Political Science Commons^™

Gendered Activism And Outcomes: Women In The Peace Movement, Lisa A. Leitz, David S. Meyer

Peace Studies Faculty Books and Book Chapters

"In this chapter, we look at the history of women's activism in the peace movement over the course of U.S. political development, examining the ways that women expanded the goals of peace activism to include gender and other social justice issues. We then examine which women actually participated in these efforts, and how that has changed over time. In the following sections, we explore distinct tensions in women's activism focusing on the role of gender (essentialism versus social constructionism) and radicalism versus pragmatic realpolitik. We conclude by looking at the outcomes of such mobilizations, which have been very limited in …

From Malta To The United States: Addressing Refugee Needs, Elizabeth L. Brannon

Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019

There are currently 21.3 million refugees worldwide, who have been driven from their homes and are searching for a new life. The current refugee crisis has created a sense of controversy over the integration of refugees, making it further imperative to determine what leads to effective integration of refugees into host societies and how organizations can aid in this process. To determine these factors, I completed field research in Malta and Harrisonburg, Virginia, interviewing a total of ten refugee organizations. In this study, I explore the how community connections, adaptability, and funding constraints determine the effectiveness of organizations in aiding …

Introduction To Richard Nixon And Europe : The Reshaping Of The Postwar Atlantic World, Luke A. Nichter

Presidential Studies Faculty Books and Book Chapters

The U.S.-European relationship remains the closest and most important alliance in the world. Since 1945, successive American presidents each put their own touches on transatlantic relations, but the literature has reached only into the presidency of Lyndon Johnson (1963-9). This first study of transatlantic relations during the era of Richard Nixon shows a complex, turbulent period during which the postwar period came to an end, and the modern era came to be on both sides of the Atlantic in terms of political, economic, and military relations.

Unconventional Lawfare: Operational Law In The War On Terror, L. P. Miller

Political Science Student Scholarship

This thesis examines the legal work required to establish a sufficient lawfare defense by focusing on the Department of Defense Judge Advocate Generals’ Corps (JAG Corps). The work will describe the JAG Corps as a well-trenched bureaucracy with a moral mission to uphold the military’s honor through laws, and how this was interpreted by the Bush and Obama administrations.

Scourge On American Society: Are Refugees Increasing Violent Crime In The United States?, Rehtaeh Beers

FHSS Mentored Research Conference

President Trump and many citizens in his wake have called for a decrease in the number of refugees in America. Many claim that refugees are a “Scourge on American Society” and that refugees are “dangerous” and likely to commit violent crimes.

The total number of reported refugees in the world has been growing at an alarming rate since 2006 following the the Lebanese Crisis. Despite the growing number of refugees, the United States of America has kept the number of refugees located in the states relatively stable since 2007.

Judicial Supremacy Revisited: Independent Constitutional Authority In American Constitutional Law And Practice, Mark A. Graber

William & Mary Law Review

The Supreme Court exercises far less constitutional authority in American law and practice than one would gather from reading judicial opinions, presidential speeches, or the standard tomes for and against judicial supremacy. Lower federal court judges, state court justices, federal and state elected officials, persons charged with administering the law, and ordinary citizens often have the final say on particular constitutional controversies or exercise temporary constitutional authority in ways that have more influence on the parties to that controversy than the eventual Supreme Court decision. In many instances, Supreme Court doctrine sanctions or facilitates the exercise of independent constitutional authority …

Why Congress Does Not Challenge Judicial Supremacy, Neal Devins

William & Mary Law Review

Members of Congress largely acquiesce to judicial supremacy both on constitutional and statutory interpretation questions. Lawmakers, however, do not formally embrace judicial supremacy; they rarely think about the courts when enacting legislation. This Article explains why this is so, focusing on why lawmakers have both strong incentive to acquiesce to judicial power and little incentive to advance a coherent view of congressional power. In particular, lawmakers are interested in advancing favored policies, winning reelection, and gaining personal power within Congress. Abstract questions of institutional power do not interest lawmakers and judicial defeats are seen as opportunities to find some other …

The East China Sea In Dod China Military Power Reports, Bert Chapman

Libraries Faculty and Staff Scholarship and Research

The National Defense Authorization Act of 2000 saw Congress require the Department of Defense (DOD) to prepare an annual report on Chinese military power. This report contains classified and unclassified editions. Documenting Chinese military developments, strategy, and trends are critical parts of these reports. Beijing’s military activities in the East China Sea (ECS) are important report components. This work explains the importance of these and other DOD reports for those studying ECS developments, examines how DOD has documented Beijing’s military activities within these publicly accessible reports, and describes how members of Congress have reacted to ECS developments during the Obama …

