Political Science Commons^™

The Media And Politics, Lauren Moses

A with Honors Projects

A Powerpoint presentation summarizing key topics in chapter 9 of the textbook American Government and Politics Today: The Essentials

Implicit Bias In Judicial Performance Evaluations: We Must Do Better Than This, Rebecca D. Gill

Political Science Faculty Research

Judicial performance evaluations (JPEs) are a critical part of selecting judges, especially in states using merit-based selection systems. This article shows empirical evidence that gender and race bias still exist in attorney surveys conducted in accordance with the ABA’s Guidelines. This systematic bias is related to a more general problem with the design and implementation of JPE surveys, which results in predictable problems with the reliability and validity of the information obtained through these survey instruments. This analysis raises questions about the validity and reliability of the JPE. This is a particularly poor outcome, as it means that we are …

Marriage And Citizenship In The United States, Shanella Gardner

Psi Sigma Siren

Most countries associate being a citizen with having certain legal rights and being born in that country, although this has not always been the case, especially in the United States. When writing the U. S. Constitution, the founding fathers were thinking of white, male landowners to be given the legal rights as citizens. This would leave the remaining population of women, African Americans and other people of color to fight to be recognized as citizens. The Naturalization Act of 1790 was the first legislative act that defined who could be citizens in the United States. It allowed citizenship for immigrants …

The Impact Of Academic Exchange Between China And The U.S., 1979-2010, Kaitlin Peck

Psi Sigma Siren

The relationship between China and the United States has been complex and often tense. In the second half of the twentieth century, both countries experienced ups and downs in their diplomatic, cultural, and political relationship. An important part of this relationship included the strains of the student exchange program. Because of the tension between the U.S. and China, these educational exchanges ended in 1950 and did not resume until the United States officially recognized the Peoples Republic of China in 1979. After this point, education exchange between China and United States grew and expanded. To understand this growth, many aspects …

Does Having A Major And Lucrative Sports Arena Improve A Neighborhood’S Economy & Quality Of Life?, Natalie Hernandez

Master in Public Administration Theses

No abstract provided.

Law Enforcement And Training, Erika Tremblay

Master in Public Administration Theses

No abstract provided.

Racial Discrimination And The Death Penalty: An Analysis Of The United States' Judicial System, Jessica Recarey, Nerses Kopalyan

McNair Poster Presentations

Racial discrimination plays a role in the administration of the death penalty. This research analyzes the history, and past scholarly research, of the death penalty. The purpose of this research is to understand the correlation between racial discrimination and those sentenced to death. This study includes a literature review regarding the different aspects of the death penalty and race. Following the literature review, an analysis is performed of both previous literature and current death penalty statistics that augments the discussion of the death penalty.

The Spratly Islands Dispute: International Law, Conflicting Claims, And Alternative Frameworks For Dispute Resolution, Robin Gonzales

Calvert Undergraduate Research Awards

The Spratly islands dispute is a regional maritime territorial sovereignty dispute which involves six countries in the South China Sea – China, Taiwan, Vietnam, Philippines, Malaysia and Brunei. Underscored by the prospects of large natural energy reserves, control of strategic global maritime areas, and shifting global power dynamics, the dispute has significant international geo-strategic, economic, political and legal implications. This Honors Thesis evaluates the international legal standards for resolving maritime sovereignty disputes, provides a historiography of the six countries’ competing claims, and analyzes the legal soundness of their claims. This thesis also proposes and examines potential political and diplomatic frameworks …

Indefinite Detention As A Democratic Counterterrorism Policy, Jared L. Mcpherson

Browse all Theses and Dissertations

Indefinite detention is better defined as “detention without trial,” where the government has no plans for a prisoner’s arraignment, release, or deportation. While this policy has been used by democratic countries in the past and present, it appears to violate a core democratic concept—that of due process of law. This study examines US, British, and French counterterrorism efforts against al-Qaeda, the Provisional Irish Republican Army, and the Armed Islamic Group, to determine which factors are most likely to lead to the employment of indefinite detention. Based on case study analysis, it appears that (1) extraterritoriality and sovereignty, (2) the nature …

Why Restrictions On The Immigration Of Health Workers Are Unjust, Javier S. Hidalgo

Jepson School of Leadership Studies articles, book chapters and other publications

Some bioethicists and political philosophers argue that rich states should restrict the immigration of health workers from poor countries in order to prevent harm to people in these countries. In this essay, I argue that restrictions on the immigration of health workers are unjust, even if this immigration results in bad health outcomes for people in poor countries. I contend that negative duties to refrain from interfering with the occupational liberties of health workers outweighs rich states’ positive duties to prevent harm to people in sending countries. Furthermore, I defend this claim against the objection that health workers in poor …

Leadership Distrust, Need For Power, And The Initiation Of Militarized Interstate Disputes, Gary Smith

