Political Science Commons^™

Partisan Selective Exposure On Social Media During The 2020 Presidential Election, Grayce Lemon

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

This study examines selective exposure and selective avoidance on social media during the 2020 presidential election. 147 voters participated in the survey conducted using Qualtrics. The purpose of this study was to understand whether selective exposure and avoidance behaviors differed based on voting outcome (Trump or Biden), and to test whether political ideological polarization was reflected in news consumption through social media. Taken together, the results indicate that although both voting bases engaged in selective exposure and avoidance, the propensity was the same between Trump and Biden voters. Additionally, results confirm existing hypotheses that the strength of political ideology positively …

Social Welfare Policy In Post-Transition Chile: Social Democratic Or Neoliberal?, Paul W. Posner

Political Science

Chile’s massive 2019 protests indicate a pronounced discrepancy between the country’s alleged establishment of social democracy and the public’s perception of pervasive inequity. To understand this discrepancy, this analysis evaluates the extent to which Chilean social welfare policy conforms to social democratic norms of promoting solidarity, equity, and universalism. Analysis of poverty reduction, pension, health care, and education policy demonstrates that Chile’s center-left governments succeeded in mitigating some of the more extreme elements of the social welfare policies inherited from the Pinochet regime. However, they failed to reverse their underlying logic, which reinforces stratification and inequity and undermines incentives for …

Transnational Dominican Activism: Documenting Grassroots Social Movements Through Esendom, Nelson Santana, Amaury Rodriguez, Emmanuel Espinal

Publications and Research

Dominican-descended people are one of the most dynamic Caribbean and Latin American ethnic and cultural communities in the United States. Whether in the Dominican Republic or as members of a transnational community, the Dominican population has a long and rich history of challenging the powers that be, confronting unjust acts, and opposing oppressive laws within the communities they inhabit through their civic engagement. This paper addresses one question: As Dominican society and the world have evolved, what has been the role of U.S.-based online media in sustaining, disseminating, and rescuing the long tradition of civic involvement and struggle exemplified by …

Walkability As A Tool To Facilitate Civic Engagement, Jessi Kwek

Senior Honors Theses and Projects

The United States is unique in the extent of its car dependence - our reliance on individualized modes of transportation leaves little room for other, more accessible, forms of transportation in most places. This unimodal transportation design leaves those without cars unable to participate in public life in the same way, but further, it restricts our participation in civic life as a whole. Civic engagement rates have fallen with the rise of the automobile, and left us disconnected from and ignorant to the people and activities that would make up our communities. The exception tends to be areas where multiple …

Measuring Ethnodoxy In Egypt And Morocco, Hannah M. Ridge

Political Science Faculty Articles and Research

Ethnodoxy is the conceptual linkage of an ethnic group with a particular religion. It has been previously documented in Slavic Orthodox communities. This study uses Arabic-language surveys in Egypt and Morocco to measure this ethno-religious linkage among Arab Muslims. It develops a parsimonious survey scale for measuring ethnodoxy. It also demonstrates that ethnodox and non-ethnodox Egyptians and Moroccans have different political preferences, both for regime type and for the role of religion in politics.

Court Review: Journal Of The American Judges Association, Vol. 59, No. 4, Eve M. Brank, David Dreyer, David Prince

Court Review: Journal of the American Judges Association

Articles

The Role of the Judge in Establishing a VTC, Mishkat Al Moumin, Judge Gayle Williams-Byers, and Amber Menchio

Prospective Jurors’ Attitudes Toward Voir Dire, Wendy P. Heath and Bruce D. Grannemann

Constitutional Losses and (Some) Statutory Wins for Criminal Defendants: Select Criminal Law and Procedure Cases from the Supreme Court’s 2022-23 Term, Eve Brensike Primus and Mark Rucci

Departments

Editor’s Note, David Prince

President’s Column: The American Judges Association--Making Better Judges Since 1959, and Continuing to Lead the Way! Catherine Carlson

Thoughts from Canada: Publication Bans--The Supreme Court of Canada Considers Their Impact Upon the Conflict between the Open …

The Possible Futures Of American Democracy, Jedediah Purdy

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Flexible Institution Building In The International Anti-Corruption Regime: Proposing A Transnational Asset Recovery Mechanism, Laurence R. Helfer, Cecily Rose, Rachel Brewster

