Political Science Commons^™

The Political Imagination Of Cormac Mccarthy, Drew Kennedy Thompson

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation is a study in literature and politics and proceeds by tracing out the major political themes of McCarthy’s body of fiction and analyzing them toward their logical conclusions. The critical approach in this narrative-based anthropology looks at man first in profound isolation and then progresses through his novels in sequence, in an increasingly social context. McCarthy’s later fiction displays an increasingly affirmative view of the sacredness of human life and of the basic impulse toward community in even the most unreflective of characters; an essential characteristic of humans. To call any of McCarthy’s works a “political novel” would …

The Thomism Of Bartolomé De Las Casas And The Indians Of The New World, Thomas Francis Xavier Varacalli

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation examines Bartolomé de Las Casas as a Thomistic political philosopher. It argues that Las Casas intentionally drew upon the philosophy of Thomas Aquinas in order to provide a robust philosophical anthropology that was able to defend Amerindian rationality and self-rule. He uses Thomas and the Classical tradition to disprove the notion that the Amerindians are natural slaves, to uphold the inherent goodness of politics, to protect Amerindian kingdoms from imperial claims and the direct power of the papacy, and to condemn the unjust wars of the Spanish Conquest of the Americas. Las Casas’ Thomism is particularly important because …

The Effect Of State Capacity On Civil Conflict In India, Rimen Brar Singh

Honors Theses

This thesis seeks to study the relationship between state capacity and civil conflict in India. This thesis provides insight on concepts such as state capacity, intrastate rebellious conflict, and greed and grievance, but the main focus of this thesis is on sub-national differences. The thesis attempts to demonstrate how sub-national differences may affect state capacity and influence intrastate conflict. Two aspects of sub-national differences are investigated: topography and roads. Specifically, data for topography and roads are confined within India. India is chosen to be a case study due to its diverseness in people and geography. The methods used to record …

Fourth Amendment Search Incident To Arrest In The Home: Why Gant's New Vehicular Rules Should Supersede Chimel, Sidney Lampton

Honors Theses

The purpose of this article is to reveal and propose a solution for the current misguided search incident to arrest doctrine in homes and vehicles. As a result from modern Supreme Court cases, the rules controlling searches incident to arrest are inverted for homes and vehicles. Homes possess a higher expectation of privacy, but currently have less protection from invasive police searches than vehicles. This constitutionally incorrect doctrine is a consequence of Arizona v Gant's decision to return vehicular searches to the original intent of Chimel v California. However, interpretations of Gant failed to make the same adjustment in home …

An International Crossover: Comparing The Chinese Basketball Association With The National Basketball Association, Allison J. Slusher

Honors Theses

This thesis compares the Chinese Basketball Association with the National Basketball Association in an in-depth comparison of how these organizations approach seven key aspects of sports management including commercialization, regular and post season scheduling, training, player acquisitions, players' and coaches' salaries, and players' and coaches' unions. This thesis also compares the histories of the CBA and NBA. The histories of these organizations serve to set the background information needed to understand how the CBA and NBA administer these seven aspects of sports management. Comparing these two organizations serves to prove that the CBA is run as a government bureaucracy used …

Exogenous Barriers To The Incorporation Of The Second Generation North Africans In France, Amber Malone

Honors Theses

Immigration is a polemic subject in French society today. The 2005 riots in the banlieue and the government's response to the outraged and discontented immigrant populations brought forth a topic left out of public discourse for years before the heavily televised protests. At the forefront of this public debate surrounding identity and incorporation was one of France's largest immigrant populations, North Africans. Marginalization of a particular group often appears in the terms of social and cultural conflict. While this is true, incorporation of the culture of migrants and their representation in French society are not the only exogenous factors that …

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.

