American Politics Commons^™

The Electoral Costs Of Party Agenda Setting: Why The Hastert Rule Leads To Defeat, Jesse Richman

Political Science & Geography Faculty Publications

This study demonstrates that unconditional blocking of bills opposed by a majority of the majority party--as implied by the party cartel model and advocated by former Speaker Dennis Hastert--can produce conditions in which the majority party loses popular support and loses elections. The theoretical analysis and empirical results imply that the use of negative agenda power to block bills is circumscribed by this risk of electoral defeat. As a result, the opportunity for effective negative agenda control is conditional on majority party issue advantage, party polarization, and the distribution of status quo locations. In particular, majority party roll rates should …

Student Voting Behavior At The University Of Akron, Turner G. Anderson

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

This paper explores the voting behavior of students at The University of Akron. The paper begins by looking at the body of research surrounding student voting behavior in the United States as a whole. Much of the research challenges traditional notions of how to predict voting behavior, and it is noted that many of the generational behavior research is outdated and may not describe today’s students well. Some of the some of the potential obstacles to student voting both in Akron and the country as a whole are also explored.

For the analysis, the voter turnout rate in 2010 through …

The Psychology Of Terrorism And Radicalization, Gina K. Dejacimo

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

Terrorism and radicalized political groups are an ever-growing subsection of the American and international news cycles. Mainstream media outlets tend to focus on the atrocious actions of terrorists, leaving the American public without a true understanding of what encourages someone to become a violent, radicalized extremist. This paper intends to investigate possible psychological factors that can predict a person’s likelihood to become radicalized and participate in a salafi jihadi terrorist campaign. If such psychological conditions exist, perhaps they are the key to preventing radicalization in the first place, and in turn, the key to preventing any terrorist activity. What other …

From The Jungles Of Washington To The Wilderness Of America: The Effects Of Federal Grants On Wildlife Conservation In The States, Kayla Samuelson

Masters Theses

This thesis research looks at whether federal grant award dollars influence state spending on wildlife conservation. Partisan control of the state legislatures also is examined to see if Democratic-controlled, Republican-controlled, and Split-Party Status affects spending on wildlife conservation. Five states were chosen to represent major regions in the United States and to serve as case studies of wildlife conservation spending patterns. The Wildlife Habitat Incentive Program is used as a case study to investigate whether funds received by states affected state government spending on wildlife conservation. The research finds that the amount of money allocated to states does not affect …

The State Of The Union: The State Of Applause, John Proffitt

Masters Theses

This research focuses on reactions by members of Congress during the State of the Union address. Quantitative methods are used to examine if changes in overall political conditions, especially the level of partisanship, changes the nature of the responses of political actors. The results find that Congress responds to the speech in two major ways. Responses can represent attempts at partisan unity or alternatively represent attempts to show stronger than normal support for certain issues. This research supports several competing theories of representation and highlights the need to establish proper context when studying political actions. Since multiple theories of representation …

Human Trafficking And National Security - Policy Responses, Douglas V. Peterson

Masters Theses

Human trafficking poses a threat to national security and undermines global order. Trafficking exploits sovereign borders and undermines state legitimacy by highlighting failures of governance. This thesis seeks to understand policy responses to human trafficking, which are essential to providing resilient national security while upholding human rights.

I conducted a mixed methods analysis to examine three levels of government response to trafficking: domestic, regional/international, and foreign domestic measures. I examined how the United States Senate develops anti-trafficking legislation, how human rights regimes are developing within the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), and how specific Southeast Asian nations have responded …

Going Solo: A Study Into The Framing And Salience Of International Terrorism, Arianne Gouveia

Masters Theses

In order to explore presidential rhetoric, media coverage and its contribution to public opinion, this thesis will examine these facets in the matters of international terrorism. More specifically, terrorism in India, Syria, and Afghanistan will be assessed and compared during two time periods: 2003-2004, and 2011-2012. This thesis will predominately attempt to evaluate the relationship between the Global Terrorism Index (GTI) and actual coverage. By searching for key words in presidential speeches from President Obama and President Bush, evaluating the news coverage of terrorist activity in all three countries, this thesis will attempt to show the impact of presidential speeches …

Gendered Pathways To Office For Members Of The 112th U.S. House Of Representatives, Samantha Sarich

