Political Science Commons^™

The Iranian Nuclear Issue, The End Of The American Century, And The Future Of International Order, Flynt L. Leverett

Penn State Journal of Law & International Affairs (2012 - Present)

How the U.S.-Iranian competition for influence in the Middle East plays out will have profound consequences not just for the Middle East, but also for the legal frameworks, rules-based regimes, and mechanisms of global governance that shape international order in the 21^st century. This is particularly true with regard to U.S.-Iranian disagreements over the Islamic Republic’s nuclear activities. Strategic competition between America and Iran and its implications for international order play out against a backdrop of the progressive diminution of U.S. leadership in world affairs. Relative decline challenges the United States to share the prerogatives of global governance, especially …

Foreword, Amy C. Gaudion

Penn State Journal of Law & International Affairs (2012 - Present)

No abstract provided.

The Primacy Of Context: An Exploration Into The Causes Of Food Insecurity In Kitere, Kenya., William O. Aludo

Capstone Collection

The purpose of this study was to explore the specific reasons why households in Kitere village, Kenya experience persistent food insecurity every year while the region enjoys the advantage of two planting/harvest seasons in a year. Kitere village lies within the lakeside region of Nyanza Province in Kenya, generally considered to be one of the more agriculturally productive parts of the country. The Participatory Rural Appraisal method was employed to gather qualitative data on the causes of food insecurity in Kitere village. The data sources were focus groups and a self-administered, one-time survey of random and non-random samples of key …

Mamluk Jerusalem: Architecturally Challenging Narratives, Andrew C. Smith

LUX: A Journal of Transdisciplinary Writing and Research from Claremont Graduate University

Narratives abound concerning the religious and political positioning of Jerusalem in the past as well as the present and have been used in a variety of ways to serve various ideologies or political ends. One such narrative (which can be found even in some academic treatises of the history of Jerusalem) states that following the Muslim re-conquest of the city after the Crusades Muslim rulers neglected the city entirely, leading to its decline into obscurity and ruin. This narrative asserts that the city remained as such until Zionism, Jewish immigration, and, most especially, the establishment of the state of Israel …

Gathering "Wild" Food In The City: Rethinking The Role Of Foraging In Urban Ecosystem Planning And Management, Rebecca J. Mclain, Patrick T. Hurley, Marla R. Emery, Melissa R. Poe

Environment and Sustainability Faculty Publications

Recent “green” planning initiatives envision food production, including urban agriculture and livestock production, as desirable elements of sustainable cities. We use an integrated urban political ecology and human–plant geographies framework to explore how foraging for “wild” foods in cities, a subversive practice that challenges prevailing views about the roles of humans in urban green spaces, has potential to also support sustainability goals. Drawing on research from Baltimore, New York City, Philadelphia, and Seattle, we show that foraging is a vibrant and ongoing practice among diverse urban residents in the USA. At the same time, as reflected in regulations, planning practices, …

Clay, Henry, 1777-1852 (Sc 1222), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Manuscript Collection Finding Aids

Finding aid, scan and typescript (Click on "Additional Files" below) for Manuscripts Small Collection 1222. Letter, 5 September 1840, written by Henry Clay, Ashland, Kentucky, to Henry Henion, Rushville, New York. Clay responds to a letter received from the Rushville Tippecanoe Club asking his opinion of the prospects of Martin Van Buren and William Henry Harrison in the upcoming presidential election.

