Political Science Commons^™

Understanding Effective Venues Of Women Representation In Latin America: An Empirical Study Of Millennium Development Goals 3 And 5, Sheila Arun Kumar

Honors Theses

Recent research concerning women and politics focuses on identifying what factors cause and stimulate women participation in politics. This thesis uses the indicators for Millennium Development Goals 3 and 5 as a measurement basis for an empirical study to determine if certain factors effect women participation in Latin American politics. Data for these goals, to Promote Gender Equality and Empower Women and Improve Maternal Health, were collected for various Latin American countries across a 2000-2015 time series. Along with this data collection, this thesis focuses on testing two specific factors to determine their effectiveness on women representation in Latin America. …

Chief Justice Roberts And The Salience Of Issues Before The Modern Supreme Court, Anna Whisenant

Honors Theses

This thesis studies whether the Roberts Court has been hearing more important issues than the Warren, Burger or Rehnquist Courts. I operationalize important issues as pre-decision salience and measure mentions of cases in the first section of two newspapers. The research shows that the Roberts Court has been hearing more important issues than the other modern Courts. I reason that the Roberts Court has been hearing more important issues because interest groups and individuals are turning to the Court to make policy. Because the Court is becoming a more important policymaking institution, scrutiny of the Supreme Court will increase.

Executive Federalism Comes To America, Jessica Bulman-Pozen

Faculty Scholarship

This Article proposes a different way of thinking about contemporary American governance, looking to an established foreign practice. Executive federalism – “processes of intergovernmental negotiation that are dominated by the executives of the different governments within the federal system” – is pervasive in parliamentary federations, such as Canada, Australia, and the European Union. Given the American separation of powers arrangement, executive federalism has been thought absent, even “impossible,” in the United States. But the partisan dynamics that have gridlocked Congress and empowered both federal and state executives have generated a distinctive American variant.

Viewing American law and politics through the …

Early Prerogative And Administrative Power: A Response To Paul Craig, Philip A. Hamburger

Faculty Scholarship

What does English experience imply about American constitutional law? My book, Is Administrative Law Unlawful?, argues that federal administrative power generally is unconstitutional. In supporting this conclusion, the book observes that eighteenth-century Americans adopted their constitutions not only with their eyes on the future, but also looking over their shoulder at the past – especially the English past. This much should not be controversial. There remain, however, all sorts of questions about how to understand the English history and its relevance for early Americans.

In opposition to my claims about American law, Paul Craig lobs three critiques from across the …

Understanding The Sunni Awakening With Complexity Theory, Diane Maye Zorri

Publications

Concurrent to the surge of U.S. forces in Iraq between 2006 and 2008, Sunni tribesmen in the U.S. Marine‐controlled western Anbar province of Iraq experienced an “awakening” movement, which led them to side with U.S. and coalition forces. The Sunni Awakening demonstrates that individuals will often realign because of betrayal and opportunities for advancement. It also demonstrates that individual motives can have macrolevel social consequences. Complexity theory suggests that political factions will realign based on individual considerations that then develop into macrolevel movements. Complexity theory also combines both agency (in terms of microbehaviors) and structure (in terms of initial conditions). …

Religious Pluralism At The Crossroads, Barbara A. Mcgraw

Center for Engaged Religious Pluralism

No abstract provided.

“Doing Time Long After The Crime: How A Prison Sentence Today Is Only The Beginning Of A Felon’S Life-Long Sentence As A Pariah To Society”, Mary C. Pollock

Undergraduate Research Posters

This research seeks to explore the various difficulties in convicted felons’ life after their transition back into society. The research examines how an ex-convict’s finances, interpersonal relationships with friends, family, and romantic partners, lifetime opportunities, mental health, physical health, and living conditions are affected by the offender’s status as such an offender, as well as to consider ways in which these difficulties can be alleviated for future ex-offenders upon reassimilation into society after a prison sentence. Though indeed a broad topic, this particular brand of research seeks to highlight the exaggerated perception of the ex-con as a permanently damned member …

