Political Science Commons^™

Causes, Consequences, And Countermeasures Of Military Coups In The Gambia, Alhagie A. Mbye

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Military coups d’état remain a persistent threat to postcolonial African states, undermining democratic consolidation and institutional legitimacy. The Gambia, although historically regarded as a relatively stable West African nation, has experienced approximately 14 coup attempts since gaining independence from Great Britain in 1965. While military coups in Africa are well documented, much of the existing literature relies on broad regional frameworks that emphasize externalities such as foreign influence and geopolitical pressures rather than internalities such as national policy direction, and domestic governance challenges. The purpose of this qualitative case study is to address that gap by providing context-specific empirical research …

Breaking Barriers: The Political Journeys Of Elected Female Leaders, Erica Lynn Williams

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Despite increasing participation, women have remained significantly underrepresented in elected political office. Existing literature on women elected to political positions highlights persistent gender disparities in representation, access, and political influence. Scholars have examined the structural, cultural, and institutional barriers that women face when seeking and holding public office. While recent research has increasingly focused on intersectionality and the diverse experiences of women in politics, gaps remain in capturing their personal narratives and day-to-day realities. The purpose of this generic qualitative study was to examine the experiences of women currently serving in political positions to understand how prior career opportunities influenced …

Should School Board Elections Be Partisan? Analyzing Elite Discourse In The Debate Over The Structure Of Local Elections, Bre'arra M. Long

McNair Summer Research Program

The goal of this research paper is to identify the most prevalent arguments for and against partisan school board elections while also examining what differences, if any, exist between Republicans and Democrats with respect to the way they talk about the issue. The interdisciplinary fields of political science and linguistics provide helpful context to the effectiveness of political communication in smaller scale, yet salient elections in communities where impacts are most directly felt. My interest lies in how the nationalization of politics influences local government and elections, and how language and the media act as conduits for that relationship. It …

Enhancing Client Intake Efficiency In The Removal Defense Program: A Nursing-Led Quality Improvement Initiative, Johnny Linares, Julia Tran Ngo, Daniel Orea, Atheana Yadira Lopez

Master's Projects and Capstones

This quality improvement project focuses on optimizing the intake process for the Removal Defense Program at a nonprofit immigration legal office serving asylum-seeking clients. The existing intake relied on unstructured, phone-call-based intake interviews that gathered incomplete information, leading to inconsistent documentation, reduced efficiency, and significant client processing delays. A structured, multilingual, and multiplatform new-client admission protocol coupled with the implementation of a client-facing resource guide for waitlist clients were co-developed and implemented using the Lippitt Change Theory framework. Utilizing a mixed methods approach, the study involved staff interviews and observational assessments with staff members from the program. Baseline intake process …

Transactional And Autocratic Leadership In Practice: The Case Of Trump’S Attempt To Redefine Birthright Citizenship, Ruolan Huang, Liwei Fang, Jingzhe Zhang, Anna Zaldivar

The Scholarship Without Borders Journal

This case study investigates how President Donald Trump's autocratic and transactional leadership style influenced the conception, implementation, and social impact of the 2025 executive order seeking to revoke birthright citizenship for children of undocumented immigrants. This study employs the case study approach and applies thematic analysis of public documents, legal texts, and media reports. The study identifies five major themes, including autocratic leadership and executive overreach, racialized policy implementation, media manipulation, legal resistance, and a broader crisis of democratic legitimacy. The findings suggest that while the executive order aims at framing a legal structure, it disproportionately affects marginalized immigrant communities, …

The Impact Of The Mcgirt Supreme Court Decision On Federal Water Policy Within Shared Watersheds, Travis Alexander Younce

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

This dissertation explored the following research question: What are the public policy implications of the McGirt Supreme Court decision on federal water policy and regulations governing shared watersheds between state, tribes, and federal control? Specifically, this study examined the changing freshwater availability within Oklahoma and Montana. Oklahoma is one of the nation’s most diverse water management lands, with over 85% of its water within tribal boundaries. Eleven lakes and reservoirs in central Oklahoma provide water to the increasingly urbanized population. This dissertation aimed to identify integrated regulations regarding water policy and impacts by examining requirements, use, clarity, and climatological data …