Providing A Prescription Of School Choice To Improve Mississippi's K-12 Educational System: A Dose Of Education Savings Accounts Mixed With Charter Schools And Private School Vouchers, Eric Bennett

Honors Theses

This thesis investigates the research surrounding school choice programs, such as charter schools, private school vouchers, and education savings accounts (ESAs). My research investigates academic effects, fiscal effects, impact upon low-income and minority students, parental involvement and satisfaction, and public opinion of school choice programs. The ultimate goal of this thesis is to answer my central research question of, What is the ideal school choice picture for Mississippi, with two goals in mind: 1.) To rescue children currently trapped within underperforming schools without the means to transfer to a higher quality school. 2.) To reform the K-12 educational system in …

The Somewhere We Wish Were Nowhere: Dystopian Realities And (Un)Democratic Imaginaries, Benjamin B. Taylor

Senior Independent Study Theses

How do political practices influence mass culture? Conversely, how does mass culture influence political practice? This project addresses these questions by turning to the concepts of utopia and dystopia. Imagined utopic and dystopic visions express both the hopes and anxieties of the societies producing them. Dystopias also highlight the mechanisms of power that function within particular social orders. Through readings of Lois Lowry’s The Giver and Phillip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, I demonstrate how utopia and dystopia function and how we can respond to dystopic realities by theorizing solutions that are more conducive to the …

Sex And Political Participation On Facebook, Rachel Gregory

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

Active political participation from the citizenry is essential for a healthy democracy. However, research finds a significant sex gap in political participation, limiting the influence of a substantial group from the political system and democratic representation. This division by sex is further marked by the types of political activities in which males and females engage. Candidates, elected officials, political organizations and voters alike now utilize Facebook as a means to spread political messages and engage the citizenry. Facebook is also a platform dominated by women. Due to women’s position on social media, it is hypothesized that women and men participate …

Hate Speech And Double Standards, Thomas M. Keck

Political Science - All Scholarship

Many European states ban the public expression of hateful speech directed at racial and religious minorities, and an increasing number do so for anti-gay speech as well. These laws have been subjected to a wide range of legal, philosophical, and empirical investigation, but this paper explores one potential cost that has not received much attention in the literature. Statutory bans on hate speech leave democratic societies with a Hobson’s choice. If those societies ban incitements of hatred against some vulnerable groups, they will inevitably face parallel demands for protection of other such groups. If they accede to those demands, they …

Trump As A Beaver, Students Of Risd, Risd Archives

Politics

Political protest poster. Anti-Trump poster caricature of Trump as a beaver.

Impacts Of Prisons In Rural Communities: Economic And Social Factors, Ashleigh T. Rasheed

Honors College Theses

Rural communities in the United States have been declining economically for the past four decades. Some local government officials have seen prisons as a golden opportunity to revitalize their economies. Why and how do local officials decide to invest in prisons? What process do local officials go through to decide to invest in prisons? What are the economic impacts associated with a prison siting? What effects do stigmas associated with prisons have on the residents living in the community? I argue that prisons provide a short term economic gain for rural communities by providing jobs for the residents, thus boosting …

Exporting After Trade Missions: A Qualitative Analysis Of Small And Medium Enterprises, Tongila M. Manly

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Some U.S. small and medium enterprises (SMEs) participate in trade missions but return with no results. Accordingly, some researchers question the effectiveness of these export promotion programs. The purpose of this qualitative descriptive study was to explore the experiences of SME representatives who had attended a trade mission to South Africa. The research question explored the strategies that SME leaders required to successfully export their goods and services after a trade mission using the conceptual framework of resource-based theory. Snowball sampling was used to recruit and gather interview data from 22 SMEs. Thematic analysis of interview data and document sources, …

Addressing Internalizing Problems In Middle School Youth With Check In/Check Out, Malgorzata Borawska-Popielarz

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

More than 20,000 primary- and secondary-level schools, which represent 20% of all schools in the United States, are implementing school-wide positive behavior supports (SWPBS) to enhance socially desirable behavior and promote a decline of problematic behavior among students. The overall efficacy of the 3-tier SWPBS framework is well documented. However, a paucity of empirical research addresses the use of check in/check out (CICO), a Tier 2 intervention, for youth who present as quiet and withdrawn, and who are at risk of academic and social disengagement. Accordingly, this quasi-experimental, nonequivalent groups study assessed the overall effectiveness of CICO and considered the …