Fated To Pretend?: Culture Crisis And The Fate Of The Individual, Rebecca Jade Ok

Dissertations and Theses

The question of this thesis is whether the individual can resolve the problem of culture crisis in her own case. Culture crisis is a historical moment in which our culture leads us to expect a world drastically different from the one in which we find ourselves. This thesis will focus on the experience of Generation Y in the fall-out of the 2008 Recession. It will be argued that we need a Wittgensteinian view of language in order to account for the phenomenon of culture crisis. It will be suggested that our individual has to be a Nietzschean individual in order …

Pathologies In International Policy Transfer: The Case Of The Oecd Tax Transparency Initiative, Richard Eccleston, Richard Woodward

Articles

The importance of international organizations to the development and diffusion of international policy norms is widely recognized but is increasingly tempered by an appreciation of the pathologies of policy transfer. Using a case study of the OECD’s campaign to promote transparency in global tax affairs, this paper identifies a new and relatively distinctive form of dysfunctional policy transfer. Specifically it argues that international organizations face bureaucratic incentives to promote weak or lowest common denominator standards in order to maximize their prospects of brokering successful international agreements. However the paper also notes that while international organizations may have a short-term interest …

Down In The Dumps, Erika Simpson

Political Science Publications

No abstract provided.

To Empathize With An Enemy, Rashida Aluko-Roberts

SURGE

I do not like to talk about my time in Sierra Leone, but I think I’m ready to start.

Growing up in Sierra Leone was probably the best thing that ever happened to me. I carry with me fond memories of my childhood, growing up on 22 Thompson Street in the one-storey house with red doors and windows and zebra themed paint. Evenings were spent riding bikes with my best friend Fatmata. Weekend afternoons spent playing scrabble and watching our favorite Disney movies with my siblings and neighbors in our living room. Those memories I have kept, happily. [excerpt …

Trapping The Tigers: Regulation Of Market Entry And The Rule Of Law In Se Asia, Michael Touchton

Political Science Faculty Publications and Presentations

Recent research identifies high barriers to registering a business as critical impediments to economic development around the world. Similarly, the lack of credible commitment to the rule of law – especially in the areas of property rights and contract enforcement – is also connected to economic underdevelopment. Scholarship treats these factors as rival explanations for underdevelopment. However, I argue the rule of law is the causal mechanism through which barriers to entry in the marketplace influence economic outcomes. Specifically, I present evidence perceptions of the rule of law in Southeast Asia decline as the legal restrictions on registering a business …

Raise The Minimum Wage, Evan Barrett

Highlands College

A Montana Public Radio Commentary by Evan Barrett.

Published newspaper columns written by Evan Barrett on this topic, which vary somewhat in content from this commentary, appeared in the following publications:

Montana Standard, November 25, 2013

Missoulian, November, 28, 2013

Every Picture Tells A Story: The 2010 Round Of Congressional Redistricting In New England, Robert G. Boatright, James R. Gomes, Diana Evans, John Baughman, Nicholas M. Giner, Dante J. Scala, Amelia Najjar, Nicholas Rossi

Mosakowski Institute for Public Enterprise

The United States Constitution requires that

the number of representatives in Congress be

reapportioned among the states based on a decennial

census, and the U.S. Supreme Court ruled half a

century ago that congressional districts within each

state must be, as nearly as practicable, equal in

population. However, the actual drawing of district

lines for our national lower house and the methods

employed for doing so are largely left to the individual

states. Redistricting thus presents a fertile field for

the comparative examination of state politics and

political institutions.

Optimism Versus Pessmism: An Exploratory Analysis Of China In Zambian Media, Bob Wekesa

Zambia Social Science Journal

The huge interest in Zambia-­‐China relations globally, both in academia and popular press, inspires several inquisitions. How have these relations changed and panned out in the present, from a Zambian media perspective? Would a Zambian media approach help provide insights into the ebb and flow of perceptions about China inside Zambia? What can we gather from the Zambian media on the September 2011 regime change in Zambia vis-­‐à-­‐vis China’s engagement? In other words, how did Zambian media craft perceptions on and of China in the era of late president Michael Chilufya Sata’s leadership? To answer these questions, this exploratory study …

Examining The Distinct Effects Of Emotive Triggers On Public Reactions To International Terrorism, Cigdem Sirin, Nehemia Geva