Funded To Win? Super Pacs And Electoral Advantage In The Southeast, Kyle Winstead

Poster Presentations

In 2010, two key pieces of legislation were passed: Citizens United v. FEC and Speechnow.org v. FEC. The results of these cases led to the creation of a new type of organization known as the super PAC. After their inception, the amount of super PACs exploded going from 83 in 2010 to 2,393 in 2016. Since then, the number of super PACs has remained relatively constant with a total of 2,458 super PACs in 2024. While Super PACs constitute a new method of civic participation in politics, there are concerns regarding their potential influence. The results of this research support …

Left Or Right, Loyal Or Disloyal: Ideology, Partisanship, And Empire In The Construction Of Interwar Japanese American Politics, Vivian Yan-Gonzalez

Asian American Studies Faculty Articles and Research

This article examines the first cohort of Japanese American voters in California in the interwar years, in order to explore the construction of racialized parameters on Japanese American political agency. Inter-imperial competition between the United States and Japan over the future of the Pacific, along with the popular and legal linkage of race and citizenship, produced a persistent distrust of Japanese American voters. Although Japanese Americans shaped their political strategies to appease these suspicions, militarized state demands for loyalty after the attack on Pearl Harbor sharply contracted their options from a range of diverse ideologies and partisanship to a narrow …

The Impact Of Previous Police Contact And Attitudes Toward Police On Firearm Carriage In A College Student Population, Amanda Kroll

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study examines whether an association exists between police contact and firearm carriage. Additionally, the present study examines whether the intrusiveness of police contact has an association with firearm carriage. Questionnaires measuring participant demographics, perceptions of the police, contact with the police, and firearm carriage were administered to 222 participants recruited through undergraduate psychology courses at a state university in the Midwest. Results indicated that participants with a history of contact with the police were more likely to carry a firearm than participants with no contact with the police. Regarding frequency of firearm carriage, participants with a history of police …

The Effects Of National Elite Signaling On Ranked Choice Voting In Utah, Mathew Woodman

All Graduate Reports and Creative Projects, Fall 2023 to Present

Ranked-Choice Voting (RCV) is a voting method used in few cities in the United States. There has recently been an increase in interest in adoption of the voting method in other cities using pilot programs, much like the one introduced in Utah. Ranked-Choice Voting has become a topic of contention with strong disapproval coming from opponents of the voting system. The questions are why there is disdain for Ranked-Choice Voting, and why such disdain seems to exist more heavily in Republican camps. Public opinion polling from “likely and confirmed Utah voters” in Salt Lake, Utah, and Grand Counties, conducted by …

Scaling Laws Of Political Regime Dynamics: Stability Of Democracies And Autocracies In The Twentieth Century, Paula Pirker-Diaz, Matthew Wilson, Soenke Beier, Karoline Wiesner

Faculty Publications

In light of the current rise of authoritarian regimes and the anti-liberal tendencies in some established democracies, understanding the dynamic and statistical properties of political regimes is of critical importance. Despite their relevance, a comprehensive quantitative assessment of these dynamics on a historical scale remains largely unexplored, and the notion that democratization is an irreversible process has gone mostly unchallenged. This study provides a rigorous and quantitative analysis of political regimes worldwide by examining changes in freedoms of expression, association and electoral quality throughout the twentieth century. Utilizing the multidimensional V-Dem dataset, which covers over 170 countries across more than …

Where Did All The Democrats Go?, Reese Adkins

Political Science Theses and Capstones

Following the reelection of President Obama in 2012, many political scientists such as Ruy Teixeira and John B. Judis, believed that this signaled the beginning of many Democratic electoral victories to come. They published their argument in their book, The Emerging Democratic Majority, in which they explained the Democratic Party’s plan to gain a systemic advantage in presidential elections. This was to be achieved by winning elections through winning the vote of minority groups, white women, and young college-educated people. This has been far from the case. Donald Trump, with political experience, shocked the world after winning the 2016 election …

