Political Science Commons^™

Chasing The American Dream: Marco Rubio’S Candidacy Announcement, Valerie Spreeman

Rhetorical Analyses of the Announcement Speeches of Presidential Hopefuls

No abstract provided.

The Last Word, Patrick Brady

Progressive Education in Context

A Bank Street School for Children student looking back on his years at the School, noting that he was the sole conservative Republican in his class of 19 students.

No Ordinary Field Trip: A Conversation With John Lewis, Sam Brian

Progressive Education in Context

Eighth grade students from Bank Street School for Children meet Congressman John Lewis in Washington D. C.

Mraps, Irregular Warfare, And Pentagon Reform, Christopher J. Lamb, Matthew J. Schmidt, Berit G. Fitzsimmons

Political Science Faculty Publications

The controversial MRAPs raise two questions. First, does the MRAP experience support the contention that the Pentagon is not sufficiently able to field irregular warfare capabilities? Second, what factors best explain the MRAP failure, whether that failure is determined to be their delayed fielding or the fact that they were fielded at all? We conclude that MRAPs are a valid irregular warfare requirement and that the Pentagon should have been better prepared to field them, albeit not on the scale demanded by events in Iraq. We also argue that the proximate cause of the failure to quickly field MRAPs is …

Operation Nudge: How Non-Sovereign Organizations Gain Quasi-Sovereign Powers To Solve Public Choice Problems, Kelly Grenier

Commonwealth Review of Political Science

Captain Crunch, Tony the Tiger, and Toucan Sam are watching you. Particularly, they are watching children. With their eyes gazing downward at a 9.6 degree angle, these characters make eye contact with individuals to encourage feelings of friendliness which will in turn increase the sales of the product. It is not that we are "cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs," but rather that we are being covertly nudged to buy these products (Musicus). Cereal companies are not the first to figure this out; we are nudged all day long. Our behaviors are encouraged and discouraged through choice architecture. We take the stairs …

The Steward In Statesmanship: Taking Responsibility For The Most Important Things, Timothy L. Simpson

Commonwealth Review of Political Science

Even though the American Framers self-consciously designed a system of government that did not depend on an enlightened statesman being at the helm, this paper argues that they believed statesmanship was not only compatible with republican government, but that it could act as a kind of antidote to some of the ailments most likely to afflict it. Scholars today generally dispute this suggestion. They m:gne that statesmanship is, in several important respects, positively antithetical to important democratic ideals. Having surveyed those objections, this paper argues that the contemporary understanding is flawed because it rests on a misconception of democracy and …

The Evolution Of Kentucky's Constitutions: A Comparison Of The Original And Second Constitutions, Ashley Taulbee

Commonwealth Review of Political Science

Timing is everything, especially to a developing state. This paper highlights the changes that time required Kentucky to make in order to gain her statehood and then ensure that she would continue to prosper as time . passed. Kentucky gained a lot of wisdom during her first fifty-eight years ranging from how to elect our Governor to whom this state should remain loyal to -- a question that in 1792 was quite conflicted. Reviewing the two documents that began shaping Kentucky into the state she is now is just one of the ways to appreciate this beautiful and unique Commonwealth. …

2015 Constitution Day Essay Contest: 2nd Place, Diana Burden

Constitution Day Essay Contest

No abstract provided.

Narco-Submarines. Specially Fabricated Vessels Used For Drug Smuggling Purposes, Byron Ramirez, Robert J. Bunker

CGU Faculty Publications and Research

Narcotics are moving at sea in relatively sophisticated nautical craft beneath the waves – we need to understand their capabilities and intent. This volume is a fine start. For several decades, law enforcement agencies and the militaries in the Western hemisphere have focused on developing strategies that will allow them to thwart the efforts of drug trafficking organizations and mitigate the flow of drugs into our great nation. In close partnership with its allies, the United States has acquired a rich store of experience in activities aimed at disrupting the activities of criminal organizations. In spite of the success of …

