Political Science Commons^™

The Challenges And Transformative Experiences Of Promoting Nonkilling With Anti-Nuclear Weapon Activists And Realists, Roland Joseph

Department of Conflict Resolution Studies Theses and Dissertations

Decades ago, Glenn D. Paige questioned killing and violence in politics, presenting nonkilling political science as an alternative. Activists and researchers from other disciplines have joined the movement by considering this new paradigm in their disciplines. Since then, some scholars analyzed the experience of activists promoting notions related to nonkilling, including peace and nonviolence. However, no previous research focuses specifically on the experience of scholars promoting nonkilling to anti-nuclear weapon activists and realists. To fill this gap and give voice to nonkilling and nuclear weapon risks, a qualitative phenomenological study using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) was conducted to answer the …

The Spread Of Nuclear Technology: The Difficulty Of Arms Control And The Consequences Of Nuclear Proliferation, Bryce Allen Beschorner

Theses and Dissertations--Political Science

The potential impact of nuclear technology on international relations raises a number of important questions for scholars and policymakers. This dissertation focuses on different aspects of nuclear-related cooperation and competition and attempts to answer some of these questions. In this dissertation, I address three main puzzles related to nuclear politics using a mixed methods approach. First, I examine the consequences of the spread of nuclear technology on the outcomes of international crises, specifically focusing on the impact of nuclear weapons tests on crisis outcomes. Using data on nuclear weapons tests, I argue and find support for the notion that nuclear …

Coalition Of The Ending: Why States Withdraw From International Military Coalitions, Weiss Mehrabi

Theses and Dissertations--Political Science

This dissertation examines the causes and conditions motivating states to discontinue supporting an ongoing military coalition operation and prematurely abandon their partners. In exploring coalition defection through a three-article dissertation, I advance three separate theoretical arguments focusing on three levels of analysis.

The first article contributes to the literature by investigating the effects of political regime types on coalition abandonment during interstate wars. I argue that anocracies are dependable wartime partners and will not abandon coalition warfare earlier than autocracies and democracies. I advance two arguments for the theory of anocratic reliability. First, leaders of mixed regimes expect severe post-defeat …

Damsels In Defense: Exploring The Relationship Between Women And Violence Against Civilians During Armed Conflict, Baylee Harrell

Theses and Dissertations--Political Science

Conventional wisdom dictates that women are mostly victims of violence in armed conflict, but recent studies reveal women are often active participants and perpetrators of violence as well. Meanwhile, research shows armed group composition is a frequent determinant of violence against civilians, but many unconventional, yet influential, actors have received little attention regarding this outcome. Furthermore, few studies provide quantitative and cross-national evidence of how women’s shifting roles from victim to perpetrator affects violence against civilians. In this dissertation I examine the relationship between armed group composition, women, and violence against civilians in civil war by evaluating women’s roles as …

Implications For Defense Strategy Stemming From Geopolitical Transformation Fueled By Climate Change, Steven R. Burrows

Graduate Theses/Dissertations

Climate change has quickly become one of the most globally significant geopolitical issues facing all of humanity. Left unfettered, climate change is poised to impact nearly every facet of our environment ranging from increasingly dangerous and damaging storms, rising sea levels, increasingly extensive droughts to glacial melting, loss of arctic sea ice and a myriad of other catastrophic events. While still evolving, the current identified environmental threats will initiate long standing impacts not only to the environment, but to the global geopolitical and security climate of nearly every nation on the Earth. This project will not provide a synthesis of …

Voter Influencing In State Trial Court Judicial Elections In Los Angeles, San Francisco, And Houston, Myanna Dellinger

Dissertations and Theses

This dissertation examines select key factors that influence voter choices in state trial court judicial elections in three large, cosmopolitan counties in California and Texas. These include ballot designations (i.e., professional titles of candidates), “evaluations” of candidates by local bar associations, newspaper endorsements, political party affiliation, and gender. Focus here is on ballot designations and local bar association evaluations; the subjective opinions issued by local bar associations as official-sounding, objective and qualitative evaluations. In turn, local bar associations are private, voluntary associations consisting of fee-paying members and not overseeing state bar associations as many laypeople believe. Judicial elections remain low-information, …

Conceptual Metaphor Usage In Glenn Youngkin’S 2021 Gubernatorial Campaign, Sara Rose Hotaling

Political Science & Geography Faculty Publications

In “Conceptual Metaphor in Everyday Language,” Lakoff and Johnson suggest that conceptual metaphors pervade everyday language and produce the reality of our world. Conceptual metaphors act similarly within the occupational register of political campaigns in that they both support and construct a set of beliefs that become the reality of politicians, political parties, and constituents. In this language research, the conceptual metaphors employed by Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin during his 2021 gubernatorial campaign were identified, analyzed, and categorized. The corpus of this research consists of two gubernatorial debates, three campaign speeches, and one television interview. An example of conceptual metaphor …

S-400s, Disinformation, And Anti-American Sentiment In Turkey, Russell "Alex" Korb, Saltuk Karahan, Gowri Prathap, Ekrem Kaya, Luke Palmieri, Hamdi Kavak, Richard L. Wilson (Ed.), Major Brendan Curran (Ed.)