Selected Works Temporary Series

In recent years, a growing body of research has set out to examine the role that emotions play in shaping political attitudes and behaviors regarding terrorism. However, one major issue that is generally overlooked is whether the thematic relevance of emotive triggers leads to differential effects on people's reactions to international terrorism. Specifically, does anger—regardless of its source—tend to drive people towards supporting an aggressive foreign policy option to counter terrorism, or do the thematic underpinnings of anger (i.e., the specific contents that trigger this particular emotion, such as watching a news story about a recent terrorist attack) matter vis-à-vis …

Bold Leader Or Bully? Interpreting Chinese Regional Maritime Behavior, Harrison I. Fried

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Since 2009, tensions have increased markedly between China and its maritime neighbors over disputed territories in the East and South China Seas. China’s neighbors accuse it of acting like a bully, alleging that China engages in behavior that is aggressive, inappropriate, and oppressive. But can such accusations be substantiated through objective analysis, or is bullying truly in the eye of the beholder? Further, is China simply acting boldly, albeit in a manner that is justifiable, as it emerges as a leader in the region? The purpose of this thesis was to determine whether labeling China’s behavior as “bullying” (as China’s …

Fluttering Beauty, Jonathan Jeffrey

SCL Faculty and Staff Publications

This article chronicles the efforts of Lillian Iona (Tyne) Pace (1925-2010) in getting the Viceroy butterfly designated as the Kentucky state butterfly.

Alliances And Preferences: Party System Institutionalization's Potentially Intervening Role On Pre-Election Cooperation In Australia, Fiji, And Papua New Guinea, Lee T. Barrow

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This research project examines the intervening role of party system institutionalization in determining the effect of electoral rules on the behavior of political parties. Highly institutionalized systems differ across multiple dimensions--supply stability, volatility of results, and rootedness of parties--from fluid systems. Party behavior can be depicted rationally as a response to both institutional incentives and the historical and sociological context of a nation's party system. Electoral incentives promoting certain types of party behavior can be negated by party system mechanics that deter those behaviors. The research uses a medium-N structured, focused comparison of elections from Australia, Fiji, and Papua New …

Leaving A Legacy, Walter Lotze

Human Rights & Human Welfare

The ongoing conflict in Somalia, and the complexities that come with finding lasting solutions to a conflict that has raged for decades now, continue to perplex the international community. While a range of previously tried and tested approaches to conflict management are being applied, it is becoming apparent that the international toolkit for responding to conflict situations of such complexity is extremely limited. Indeed, as one international conference after another on Somalia takes place, compacts are signed and funding windows established, old frameworks are abandoned and new ones are forged, and roadmap after roadmap pave the way for further engagement, …

Somali Battlegrounds: On Interest And Accountability, Ines Mzali

Human Rights & Human Welfare

In the wake of the latest and deadliest of Al-Shabab's attacks in Kenya since Kenyan troops entered Somalia in October 2011, Ben Rawlence reiterates the question raised anew by each attack: "What is Kenya doing in Somalia and is it worth the price?" The question leads him to explore the contradiction between the official objectives of the mission and Kenya's particular motivations to launch an offensive of its own. This problematic discrepancy also draws attention to the question of accountability when violations of international humanitarian law have occurred in the context of a military operation by a neighboring country and …

Human Development Dynamics: An Agent Based Simulation Of Macro Social Systems And Individual Heterogeneous Evolutionary Games, Mark Abdollahian, Zining Yang, Travis Coan, Birol Yesilada

Political Science Faculty Publications and Presentations

Purpose: In the context of modernization and development, a complex adaptive systems framework can help address the coupling of macro social constraint and opportunity with individual agency. Combining system dynamics and agent based modeling, we formalize a simulation approach of the Human Development (HD) perspective to explore the interactive effects of economics, culture, society and politics across multiple human scales.

Methods: Based on a system of asymmetric, coupled nonlinear equations, we first capture the core qualitative logic of HD theory, empirically validated from World Values Survey (WVS) data. Using a simple evolutionary game approach, second we fuse endogenously derived individual …

C. S. Lewis: The Art And Power Of Mythopoeia, Megan Joy Rials

Honors Capstones

No abstract provided.