The New Politics Of Us Health Care Prices: Institutional Reconfiguration And The Emergence Of All-Payer Claims Databases, Philip Rocco, Andrew S. Kelly, Daniel Beland, Michael Kinane

Political Science Faculty Research and Publications

Prices are a significant driver of health care cost in the United States. Existing research on the politics of health system reform has emphasized the limited nature of policy entrepreneurs’ efforts at solving the problem of rising prices through direct regulation at the state level. Yet this literature fails to account for how change agents in the states gradually reconfigured the politics of prices, forging new, transparency-based policy instruments called all-payer claims databases (APCDs), which are designed to empower consumers, purchasers, and states to make informed market and policy choices. Drawing on pragmatist institutional theory, this article shows how APCDs …

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 …

A Taxonomy Of Independent Electoral Reapportionment Systems, James Ruley

Indiana Journal of Constitutional Design

This paper addresses a means of checking legislative gerrymandering, which I have called the Independent Electoral Reapportionment Commission (IERC). Its purpose is to prevent self-interested politicians from drawing biased constituency lines. While scholars have researched gerrymandering, few scholars have researched commissions designed to limit such gerrymandering, and no comprehensive work details the global means of accomplishing this goal.

Thus, the purpose of this paper is not to normatively prescribe the best practices for composing and empowering an IERC, but rather to descriptively show how different countries conduct this process. While Part II makes some determinations about which commissions may conceptually …

2017 Constitution Day Essay Contest 1st Place--Donald Trump: The Modern Day Killer Of The First Amendment, Ryann Schoenbaechler

Constitution Day Essay Contest

No abstract provided.

2017 Constitution Day Essay Contest 3rd Place--The Fine Line Between Criticism And Control: How The Trump Administration Is Weakening Freedom Of The Press, Michael Di Girolamo

Constitution Day Essay Contest

No abstract provided.

Hitting The "Bullseye" In Supreme Court Coverage: News Quality In The Court's 2014 Term, Michael A. Zilis, Justin Wedeking, Alexander Denison

Political Science Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

2017 Constitution Day Essay Contest Honorable Mention--On The Consequences Of “Free Speech”, Duncan Barron

Constitution Day Essay Contest

No abstract provided.

2017 Constitution Day Essay Contest 2nd Place, Kelsey Mattingly

Constitution Day Essay Contest

No abstract provided.

2017 Constitution Day Essay Contest Honorable Mention--Liberty And Responsibility, Callum Case

Constitution Day Essay Contest

No abstract provided.

Toward The Anthropology Of White Nationalist Postracialism: Comments Inspired By Hall, Goldstein, And Ingram’S “The Hands Of Donald Trump”, Jeff Maskovsky

Publications and Research

This article explains Donald Trump’s brutal political effectiveness in terms of his white nationalist appeal. It locates the intellectual, popular, and policy imperatives of Trumpism in a new form of racial politics that I am calling white nationalist postracialism. This is a paradoxical politics of twenty-first-century white racial resentment whose proponents seek to do two contradictory things: to reclaim the nation for white Americans while also denying an ideological investment in white supremacy. The article shows how Trump’s excoriation of political correctness, his nostalgia for the post–WWII industrial economy, his use of hand gestures, and his public speaking about race …

2017 Constitution Day Essay Contest Honorable Mention--On Freedom Of Expression, Emily Baehner

Constitution Day Essay Contest

No abstract provided.

Successful Interventions: Identifying And Influencing Key Variables, Braeden J. Campbell

Undergraduate Theses, Professional Papers, and Capstone Artifacts

This research paper was inspired by a desire to see the United States (U.S.) have continued success in the 21st century. The problem that spurred this research was the realization that the U.S. has an opportunistic, short-term, military centric, foreign policy strategy. I believe that in the 21st century, a steady state, balanced, long-term strategy will ensure continued success. This research paper posits that an already strong networked opposition, a repertoire of resistance, and physical infrastructure are both jointly necessary and sufficient for a successful intervention. To test for this pattern, I first explore a common variable attributed to determining …

Corruption May Worsen In Democratizing Economies: But Don't Let It Erode Our Faith In Democracy, Shaomin Li, Ilan Alon, Jun Wu

Management Faculty Publications

This commentary is based on a recent study we conducted on the relationship between regime type, corruption, and economic development. We build a theory that links corruption and regime type to economic growth and test it on 158 countries, using multiple databases including Polity IV, transparency international, the World Bank, and others. We first distinguish three regime types, autocracy (dictatorship), anocracy (countries in early stage of democratization), and mature democracy. We found that when autocratic countries begin democratize, corruption usually gets worse. As the infant democracies mature, corruption decreases.