Culture Wars: Explaining Congressional Partisanship And Organizational Dysfunction Through Moral Foundations Theory, Jessica H. Wilson-Hart

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

The focus of this study was the organizational working environment and existing partisanship evident in the United States Congress. There has been a reduction in the number of laws passed over the last 30 years from a high of over 1,000 to a low of around 120, with a period of complete government shutdown in 2013. This qualitative research utilized qualitative content analysis to discover the nature of partisan conflict as demonstrated by 6 members of Congress. The conceptual framework for this study was moral foundations theory. Different moral principles held by Democrats and Republicans were studied as a possible …

How The European Union’S Criteria For Membership Move Public Opinion, Douglas Page

Theses and Dissertations

Existing studies suggest that normative commitments to the European Union’s human rights standards remain weak in states applying for EU membership, and that citizens are unresponsive to information the EU provides. This research does not gauge public support for human rights when they are framed as an EU issue. In an original experimental survey of Bosnia and Herzegovina, I examine the effect of EU framing on support for the equal treatment of gay people, equal pay between women and men, and blame assigned to the government for policy outcomes regarding these rights. I find that EU frames affect blame towards …

United States Foreign Policy Toward Hiv/Aids In Africa: The Role Of Pharmaceutical Companies In The Formulation And Implementation Of The President’S Emergency Plan For Aids Relief (Pepfar) 2003-2008, Toussaint Kafarhire Murhula

Dissertations

During his 2003 State of the Union Address, President Bush announced his Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) and asked Congress, over the next five years, to authorize the appropriation of $15 billion to provide treatment, prevention and care to people infected and affected by HIV/AIDS, mostly in Sub-Saharan Africa. Given the existing pattern of neglect and indifference in U.S.-Africa relations and the Bush campaign’s statement in 2000 dismissing Africa from his foreign policy priorities, what then justifies his administration’s undertaking of this massive foreign policy change?

My dissertation offers insight into the role played by private US pharmaceutical companies …

Defect Or Defend? Explaining Military Responses During The Arab Uprisings, Timothy Hazen

Dissertations

The Arab uprisings demonstrated that a military's response to the domestic unrest had a significant impact on whether the protests were successful and triggered regime change. In Egypt and Tunisia, the militaries defected from the incumbent regimes, and as a result the ruling leaders were removed, whereas in Bahrain, the military defended the regime and used violence against protesters, which led to the continuation of the government's rule. Scholars identify numerous factors to explain Middle East and North African (MENA) military behavior during the Arab uprising but overall these arguments tend to overemphasize individual case studies and fail to provide …

Jeremiad Or Weapon Of Words?: The Power Of Emotive Language In Supreme Court Dissents, Amanda C. Bryan, Eve M. Ringsmuth

Political Science: Faculty Publications and Other Works

Unable to directly control the policy articulated by the Supreme Court, dissenting justices are faced with the challenge of finding alternative ways to pursue their policy goals. We argue that one strategy available to them is to use their power over the language of a dissenting opinion to increase the media attention paid to a case. Our results show that cases with negative dissents attract more media coverage, which creates a variety of mechanisms through which a dissenter’s policy preferences could be realized, such as inducing Congress to take action, influencing public debate on the issue, and provoking further litigation. …

Global Human Trafficking: New Insights On An Old Crime, Joanna Surma

Master's Theses

Thousands of men, women, and children become victims to human trafficking each year. Almost every country in the world is affected by this heinous crime. Human trafficking exists in many different forms including sexual exploitation, slavery, forced labor or servitude, the removal of organs, child soldiers, etc. Despite the age-old practice being traced back to the 13th century, it continues to exist and even grow today. Unfortunately, not much research is available on the topic. Combating human trafficking is a growing priority for many governments; however, certain obstacles to data collection and analysis continue to exist. Recently, a new study …

Interfering In A Non-Interference Policy: Defining Star Trek's Prime Directive, Andrew Steele

Master's Theses

The aim of this thesis is to provide a comprehensive definition of the Prime Directive, a concept that was developed in Star Trek: The Original Series, as well as provide a non-fictionalized version of the edict.

