakash, Michael A. Genovese

Political Science and International Relations Faculty Works

No abstract provided.

Book Review: Presidential Leadership In Public Opinion: Causes And Consequences, By Jeffrey E. Cohen, Michael A. Genovese

Political Science and International Relations Faculty Works

No abstract provided.

Three Essays On Public Organizations, Changgeun Yun

Theses and Dissertations--Public Policy and Administration

Organizations play key roles in modern societies. The importance of organizations for a society requires an understanding of organizations. In order to fully understand public organizations, it is necessary to recognize how organizational settings affect subjects of organizations and organizing. Although public and private organizations interrelate with each other, the two types are not identical. In this dissertation, I attempt to describe public organizations in their own setting by discussing three important topics in public organization theory: (1) innovation adoption in the public sector; (2) representative bureaucracy; and (3) decline and death of public organizations.

In Chapter II, I scrutinize …

Threads And Stitches Of Peace- Understanding What Makes Ghana An Oasis Of Peace?, Hippolyt Akow Saamwan Pul

Department of Conflict Resolution Studies Theses and Dissertations

Ghana is considered an oasis of peace despite having the same mix of ethno-political competitions for state power and resources; north-south horizontal inequalities; ethno-regional concentrations of Christians and Muslims; highly ethnicised elections; a natural resource dependent economy; and a politically polarized public sphere, among others, that have plunged other countries in Africa into violent and often protracted national conflicts. Use of the conflict paradigm to explain Africa's conflicts glosses over positive deviance cases such as Ghana. This study used the peace paradigm in a mixed method, grounded theory research to examine Ghana's apparent exceptionalism in staving off violent national conflicts. …

Economic Vs. Ideological Interests: Examining Chinese Arms Exports And Aid, James Delton Rhodes

Honors Theses

This thesis examines China's role in the world, specifically from 1990 to 2011. I discuss China's arms exports and outward direct investment (ODI) and how these relate with China's policy goals. Do Chinese leaders use these two methods as means of gaining long-term, international hegemonic/ strategic support, or are they related to gaining short-term, domestic economic-based support? In this thesis, I attempt to look into international political theory (constructivism and rationalism) and how this applies to China's current and future ambitions as a world power. I test this by looking at factors like UN voting, polity IV score, and natural …

Rents, Loyalty, And The Economy: How An Unstable Economy Plays A Role In The Occurrence Of Coups D'État, Alexandra Elizabeth Infanzon

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

This Thesis examines why coups d'état still occur, regardless of institution type, in some states but not others. Building off Wintrobe's and Hiroi and Omori's observations, an elite theory is presented that attributes the success of avoiding coups lies in both the stability of economic growth and a system of internal incentives that create a direct link between the government and the people. Without either present, the elite in government are not constrained from engaging in undemocratic behavior and usurping power, ultimately resulting in coups. Using a zero-inflated negative binomial logistic regression, indicators of economic stability and internal loyalty systems …

A Digital Dud? New Media, Participation, And Voting In The 2004 And 2008 United States Presidential Elections, Jeremy D. Hickman

Theses and Dissertations--Sociology

This dissertation analyzes the linkages between new media and the possible emergence of the youngest members of the voting population (the “digital native” generation, who have grown up concurrently with the rise of the internet as a means of communication). The main question is whether this digital native generation will have more civic and political participation due to their use of online news sources and social media communication on news media websites and elsewhere on the internet. Regression analyses are used to explain civic and political participation, using American National Election Studies (ANES) from the 2004 and 2008 presidential elections. …

Why The Rise In Drones, Sean David Duffy

Browse all Theses and Dissertations

What are the reasons for the increasing number of drone strikes between 2002 and 2012 by the United States? This study examines the various aspects of the United States government which led to this increase in the number of strikes. Specifically, this study examines the military capabilities, the military leadership bureaucracy and presidential aspects of drone use. Through the division of this time period into three sections, this study seeks to find explain the events which led to the increase in the use of drones by the United States. This study concludes with a discussion on what the future may …

Feminist Erasures: The Development Of A Black Feminist Methodological Theory, Alex J. Moffett-Bateau

Publications and Research

Within the social sciences, and particularly in political science, feminist methods and theory are seen as valuable only within its own disciplinary boundaries, and limited to its own departments or program, often named women’s studies, gender studies, and/or feminist studies. While the move within the academy to formalize the study of women, gender, and feminism is an important one, these disciplinary boundaries unfortunately have the result of rendering the study and practice of feminist intellectual work invisible to the rest of the academy. Too often, feminist theory and methodological practice is only carried out by one or two female academics …

Self-Determination In The People's Republic Of China: Elite Responses, 1949-2012, Hanna M. Tarbert

Browse all Theses and Dissertations

This work addresses the historical response of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to perceived irredentist threats in its contested territories. This is assessed through a comparative case analysis. The four cases are Taiwan, Inner Mongolia, Xinjiang and Tibet. The response of the first four generations of CCP leaders: Mao Zedong, Deng Xiaoping, Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao, are analyzed through a framework that evaluates domestic and international priorities, domestic self-determination sentiment, strength of domestic self-determination movements, and the status of self-determination. The findings of this framework are used to project the response of current CCP leader and President of the …

