Political Science Commons^™

Corruption: Brazil's Everlasting Parasite, Patricia Vilhena

Honors Undergraduate Theses

The purpose of this thesis is to explore corruption in Brazil, how it has endured for so such a long period, and the effects it has in the country. Understanding the history of Brazil, how the government was established, and how the branches operate is crucial to comprehend the rooting causes of the Brazilian corruption. The focus is not just about what corruption is and the effects it has on education, economy, and infrastructure, but also on the factors that contributed to its expansion and the circumstances that allowed it to sustain until today. Brazil is a country known for …

Singapore: Commemoration And Reconciliation, Tze M. Loo

History Faculty Publications

Commemorations are in general highly political acts; in East Asia, the period around the anniversary of Japan's surrender on August 15 has, for some time now, become highly politicized. It is a moment in which postwar Japan performs its attitude toward its war responsibility and aggressive acts-performances that are invariably evaluated for their sincerity, or lack thereof. At the same time, nation states who suffered Japan's wartime aggres­sions use the period to present their understanding of the history of Japan's wartime conduct and, as is often the case, to include a criticism of the per­ceived inadequacies of Japan's contrition. The …

How The Nation’S Largest Minority Became White: Race Politics And The Disability Rights Movement, 1970–1980, Jennifer L. Erkulwater

Political Science Faculty Publications

Scholars point out a tension between racial justice and disability rights activism. Although racial minorities are more likely to become disabled than whites, both disability activism and the historiography of disability politics tends tend to focus on the experience and achievements of whites. This article examines how disability rights activists of the 1970s sought to build a united movement of all people with disabilities and explains why these efforts were unable to overcome cleavages predicated on race. Activists drew from New Left ideas of community and self-help as well as the New Right rhetoric of market freedoms to articulate a …

Scandal And Mass Politics: Buganda's 1941 Nnamasole Crisis, Carol Summers

History Faculty Publications

Summers discusses Buganda's 1941 Nnamasole crisis following the Christian marriage of Irene Namaganda, Buganda's queen mother who was pregnant with her slightly older lover. Namaganda's Christian marriage was powerfully scandalous, profoundly violating expectations associated with marriage and royal office. The scandal produced a political crisis that toppled Buganda's prime minister, pushed his senior allies from power, deposed the queen mother, exiled her husband, and changed Buganda's political landscape. The scandal launched a new era of public mobilization and protest that took Buganda's politics beyond the realm of deals between the oligarchy and British elites, and into public gossip, newspapers and …

Revisiting Afghanistan's Modern History: The Role Of Ethnic Inclusion On Regime Stability, Rahimullah Akrami

Browse all Theses and Dissertations

This study examines the role of ethnic inclusion as a factor of regime stability in Afghanistan through an historical case analysis from 1880 until 2009. By utilizing case study research methods, the goal of the study is to examine all the past regimes in order to show whether there is a relationship between the dependent variable regime stability and the independent variable ethnic inclusion. The study assumes the hypothesis that an ethnically inclusive regime will be stable while an ethnically exclusive regime will be unstable. Five indicators are used to measure each variable respectively. Each indicator is assigned a score …

Buried On Three Continents In Three Civilizations: A Jewish Fate, Yishai Shuster

Comparative Civilizations Review

No abstract provided.

Department Of History And Political Science Registration Newsletter Fall 2017, Department Of History And Political Science, University Of Southern Maine

Department of History and Political Science Registration Newsletter

In this issue:

• New Faculty: Lacey Sparks
• Exhibition: "Letters Home: Harriet Sweetser and the Gorham Normal School at the Turn-of-the-Century"
• Student appreciation
• USM Special Collections
• Exhibition: "The Forgotten Heroines of the Easter Rising by Irish Sculptor Betty Newman-Maguire"
• HTY/POS Courses Offered Fall 2017
• HTY/POS Internships Offered Fall 2017
• HTY/POS Courses Offered Summer 2017

The History Problem: The Politics Of War Commemoration In East Asia, Hiro Saito

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

This essay summarizes my argumentin The History Problem: The Politics of WarCommemoration in East Asia. The historyproblem is essentially a relational phenomenonthat arises when nations promote self-servingversions of the past by focusing on whathappened to their own citizens with littleregard for foreign others. East Asia, however,has recently also witnessed the emergence of acosmopolitan form of commemoration takinghumanity, rather than nationality, as itsprimary frame of reference. Whencosmopolitan commemoration is practiced as acollective endeavor by both perpetrators andvictims, a resolution of the history problem willfinally become possible.