The Russian Connection: How Russia Became A Leader In The World's Human Trafficking Market, Anthony De Mauro

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis assesses how the history of the USSR and its collapse affected the human trafficking market. By conducting a historical analysis of the Soviet Union, key aspects of Soviet society were determined that allowed for the human trafficking market to establish and operate extremely lucratively; a focus on some of the established factors of human trafficking including corruption, law enforcement, the economy, organized crime, and the dissolution of the Soviet government. While this thesis highlights the historical factors of Russian human trafficking, this thesis does not determine why human trafficking exists beyond the surface exploitation that human trafficking consists …

Public Opinion And The President's Use Of Executive Orders: Aggregate- And Individual-Level Analyses Across Time, Brett Jones

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Presidential approval ratings are a political resource that presidents and their advisors hope to influence through strategic action in order to achieve their policy goals (McAvoy 2008, 284). Through 1999, scholarly literature had largely ignored the president's use of unilateral powers. Since Moe and Howell (1999a, 1999b), however, the literature on the unilateral presidency has expanded rapidly. Despite the rapid growth of literature examining the unilateral presidency, and 45 years of presidential approval ratings literature, literature examining the link between the president's use of unilateral powers and subsequent presidential approval ratings is virtually nonexistent. Existing research has not statistically examined …

Utter's "The Religious Right: A Reference Handbook" (Book Review), Armand T. Ternak

The Christian Librarian

A review of Utter, G.H., Storey, J.W. (2007). The Religious Right: A reference handbook. 3rd edition. Millerton, NY: Grey House Publishing. 503 pp. ISBN 9781592371136

How Does Exposure To The Internet Affect Political Knowledge And Attitudes Among Rural Chinese?: A Field Experiment, Wenwen Shi

Wayne State University Dissertations

The Internet's political implications reach far beyond an advanced communication device in authoritarian regimes. The heated debate on the Internet's political potential in China is complicated by a lack of causal evidence demonstrated in the literature. Thus far, studies have only examined consequences of the rise of the Internet and the characteristics of netizens (wangmin), but they have failed to account for the possible transformative effect the Internet has on individual citizens. This study attempts to fill this gap by testing the impact of the Internet on rural Chinese villagers' political knowledge and political attitudes through a field experiment over …

The Refugee Convention And The Politics Of Domestic Rule Making In 44 Democracies: Where And How Do Institutions Matter?, Sean Christopher Anderson

Wayne State University Dissertations

I create a revealed preference decision model using markers of structural and ideational input factors informing the writing, passage, funding, and enforcement of domestic legislation in implementation of the 1951 UN Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees and its 1967 Protocol within 44 democratic states. Where are domestic rules responsible for observed displays of compliance, and where are outcomes attributable to structural factors that render the domestic rule-making process effectively irrelevant? Where the outcome of the rule-making process is predicted to matter, elites may use the content of these rules toward the goal of continued policy influence and electoral …

The President In His Labyrinth: Checks And Balances In The New Pan-American Presidentialism, Andrea Scoseria Katz

Scholarship@WashULaw

This dissertation presents a theory of the separation of powers centered on the President’s “power to persuade.” To meet the imperial public expectations placed on the office in the modern age, the President will reliably try to supplement his limited formal powers by convincing others to support his agenda, the people, party allies, and courts being the most important. The President’s techniques of persuasion fall into three regular categories. First, there is “going public,” or popular leadership, where the President turns the force of popular majorities into a tool for shaping policy or legislative outcomes. Second is executive law-making, whereby …

How The Eu Learned To Love Sanctions, Clara Portela

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

It is only recently that the European public has woken up to the sue of sanctions in EU foreign policy, though they have been employed since the early 1980s. They became more frequent following the 1992 establishment of the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP), the EU's intergovernmental forum for foreign policy coordination.