Free To Hate Freedom And The Survival Of Liberalized States Confronting The Emergence Of Political Islam; Effective State Solutions To The Rise Of Islamic Political Violence In Democratic Societies, Lauren R. Bowen

Browse all Theses and Dissertations

The following research addresses the susceptibility of liberalized nations to encounter Islamic political violence associated with the behaviors they direct toward Islamic minorities. Democratic values, theoretically, weaken the ability of free regimes to defend against the emergence of Islamic extremism and terrorism. Experiences with these phenomena are, however, specific to multicultural or assimilationist democratic states that esteem civil liberties and individual freedom. This study presents diverse data sets to understand the interaction of state behaviors shaped by the adoption of multiculturalism or assimilationist polices concerning Islamic minorities and violent outcomes. The findings suggest that state behaviors affecting Islamic populations are …

Understanding Paths Toward Strategic Success In Nvr Campaigns: A Comparison Of Palestinian And South African Resistance, Archibald A. Grieve

Browse all Theses and Dissertations

The following paper fills a gap in the literature of nonviolent resistance (NVR) by investigating when and under what circumstances it is necessary for nonviolent resistance campaigns to enlist the support of outside actors in order to achieve strategic success. Using Gene Sharp's pillars of power theory as a comparative framework, the author pairs the method of process-tracing with a most-similar-systems design in order to fashion a time-series experiment measuring the strength of each pillar of power propping up the target regimes of South Africa and Israel. The results reveal that these variables are interacting. The paper also reveals that …

Pluralism And Its Perils: Navigating The Tension Between Gay Rights And Religious Expression, Nan D. Hunter

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The conflict between gay equality claims and religious liberty claims permeates debates over marriage equality and LGBT civil rights. Using as its centerpiece a decision that forced Georgetown University to provide benefits for a gay student organization, this article examines both the doctrinal underpinnings of how courts resolve the tension between gay rights and religion and the principles of pluralism that are at stake.

The Georgetown case is rightly understood as an exemplar of judicial minimalism. This article argues that the values of learning things undecided, while real, may be outweighed by lost opportunities for advancing principles that also foster …

The Abiding Exceptionalism Of Foreign Relations Doctrine, Carlos Manuel Vázquez

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

In their article The Normalization of Foreign Relations Law, Professors Ganesh Sitaraman and Ingrid Wuerth argue that “[foreign affairs] exceptionalism . . . is now exceptional,” and that this is a good thing. I agree with much of the authors’ normative argument for “normalization” of foreign affairs doctrine (as they define the term). But the authors overstate the extent to which such normalization has already occurred. There have indeed been some recent Supreme Court decisions that seem to lack the exceptional deference to the Executive that had characterized judicial decisionmaking in the foreign affairs area in previous years. But foreign …

Humanitarian Intervention At Mt. Sinjar, Iraq: A Complex Adaptive System Analysis, Trevor C. Jones

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Late in the summer of 2014, tens of thousands of persecuted minorities fled a genocidal onslaught and took refuge on Mt. Sinjar in Iraq. Stranded by indiscriminate ISIS mortar fire, the group known as the Yezidi faced dehydration and exposure to extreme temperatures on the barren mountain. Ten days later the majority of the trapped Yezidi individuals had escaped through a protected corridor on the ground. This paper analyzes the international response to the Complex Emergency (CE) through network analysis as an alternative to existing civil-military frameworks. Complex Adaptive System (CAS) analysis is used to explain actions in a non-hierarchical …

Campaigning For Judicial Office, 2012, Robert J. Zuercher

Theses and Dissertations--Communication

Concerns over the way in which judicial campaigns are conducted have been voiced since the 1970s. Judicial elections are thought to have become rough and tumble contests, featuring increasing campaign expenditures and controversial campaign speech. With the widespread deregulation of judicial candidate campaign speech in the early 2000s, scholars have become increasingly concerned with how judicial candidates campaign. This dissertation examines the role of the media in judicial elections, campaign communication methods used by candidates, how candidates develop campaign messages, controversial campaign speech, the consequences of campaigning, and candidates’ attitudes toward judicial selection reform. Data gathered from a survey of …

The Turkish Foreign Policy Under The Justice And Development Party (Akp): A Paradigm Shift?, Ali Demirdas

Theses and Dissertations

Understanding the Turkish foreign policy has become even more important in recent years given the developments surrounding the country. Furthermore, the last decade witnessed a radical change in the Turkish foreign policy making under the Justice and Development Party (AKP).