Faculty Scholarship

Asset recovery is a fundamental principle of anti-corruption law, without which the financial damage from corruption cannot be repaired. Yet recovering assets is notoriously difficult and time-consuming, and the United Nations Convention Against Corruption provides little technical or institutional support to facilitate such returns. To remedy this, we propose the creation of a transnational asset recovery mechanism that could provide myriad services to states upon request, including gathering and publishing information, providing technical assistance and capacity building, helping to conclude agreements on asset return, and monitoring returned funds. Theoretically, we introduce the concepts of customizability and selectability to explain why …

Changing Public Opinion On Socialism, Claudette A. Medina

Honors Undergraduate Theses

This introduction leads to the literature review, beginning with an explanation and description of socialism and political ideologies. I also touch upon historical events that shaped the perspectives of the respective generations, such as the Civil Rights movement and 9/11. After the literature review is a theory section emphasizing the life-cycle effect and period effects relevant to the research conducted later. Then comes the hypothesis and methodology section. My research hypothesis is that period effects will make Gen Z more receptive to Socialism than the Baby Boomer/Traditionalist Generation. This is soon proven correct with supporting data from opinion surveys about …

From Constructive Ambiguities To Structural Contradictions: The Twilight Of The Good Friday Agreement, Chris O'Ralaigh

Articles

The Good Friday Agreement contained a series of constructive ambiguities which were critical to ensuring that it received broad cross-political support. These ambiguities were reflective of the balance of political power of the time. Once institutionalized, they contained an immanent potential to morph in to structural contradictions as the re-balancing of demographic and political power in Ireland moved from latent to manifest status. As the Agreement reaches its 25th anniversary, three outstanding structural contradictions are manifesting, prompted by Brexit and the re-introduction of the ‘Irish question’ in to Irish-British relations. The constitutional status of the North of Ireland, the raison …

Women’S Human Development Outcomes In India: A Closer Look At Fdi Inflows, Economic Structure, And Female Labor Force Participation, Nisha Bellinger

Political Science Faculty Publications and Presentations

Global human development trends display a consistent improvement over time. However, these indicators may not improve at the same pace or even trend in the same direction. India is one such country that displays intriguing trends. While women’s education and health outcomes have improved over the years, women’s political representation and labor force participation rates are lagging behind. This chapter focuses on female labor force participation (FLFP) in India, which has declined in recent years. I discuss the nature of India’s globalizing economy, specifically foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows, in conjunction with the changing structure of the domestic economy, to …

Term Limits: An Argument For The Senate, Deanna Ferry

West Chester University Doctoral Projects

In this research study an argument is made to impose term limits on Senators serving in the United States Congress. It looks to explore historical data to prove effectiveness of self-imposed limits, real time data of sitting Senators to offer a modern perspective, and examples from other imposed term limits for sitting elected officials to demonstrate their benefit to constituents. The data utilized in this study is applied through organizational theory and quantified based on results and responses from both primary and secondary sources. Historical sources are applied as well through the literature review focusing on three primary themes emerging …

Descriptive Analysis Of Open Government Practices Of Four Mid-Sized Cities In New York State, Brian Bray

West Chester University Doctoral Projects

The conceptualization and implementation of open government practices have evolved over the years, encompassing numerous actions that increase transparency, participation, and collaboration. While states mandate some open government practices for municipal governments, they also often implement optional forms independently. This paper examines how four mid-sized cities implement two such optional forms: government boards and open government data.

This study was conducted in three stages. In the first stage, the author used the Democracy Cube framework, a theoretical model developed by Fung (2006), that categorizes various approaches to public participation in government decision-making along three dimensions. This model served as the …

Indigenous Groups And Ethnic Minorities, Jacques Bertrand, Cheng Xu

Government: Faculty Books

Identity-based claim-making is prevalent across Southeast Asia but its character and mobilisation vary markedly. The multitudes of ethnic and indigenous groups in the region often form fractured civil societies that reduce possibilities for larger solidarity movements. Grassroots organisations formed along identity lines often have competing interests while states manipulate existing fault-lines to prevent the rise of a coherent civil society. However, in rare cases, alliances can form, where common agendas create opportunities for broad claims against the state. As such, both ethnic and indigenous minorities in Southeast Asia have explored a wide range of claim-making activities from protest to civil …

Two Models Of Protecting Democracy: Federalism And The U.S. Deviation, David Landau