Piling On: The Rise Of Sanctions Cooperation Between Regional Organizations, The United States, And The Eu, Inken Von Borzyskowski, Clar Portela

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Of all the countries identified as rising powers on the world stage, Brazil appears to have drawn considerable economic and political strength from its engagement with various forms of regionalism during the expansionist years when Lula was president. Whether by helping create a local, intra-regional entity (Mercosul) or, later, proposing a continental one (UNASUL), Brasilia appeared to have the capacity to further its own economic and political interests by generating cooperative interactions with its smaller neighbors. Subsequently it took a leading role in inter-regional negotiations between Mercosul and the European Union in the global North and between Mercosul and ASEAN …

One Swallow Does Not Make Spring: A Critical Juncture Perspective On The Eu Sanctions In Response To The Arab Spring, Andreas Boogaerts, Clara Portela, Edith Drieskens

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

This article examines to what extent the Arab Spring constitutes a critical juncture – a major turning point – for the EU’s sanctions policy towards Egypt, Libya, Syria and Tunisia. Based on a multidimensional critical juncture operationalization, we find that the Arab Spring only constitutes such a turning point for the EU’s sanctions policy towards Syria. Both the level and nature of measures differ substantially from previous years. By contrast, the EU’s sanctions practice towards Libya, Egypt and Tunisia shows more resilience. More generally, changes in the nature of the measures are prominent, whereas changes in the level of the …

Ideas, Interests And Practical Authority In Reform Politics: Decentralization Reform In South Korea In The 2000s, Yooil Bae

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

This paper explains the reason why the hitherto statist country, Korea, has carried out significant decentralization since the 2000s. In explaining the motivation for decentralization, extant literature has focused on the role of parties, bureaucratic politics, democratization, or territorial interests. Yet there is still limited explanation of how the decentralization laws in Korea could be successfully passed in the 2000s, while cental stakeholders still persisted. By tracing the process of decentralization reform in the 2000s, this article demonstrates how structural factors created favourable circumstances and discursive background for institutional change, and how the idea of decentralization, through the idea diffusion …

Weighing The Possible Changes To Singapore’S Political System, Tan K. B. Eugene

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

In a commentary, SMU Associate Professor of Law Eugene Tan shared his views on the key issues outlined by President Tony Tan Keng Yam during his opening address at the first session of the 13th Parliament. Associate Prof Tan noted that President Tan had emphasised that our political system must be refreshed from time to time, as our circumstances change, and that the Government will study this matter carefully, to see whether and how we should improve our political system so that we can be assured of clean, effective, and accountable government over the long term. Associate Prof Tan said …

Letter From The Editor

Sigma: Journal of Political and International Studies

No abstract provided.

Does Large Family Size Predict Political Centrism?, Benjamin Schmidt

Sigma: Journal of Political and International Studies

Suggesting that voting might be correlated with the number of children voters have has been rare but not unheard of in the last decade. In a 2004 article for American Conservative, Steve Sailer noted a correlation between states with higher birth rates among white voters and the support for incumbent Republican President George W. Bush. Sailer recognized that Bush won the nineteen states with the highest white fertility while Senator John Kerry won the sixteen with the lowest (2004). He also suggested that the lifestyle preferences of white, conservative parents might be to blame for the apparent Republican tilt among …

Unpopular But Effective? The Drone Strike Dilemma, Jake Berlin

Sigma: Journal of Political and International Studies

In the mountainous region of northwestern Pakistan known as Waziristan, local tribesmen have grown accustomed to living in a state of constant vigilance. Death from above can come at virtually any time in the form of laser-guided missile strikes launched by U.S. predator and reaper drones. The drones are controlled remotely by pilots thousands of miles away at bases in the U.S. and can hover for hours before delivering their deadly payload. Advanced cameras allow drone operators to see their targets from distances that are impossible for the targets to see them, and the missiles launched by drones exhibit astounding …

Do You Hear The People Sing?: Populist Discourse In The French Revolution, Rebecca Dudley