The Prime Directive is an edict that governs Starfleet not to interfere with a society’s development.

The first main section will discuss in further detail why The Original Series account of the Prime Directive was selected. Furthermore, it will discuss how members of academia interpret the Prime Directive.

The second main section will be an episode-by-episode analysis of each Prime Directive centered episode to …

Evolving Standards Of Decency: The Intersection Of Death Penalty Theory And Supreme Court Jurisprudence, Rachel S. Sullivan

Senior Independent Study Theses

The American death penalty must be abolished in order to establish a more just system of punishment. This thesis examines the arguments of eight political theorists and their connections with five essential Supreme Court cases on capital punishment in order to determine the Court's theoretical view of the American death penalty. This theoretical view is that justices who affirm the constitutionality of capital punishment use philosophical theories, while justices who critique capital punishment rely upon context-dependent analyses. If the Court ever rules that capital punishment is unconstitutional in all circumstances, these latter theories will be dispositive.

"Hello My Name Is Inigo Montoya, You Killed My Father, Prepare To Die!" Messaging Effects On Support For Violent Non-State Actors, Alexandra D. Haines

Senior Independent Study Theses

No abstract provided.

Custom Framing: An Analysis Of Camille Pissarro's "Les Turpitudes Sociales" Within A Base-Superstructure Model, Robin S. Klaus

Senior Independent Study Theses

No abstract provided.

The Puzzle Of Post-Conflict Justice: Identifying Factors That Influence State Selection Of Mechanisms, Taylor V. Knoop

Senior Independent Study Theses

The period of post-conflict is wrought with frustrations, broken trust and intense hurt as a state works to bring its society out of internal conflict. Post-conflict justice mechanisms are designed to provide tools to move a state towards stability. While scholars have evaluated the different post-conflict justice mechanisms in reaching their goals, there is limited research into understanding why a state may implement one post-conflict justice mechanism over another. Specifically, what factors impact the form of post-conflict justice mechanisms in states? This research presents six post-conflict justice mechanisms through three theoretical-derived categories, retributive justice, restorative justice and immunity measures, before …

Hauerwas And Willimon's "Resident Aliens: Life In The Christian Colony" (Book Review), Seth Allen

The Christian Librarian

A review of Hauerwas, S., & Willimon, W.H. (2014). Resident aliens: Life in the Christian colony (25th Anniversary ed.). Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press. 172 pp. $19.99. ISBN 9781426781902

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 …

“There Is Only Power”: Surveying The Structures And Operations Of Power In The Magical World Of Harry Potter, Aaron D. Marciniak

Departmental Honors Projects

As the internationally best-selling series Harry Potter by J.K. Rowling moves into its second generation of readers, it becomes increasingly important to analyze the assumptions it communicates about power differentials between people and belief systems. A central tenant of narrative paradigm holds that humans are innately narrative, internalizing narrative frameworks as a means to understand the world which then become externalized through human action. Thus, while the social hierarchies, collective actions, and institutional authorities in the fantasy world of Harry Potter in some ways map onto Anglo-American social and political structures, the significant differences between these textual and “real world” …

Proto-Postmodernism: Constructing Postmodern Ethics Through Cold War Literature And Theory, Rock Lamanna

Departmental Honors Projects

While postmodern theory and literature is typically viewed as either “anti-humanist” or a rejection of Humanism, this essay reconsiders these assumptions by exploring ethical questions in early postmodern novels and theory, referred to as “proto-postmodernism.” For proto-postmodernists such as Hannah Arendt, Albert Camus, Ralph Ellison, Joseph Heller, and Kurt Vonnegut, Humanism—the ethical framework that asserts a centered “self” and a collective “metanarrative” of human progress—causes and legitimates violence, yet in their theories and literature, they promote the humanist value of dignity in their critiques of modern ethics and politics. To examine this hybrid stance toward Humanism, the first section situates …