Scholarly Publications

This Article contrasts two different models for protecting democracy. The first model, which is common globally, relies on insulated, apex-level independent institutions to protect sensitive democratic functions like administering elections and prosecuting wrongdoing by high level governmental officials. The United States largely eschews this approach and instead relies much more heavily on a second approach, which decentralizes sensitive functions among a large number of state and local officials, who are often not very insulated from politics. This Article describes the benefits and costs of each model in light of recent attacks on electoral administration in the United States. Moreover, it …

Distracted U.S. Foreign Policy Sector: The Effects Of Strategic Prioritization Towards A Rising Chinese State In East Asia, Liliana Ramos

Honors Undergraduate Theses

The question of the stability of American hegemony has consumed U.S. International Relations discourse since the Post-Cold War narrative. With the rapid changes in the international realm and the countless U.S. humanitarian and military operations around the globe, it is no surprise that many well-known researchers have taken the time to look at the impact of American hegemony under strict observation. However, more analysis must be made of these operations' strategic purpose and success. This thesis strives to fill this gap by conducting in-depth case studies on various U.S. military operations from the early 2000s to the present in the …

Leaving The European Union: When Euroscepticism Meets Internal Crisis Within Member States, Isabella M. Dimesa

Honors Undergraduate Theses

In the era of global stability, it is crucial to understand the nuances that maintain peace. Neoliberal institutionalism is the ideal that institutions bound together promote peace through sharing stakes and developing positive cost-benefit matrixes that ensure cooperation. The European Union (EU), a neoliberal institution, was developed to establish a peaceful, cooperative European system to further the European agenda and foster power through combined assets. The EU has manifested this success and prosperity—until one of its member states, the United Kingdom, defected from the institution, causing a shock to the EU system. Why would an institution yielding positive returns see …

Middle Savannah River: An A/R/Tographic Ecopedagogical Ethnography Experimenting With Rhizomatic Perspectives, Lisa Augustine-Chizmar

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

This research is an experiment in perspective. Using the four commonplaces (Schwab, 1978), I practiced letting the Savannah River teach me what there is to know about the water, the land, the people, and the other entities that depend on ki through artistic, ethnographic, and ecopedagogical lenses. The ethnographic findings describe the social actors that depend on ki and give a voice to the River. The a/r/tographic findings display the River on a canvas map through two hundred years using paint, clay, photography, video, abstract acrylics, and fabric. Together, these methods contribute to a unique ecopedagogical journey. This word cloud …

How Economic Distribution Impacts Human Rights On An International Level: A Case Study In Africa And The Balkans, Lindsey G. Ingraham

Honors Program Theses

Data from Reporters Without Borders and the World Bank was used in this small case study to assess correlations between economic dispersion, freedom of the press, and measures of gender equality in eight countries. These countries were selected from two regions, with four from both Africa and the Balkans to total eight: Angola, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Romania, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Slovenia, and Zimbabwe. The regions were selected to account for any regional trends affecting the data. These countries were selected based on their Gini Coefficients with the hopes of identifying correlations between economic distribution and their measures of human rights. …

Gun Violence Testimonies & Sources, Beckett Markosian

Why Is It Important To Know About Gun Control?

Beckett Markosian’s Testimony

Homelessness Testimonies And Sources, Tyler Mcalister

What is Homelessness?

Testimony to the City of Portland/General Public

Arendt And Christianity: On Love And The World, Logan Andrew Daly

West Chester University Master’s Theses

Hannah Arendt criticized the Christian faith for what she saw as an inherent wordlessness or ascetic attitude. She believed this focus on the afterlife was an afront to her political philosophy and kept people from participating in the public sphere. This thesis is a selective exploration of Arendt’s criticisms against the Christian faith and aims to show that there is a way of reconciling the respective belief systems, allowing an Arendtian to benefit from Christian ideas and a Christian to improve themselves with the assistance of Arendtian concepts. The project is split into two chapters. Each chapter focuses on a …

Sexual Violence In Armed Conflict: How Levels Of Sexual Violence In Peacetime Affect Levels Of Sexual Violence In Conflict, Sydney Snowden

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-2023

Why do some armed conflicts have higher levels of sexual violence than others? Some existing theoretical work has pointed toward the possibility that the presence of sexual violence before armed conflict occurs can impact the levels of sexual violence during armed conflict, however, little empirical work has examined these theories. This thesis uses new, unique data to address concerns about the validity of previous studies and to explore sexual violence over the boundaries of time, looking at pre-conflict levels of sexual violence in addition to levels of sexual violence during armed conflicts. Using a parallel mixed methods research design, this …

Opec+ Versus The United States And World Democracies, Giacomo Luciani

Faculty Journal Articles

The OPEC+ decision to cut oil production opens the door to further politicization of the global oil industry, particularly between the United States and Saudi Arabia.

