Political Science Commons^™

Editors' Note, Brittney Payer, Kristen Shorer

Laurier Undergraduate Journal of the Arts

No abstract provided.

Introduction, Brittney Payer, Kristen Shorer

Laurier Undergraduate Journal of the Arts

No abstract provided.

Fake News And Filter Bubbles: America’S Spiral Of Extremism, Davis Drover

Laurier Undergraduate Journal of the Arts

No abstract provided.

Past As Precedent: Conflicting Perspectives Of Royal Prerogative And The Rights Of Parliament, Katelyn Leece

Laurier Undergraduate Journal of the Arts

No abstract provided.

“The Endless Stream Of Men, And Moving Things”: The Emotional Impact Of The Urban Sublime In Book Vii Of Wordsworth’S The Prelude, Carina Rampelt

Laurier Undergraduate Journal of the Arts

No abstract provided.

The Effects Of Isolating Visuality In The Memorial To The Murdered Jews Of Europe, Jace Silberbach

Laurier Undergraduate Journal of the Arts

No abstract provided.

Virtual Queerness: Resisting Heteronormativity In Online Spaces, Denise Springett

Laurier Undergraduate Journal of the Arts

No abstract provided.

An Introduction To Psychological Aphistemalgia, Justin Manning

Laurier Undergraduate Journal of the Arts

No abstract provided.

Polar Opposites: Assessing The State Of Environmental Law In The World's Polar Regions, Mark P. Nevitt, Robert Percival

Faculty Articles

Climate change is fundamentally transforming both the Arctic and Antarctic polar regions. Yet these regions differ dramatically in their governing legal regimes. For the past sixty years the Antarctic Treaty System, a traditional “hard law” international law treaty system, effectively de-militarized the Antarctic region and halted competing sovereignty claims. In contrast, the Arctic region lacks a unifying Arctic treaty and is governed by the newer “soft law” global environmental law model embodied in the Arctic Council’s collaborative work. Now climate change is challenging this model. It is transforming the geography of both polar regions, breaking away massive ice sheets in …

Judicial Conflicts And Voting Agreement: Evidence From Interruptions At Oral Argument, Tonja Jacobi, Kyle Rozema

Faculty Articles

This Article asks whether observable conflicts between Supreme Court justices—interruptions between the justices during oral arguments—can predict breakdowns in voting outcomes that occur months later. To answer this question, we built a unique dataset based on the transcripts of Supreme Court oral arguments and justice votes in cases from 1960 to 2015. We find that on average a judicial pair is seven percent less likely to vote together in a case for each interruption that occurs between them in the oral argument for that case. While a conflict between the justices that leads to both interruptions and a breakdown in …

Diversity, Tenure, And Dissent, Joanna Shepherd

Faculty Articles

Although academics have long recognized that institutions such as opinion-assignment procedures and voting order might influence the propensity to dissent, empirical studies have failed to consider the impact of collegiality and personal relationships on dissent rates. Thus, in this short Essay, I empirically test whether some of the judges’ assertions are consistent with the data. I test whether various measures of diversity are associated with dissent rates in state supreme courts. I find that diversity in many areas—gender, race, age, religion, home state, and political affiliation—is associated with higher levels of dissent. In contrast, diversity in the jobs that judges …

An Economic Framework Of Collective Action During The Korean War, Nicole C. Ruiz

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Collective action, the coordinated effort between multiple actors, continues to play a role in the international community. In an increasingly complex operational environment, understanding the dynamics of these coordinated efforts is necessary for intelligence analysts. This research seeks to address the question: How can economic methodology be used to understand collective action during the Korean War for future use in intelligence analysis? The Korean War consisted of two different collective action groups going against each other militarily and ultimately diplomatically, which is why it is a suitable case study for understanding the nature of collective action. The research provides an …

"Revisiting Progressive Era Lessons For Understanding Today", Andrew Theising

SIUE Faculty Research, Scholarship, and Creative Activity

This essay reviews four books on the Progressive Era, and draws lessons from those books to help explain contemporary political events. It explores topics such as proportional representation, efficiency of service delivery, business-driven reforms, and voter heterogeneity. All of these books provide a meaningful understanding of cities in the Progressive Era (1890s-1920s) and beyond. However, the issues and lessons from a century ago still challenge us today, so we may be in a new “Gilded Age” and headed toward yet another era of progressivism.

