Political Science Commons^™

A Study Of Public Opinion On Sex Education In Mississippi, Karson Brandenburg

Honors Theses

In 2011, Mississippi, a state ranked fourth in the nation for high teen pregnancy rates, passed a law mandating sex education for all public school districts in the form of either the abstinence-only or the abstinence-plus method. This thesis describes the background of those two methods and how they are currently being implemented in Mississippi school districts. Additionally, it looks at how Mississippi parents and leaders feel about sex education in schools as a whole and then more specifically how they feel about the current options for sex education and the execution of sex education classes. This was done through …

Pushing The Limits: International Land Acquisitions In Comparative Perspective, Ariane Goetz

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

The role of investor countries in large-scale land acquisitions is poorly understood in the contemporary “land grab” literature. Orthodox explanations largely build on deductive analyses that deviate from the emerging empirical evidence, and/or face analytical difficulties when trying to capture why large-scale land acquisitions happen. This thesis investigates the global phenomenon of “land grabbing” from the comparative perspective of two major investor countries: the UK and China. The regional focus is on Sub-Saharan Africa, a major target of land-consuming investments since 2000.

The dissertation advances three arguments: Firstly, the specific details of the home country’s industrial set-up, development challenges, ideological …

Neither War, Nor Peace: Everyday Politics, Peacebuilding And The Liminal Condition Of Bosnia-Herzegovina And Northern Ireland, Branka Marijan

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

This thesis focuses on cultural and everyday practices of local populations in post-conflict peacebuilding. It builds on the “everyday” turn in critical peacebuilding literature by recognizing the everyday as political. Rather than examining the practices of political elites this thesis is concerned with the ordinary citizens of these societies. In other words, I show that it is through practices and cultural forms of expression that local populations enact their agency, at times supporting and at times contesting the broader peacebuilding project. Moreover, rather than viewing the everyday acts as hidden or as evidence of resistance to the dominant peacebuilding approaches …

From Lending In The Andes To Thriving In Latin America: Caf’S Continuity, Growth And Long-Term Financing In The Region, Veronica Rubio Vega

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

What explains the Development Bank of Latin America’s (CAF, in Spanish) continuity and expansion since the 1990s? This thesis explores how an initially small Andean development bank crafted a successful strategy to survive in a troubled region and eventually thrive as an important lending source. This thesis argues that CAF’s expansion can be attributed to four main factors: 1) leadership, 2) institutional design, 3) member governments’ preferences and 4) Brazil’s push for regional cooperation beyond trade.

Theoretically, this thesis draws upon two sets of interrelated academic debates to explain CAF’s growth: 1) International Political Economy (IPE) and International Organization (IO) …

Does The Message Matter? A Field Experiment On Political Party Recruitment, Jessica Robinson Preece

Faculty Publications

Do men and women respond to various party recruitment messages similarly? Working with the Utah County Republican Party, we designed a field experiment in which we invited over 11,600 male and female party activists to attend a free, party-sponsored “Prospective Candidate Information Seminar” by randomizing different invitation messages. We found that women were half as likely as men to respond to recruitment—log on to the seminar website for more information, register for the seminar, and attend the seminar. While we found some suggestive evidence about what recruitment messages may particularly motivate women or men vis-a-vis a control message, our findings …

"If You Is White, You's Alright....": Stories About Colorism In America, Kimberly Jade Norwood

Scholarship@WashULaw

This Article examines the inefficiencies of Missouri municipal courts that came into sharp focus following the killing of Michael Brown by Officer Darren Wilson in Ferguson, Missouri. Norwood details and expands on her lone dissent in the Final Report of the Municipal Division Work Group—a group created by the Missouri Supreme Court to address the alleged abuses of black and poor residents in Missouri. Norwood argues for consolidating failing municipal courts to create larger, more functional, and just courts.