Elected And Appointed Justices Face Different Constraints In Writing Opinions, Meghan E. Leonard, Joseph V. Ross

Faculty Publications – Politics and Government

The majority opinion is the main vehicle for policy-making for state and federal courts. Longer opinions usually indicate a more detailed explanation of the decision of the majority. But is the length of these opinions influenced by whether justices are appointed or elected? In new research Meghan E. Leonard and Joseph V. Ross find that while the length of these opinions is not directly affected by how judges are selected, appointed justices write longer opinions when a separate opinion is filed or when the majority opinion author is not randomly selected, as compared to states where justices are selected through …

Post-Materialism And Foreign Policy – A First Cut, Edelgard E. Mahant

Southern African Journal of Policy and Development

The influence of political culture on foreign policy is a much-neglected topic. This article focuses on one aspect of political culture: the concept of post-materialism as developed by Inglehart. Using Canada and South Africa as case studies, the article determines the degree of post-materialism of these two countries’ political culture and then attempts to assess the extent to which the ideas of post-materialism have influenced the foreign policy of the two countries. The methodology is that of examining the ratifications of relevant UN conventions and the press releases of the foreign ministries of the two governments dealing with the subjects …

Ethnic Violence On Kenya's Periphery: Informal Institutions And Local Resilience In Conflict-Affected Communities, Fletcher D. Cox

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Deadly, inter-ethnic group conflict remains a threat to international security in a world where the majority of armed violence occurs not only within states but in the most ungoverned areas within states. Conflicts that occur between groups living in largely ungoverned areas often become deeply protracted and are difficult to resolve when the state is weak and harsh environmental conditions place human security increasingly under threat. However, even under these conditions, why do some local conflicts between ethnic groups escalate, whereas others do not? To analyze this puzzle, the dissertation employs comparative methods to investigate the conditions under which violence …

The Role Of Institutions And Policy In Knowledge Sector Development: An Assessment Of The Danish And Norwegian Information Communication Technology Sectors, Keith M. Gehring

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The Nordic economies of Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden outperform on average nearly ever OECD country in the share of value added stemming from the information and communication technology (ICT) sector. Early investments in computing and telecommunications, supportive social democratic institutions, and effective innovation/technology policy, help to explain overall Nordic ICT performance. Cross-country variation persists in sector outcomes, however, and cannot be reduced to differences in institutions and policy. Denmark and Sweden have moved toward liberalization while Finland and Norway maintain commitments to social democracy and yet Finland and Sweden outperform Denmark and Norway in ICT sector development. Institutionalists explain …

China's Strategic Choices Towards North Korea And Iran, Kang-Uk Jung

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study tests two hypotheses. First, China cooperates with the United States only when it is able to obtain material rewards. Second, without material incentives from the United States, China straddles between the United States on one hand and Iran and North Korea on the other. My findings show that neither Structural Realism, which holds anti-hegemonism alliance, nor Constructivism, which holds positive assimilation of the nuclear nonproliferation norm explains Chinese international behavior comprehensively. My balance of interest model explains Chinese foreign policy on the noncompliant states better. The cases cover the Sino-North Korean and Sino-Iranian diplomatic histories from 1990 to …

Invisible Suffering: Practitioner Reflections On Peacebuilding Programs With Youth Exposed To Traumatic Stressors In Intergroup Conflict, Liza Hester

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

For decades, the international community has recognized that youth are some of the most vulnerable to mental and emotional distress within the intractable and cyclical nature of identity-based violent conflict. Exposure to traumatic stressors within these intergroup conflicts poses unique risks not only to the neurological and social development of youth, but also to the capacities of youth to fully participate in peacebuilding interventions. The peacebuilding field has yet to strongly consider how traumatic stress affects dynamics within programs for youth and how these programs may need to modify expectations of youth’s cognitive, social, and emotional functioning to account for …

Becoming A State: Zionist And Palestinian Movements For National Liberation, Martin S. Widzer