Funded To Win? Super Pacs And Electoral Advantage In The Southeast, Kyle Winstead

Honors Theses

2010 saw the introduction of a new player on the field of electoral finance, the super PAC. This introduction came with much controversy due to the widespread fear that super PACs could undermine the election system by giving wealthy individuals or organizations an undue influence. The literature on super PACs influence on the electoral system is inconclusive, with different studies having mixed results, meaning more information needs to be gathered. In this paper, I attempt to learn more about super PACs influence, particularly on congressional elections, by examining the results of congressional elections across three states: Alabama, Georgia, and Florida. …

Trust Across Difference In Radical Social Movement Organizations: The Case Of The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, Kerstin Miller

Master's Theses

Social movement literature does not properly address trust between activists as a foundation of social movement organizations. This thesis aims to fill that gap by examining how trust within the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, a radical civil rights organization in the sixties, was built and broken over the course of the decade. I drew on first-hand accounts written by SNCC activists to find patterns in how they thought about trust building and trust breaking in their own organization. I found that trust was built primarily through sustained interaction between activists, and that trust in the organization led to activists being …

Exercising Sovereignty In The Theater Of Court: How Performative Punishments Has Substitute Law Implementation In The Islamic Republic Of Iran, Nina Maziar

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Abstract Legality is a modern infrastructure, but when it is combined with the jurisprudence, which is very interpretive and subjective, an amorphous content is merged, which can be shaped for utilitarian purposes; and this is how the arbitrary legal system of Islamic Republic is staged. This unshaped legal system, courts/trials and penal codes, especially political charges are ambiguous contents, baffling the mindsets. This unclear setting is deterministically vague to scare the victim, and the audience with the stagecraft of the court. Sovereignty is defined both in the international affairs regarding the capability of one state ruling a country, but it …

Constructing A State: Canals And The Transformation Of The Economy, Politics, And Finance In Nineteenth-Century New York, Youwei Xing

All Dissertations

This dissertation consists of three essays in economic history, unified by a focus on one of America's earliest transportation infrastructures, the canal system, in nineteenth-century New York. Each chapter explores a different aspect of the state's transformation: its economy, politics, and finance, each of which helped construct New York as the Empire State.

The first chapter studies the economic impact of canals on economic modernization from three aspects: sectoral transition, urbanization, and banking development. Contrary to much of the modern literature finds transportation infrastructure leads to decentralization, I find the opposite-evidence of centralization. Specially: (1) canal towns experienced a transition …

Not All Political Ties Are The Same: Firms' Ties To The Government And Pollution, Wen Helena Li, Ilya R. P. Cuypers, Gokhan Ertug, Hari Bapuji, Wei Liu

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Complementing research on the implications of political ties for firms’ strategic decisions and financial performance, recent studies are increasingly focusing on the environmental consequences of firms’ political connections. We contribute to this stream of work by integrating insights from the literature on political ties and the multifaceted nature of governments to explore how the level of government influences the pollution implications of firms’ political ties. Specifically, we theorize and demonstrate that, in China, firms' achieved political ties with high levels of the government reduce pollution, while such ties with low levels of the government increase it. Furthermore, we examine how …

Draining Development: The Changing Nature Of Corruption In Post-Independence India, Chandra Tiwari

Graduate Program in International Studies Theses & Dissertations

The economic growth of emerging economies, particularly India’s, stands at a crossroads as the fight against corruption intensifies. Corruption poses a significant threat to the overall development of a country, necessitating the convergence of technological advances with national and global initiatives to combat the issue. Despite several ongoing efforts taken by international bodies to enforce regulations, challenges persist in curbing this issue due to the fundamental behavioral and structural factors at play. This dissertation investigates the dynamic evolution of corruption within a cash-based economy, a period of trade openness, and the contemporary digitalized age in India through a comparative case …