50 Takes On Trump – Rhode Island, Richard Holtzman

History and Social Sciences Faculty Journal Articles

To understand Rhode Island’s take on Donald Trump, it is important to first understand the political peculiarities of the nation’s smallest state. When it comes to presidential elections, Rhode Island leans strongly Democratic. The last time its four electoral votes appeared in the Republican column was 1984. In 2016, Hillary Clinton beat Trump by over 15 percentage points, maintaining Rhode Island’s reputation as a Democratic stronghold. However, as any observer of Rhode Island politics will tell you, all is not as it appears on the surface in the Ocean State.

Book Review - Dixie Highway: Road Building And The Making Of The Modern South, 1900-1930, Rebecca Rose

Georgia Library Quarterly

No abstract provided.

Of First Principles & Organic Laws, Pietro Poggi

Dissertations, Masters Theses, Capstones, and Culminating Projects

The First Principles and Organic Laws of the United States ought to be part of a daily discussion at every water cooler and every dinner table in the country. Instead, it is entirely possible there have been days, weeks, months—or even years—when neither term has been spoken anywhere in America. Yet, during the first several decades of the country’s existence, the concepts of First Principles and Organic Laws were commonly discussed; in fact these notions were crucial to the founding of the country and its political organization. Works concerning the foundation of the United States, the Declaration of Independence, the …

American Immigration: Differing Views On The Threat From Immigrants, Carl Karpinski

Political Science Theses and Capstones

Immigration has been a hot button issue in politics across the world, especially in recent years in the United States. People’s views on immigration vary broadly among political parties and from every corner of the country. Why do people believe the things they do about immigrants? I researched this question to determine why immigration is at the forefront of American politics and how different aspects of one’s life affect his or her sentiments. Using General Social Survey data, I explored why some people feel threatened by immigrants coming to their country and others do not. Variables analyzed include income, church …

Department Of History And Political Science Registration Newsletter Spring 2017, Department Of History And Political Science, University Of Southern Maine

Department of History and Political Science Registration Newsletter

In this issue:

• Maine Model United Nations Conference
• The Arctic: Challenges and Opportunities Program
• W.E.B. Du Bois: Becoming an American Program
• Registration information
• Ron Schmidt's column in Maine Beacon
• HTY/POS Courses Offered Spring 2017
• HTY/POS Internships Spring 2017
• Abraham Peck received a DLitt (Doctor of letters) degree from the University of East Anglia in Norwich, England
• USM History on Instagram: @usmhistory
• HTY spring trip to New York City
• Libby Bischof's class visit to Abbe Museum
• "Judeo-Christian and Islamic Values" an opinion article written by Abraham Peck

The Technocratic Politics Of The Common Core State Standards In History, Kate Duguid

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This paper shows that the explicit aims of the American educational standards for public schools, the Common Core State Standards to teach history to create “college and career ready” students, marks a shift from preparing students for political participation to preparing them for market participation. I trace the intellectual and pedagogical origins of the Common Core’s pretense of technocratic apolitical values back through the previous two major American curricular reform efforts. In the first section I discuss the origins and development of the National History Standards and show how Cold War anxiety prompted a shift in evaluating students as potential …

Explaining The Rise Of Isis, Anas Alqaed

Political Science Theses and Capstones

In this paper I study the circumstances that led to the rise the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS/Daesh) and its economic power. I use articles, testimonies before US House of Representatives and analyze economic data to generate facts and draw conclusions. All references rely on primary source documents that were not released in an official capacity by ISIS. These are documents that have been released online by pro or anti-ISIS activists or information that was gathered and analyzed by research centers and international organizations. It is worth noting that non-officially released documents were very helpful in shedding more …