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study examines the road to statehood for the Zionist and Palestinian movements. There are three components which frame this investigation: 1. social movements and the practices in which they engage that are aimed at establishing statehood for a people; 2. distinctive configurations of the international system and the manner in which both the material and ideational foundations of that system pulls units towards conformity and predictable behavior; and finally, 3. the role of agency, that is, the way in which instrumentally rational individuals attempt to push the structure in which they are embedded towards a configuration that is better …

Thomas M. Keck, Judicial Politics In Polarized Time., Paul Foote

Commonwealth Review of Political Science

Book Review. Thomas M. Keck, Judicial Politics in Polarized Times. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press Books, 2014. 352 pp. ($77.27 cloth, $23.40 paper).

The Face Of Our Wartime, Sharon Sliwinski

Data and Test Instruments

This paper considers a turn toward portraiture amongst contemporary photojournalists who have covered the War on Terror. A series of wartime faces is examined in order to consider the way prolonged conflict flattens our visual landscape.

Dictators And Death: Casualty Sensitivity Of Autocracies In Militarized Interstate Disputes, Cigdem Sirin, Michael Koch

Selected Works Temporary Series

In this study, we develop a theoretical model based on an inverse divide-the-dollar game (vis-à-vis the distribution of public “bads”) to explore the propensity of different authoritarian regime types to sustain casualties in interstate conflicts. We argue that the smaller the size of an authoritarian leader’s winning coalition, the easier it is for such leader to distribute the costs of militarized conflicts outside of her/his supporters. In line with our theoretical expectations, we find personalist regimes tend to sustain the highest number of casualties in militarized interstate disputes compared to other autocracies. Given that casualties significantly affect the onset, severity, …

Introduction: Controlling The Message In The Social Media Marketplace Of Ideas, Victoria A. Farrar-Myers, Justin S. Vaughn

Political Science Faculty Publications and Presentations

The presidential candidate's campaign faced the threat of being derailed following a scathing depiction of him posted by an individual citizen. Regardless of whether the claims made against the candidate were truthful, the message already had gone viral, and the candidate's campaign flailed in its efforts to respond. Finally, one of the candidate's supporters not affiliated with his campaign repackaged the critic's depiction into a new theme, one that resonated positively with voters. The repackaged message itself continued well beyond its original posting as it was replicated in different forums time and time again.

Challenging The Political Assumption That “Guns Don’T Kill People, Crazy People Kill People!”, Heath J. Hodges, Mario Scalora

Department of Psychology: Faculty Publications

Every time an infamous mass shooting takes place, a storm of rhetoric sweeps across this country with the fury of a wild fire. “Why are we letting these people carry guns?” “Why were they not hospitalized?” “The government needs to crack down on this issue!” What is the government’s response to these cries of concern? Politicians and the media attempt to ease public fears by drawing tenuous connections among a handful of poorly understood tragedies. The salient commonality is that these high-profile shooters had some history of mental illness. A cursory review of the Internet will paint a troubling picture …

Vision Of Founding Fathers Becomes Blurred, Aldemaro Romero Jr.

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Conclusion: Message Control At The Margins, Victoria A. Farrar-Myers, Justin S. Vaughn

Political Science Faculty Publications and Presentations

In the introduction, we identified four key themes that would guide the series of independent yet intersecting analyses that would follow. As those themes were explored and answers were provided to the questions being asked, a series of lessons for operating in the social-media-driven political environment emerged. These lessons shape the larger conclusions that can be derived from the collective efforts of the analyses herein.