Political Science & Geography Faculty Publications

As social and political discourse in most countries becomes more polarized, anti-Americanism has risen not only in the Middle East and Latin America but also among the U.S. allies in Europe. Social media is one platform used to disseminate anti-American views in NATO countries, and its effectiveness can be magnified when mass media, public officials, and popular figures adopt these views. Disinformation, in particular, has gained recognition as a cybersecurity issue from 2016 onward, but disinformation can be manufactured domestically in addition to being part of a foreign influence campaign. In this paper, we analyze Turkish tweets using sentiment analysis …

Assessment Of Spatio-Temporal Variations In Pm2.5 And Associated Long-Range Air Mass Transport And Mortality In South Asia, Md Sariful Islam, Shimul Roy, Tanmoy Roy Tusher, Mizanur Rahman, Ryley C. Harris

Political Science & Geography Faculty Publications

Fine particulate matter (PM_2.5) is associated with adverse impacts on ambient air quality and human mortality; the situation is especially dire in developing countries experiencing rapid industrialization and urban development. This study assessed the spatio-temporal variations of PM_2.5 and its health impacts in the South Asian region. Both satellite and station-based data were used to monitor the variations in PM_2.5 over time. Additionally, mortality data associated with ambient particulate matter were used to depict the overall impacts of air pollution in this region. We applied the Mann–Kendall and Sen’s slope trend analysis tool to investigate the …

A Model Of Build Back Better Utilization: Long-Term Recovery Groups And Post-Disaster Housing Recovery, Eduardo Landaeta, Jesse Richman

Political Science & Geography Faculty Publications

Housing recovery, especially for vulnerable populations, can be a challenging process. Questions regarding whether to rebuild damaged housing and whether to restore it to its previous state or to build back better must be answered. In the United States, Long-Term Recovery Groups (LTRGs) play a crucial role in channeling assistance to vulnerable community members as they embark on housing recovery. However, the experiences of LTRGs have been understudied. To address this gap, the study utilizes interviews with a diverse range of LTRG members and develops an agent-based model following the Overview, Design concepts, and Details (ODD) protocol. The results highlight …

Racialization And International Security, Richard W. Maass

Political Science & Geography Faculty Publications

Racialization—the processes that infuse social and political phenomena with racial identities and implications—is an assertion of power, a claim of purportedly inherent differences that has saturated modern diplomacy, order, and violence. Despite the field's consistent interest in power, international security studies in the United States largely omitted racial dynamics from decades of debates about international conflict and cooperation, nuclear proliferation, power transitions, unipolarity, civil wars, terrorism, international order, grand strategy, and other subjects. A new framework lays conceptual bedrock, links relevant literatures to major research agendas in international security, cultivates interdisciplinary dialogues, and charts promising paths to consider how overt …

Peaceful Protestors Or Criminals: The Relationship Between Government, Protests, And Social Movements In The United Kingdom, Madelyn Hindman

Faculty Curated Undergraduate Works

This paper seeks to understand the critical relationship between government officials, protestors, and social movements in the United Kingdom. A three-part case study will examine how the state of the government and legal regulations impact the implementation and outcome of protests or public demonstrations in major social movements. The government along with law enforcement plays a key role in the past, present, and future of how social movements utilize protests. Social movements and organizations must carefully consider the legal regulations surrounding public demonstrations as well as the legal consequences for infringing upon the legal regulations put into place. This study …

In Double Jeopardy: For Ukrainian Orthodox Church, A War On Two Fronts, Geraldine Fagan

Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe

The Ukrainian Orthodox Church faces trouble from its own government as well as its Russian brethren.

Russian Orthodox Church As Apologist For The Current Russian Aggression, Valentyn Krysachenko, Alina Zadorozhnya, Yulia Lebedeva, Yuriy Figurnyi

Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe

The article analyzes the criminal character of the Russian Orthodox Church as an apologist for Russian imperial aggression. The concept of canonical territory is the ideological basis for the intervention of the Russian Orthodox Church in the internal affairs of independent states. Historically, the creation and growth of the network of the Russian Orthodox Church structures on its territory took place by illegal means, and the concept of canonical territory as a political trend was introduced in 1989 as a means of maintaining its own dominance in the post-Soviet states. The concept of “canonical territory” in the interpretation of the …

Constructing The Supreme Court: How Race, Ethnicity, And Gender Have Affected Presidential Selection And Senate Confirmation Hearings, Christina L. Boyd, Paul M. Collins Jr., Lori A. Ringhand, Karson A. Pennington