The History Problem: The Politics Of War Commemoration In East Asia, Hiro Saito

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Seventy years have passed since the end of the Asia-Pacific War, yet Japan remains embroiled in controversy with its neighbors over the war’s commemoration. Among the many points of contention between Japan, China, and South Korea are interpretations of the Tokyo War Crimes Trial, apologies and compensation for foreign victims of Japanese aggression, prime ministerial visits to the Yasukuni Shrine, and the war’s portrayal in textbooks. Collectively, these controversies have come to be called the “history problem.” But why has the problem become so intractable? Can it ever be resolved, and if so, how? To answer these questions, the author …

Department Of History And Political Science Registration Newsletter Fall 2016, Department Of History And Political Science, University Of Southern Maine

Department of History and Political Science Registration Newsletter

In this issue:

• New Race and Ethnic Studies Minor
• Ron Schmidt in the news
• Robert Klotz and Dmitry Bam lecture
• Maine Model United Nations Conference
• HTY/POS Courses Offered Fall 2016
• HTY/POS Internships Offered Fall 2016
• HTY/POS Courses Offered Summer 2016
• Student appreciation
• Libby Bischof presenting at the Third Annual Historians forum at the Maine Historical Society
• Eileen Eagan at the annual national Council on Public History conference in Baltimore, Maryland

Claiming Time: Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, And Adam Smith On Freedom And Futurity, Jennifer Corby

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation engages the philosophy of Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, and Adam Smith through the lens of time. By first analyzing their earlier works on the nature of self-consciousness, it demonstrates that each offers a theory of subjectivity that, despite important differences, shares a singular point of distinction from those that typified early modern thought. Against the predominant view that human freedom necessitates immaterial agency, each theorizes a materialist agent that is able to overcome the determinism of the material world by way of the temporal nature of subjectivity. Each understands self-consciousness to be constituted by an extension of memory …

Courage In Politics: The Challenge For Christian Politicians, Egbert Schuurman

Pro Rege

Editor’s Note: This article was presented by Dr. Egbert Schuurman as the annual Groen van Prinsterer Lecture for 2011, sponsored by the ChristenUnie or Christian Union, a political party in the Netherlands. The lecture series is named after Guillaume Groen van Prinsterer (1801–1876), the father of modern Dutch Christian politics. Egbert Schuurman, P.Eng., Ph.D., was senator for the Christian Union in the Dutch parliament from 1983 through 2011.

This text was translated by Herbert Donald Morton and edited by Harry Van Dyke.

Causes And Consequences Of The Syrian Civil War, Chelsea Marie Baltes

Senior Theses

This senior thesis is an in depth analysis of the historical causes of the Syrian civil war. I argue that the main components leading to the civil war under Bashar al-Asad were as follows; Sectarian division, French intervention and mandates, Israeli & Syrian conflict, Egypt & Syrian Union, and Hafiz al-Asad’s rise to power. My research and analysis provided demonstrates that these previously mentioned historical stimuli have all amalgamated leading to the instability under Bashar al-Asad and ultimately the modern civil war we see today. The paper will also analyze the consequences of this instability seen in government and society, …

2016 Cleary Lecture Promo Flyer

2016 Cleary Lecture: Breaking State Impunity by Guillermo Trejo

Promotional flyer for the 2016 Cleary Lecture at Providence College. The 2016 speaker was Guillermo Trejo of the Kellogg Institute for International Studies at the University of Notre Dame.

Department Of History And Political Science Registration Newsletter Spring 2016, Department Of History And Political Science, University Of Southern Maine

Department of History and Political Science Registration Newsletter

In this issue:

• Exhibition co-curated by Libby Bischof, "Picturing Maine
• History Student Named UNUM Scholar
• Exhibit: "Visualizing Uncle Tom’s Cabin"
• Adam Tuchinsky named interim Dean of the College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences
• New faculty: Timothy Ruback
• Maine Model United Nations Conference (MeMUNC)
• Leroy Rowe class visit to Augusta
• “Social Media and Revolutions,” talk by Adeline Koh, Director of the Center for Digital Humani-ties at Stockton College
• HTY/POS Courses Offered Spring 2016
• HTY/POS Internships Offered Spring 2016

Feminism In Revolution: Women Of The 19th Century Anti-Tsarist Movements, Kayley Delong