This dissertation aims to explain the nature of this change based on the application of the Policy Paradigms Theory, comparing the components of the AKP foreign policy understanding with those of the Kemalist, the status que paradigm that defined the foreign policy making in Turkey well into the early 21st century. The application of the theory provides evidence, based on …

The Liberal Commercial Peace, Regional Considerations: International Relations Of Southeast Asia, Latin America, And The European Union Countries, Chienwu Hsueh

Theses and Dissertations

Most of the large-N empirical studies on the liberal commercial peace theory demonstrate that, in general, trade has a robust pacifying effect in reducing the probability of dyadical militarized interstate disputes. However, why trade’s pacifying effect varies across time and space remains a puzzle that previous research has not yet solved. The liberal commercial peace literature suggests the following questions are in need of answers: Why does trade promote peace mainly in inter-region dyads but not in intra-region dyads? What are the preconditions that make trade’s pacifying effect work or not work? In this research, I argue that there are …

Outsourcing Learning: Is The Statecraft Simulation An Effective Pedagogical Alternative?, Chad Raymond

Faculty and Staff - Articles & Papers

Although rising costs have been a general trend in higher education since the early 20th century, a fundamental restructuring of the higher education marketplace is currently underway. In recent decades students and their parents have been forced to finance college education through greater and greater debt. As a result, students and their families are increasingly demanding that institutions of higher learning provide evidence of value. Universities must now ask what methods of instruction most efficiently expand a student's knowledge base. Can instruction that has been traditionally supplied in a physical classroom be delivered more effectively at lower cost through digital …

Polycarp's Dilemma: A Discussion Of Nicholas Wolterstorff's The Mighty And The Almighty: An Essay In Political Theology, Richard W. Garnett

Journal Articles

The Mighty and the Almighty: An Essay in Political Theology. By Nicholas Wolterstorff. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012. Pp. 190. $94.00 (cloth). ISBN: 9781107027312. $29.99 (paper). ISBN: 9781107673809.

From the Review

In March of 2014, a distinguished group of scholars from a variety of institutions and disciplines gathered at Notre Dame Law School to discuss and appreciate Nicholas Wolterstorff's 2012 book, The Mighty and the Almighty: An Essay in Political Theology. This stimulating conversation, like several other similar events at Notre Dame in recent years, was convened and supported by the Law School's Program on Church, State, and …

The Genetic And Environmental Foundations Of Political, Psychological, Social, And Economic Behaviors: A Panel Study Of Twins And Families, Peter K. Hatemi, Kevin Smith, John R. Alford, Nicholas G. Martin, John R. Hibbing

Department of Political Science: Faculty Publications

Here we introduce the Genetic and Environmental Foundations of Political and Economic Behaviors: A Panel Study of Twins and Families (PIs Alford, Hatemi, Hibbing, Martin, and Smith). This study was designed to explore the genetic and environmental influences on social, economic, and political behaviors and attitudes. It involves identifying the psychological mechanisms that operate on these traits, the heritability of complex economic and political traits under varying conditions, and specific genetic correlates of attitudes and behaviors. In addition to describing the study, we conduct novel analyses on the data, estimating the heritability of two traits so far unexplored in the …

Determinants Of Rural Latino Trust In The Federal Government, Nathan Munier, Julia Albarracin, Keith Boeckelman

Department of Political Science: Faculty Publications

Trust in government is essential to democratic practice. This article analyzed the factors shaping trust in the federal government using a survey of 260 Mexican immigrants living in rural Illinois and in-depth interviews with 32 participants. To analyze these data, we drew a distinction between support for the regime (system of government that is relatively stable in a political system) and support for authorities (those who temporarily occupy positions of power) to test whether regime or authorities’ considerations shaped respondents’ political trust. The results showed that both considerations influenced trust in the federal government. We also found that a perception …

Political Leadership And Management Of Civic Services In A Downturn Economy, Patrick Charles Williams

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Municipal leaders in the United States face difficult decisions when prioritizing nonmandated civic projects for funding, especially when operating budgets are restricted. This phenomenological study investigated municipal leaders' decision-making processes in a state in the southern United States, using a conceptual framework based on rational choice theory, bounded rationality, and group decision-making theory. It specifically explored personal and organizational decision-making processes related to the prioritization and funding of nonmandated civic projects via in-depth interviews with a convenience sample of 15 municipal leaders. Thematic analysis identified expert opinions, the time and cost to complete a project, the perceived value relative to …

Understanding Presidential Voting Motivation By Factors Of Agency, Sharlene Wilson

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

The President of the United States sets the tone for policy and has significant power in adopting and implementing policy. Despite this acknowledged power, prior studies, have not examined whether or not agency theory is predictive of voting in U.S. presidential elections. Agency theory is important in the scope of voting behavior as it identifies the relationships which support significance in practicing the activity. This correlational study examined the statistical impact of personal agency, social agency, and sociocultural agency on predictive voting behavior. This study used secondary data originally collected between 1956 and 2008 by the American National Election Study …

Exploring The Leadership Strategies Of Women Of The 111th Congress, Nathalie Vertus Neree

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Men dominated the Senate and the House of Representatives for the first 128 years of the United States history until Jeannette Rankin became the first female congresswoman in 1917. This phenomenological study included in-depth interviews with 20 women of the 111th United States Congress. The critical mass theory and the token status theory are 2 theories to explore the negative environment and stereotyping that undermine a woman's performance and leadership. The participants were selected through a snowballing technique. A modified Van Kaam method was used to analyze the data by grouping similar ideas, identifying key points, and relating concepts and …