The Abortion Burden: Examining Abortion Access, Undue Burden And Supreme Court Rulings In The United States, Tyler E. Sloan

Honors Papers

This thesis’s driving argument is that the Court’s shift from focusing on analyzing abortion cases with strict scrutiny to using the undue burden standard allows states to create legally permissible loopholes that restrict the fundamental right to abortion access. These provisions disproportionately affect low-income women, the majority of whom are women of color in the United States. Conservative state legislatures take drastic measures to prevent abortions from occurring since Roe still holds, but instead of stopping abortions altogether these policies simply make it difficult for the most vulnerable communities to terminate unwanted pregnancies. Recall the three most commonly cited reasons …

Laughing In The Face Of Oppression: The Nature Of Political Satire Under Different Types Of Political Regimes, Victoria Villavicencio Pérez

Honors Program Theses

This research examines how different types of political regimes shape the nature of the political satire produced under them. Unlike traditional journalism, the sly character of political humor may enable it to operate with more freedom than other forms of media while still providing social critique. This research examines three different case studies: the United States (democracy), Venezuela (semi-authoritarian), and Cuba (authoritarian) and evaluates their satire on how openly critical it is and what type of censorship it suffers. Through extensive content analysis of satirical work produced within the country, as well as a historical research into the censorship of …

United States Public Opinion And The War In Iraq: Understanding Analysis Polling Trends Through Discourse, Sam Williams

Sigma: Journal of Political and International Studies

War is often thought to be a cause-and-effect dichotomy. Rather than taking a holistic view of war through examination of short-term fluctuations against macrolevel trends, historians often instead define armed conflict by a singular, decisive event and the differing responses and ramifications which stem from it. It is tempting, then, to do the same with public opinion about war: If the nature and ultimate result of a conflict stems from a collection of individual pivotal events, it is natural to think there would also be critical shifts in public opinion corresponding to these decisive events. U.S. military campaigns that are …

A Grand Game: Sino-American Relations In The 21st Century, Cameron Mccauley

Student Works

This paper provides an overview and analysis of Sino-American relations, focusing primarily on the South China Sea and the implications of China’s rise on both the region and US national security. International relations theory provides the framework for the analysis and multiple viewpoints are included. This paper draws attention to the importance of properly understanding China’s ambitions in order to prevent a war in the Pacific. While not inevitable, the potential for conflict is addressed and likely scenarios are included. This paper concludes with a quick look at how the Trump administration’s policies could affect the turbulent balance of power …

Cross-Cultural Comparison Of Servant Leadership In The United States And Latin America, Ismael Merino

Undergraduate Honors Theses

In this study, the subject matter evaluated is the difference between the United States and Latin America concerning the practice and acceptance of servant leadership. This research compares the practice and the acceptance of servant leadership between the United States of America and Latin America. In order to do this, a cross-cultural comparison was conducted between these two groups. The objective was to find the differences in the leadership styles of these two groups and subsequently analyze the results. The Hofstede’s cultural dimensions were used to be able to compare cultural differences, and understand why these differences appear in the …

Secrecy, Confidentiality And "Dirty Work": The Case Of Public Relations, Sue Curry Jansen

Secrecy and Society

No abstract provided.

A Fortuitous Hegemon: Cold War Presidential Foreign Policies, Benjamin Bowles

Senior Honors Theses

Following the Cold War, the United States attained the pinnacle of global influence; however, new threats and challenges have arisen that possess the potential to unseat America from its position of global dominance. While the United States’ global power has remained unchallenged since the end of the Cold War, threats have formed that take the form of both maverick upstart nations, such as Iran and China, as well as foreign powers that are clamoring to retain the status of their former glory, such as Russia. In plotting the course with which the United States should address these new threats, an …

The Challenges Of Gaming For Democratic Education: The Case Of Icivics, Jeremy D. Stoddard, Angela M. Banks, Christine L. Nemacheck, Elizabeth Wenska

Faculty Publications

Video games are the most recent technological advancement to be viewed as an educational panacea and a force for democracy. However, this medium has particular affordances and constraints as a tool for democratic education in educational environments. This paper presents results from a study of the design and content of four iCivics games and their potential to meet the goals of democratic education. Specifically, we focus on the games as designed experiences, the nature and accuracy of the content, and the nature of intellectual engagement in the games. We find that the games, while easily accessible and aligned with standardized …

How Civility Works, Keith Bybee

Institute for the Study of the Judiciary, Politics, and the Media at Syracuse University

Is civility dead? Americans ask this question every election season, but their concern is hardly limited to political campaigns. Doubts about civility regularly arise in just about every aspect of American public life. Rudeness runs rampant. Our news media is saturated with aggressive bluster and vitriol. Our digital platforms teem with expressions of disrespect and trolls. Reflecting these conditions, surveys show that a significant majority of Americans believe we are living in an age of unusual anger and discord. Everywhere we look, there seems to be conflict and hostility, with shared respect and consideration nowhere to be found. In a …