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Does a leader's psychology affect his/her likelihood of initiating a militarized interstate dispute? The study of leadership psychology has continuously found support for the central assumption that leaders matter in explaining a state's foreign policy behavior. However, many of these research projects have relied on small-sample case studies and experimental methods that have limited generalizability. In this paper, I use two variables drawn from the research program on leadership trait analysis (distrust and need for power) in a multivariate large-n study to explain the initiation of militarized interstate disputes (MIDs). 1,601 cases are drawn from the Correlates of War MID …

The Effects Of State Leader Psychology On Civil War Lethality, Brandon Kelley

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Does a state leader's psychology influence lethality in civil wars? This thesis analyzes the aforementioned question during post-1945 civil wars. This particular subject, paying close attention to individual psychology at the state level, is gaining traction amongst scholars, though limited scholarly attention has addressed whether leader psychology is an indicator of conflict severity in terms of lethality. The psychology of the state leader in this thesis is assessed from leadership traits and operational code indices, specifically direction of strategy (I1) and interpretation of the nature of the political universe (P1). The data and cases used are pulled from datasets by …

The Modern Gender Gap In Partisanship And Ideology: A Cross-National Analysis, Tiffany Quick

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis updates and expands upon the developmental theory of the gender gap in party and ideological identification originally posited by Norris and Inglehart (2000) to explain why women in advanced industrial nations are more likely to hold more leftist ideological identification than men. A comparative cross-national analysis using data from the World Values Survey (2004-2008) extends Norris and Inglehart's study, with an examination of the gender gap in advanced industrial, post-communist and developing nations. To further explore the nature of the gender gap in the United States, data from the American National Election Study (Cumulative File and 2012 cross-section) …

Deadly Premonition: Does Terrorist-Leader Psychology Influence Violence Lethality?, Clayton Besaw

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis seeks to address a theoretical and empirical gap within terrorism studies, and more specially the study of terrorist-group lethality. This research updates a model of terrorist-group lethality by including terrorist-leader psychology as an individual-level variable in predicting terrorist-group lethality. Terrorist-leader statements were analyzed by using two novel coding schemes called Operational Code and Leadership Trait Analysis to create quantified measurements of leader cognitive beliefs and personality traits. The empirical portion of this study utilizes pooled cross-sectional time-series data within the framework of fixed effects and multi-level estimation models. The results find that terrorist-leader psychology, and more specifically Instrumental …

Economic Inequality And Democratic Representative Institutions Across Western Industrialized Democracies, Donald Plungis

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study examines the effects of political representation on economic inequality across western industrialized democracies. I explore an explanation of increases in economic inequality as a consequence of less representative democratic institutions. Explaining economic inequality in this manner is a shift from to the Transatlantic Consensus that attributes increased economic inequality to globalization. I expect to find that more representative electoral and governments institutions will be associated with lower levels of economic inequality. The analysis takes place across twenty-three countries of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) over the past forty years using a cross-sectional longitudinal model. Variables …

The Emergence Of Civil Disobedience Movements In Hong Kong, Kwun Hong Chan

Lingnan Theses

Civil disobedience, as a specific means of protest, has drawn intellectual attention worldwide, but few scholars in Hong Kong have studied this means of protest in depth. Focusing on the reasons why civil disobedience movements have emerged in Hong Kong, this research has used a case study methodology. Semi-structured interviews have been conducted with people that participated in many of Hong Kong’s previous civil disobedience movements, from the Yau Ma Tei Boat People Incident of the 1970s, to the Anti-Public Order Ordinance demonstrations and Citizens’ Radio Incident of the early 2000s. In addition to describing how the emergence of specific …

The Politics Of Crisis Management In Post-1997 Hong Kong : A State-Society Interactive Framework, Hin Yeung Chan

Lingnan Theses

Most studies and research on crisis management and government crises put their focus on advanced, democratic nations, where governments have to bear the responsibility of handling of a crisis through elections. However, relatively little attention has been given on the consequences of crises, particularly governance crises, in regimes without full democracy. By using post-1997 Hong Kong, a liberal society with limited democracy, as an example, this thesis aims to examine the applicability of crisis management theories and models currently available, and to introduce an entirely new State-society Interactive Framework 1 to tackle their limitations.

The Five Tasks Leadership Approach suggested …

The Belligerent Basques And The Composed Catalans: An Analysis Of Violence In Basque Country And Catalonia, Deborah Sutton

Sigma: Journal of Political and International Studies

No abstract provided.

The Jewish Factor: A Study Of Jewish Judicial Behavior In Religious Freedom Cases, Alan Hickey

Sigma: Journal of Political and International Studies

No abstract provided.

Do Campaign Finance Laws Influence Legislator Voting? Super Pacs And Voting Behavior In The 111th Congress, Luke Macdonald

Sigma: Journal of Political and International Studies

No abstract provided.