Masters Theses

Research both asserts that there is a particular path through careers in either business or law that many political candidates take to Congress and that female candidates do not always follow this standard path. Female candidates have been found to emerge from a wider array of experiences outside of business and law. Differences in pathways male and female candidates take to public office have been widely studied, yet little attention has been focused on whether or not female candidates having experience serving on the board of a non-profit organizations can be a part of a viable alternate pathway to public …

Not Just Blowin' Smoke: Marijuana Legalization Initiatives And The 2012 Presidential Election, Steven Anderson

Masters Theses

Since 1996, numerous states have passed laws to allow use of marijuana for medical purposes. In 2012, Colorado and Washington became the first states to legalize the drug for recreational use. The two recreational legalization movements, along with many medical laws, were passed via citizen's referendum (passed by the legislature and approved by voters) or initiative (placed on ballot by petition and approved by voters). This paper seeks to examine the link between support for the legalization movements in three states (Colorado, Washington and Oregon) and support for President Obama in the 2012 Presidential Election. Ten different variables are examined …

Changing Hispanic Demographics: The Shift To Democratic Support, Trevor Wayne Schoonover

Masters Theses

While the body of literature concerning voter participation continues to grow there has been a lack of research into the attitudes and behaviors of Hispanics in the United States. To address this disparity in the literature I use the 2012 National Election Study Survey to find support for a Hispanic shift from the right to the left of the political spectrum. I find that Hispanics support the Democratic Party more than Whites on moral values and foreign policy, but not on economic issues. Hispanics are also more likely than Blacks to support the Democratic Party on foreign policy, but not …

The Internet Grows Up?, Neil M. Richards

Scholarship@WashULaw

Danielle Citron’s Hate Crimes in Cyberspace is one of the most important publications to date in the emerging fields of privacy and cyberlaw. In her thoughtful and insightful book, Citron explains the uneven playing field and frequently shocking acts of abuse that women face online, and demonstrates practical steps that we can take to remedy the problem of online hate through law, education, and the development of better, more inclusive norms. Other contributors to this Symposium have examined these contributions in great detail, pointing out important nuances of Citron’s argument, urging her in at least one case to be even …

"If You Is White, You's Alright....": Stories About Colorism In America, Kimberly Jade Norwood

Scholarship@WashULaw

This Article examines the inefficiencies of Missouri municipal courts that came into sharp focus following the killing of Michael Brown by Officer Darren Wilson in Ferguson, Missouri. Norwood details and expands on her lone dissent in the Final Report of the Municipal Division Work Group—a group created by the Missouri Supreme Court to address the alleged abuses of black and poor residents in Missouri. Norwood argues for consolidating failing municipal courts to create larger, more functional, and just courts.

President Bush And Immigration Policy Rhetoric: The Effects Of Negativity On The Political Landscape At The State Level, C. Damien Arthur Phd, Joshua Woods

Political Science Faculty Research

The attention paid to immigration since September 11th has become more pronounced. We maintain that the increases in attention are due to a significant critical juncture: the Republican Party Platform of 2004 and President Bush’s subsequent reelection. The rhetoric has become more negative and exclusive, creating a pervasive immigrant narrative. What are the ramifications, if any, of this shift in discourse from such central political figures for immigrants? Attempts to change immigration policy, despite the rhetoric, have not materialized nationally. President Bush recognized the limitations of ‘going public’ and, instead, took his immigration policy proposals to state legislatures, wherein ideological …

Life In Hampton Roads Survey Press Release #2: Crime And Politics, Social Science Research Center, Old Dominion University

Life in Hampton Roads Survey Report

This report examines regional and sub-regional perceptions of crime and politics from the 2015 Life In Hampton Roads survey (LIHR 2015) conducted by the Old Dominion University Social Science Research Center. Data from prior years is also provided when available to show comparisons in responses over time. Responses were weighted by city population, race, age, gender, and phone usage (cell versus land-line) to be representative of the Hampton Roads region.