Women’S Political Leadership In Boston, Center For Women In Politics And Public Policy, University Of Massachusetts Boston

Publications from the Center for Women in Politics and Public Policy

The center tracks the status of women at all levels of government in the New England states. It also provides dynamic web resources to inform and support public leadership of women of color.

This fact sheet presents information and statistics following the 2013 municipal elections in the City of Boston.

Slavery In Europe: Part 1, Estimating The Dark Figure, Monti Narayan Datta, Kevin Bales

Political Science Faculty Publications

The estimation of the “dark figure” for any crime (the number of actual instances of a specific crime committed minus the reported cases of that crime within a population) has primarily rested on the ability to conduct random sample crime surveys. Such surveys are based on the assumption that victims experience crimes that are discrete, time-bound, and of relatively short duration. The crime of enslavement, however, presents a special challenge to estimation because it is of indeterminate duration. This challenge is compounded by the fact that victims of slavery are also often isolated by the stigma linked to sexual assault, …

An Analysis Of The Relationship Between Capitalism And Imperialism Through Adam’S The Wealth Of Nations, Carmella O'Hanlon

Political Science Student Scholarship

Discusses capitalism and imperialism within the context of Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations.

Moocs And Modern Democracies, Richard L. Pate

WCBT Faculty Publications

A discussion of the imposition of the interests of the few on the collective through a subtle but effective manner: the eventual, complete development of Massive Open Online Courses. It is this article’s premise that this development together with current marketing efficacy and the present economic goals of modern democracies, is probable to result in a shrinkage of the market place of ideas and, paradoxically, likely to result in a diminution of democracy in the world.

'Dred Scott V. Sandford' Analysis, Sarah E. Roessler

Student Publications

The Scott v. Sandford decision will forever be known as a dark moment in America's history. The Supreme Court chose to rule on a controversial issue, and they made the wrong decision. Scott v. Sandford is an example of what can happen when the Court chooses to side with personal opinion instead of what is right.

Political Hate Machines: Outside Groups And The 2012 Presidential Campaign Advertising Market, Martin Nader

Department of Political Science: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This dissertation explores the rise of outside groups and their influence in the 2012 presidential campaign advertising market. Unlike official candidates, outside groups are not vulnerable to the potential electoral risks of public backlash for being too negative; therefore, outside groups do not possess the same incentives as official candidates to regulate their use of attack ads. Compared to campaign ads produced by official presidential candidates, ads produced by outside groups are (1) overwhelmingly negative attack ads, (2) utilize a backwards-looking retrospective orientation, and (3) draw heavily on negative emotions like anger, fear and disgust.

Considering the role of outside …

Electoral Competition In Connecticut's State House Races: The Trial Run Of The Citizens' Election Program, Lesley A. Denardis

Political Science & Global Affairs Faculty Publications

The Citizens Election Fund, Connecticut's version of a clean elections law, was established in 2005 in the wake of the corruption scandal during the administration of Governor John Rowland. Modeled after the public financing systems of Maine and Arizona, Connecticut's law has been touted as the most comprehensive in the nation. This paper will address whether the introduction of the Citizens' Election Program has increased the level of electoral competition by specifically focusing on state house seats in Connecticut during the 2008 and 2010 election cycles. Contestation for seats in the Connecticut General Assembly is a particularly salient issue due …

The Uneven Representation Of Women In Asian Parliaments: Explaining Variation Across The Region, Devin K. Joshi, Kara Kingma

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Although home to the majority of the world's women, Asia is the continent with the smallest proportion of women in Parliament. Rarely studied from a comparative perspective, this article examines the uneven representation of women in the lower houses of contemporary Asian parliaments. While socio-economic modernization and industrialization are generally expected to increase the proportion of women in positions of political influence, we find that differences in electoral and party systems across Asia play a greater role than levels of female literacy, urbanization, or per capita income. In particular, Asian parliaments with strict quotas and a higher number of (three …