St. Louis Currents: The Fifth Edition, Andrew Theising, E. Terrence Jones Ph.D.

SIUE Faculty Research, Scholarship, and Creative Activity

Includes a history of African American entertainment in St. Louis Metro East and a history of Homer G. Phillips Hospital, among the current socio-economic issues facing St. Louis metropolitan area, Missouri and Illinois.

In Media Res, Christopher Andrew Sisk

Theses and Dissertations

We are inundated by a constant feed of media that responds and adapts in real time to the impulses of our psyches and the dimensions of our devices. Beneath the surface, this stream of information is directed by hidden, automated controls and steered by political agendas. The transmission of information has evolved into a spiral of entropy, and the boundaries between author, content, platform, and receiver have blurred. This reductive space of responsive media is a catalyst for immense political and cultural change, causing us to question our notions of authority, truth, and reality.

Morals In The United States Of America: Are They In Their Death Throes?, John A. Cook

Communication Faculty Publications

This article explores the ethics of large complex systems in the United States of America in three major case studies: the food industry, the pharmaceutical industry and the political/governmental institutions. Using the simple Aristotelian heuristic of good sense, good character and good will, the conclusion is that ethics is not a high priority due in large part to the relentless pursuit of large sums of money at any cost.

Fake News: Agenda Setting And Gatekeeping In The Media, Chelsea Sydnor

Undergraduate Honors Theses

This piece will examine the ideas of agenda setting and gatekeeping theories, as well as how they affect modern media coverage. Agenda setting theory is the idea that the media sets the agenda by selecting the topics that it covers. Gatekeeping refers to the idea that too many events occur for the media to cover all of them, so it must therefore choose which ones to specifically cover. It will review multiple studies and events in which the theories have played a part in the outcome. Particularly, it will analyze how campaign coverage has been found to influence voters in …

The Politics Of Gentrification In Charlotte, Nc: A New South City Meets The Urban Realities Of 21st Century Prosperity., David Cole

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Excerpt from Introduction

In the Fall of 2017, Amazon Inc. opened an unprecedented nationwide bidding competition.[1] The huge online retailer was seeking a home for its second headquarters, dubbed “HQ2,” which could potentially include 50,000 high-paying jobs and billions of dollars of investment into a local economy.[2] The company completed a request for proposal (RFP) that detailed the baseline amenities that cities applying for the headquarters must have. This included Interstate access, a metropolitan population of over 1 million, an international airport, and the presence of a research university.[3]

The Republican Party, Conservatives, And The Future Of Capital Punishment, Ben Jones

Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology

The United States has experienced a significant decline in the death penalty during the first part of the twenty-first century, as death sentences, executions, public support, and states with capital punishment all have declined. Many recent reforms banning or placing a moratorium on executions have occurred in blue states, in line with the notion that ending the death penalty is a progressive cause. Challenging this narrative, however, is the emergence of Republican lawmakers as champions of death penalty repeal legislation in red states. This Article puts these efforts by Republican lawmakers into historical context and explains the conservative case against …

The Pound And The Hammer: An Analysis Of The Effects Of Finance On Edward I’S Conquest Of Wales And Scotland, Mackenzie Mohr

Laurier Undergraduate Journal of the Arts

No abstract provided.

“Whither Then I Cannot Say”: Epistemological Uncertainty And Tolkien’S Transnational Myth, Mitchell Kooh

Laurier Undergraduate Journal of the Arts

No abstract provided.

Violence Exposure In Human Rights Defenders' Work, Marko Carrasco Lundgren

Capstone Collection

The work carried out by Human Rights Defenders (HRDs) is fundamental for a more just and democratic society. Therefore, the acts of aggression against them, whether committed by individuals, the State, armed groups or corporative interests, constitute an indirect attack against the rights of the whole population. By restricting access to information and limiting political participation, these aggressions impede society from actively engaging in public affairs, something that ultimately takes the power away from the people.