Scholarship@WashULaw

In February 2022, President Joseph Biden announced his nomination of Ketanji Brown Jackson to serve as an associate justice on the U.S. Supreme Court. In doing so, he said this: “For too long, our government, our courts haven’t looked like America. And I believe it’s time that we have a Court that reflects the full talents and greatness of our nation with a nominee of extraordinary qualifications and that we inspire all young people to believe that they can one day serve their country at the highest level.” In the following days, Jackson’s nomination was discussed with enthusiasm, much like …

The Limits Of Community: Wendell Berry, Books Bans, And Intellectual Freedom As An Individual Right, Michael Kirby

Publications and Research

Beginning with a broad overview of community-oriented arguments for or against intellectual freedom (exemplified, in one case, by the writer and activist Wendell Berry), this chapter defines two forms of community: one active, the other passive. But do appeals to community make sense in environments increasingly hostile to intellectual freedom? In what ways have both of these forms already been weaponized by right-wing actors? It can certainly be argued that intellectual freedom benefits communities, but what if a community rejects intellectual freedom altogether? After detailing a recent case involving Nikole Hannah-Jones’s The 1619 Project as well as subsequent efforts to …

Land Reform In Sub-Saharan Africa: Exploring Interested Parties Perspectives On Cameroon's Land Tenure And Land Law Reform, Jacques Kenjio

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

This research study seeks to understand interested parties’ perspectives on Cameroon's existing land tenure systems, the 1974 land law, and ongoing efforts to reform this land law. It identifies both concerns and specific recommendations from these parties on the formulation and implementation of future reforms. In the decades following the achievement of independence from European colonizers, most governments in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) have adopted new national land tenure policies to meet their countries’ needs and aspirations. In some parts of SSA, however, this process of land tenure formalization has negatively impacted the land rights of people observing customary land tenure. …

Militarism In The Spiritual Code Of The Modern Orthodox “Russian World, Oleksandr Lukyanenko

Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe

The article continues the series of research illustrating the formation of the idea of the “Russian world” in the religious discourse of Orthodox Russia. It pays special attention to the manipulations made by the Patriarch of Moscow, Kirill (Gundyaev), while preaching and giving public speeches. The study summarizes the idea of the “new martyrdom for Russia” recently promoted by the hierarch. The paper illustrates his support of Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 by the formation of the social opinion by the spiritual leader. Kirill uses the images of different wars to draw historical parallels with Russia’s current war …

Why We Wrote An Open Letter To The Ekd And Wcc On The War Of Aggression Against Ukraine, Katharina Kunter, Ellen Ueberschär

Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe

“War shall not be according to God's will." This simple sentence was agreed upon by the World Council of Churches (WCC) when it was founded in 1948. The start of the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine on February 24, 2022, broke with this principle of the Ecumenical Movement. We were sure that the churches of all confessions, especially our own church, the Evangelische Kirche in Deutschland (EKD) and all other member churches of the WCC, would immediately and unanimously position themselves against the Russian war of aggression. But the clear word, which we had hoped for, did not come.

Interiorization And Localization: An Analysis Of Immigration Enforcement In Local Contexts, Manuel N. Leiva

Theses and Dissertations

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is a federal agency that plays a large role in surveilling, apprehending, detaining, incarcerating, and deporting undocumented immigrants in the United States. Due to constraints on the number of ICE’s available personnel and resources, the agency relies on deputizing, or devolving to local law enforcement agencies the authority to enforce federal immigration policies. Prior to the 1990s, the enforcement of policies directed at controlling flows of undocumented immigrants was generally under the purview of federal law enforcement agencies and administrators, not state or local ones. The attacks on September, 11^th 2001 represented a flashpoint, …

Fascism In Sci-Fi: "Mobilizing Passions" In Robert A. Heinlein's Starship Troopers, Alton C. Ayers

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis responds to criticism of Robert A. Heinlein’s Starship Troopers (1959) as a “fascist” novel by further investigating the claim through a close reading of the novel that applies political theory scholarship on fascism. Chapters I and II introduce the novel along with its general reception and controversy. These chapters consider the accusations of “fascism” given to the novel while at the same time understanding that a clear, exact definition of “fascism” has long been grappled with by scholars since the rise of the regimes in Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy. Chapters III and IV apply political theory to …

China’S Global Strategy As Science Fiction, William A. Callahan

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Xi Jinping is leading China in a new direction, but how are we to understand the PRC’s global strategy? To understand domestic and international politics in most countries, we would look for clues in authoritative sources—leaders’ speeches, official documents and statistics, elite interviews and essays, and public opinion surveys. In the 2000s this method worked well to probe Chinese politics. But since civil society and independent thought have been severely restricted over the past decade under Xi, it’s necessary to go beyond such “factual” sources. To understand China’s global strategy, it’s best to read fiction, especially Chinese science fiction.