Theorizing More Inclusive Cities: A Relational Model Of Boundary Transformation And Urban Research Agenda, Leigh Graham

Publications and Research

To generate more inclusive environments for marginalized urban communities of color demands a strategy that privileges symbolic boundary change and uses it as the inroad towards spatial changes. This paper theorizes a three step relational process of a) communicative democratic activism, b) "multicultural" capital brokers providing access to the policy making process, and c) practices of community building that reflect the role of cities as key sites for sociospatial boundary transformation. An emphasis on discursive and ideational change, relying on communicative democratic processes steeped in historical, comparative analysis opens up our minds towards different classification schemes for stigmatized groups. Participating …

Liberal Democracy And The Right To Religious Freedom, Aldir Guedes Soriano

BYU Law Review

Foremost, this paper examines the current situation of the rights to religious freedom and democracy around the world, which deserve attention and concern. Civil liberties are currently in crossfire. This article examines the foundations of the right to religious freedom. Depending on the philosophical foundations, there are two different rationales for the right to religious freedom: liberal and anti-liberal. According to the liberal tradition, the best reason to protect religious freedom rests upon the autonomy of the individual conscience. It is clear that a constitutional democracy does not allow the establishment of any religion by the government, using either executive …

Seeing The Sausage Made: How Compromise Works In Large Groups And Representative Bodies, James E. Crawford Jr.

Theses and Dissertations

Inspired by the lack of Congressional compromise during the 2013 federal shutdown, I explore how compromise works in large groups and representative bodies. An on-line survey, personal interviews, and a discourse analysis of the Congressional Record yield a diverse collection of data, including personal and public stories of compromise. I examine the stories and other data through an eclectic mix of contemporary scholarship, borrowing literary theory from the Russian critic Mikhail Bakhtin, socio-linguistic concepts from American linguist James Paul Gee, and moral philosophy from Israeli thinker Avishai Margalit. I also incorporate the work of political scientists Amy Gutmann and Dennis …

Truman, Kennedy, And Reagan: Assessing The Impact Of Assassination Attempts On The Organizational Culture Of The U.S. Secret Service, Briana D. Bowen

Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects

The U.S. Secret Service (USSS), one of the most elite security agencies in the world, is charged with protecting the President of the United States at any cost. Three American presidents fell to assassins' bullets before the USSS was assigned the role of presidential protection; one more would later be slain despite USSS protection. This study examines the organizational culture of the USSS, employing the methodology of cultural topography (CTOPS) to identify the agency's norms, values, identity, and perceptual lens. We review three of the most impactful twentieth-century assassination attempts-two failed, one successful-and their formative effect on USSS organizational culture. …

Implementation Of Renewable Portfolio Standards In The United States, Luke J. L. Eastin

Masters Theses

No abstract provided.

Breaking Into The House: An Analysis Of Freshman Members Of The U.S. House Of Representatives, Aaron R. Hacker

Masters Theses

No abstract provided.

Anglo-American Relations Between The 1953 Coup And The 1956 Suez Crisis, Aaron F. Psujek

Masters Theses

The Cold War and global politics brought upheaval to the Middle East in the 1950s. The conflict between the United States and Soviet Union shaped the history of the region at the same time it brought war to Korea. Britain's relationship with the U.S., especially in the Middle Eastern theater, was shaped by the Cold War. British intelligence, political, and press members and agents used the tensions to bring the United States in to help them in the various crises that swept the Middle East in the 1950s. This strategy served to bring the two countries closer together in the …

Sexual And Political Affairs: Representation Of Women In American News Media, Melissa Beal

Masters Theses

Explores representations in American news media of women who have been involved sexually with male politicians and women who are politicians through a critical rhetorical lens. Through the use of poststructural feminism, the term "mistress" is problematized. Attention is given to the news media's focus on women's bodies as sites of dangerous sexual temptations as well as the media's constant attention to women's physical features, which reduces women to objects. It is shown that similar coverage regarding bodies is not given to men. Also discusses the news media's frequent interrogation of women's minds. Explores aspects of confession and apology through …

The Pre-Emptive Election: How The Mass Media Determine Winners And Losers In Presidential Primaries, 1988-2012, Joshua Stewart

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The function of the mass media in the democratic process is crucial to an informed public and vital to a democratic system. One primary role of the media is that of gatekeeper between political candidates and the public. The influence the media has on the electorate is heightened during the primary process of presidential elections and even more so in the pre-primary season when a large majority of potential voters have yet to form opinions of candidates. The effects of the media in the pre-primary season of politics play out in significant relationships where media coverage results in measurable increases …

Agricultural Patenting: A Case Study Of Monsanto, Shannon Moran

Pepperdine Policy Review

In 2012, genetically-modified crops reached 170 million hectares around the globe. The ability to patent basic forms of life such as plant properties and the legal history of those intellectual property rights gives biotechnological companies such as Monsanto immense power in the vital agricultural sector. This article outlines the concerns over genetically-modified products and the implications for follow-on advancements within biotechnology by using Monsanto as a case study. The article finds that patent policies similar to those within the United States severely restrict competition and stifle innovation in not only the agricultural sector but also within research and humanitarian projects. …