Undergraduate Research Awards

The climate of political upheaval in Russia over the course of the 19th century reached a violent climax in the assassination of Tsar Alexander II in March of 1881. His death was the result of decades of civil unrest amongst Russian citizens who had taken hold of enlightenment ideas and sought justice for economic and social inequality. In a complex equation of issues and policies, the ways in which the women question combined with the surge of new ideas produced a unique and perfect storm. Russia was the epicenter of a collision between an underdeveloped infrastructure and changing philosophies about …

Power, Subjectivity, And Life In Spain: A Continuation Of Elite Power, Matthew Mason

Master's Theses

On December 20, Spain will hold national elections to determine the new prime minister and national and local parliaments. These elections will be another crossroads in the long history of Spain. The elections come about in a political and social atmosphere of ‘change’ and ‘regeneration,’ marked by the rise of two new political parties, Podemos and Ciudanos. These parties are the new forces in the political scene in Spain. This atmosphere of change is the result of the 2008 economic crisis. The economic crisis of 2008 was not only an economic crisis in Spain, but it provoked a political and …

Liberating Genocide: An Activist Concept And Historical Understanding, Tony Barta

Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal

From the outset, historians of genocide have seen themselves as activists. Among historians of colonial societies that is what distinguishes them most in relation to indigenous peoples. An ethnographic sensibility should be visible in any such study, and the more so when a question of genocide is raised. After all, if we do not have a sense of difference between peoples we fail the test of genocide at the first hurdle. And if we do not have an ethnographic sensibility towards our own cultures (including academic cultures) we will fail to make the most of our role in affecting deeply …

State Of Memory: National History And Exclusive Identity In Contemporary Denmark, John Terrell Foor

Masters Theses

Increased rates of immigration to Western European states over the past three decades have yielded a wealth of literature in the social sciences, much of which has focused on cases of individuals from so-called ―non-Western‖ countries of origin. Immigrants, refugees, and asylum-seekers from the Middle East, Africa, and Asia often bring with them cultural and religious traditions that are unfamiliar to the citizens of states which receive them. Tensions between majority populations and growing minorities in Western Europe have resulted in skepticism—and, increasingly, hostility—toward immigrants, particularly those regarded as ―"Islamic."

But is this type of tension inevitable? Are difference and …

Neocolonialism, Liberation Theology And The Nicaraguan Revolution, John Hindley

Undergraduate Craft of Research Prize Papers

This paper will attempt to answer an important question regarding the study of revolutions in developing countries: how does Liberation Theology address the problems of neocolonialism that plagues the Latin American continent? The analysis will use the Central American nation, Nicaragua, and its Sandinista revolution as a country case. This question is important to the study because it helps to understand the extent or the kind of an impact religion has on revolutions. In Latin America, the population is majority Roman Catholic. Due to this, the hierarchy of the Church and the laity has had a certain influence on the …

France And The Community Of Six: The Schuman Declaration To The Treaties Of Rome, Daniel Gagnon

Undergraduate Craft of Research Prize Papers

This paper investigates France’s role during the first decade of European integration, and in particular the initiatives of Jean Monnet and Robert Schuman which led to the creation of the European Communities. Monnet and Schuman began the modern process of uniting Europe with the creation of the European Coal and Steel Community, but the process of integration faced its strongest opposition within France itself and the movement had its first setback in 1954 when the French National Assembly rejected the proposed European Defense Community. Nevertheless, European integration continued, and after the subsequent French election, France rebuilt momentum for further European …

State-To-State Child Adoption Variations: A Political Culture Perspective, Erica Trabing

Political Science Theses and Capstones

The domestic adoption system throughout the United States has been complex yet crucial in starting millions of families over the years. About 7 million Americans are considered adopted persons, and as many as 100 million Americans have adoption in their immediate families. Though these numbers seem impressive, there are still 130,000 children in the U.S. foster care system waiting to be adopted. Adoptions in the US fall into one of three main categories. The first is adoption of children from the public foster care system, the second is adoption through private adoption agencies or independently, and the final category is …

"Gent De Forca I De Presó": Jueus I Xuetes Als Dietaris De Joan Estelrich, Antoni Pizà

Publications and Research

Els Dietaris de Joan Estelrich, publicats per Quaderns Crema, aporten una informació substantiva sobre el personatge i la seva circumstància. Per exemple, les nombroses referències que hi fa als jueus i als xuetes mallorquins, reveladores dels prejudicis de l'època.