China’S "Greek Gift" To Africa: A Myth Or Reality, Chibuzo Uchechukwu Victor Obasi

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

Two differing perceptions have dominated explanations of the relationship between China and Africa. The first is often held in the West and sees China as an exploitative force that has latched onto Africa's quest for development partnerships to exploit the continent economically. The second considers the China-Africa partnership more positively and views China as a trustworthy ally. Advocates argue that China has no history of colonial ambitions in Africa. Instead, China intervened in Africa to fill the financing gap and tackle the development challenges in Africa with no political strings attached. Perception of which view is mainly correct depends on …

Variation In Growth Over Time Of Minority Religious Groups In The Philippines, Janet Vallejo

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

The Philippines has historically been predominantly Catholic due to Spanish colonial rule, but since the early 1900s, there has been an increase in the number of small Christian churches, denominations, and sects. Traditional theories like modernization, religious economy, or ideology fail to explain the varying growth patterns of these minority Christian religions because they do not account for sub-national variation nor fluctuations in adherents over time. The objective of this thesis is to investigate the emergence of minority Christian religions in the Philippines and develop a framework to study their growth trends over time. For the dependent variable, a typology …

People With Disabilities, Poverty And Social Cash Transfers: The Politics Of Financing Disability-Inclusive Social Protection Systems In Kenya, Tyson Odoo Juma

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

What explains why the Persons With Severe Disabilities Cash Transfer (PWSD-CT) program receives limited financial support for expansion relative to the Older Persons Cash Transfer (OPCT) and Cash Transfer for Orphans and Vulnerable Children (CT-OVC) programs? I interrogate this question by exploring three potential explanations: the political incentive to build a voter base, inadequacy in financial resources and weaker institutional advocacy. Using Kenya as a case study, I rely on key informant interviews, document analysis and a mini-survey to collect data. My theoretical and empirical strategy is two-fold. First, I analyze relevant program documents and interview transcripts to gain insight …

Why Does Un Peacekeeping Fail To Disarm And Demobilize Warring Parties In Intrastate Conflicts? A Cross-Case Comparative Analysis Of Cambodia And Angola, Socheata Meas

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

Second-generation peace operation is big in size and complex in operations and has positively impacted society and humankind and brought about peaceful endings in some conflicts. Nevertheless, studies in the area show that some peacekeeping has failed, and many limitations in each operation lead to UN peacekeeping failure. The failure of UN peacekeeping to disarm and demobilize warring parties’ armed forces has been researched explicitly by scholars. However, those scholarships have limitations in explaining why the UN fails to disarm and demobilize warring parties in intrastate conflict. This thesis paper will look at the UN's failure to disarm and demobilize …

Patterns Of Co-Optation And Repression In Autocracies: Lessons From Cambodia And Beyond, Limeng Ong

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

Autocratic regimes’ primary interest is in maintaining their power. To achieve so, they rely on two main strategies: repression and co-optation. Repression can be a violation of life (hard repression) or a violation of liberty (soft repression), while co-optation can be an arrangement of power sharing (formal co-optation) or a distribution of material benefits (informal co-optation). Some autocratic regimes are more likely to deploy certain forms of co-optation and repression than others. What explains this difference in the ways that autocratic regimes maintain their power? Using a case study of the Cambodian People's Party (CPP) which has shifted its political …

Freedom And Heteronomy In The Anthropocene, Alexander M. Stoner, Harry F. Dahms

Journal Articles

No abstract provided.

Finnish Response To Nato - Views From The Evangelical Lutheran Church And Christians In Finnish Politics, Miro Leporanta

Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe

Excerpt:

Finland placed an application for NATO in May of 2022, together with Sweden, with whom Finland’s foreign policy goals had been aligned for years.

Finnish Christianity and Finnish Churches have offered a variety of responses to the end of Finland’s non-military alignment. Of historical institutions in Finland, the Finnish Evangelical Lutheran Church (hereafter FELC) has a prominent social influence and is regarded as an institution that represents that country's values. This applies to Finnish defense policy as well. The church is a prominent player in the Finnish army and conscript service. On the FELC website, the Church states that: …

Liberal Men, Rational Kings: The Democratization Of Sovereign Individualism, Austin Daniel Ladd

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Theoretical traditions are reactionary insofar as they are attempts to remedy deleterious conditions generated by certain political, cultural, and economic situations characteristic of a particular polity at a particular time. Using this lens, I investigate the principles of classical liberalism and suggest that they are specifically designed to solve the problems that animated the world of divine right, essentially functioning as transitional mechanisms pulling society towards liberal social contract regimes and away from antiquated feudal institutions and absolute monarchy. I craft a narrative that demonstrates that the main problem all of them coalesce to solve is individualism which, under divine …