From a perspective empathetic to HRDs, this Independent Practitioner Inquiry Capstone paper (IPIC) explores possible causes of violence exposure in HRDs’ work and its …

Explaining Variance In Crime Rates Among Florida Counties, Philip M. Dispirito

Honors Undergraduate Theses

What explains the variance in crime rates among Florida counties? Bivariate regression found that clearance rate had a statistically significant negative relationship with crime rate, and that the following variables had a statistically significant positive association with crime rate: law enforcement funding, population density, Hispanic population percent, the percent of males in the 18-39 range, and the percent of immigrants. It seems probable that law enforcement funding is actually dependent on crime rate rather than causing increases in crime rate: counties with higher crime rates likely spend more money on law enforcement to combat crime. To deal with significant multicollinearity, …

Nato Enlargement: Poland, The Baltics, Ukraine And Georgia, Christopher M. Radcliffe

Honors Undergraduate Theses

Over the past two decades, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) has enlarged several times to include a number of new countries. The first two case studies that are analyzed within this paper include key countries that were added in the 1999 and 2004 rounds of NATO enlargement: Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia. The third case study takes a closer look at two countries, Ukraine and Georgia, that sought to become members of NATO but were denied Membership Action Plans (MAPs) because of Russian discontent and military intervention. It is questionable if Russia will use military force to disrupt the …

Ethnic Exclusion & Conflict In The Caspian: Comparing Kazakhstan & Azerbaijan, Danny Krikorian

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Political science explains various motives for political violence. This research focuses on a particular kind of motivation: ethnicity. The 20th century has seen many instances of ethnic violence, and this research seeks to understand why it occurs in one place and time and not the other. Traditionally the literature on ethnic violence reflects on economic conditions, regime type, geopolitics and historical context as significant variables. This research posits that Kazakhstan managed to avoid ethnic violence because it is more politically developed. The existence of an accommodative legislative assembly, which assures the rights of ethnic minorities, is an example of Kazakhstan's …

Why Is Democracy In Decline: Democratic Backsliding In Venezuela And Turkey, Fatih Bayraktar

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

It has long been argued that the end of the 20th century marked the triumph of liberal democracy. The third wave of democracy has increased the number of democracies in the world unprecedentedly and gave hope to many that democratic revolution is underway. However, in the last decade, this democratization process seems to have halted; there has been decline both in the number and quality of democracies. This thesis proposes an agent-based theory of democratic backsliding. More specifically, it is argued that leaders with undemocratic normative preferences and their ability to mobilize previously persecuted segments of society are the driving …

The Eu, Democracy And Institutional Structure: Past, Present And Future, Paul Craig

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

The Legality And Illegality Of Russian Hegemony In Ukraine, Benedikt Munzar

Global Tides

The recent Russian annexation of Ukraine and the Russian support of rebels in southeastern Ukraine has been met with fierce international condemnation. In light of its violation of multiple international laws and agreements, Russia has argued that it’s acting merely to support the interests of Russian minorities abroad. Given Russia’s intimate history with Ukraine and recent questionable actions from Ukraine towards its Russian minority, the facts leading up to this standoff may provide some justification for Russia’s stance as well as criticism towards Ukrainian policies and Western interference in the Ukrainian referendum. Despite this discrepancy, Russia is still liable for …

Differences In Media Framing Of Otto Warmbier, Kayla Elwy

Global Tides

This article examines media framing of American college student Otto Warmbier's imprisonment by North Korea and his eventual death. This research seeks to determine whether or not the use of certain frames was more prevalent in traditionally liberal (CNN) or traditionally conservative (FOX News) news outlets. Through a content analysis, in which 50 different news articles were examined, it was found that coverage of Warmbier's death did not differ greatly between CNN and FOX News.

Cairo Debates: Understanding Arab-American Relations, Magda Shahin

Faculty Journal Articles

Since the 1940s, the relationship with the Arab World has been an integral aspect of U.S. foreign policy, and has played an important role in shaping the interactions between Arab states and the rest of the world. A strong relationship with Egypt has underpinned Washington’s policies, particularly after the 1967 Camp David Accords, and Cairo continues to be an important partner and U.S. ally. As Dr. Mark Miller, the Emma Smith Morris Professor of Political Science and International Relations at the University of Delaware, explained in his lecture, the major tenants of U.S. foreign policy towards the region, namely its …