The Impact Of Education On Reducing Poverty In South Asia, Rooppreet Kaur Sohal-Bagri

CGU Theses & Dissertations

This dissertation examines the relationship between primary, secondary education attainment and poverty in South Asia. The countries of examination include India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan, Afghanistan, and Maldives. The primary function of this research is to determine if primary and secondary education attainment of peoples has an impact on being associated with reducing poverty. To accomplish and to test this goal, I have used fixed effects regression analysis to examine the following research questions: Does education expansion (primary, secondary) reduce poverty in South Asia? Does education expansion (primary, secondary) reduce poverty for women in South Asia? This first …

Natural Law Theory Under The Sun How Iranian Political Thought Viewed Tyranny As Opposed To The West, Shahram Arshadnejad

CGU Theses & Dissertations

This qualitative research aims to explore and unravel the theory of natural law within its Greek context and its influence on political thought, particularly addressing the need to counteract the damages of tyranny and the cyclical succession of regimes, as articulated by Plato. This study reveals that the concept of natural law predates Stoics and it is rooted within the pre-Socratic natural philosophy. The study exposes that Aristotelian ethics and politics are rooted in the concept of natural law, ultimately giving rise to the Aristotelian "mixed form of government" and laying the groundwork for republicanism.In extending this inquiry, I attempt …

Factors That Enable Or Hinder The Transition Of Some Gulf Cooperation Council (Gcc) Countries To Green Energy, Verkine Keukpanossian

CGU Theses & Dissertations

Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries continue to play a strategic role in the global energy system. They account for a fifth of the global oil production and enjoy relatively high GDP per Capita, and their economies heavily rely on oil-producing and exporting at a time when the West is pushing towards net-zero, low-carbon emissions by 2050. This study focuses on the energy sector and takes a transdisciplinary look at Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and tries to understand how these rentier monarchies that have built a solid global comparative advantage in producing and exporting oil and …

Multidisciplinary Approach To Civil Conflict: Political, Economic, And Social Determinants Of Violence, Zhamilia Klycheva

CGU Theses & Dissertations

More abundant and less severe than interstate war, civil conflict has filled the news headlines worldwide, especially with nonviolent domestic instability. To this day, no single theoretical framework can fully explain this complex phenomenon. Scholars have often focused on one domain area as a precursor of violence. While such approaches are valuable, they need to grasp the whole picture, as addressing the problem from a single-domain perspective yields weak findings. This dissertation explores specific political, social, and economic factors that impact the onset, severity, and duration of civil conflict and the frequency of nonviolent conflict. It adopts a unified transdisciplinary …

When In Rome, Do As Meloni And Salvini Do: Dissecting The Potentially Extreme Nature Of The Political Communication Of Italy's New Right-Wing Populist Duo, Thomas S. Erie

Honors Theses

The fundamental question that this research project aims to answer is: what are the defining characteristics of the style and rhetoric of the communication practices of Italian right-wing populist leadership and how do they relate to those of fascism? After the Italian elections of 2022, in which a right-wing populist coalition led by Giorgia Meloni and Matteo Salvini came to power, further research is necessary to understand the potential implications of this electoral result. Political communication has developed in recent years to shift towards direct communication from the leader to their base through social media and speeches published on YouTube. …

Who’S Laughing Now? Satire’S Effect On Negative Partisanship, Emma West

Honors Theses

“Negative partisanship,” most basically defined as the phenomenon whereby Americans largely align against one party instead of affiliating with the other, has grave implications for democracy: it has already affected productivity in Congress, the acceptance (rather, lack thereof) of election results (e.g. 2016), and watered down the importance of ideology in American politics. Parsing the independent variables that influence negative partisanship is vital in combating its detrimental effects, and this project proposes satire as a possibility. An analytical history of both topics is explored. Interestingly, psychological mechanisms for interpreting satire and the out-party share many similarities in mechanisms of subjective …