Still Innocents Abroad: The Relationship Between Anti-Americanism And American Foreign Policy In The Middle East, Kelly Kennedy

Honors Theses

In this thesis, the author examined the relationship between anti-American sentiment and U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. The author first constructed a literature review on anti-Americanism, including sections discussing its definition, conceptualization, measurement techniques, and known sources. From this literature review, the author created her own definition of anti-Americanism and a hypothesis that anti-Americanism is endogenous to U.S. foreign policy—anti-Americanism may increase or decrease depending on changes to U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. The author then used a quantitative comparison of survey data and two qualitative case studies to test her hypothesis. The comparison of survey …

An Examination Of The Theory Of Alternate Routes To High School Graduation And Its Implication On Mississippi's Educational System, Kimberly L. Hardges

Honors Theses

During Mississippi's 2014 Regular Legislative Session, Representative John L. Moore, Chair of the Education Committee, introduced House Bill 767 (HB 767). The goal of HB 767 was to create a pilot program that would remove the requirement for passage of Subject Area Tests as a mandatory requirement for graduation... and to establish the minimum composite score to be attained on the ACT assessment to qualify a student for graduation and for college and career readiness1 in the state of Mississippi. By a vote of 118-1 HB 767 passed the House. The bill was then transmitted to the Mississippi State Senate …

Separations Of Wealth: Inequality And The Erosion Of Checks And Balances, Kate Andrias

Faculty Scholarship

American government is dysfunctional: Gridlock, filibusters, and expanding presidential power, everyone seems to agree, threaten our basic system of constitutional governance. Who, or what, is to blame? In the standard account, the fault lies with the increasing polarization of our political parties. That standard story, however, ignores an important culprit: Concentrated wealth and its organization to achieve political ends. The only way to understand our current constitutional predicament – and to rectify it – is to pay more attention to the role that organized wealth plays in our system of checks and balances.

This Article shows that the increasing concentration …

Actra - A Case Study For Threat Information Sharing, Jon C. Haass, Gail-Joon Ahn, Frank Grimmelmann

Publications

This paper provides a case study for information sharing within a public/private not-for-profit partnership organization called ACTRA – Arizona Cyber Threat Response Alliance, Inc.. This initiative is comprised of public and private entities with government agencies as invited guests aligned around the goal of improved response to cyber security events. Technical, political, legal and organizational issues arise when multiple parties attempt to exchange information in a formal setting. Benefits and specific solutions developed are discussed. The study concludes with several areas for future improvement and investigation as well as recommendations for newly forming sharing groups.

Canadian Christian Nationalism?: The Religiosity And Politics Of The Christian Heritage Party Of Canada, Leah A D Mckeen

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

In this dissertation I examines the worldview and concerns held by members of the Christian Heritage Party of Canada (CHP) as a means of understanding Canada’s Christian Right. I present a perspective of Canada’s Christian Right that challenges assumptions made about this religio-political ideology by showing how the political choices made by members of the CHP make sense within the members’ context. The CHP is a federal political party, first registered in 1986, that markets itself as “Canada’s only pro-life party.” Although the party was initially developed by a group of conservative Protestants and Roman Catholics, the majority of its …

Tentative Securities: 26/11, Israel And The Politics Of Mobility, Rhys A. Machold

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

This dissertation examines the global mobility of security knowhow in relation to the management of terrorism in megacities. Specifically, it offers three insights. First, it shows how historical events are performed as sites in need of transnational policy intervention. Second, it enables an understanding of how and why the sourcing of policy ‘models’ actually takes place. Third, it sheds light on how mobile policy schemes travel geographically and are put to work in particular contexts. In doing so, it elaborates on the conditions under which policies move geographically but also addresses the kinds of constraints and contradictions they face.

The …

Security Of The Central Asian Energy System Through Regional-Level Energy Governance Innovations, Farkhod Aminjonov

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

The Central Asian energy system (CAES) was built during the Soviet period and designed without concern for what are today national borders. The resource sharing mechanism ensured the security of the CAES—reliable and stable energy supplies to meet the needs of both the people and the economy. However, following the breakup of the Soviet Union this mechanism came under pressure from emergent geopolitical and economic challenges such as the monetization of energy trade (oil products, gas and electricity) and tensions between domestic water and energy needs. Since the Central Asian energy sectors were initially designed to operate within a unified …