Practicing In The Laboratories Of Democracy: An Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis Of How Political Science Faculty Use Simulations With Community College Students, James Stewart Shifflett

STEMPS Theses & Dissertations

Political science faculty members have often used simulations to promote civic engagement and build political efficacy in students. However, the use of political simulations with community college students has not been studied as extensively as it has with their four-year counterparts. Through the interpretive phenomenological analysis (IPA) methodology, this study examined the experiences of nine political science faculty members who use simulations with community college students to understand how instructional designers might better support their civic engagement and design efforts. Faculty members who participated in the study use simulations as constructive social interactions; as comprehensive learning experiences integrating preparation, facilitation …

The Aid Impact Theory: A Theoretical Framework For Maximizing The Impact And Sustainability Of Foreign Education Aid In Ghana, Jonas Bensah

Graduate Program in International Studies Theses & Dissertations

Foreign aid plays a critical role in supporting education systems in developing countries, yet its effectiveness varies depending on the presence and interaction of key implementation components. This study applies the Aid Impact Theory (AIT) to comparatively analyze the USAID Partnership for Education: Learning and the World Bank-funded Secondary Education Improvement Project (SEIP) in Ghana, assessing their effectiveness and sustainability. Using a structured framework, the research examines six essential components: stakeholder consultation, donor coordination and local implementer collaboration, awareness of cultural, political, and institutional contexts, community involvement, capacity building, and monitoring and evaluation. The findings indicate that the USAID Learning …

"Legitimacy, War, And The State: A Framework For Understanding Legitimation Strategies In Us Foreign Policy", Daniel Jose Palomino

Graduate Program in International Studies Theses & Dissertations

Do social norms play a role in policy maker’s foreign policy choices? What methods or strategies are effective in generating sustainable public support? In contrast to certain theories that conceive of international relations as purely divorced from social norms – be they international or domestic - I argue that the characteristic of legitimacy is critical to understanding how states construct and pursue their foreign policy. Using a methodology of historical review I examine four primary qualities of legitimation theory: Concern, Audience, Effort, and Reception; using the test case of the Americanization of the Vietnam War (1961-1965) this study will …

Promoting Understanding Of Soft Power Theory : A Case Study Of Confucius Institutes Along The Belt And Road, Dan Yang

Lingnan Theses (Doctoral degree)

This dissertation explores the function of Confucius Institutes (CI) as key tools within China’s soft power approach, particularly in the framework of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). It provides a detailed and empirically based analysis of how these institutes operate within various national contexts. Drawing upon Joseph Nye’s soft power theory and supported by literature on public diplomacy, this study assesses the ways in which CIs translate cultural, linguistic, and educational assets into international influence. Despite the rapid expansion of CIs globally, their actual effectiveness in achieving cultural diplomacy and tangible soft power outcomes remains uncertain. Advocates emphasize the …

Misinformation, Disinformation, And The Erosion Of Institutional Trust: The Role Of Social Media In Democracy, Andres Murillo

International Studies (MA) Theses

In recent years, social media-driven misinformation and disinformation have helped erode public trust in democratic institutions. This thesis examines how constant exposure to false online content correlates with declining confidence in democracy and evaluates the roles of platforms, influencers, and mechanisms. Using a convergent mixed-methods design, this thesis pairs a quantitative survey with a qualitative analysis of three disinformation case studies: the 2020 U.S. election and the “Stop the Steal” movement, the Rohingya crisis in Myanmar crisis, and Russian denial of wartime atrocities in their invasion against Ukraine. Drawing on classical and modern propaganda theories (Lasswell, Herman & Chomsky, RAND’s …

Black Women Policymakers And Black Feminist Approaches In United States Gender-Based Violence Policies: Analyzing Policy Making, Institutional, And Social Media Discourse Through The Narrative Policy Framework, Gugu Selela

All Dissertations

This research study examines how gender-based violence (GBV) policy in the United States marginalizes Black women through race-neutral language and punitive frameworks. Despite facing disproportionate violence, Black women are often excluded from policy narratives, debates, and institutional priorities. Grounded in Black Feminist Thought and the Narrative Policy Framework, this study investigates how exclusion operates across legislative, digital, and institutional domains, and how Black women in public service resist and reshape GBV policy through care-centered, survivor-informed practices. Focusing on the U.S. South, the study uses a qualitative, multi-method design. It analyzes ninety-three Senate committee transcripts from South Carolina, North Carolina, and …

Three Essays In The Economics Of Disagreements: Incentives, Measurement And Persistence, Mustafa W. Alam

All Dissertations

This dissertation presents three chapters that contribute to the study of economic forces shaping disagreements in society.