Sigma: Journal of Political and International Studies

The rallying cry of the French Revolutionaries was "Liberte! Egalite! Fraternite!" (liberty, equality, fraternity), and the French Revolution, a pivotal moment in French, European, and world history, has been consistently considered one of the first and most significant nationalist movements. Research and literature thus far on discourse in this revolution have focused on nationalism Qenkins 1990; Hayward 1991; O'Brien 1988), along with the discourses of violence and terror that led to the graphic revolution (Ozouf 1984; Leoussi 2001). The presence of nationalist discourse and nationalist sentiment in the French Revolution is undeniable, but there are other elements potentially missing from …

Front Matter

Sigma: Journal of Political and International Studies

No abstract provided.

"All Things Denote There Is A God": Platonic Metaphysics, Thomistic Analogy, And The Creation Of A Christian Philosophy, Neil Longo

Sigma: Journal of Political and International Studies

In Raphael's School of Athens, Plato famously points upward, while Aristotle brings his hand forward, parallel to the ground. Western thought has positioned itself between these two poles. Its dual purpose was to explain what was and explore what could be. This distinction worked its way into Christianity, which quickly divided itself between the spiritual and the physical, the church militant and the church triumphant, the city of God and the city of man. The audacious goal of St. Thomas Aquinas was to synthesize these urges in such a way as to logically describe the Kingdom of God using the …

Volume 33, Issue 1 Full Issue

Sigma: Journal of Political and International Studies

No abstract provided.

Are Refugees Special?, Chandran Kukathas

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Advocates of restricted immigration usually make an exception for refugees who are described as having special claims to admission on humanitarian grounds. This chapter raises doubts about the plausibility of the distinction between refugees and economic or other non-humanitarian migrants. It argues that the distinction is difficult to draw conceptually and that the institutions designed to serve the interests of refugees in fact aim to limit their capacity to move despite claims that they are intended to serve refugee interests. The chapter also argues that if we want to serve the interests of those who have claims on our help …

Pols 459: International Political Economy—A Peer Review Of Teaching Project Benchmark Portfolio, Nam Kyu Kim

UNL Faculty Course Portfolios

This Peer Review Course Portfolio documents my teaching practices in International Political Economy (POLS 459) and analyze student learning in the course. POLS 459 is an upper-division course designed to introduces students to the study of international political economy. The most important goal of the course is that students should be able to demonstrate substantive knowledge of the political economy of international trade, investment and development. To this end, I mainly employ classroom lectures, classroom discussions, and small group work. Students work on six in-class quizzes, three exams, and one group presentation. My analysis of student learning reveals that many …

Pols: 450: Research In Biology, Psychology, And Politics—A Peer Review Of Teaching Project Benchmark Portfolio, Ingrid J. Haas

UNL Faculty Course Portfolios

This benchmark course portfolio provides an overview of student learning in Research in Biology, Psychology, and Politics (Political Science 450). This is an upper-level undergraduate course focused on training students to conduct research in the interdisciplinary area of political psychology. Enrollment in the course is primarily advanced political science majors, or students from related majors (i.e., psychology) with an interest in politics. This course focuses on developing understanding of research methods and application of appropriate methods to small group research projects. In addition, the course helps to improve student confidence in ability to engage in the research process and understand …

Pols 430: Political Communication—A Peer Review Of Teaching Project Benchmark Portfolio, Brandon Bosch

UNL Faculty Course Portfolios

This course portfolio was created to articulate, assess, and reflect upon my course objectives for a political communication class that I taught in Spring 2016. Of particular note was my objective in trying to use a Verbal Exam to assess student learning. Although I encountered some difficulties in implementing the Verbal Exam, students seemed to be either neutral or somewhat supportive of having a Verbal Exam, with students generally inclined to thinking that they learned something about interviews from the process and showing some mild support for them being used in other classes. It is worth noting that the Verbal …

Food Rebellion: Contemporary Food Movements As A Reflection Of Our Agrarian Past, James Gordon

Pomona Senior Theses

This thesis considers the influence of agrarian thought on contemporary food movements.