A Multiracial Republic? The Challenges Faced By The Maghreb Population In France, Anahita Vasudevan, Kevin Ratana Patumwat, Kevin Fulgham

Claremont-UC Undergraduate Research Conference on the European Union

As European society becomes more multiethnic and multiracial, Member States of the European Union are faced with the need to formulate adequate policy responses to immigration and integration issues. France has had a distinctive history, lasting over five decades, as a recipient country for non-European immigrants from the Maghreb region of Northern Africa. Over time, discrepancies in living conditions between Maghreb immigrants and the wider French society have only deepened. To investigate the current state of the Maghreb community in France, this analytical paper pursues the following questions: How does the persistence of political, economic, and social differences affect the …

Ua12/2/2 2015 Talisman: Resurgence, Wku Student Affairs

WKU Administration Documents

2015 Talisman yearbook.

• Osborne Sam. Into the Woods – Big To-Do Music & Arts Festival
• Spalding, Shelley. The Outliers – Greeks
• Badjie, Haddy. The Right to Live – Racism
• Gibson, Helen. Net Worth – Soccer
• Greer, John. Sustaining Seasons – Sustainability
• Wegert, Sally. Bloom – Eva Ross
• Cislo, Everett. Harvest – Hemp
• Kolb, William. Preserve – John All
• Voorhees, Jessica. Making Strides – Track & Field
• Greer, John. The Science Guy – Bill Nye
• Cole, Tanner. Lip Service – Rocky Horror Picture Show
• Belknap, Abby. Race to the Senate
• Gibson, Helen. Game of Loans – Student Financial Aid
• Belknap, Abby. …

Concealed Carry In The Show-Me State: Do Voters Who Favor Right-To-Carry Legislation End Up Packing Heat?, Linda Ghent, Alan Grant

Faculty Research and Creative Activity

Objectives – The objectives of this study were to examine the relationship between a public vote on the right-to-carry concealed weapons in the state of Missouri and the subsequent demand for concealed-carry permits. Methods – Weighted logit analysis of the referendum vote and the proportion of the population holding concealed-carry permits was performed to investigate the factors that influence them. Results – We find vast differences in the factors that significantly influenced the vote and the decision to hold a concealed-carry permit. Crime rates are positively related to the vote, but have no influence on the decision to carry. Conclusions …

Creating Knowledge, Volume 8, 2015

Creating Knowledge

Dear reader,

I am delighted to introduce this eighth volume of Creating Knowledge: The LAS Journal of Undergraduate Scholarship. This volume features 19 essays and 14 art works, representing advanced coursework produced in twenty different departments and programs during the 2014-2015 academic year. Several of the essays have been honored with department awards and several draw on research supported by undergraduate research grants. Many were originally written in senior capstone seminars, research-intensive seminars, and independent studies, and many were presented in some form at one of the numerous conferences and showcases sponsored by departments and programs throughout the year. All …

Reapportionment, Regional Politics And Partisan Gains, Kenneth C. Martis, J. Clark Archer, Robert H. Watrel, Fred M. Shelly, Gerald Webster

Geography Faculty Publications

Geographers and demographers have been analyzing U.S. regional population change for decades. From the perspective of politics and governance, understanding these population changes over time is very important because seats in the House of Representatives are reapportioned every decade in accordance with the U.S. Constitution. Representation in the House, in turn, affects the distribution of votes in the Electoral College and thus the impact of regional population change affects the presidency as well as the Congress. As political geographers we have studied the possible impacts of this population change on elections, issues in Congress and the nation, and if a …

A Guerra Como Trabalho Político: Como Utilizar As Ciências Sociais Para O Êxito Estratégico, Matthew J. Schmidt

Political Science Faculty Publications

As Ciências Sociais estudam fenômenos sociais em termos de variáveis interdependentes, em vez de variáveis independentes e dependentes. No caso de fenômenos compostos de variáveis interdependentes — como a guerra — tentar estabelecer teorias claras sobre causa e efeito é algo frustrante até para cientistas sociais acostumados com esse tipo de pesquisa. Com efeito, variáveis interdependentes fazem com que seja impossível fazer previsões como as das ciências exatas. Isso não significa, porém, que se devam desconsiderar abordagens qualitativas. Ao contrário, compreender o valor e as limitações dos métodos qualitativos é essencial para uma profissão incumbida de empregar a força para …

The Arctic Gamble: Evaluating U.S. Policy In The Arctic, Andrew Higgns

Washington Semester Program

No abstract provided.