In Chapter 1, I demonstrate that political polarization can intensify due to innovations in the information market even if a population's ideological distribution is fixed. Viewership-maximizing news firms cater to a diverse audience who assess source accuracy using noisy private signals that vary in precision and ideological bias. If better-informed consumers disproportionately migrate to newer platforms for news (e.g., the Internet), traditional media firms increase news slant to appeal more to less-informed partisans on both sides of the ideological spectrum. This leads to …

Han Feizi On Reputation-Driven Disobedience: A Comparative Study, Antong Liu

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Must absolutist states resort to intimidation and coercion to tackle subjects' disobedience driven by their pursuit of reputation? Since canonical early modern Western thinkers broached but did not solve this question, I turn to the most renowned ancient Chinese Legalist Han Feizi's understudied account of reputation for answers. Whether as a means or an end, individuals' pursuit of reputation always challenges the authority of the absolute monarchy that endeavors to centralize state power. Forcefully confronting this pursuit is the barely but only acceptable way for the state to tackle this challenge, as non-confrontational strategies favored by many Western thinkers inevitably …

Political Violence, Electoral Behavior, And Their Interaction With Identity, Zeeshan Saeed

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Fall 2023 to Present

The research takes Pakistan as a case-study to explores how political violence shapes electoral behavior by focusing on two forms of violence: terrorist interventions by non-state actors and political repression by state institutions. Analyzing multiple elections and regional contexts, the study investigates how fear inflicting non-state violence can discourage voter participation, while state sponsored violence can drive communities by triggering anger, particularly those with strong ethnic identities leading to a higher voter turnout. Overall, this work highlights how different types of violence have varying effects on voter participation, and how these effects are conditioned.

Perceptions Of National Identity And Government Trust: The Effects Of Migrant Education Policies In Thailand, Kathryn Creglow

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Fall 2023 to Present

This study looks at how government policies that shape national identity influence people's trust in the federal government. Using Thailand as an example, it focuses on immigration policies and their effect on public trust, especially in a country with a strong sense of national identity. This research study specifically examines Thailand’s 2005 “Education for All” policy, which allowed immigrant children to attend public schools. This policy was seen by some as a challenge to national identity. The study investigates whether such policies impact how much people trust the government.

To measure this, the study compares changes in trust over for …

Framing Conflict: How Social Media Influences Voter Opinions, May Smith

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Fall 2023 to Present

Social media has changed the way we learn about global events. With just a few clicks, people can see powerful images of war and humanitarian crises from around the world. But how do these images, and the way they are presented, affect how people think about political candidates? This study looks at how different kinds of social media content influence voter opinions. Using a survey experiment designed to mimic real Instagram posts, participants were shown content related to the Israel-Palestine conflict. Some posts included only text. Others added data through charts and statistics. A third group saw emotional images of …

The Effect Of Voter Education On Behaviors In Ranked Choice Voting, Ethan G. Olsen

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Fall 2023 to Present

The appeal of ranked choice voting has led to its recent meteoric rise throughout America, leading to adoption in a number of cities and a handful of states, but some critics and political scientists worry about its higher difficulty potentially leading to more errors and undesirable behavior. Utilizing an experiment, I find that a short voter education video is all that is required to reduce rates of errors and ideologically inconsistent behavior, while finding null results for undervoting, possibly due to its low occurrence in the sample.

As ranked choice voting’s adoption is considered in each election cycle for jurisdictions …