Love Thy Neighbor? Trust In Foreigners And Support For Transnational Policies, Sergio Wals, Elizabeth Theiss-Morse, Frank J. Gonzalez, Tess Gosda

Department of Political Science: Faculty Publications

This study assesses the extent to which individual levels of trust in foreigners relate to preferences about regional transnational policies. We use a nationally representative survey from Mexico (2003), an emerging democracy with relatively high levels of nationalism and several multinational trade agreements. We argue that clarifying the target of social trust is essential for understanding the attitudes of citizens of less powerful countries toward the international policy realm. Statistical analysis strongly suggests that in fact trust in foreigners, above generalized trust, is key to understanding such attitudes. Our results indicate that trust in foreigners among Mexican respondents is positively …

Determinants Of Rural Latino Trust In The Federal Government, Nathan Munier, Julia Albarracin, Keith Boeckelman

Department of Political Science: Faculty Publications

Trust in government is essential to democratic practice. This article analyzed the factors shaping trust in the federal government using a survey of 260 Mexican immigrants living in rural Illinois and in-depth interviews with 32 participants. To analyze these data, we drew a distinction between support for the regime (system of government that is relatively stable in a political system) and support for authorities (those who temporarily occupy positions of power) to test whether regime or authorities’ considerations shaped respondents’ political trust. The results showed that both considerations influenced trust in the federal government. We also found that a perception …

Learning From Failure: A Review Of Peter Schuck’S Why Government Fails So Often: And How It Can Do Better (Book Review), David M. Levy, Sandra J. Peart

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

Peter Schuck catalogs an overwhelming list of US government failures. He points to both structural problems (culture and institutions) and incentives. Despairing of cultural change, Schuck focuses on incentives. He relies on Charles Wolf ’s theory of nonmarket failures in which “internalities” replace the heavily-studied market failure from externalities (Wolf 1979). Internalities are evidence of a discord between the public goals by which a program is defended and the private goals of its administrators. What might economists contribute? We suggest that economists have neglected internalities because they take group goals as exogenously determined and we defend an alternative tradition in …

The Voting Rights In Winter: The Death Of A Superstatute, Guy-Uriel Charles, Luis Fuentes-Rohwer

Faculty Scholarship

The Voting Rights Act (“VRA”), the most successful civil rights statute in American history, is dying. In the recent Shelby County decision, the U.S. Supreme Court signaled that the anti-discrimination model, long understood as the basis for the VRA as originally enacted, is no longer the best way to understand today’s voting rights questions. As a result, voting rights activists need to face up to the fact that voting rights law and policy are at a critical moment of transition. It is likely the case that the superstatute we once knew as the VRA is no more and is never …

A Quantum Congress, Jorge R. Roig

Scholarly Works

This article tries to address the problem of a corrupt and broken electoral system that has been captured by special interests through big money spending in political campaigns, while at the same time preserving the spirit of the Free Speech Clause of our Constitution. In doing so, this article first reviews and summarizes the different alternatives proposed as potential fixes for the campaign finance problem. It then explains why none of the proposed alternatives can accomplish the dual goals set out above. Finally, the article briefly sketches a proposal for a fundamental reworking of our representative democracy by substituting legislative …

Feminist Erasures: The Development Of A Black Feminist Methodological Theory, Alex J. Moffett-Bateau

Publications and Research

Within the social sciences, and particularly in political science, feminist methods and theory are seen as valuable only within its own disciplinary boundaries, and limited to its own departments or program, often named women’s studies, gender studies, and/or feminist studies. While the move within the academy to formalize the study of women, gender, and feminism is an important one, these disciplinary boundaries unfortunately have the result of rendering the study and practice of feminist intellectual work invisible to the rest of the academy. Too often, feminist theory and methodological practice is only carried out by one or two female academics …

The Occurrence Of Place-Based Narrative In U.S. Senatorial Campaign Advertisements, Brian K. Munis

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Narratives have been increasingly subject to study within social science disciplines. However, research pertaining to narrative within political campaigns is incomplete. For example, there has been a relative lack of attention in the literature to the symbolic discourse and imagery in many political campaign advertisements that—seemingly—exists in order to link candidates to specific geographic “places” within their constituencies. A more complete understanding of the association between narratives of place and political campaigns will allow us to more effective and accurately gauge how, when, and why candidates use this potential strategy; as well as its possible effectiveness in election outcomes. This …

Extreme Levels Of Poverty And Inequality May Lead To Equally High Levels Of Social Conflict And Crime, Rukelt Dalberis,

Dissertations and Theses

Poverty and economic inequality remain a vexing concern in Latin America. The specter of crime continuously looms, creating a constant state of social discomfort in the region. Latin America has established an unparalleled zone of democracy. The region has also become an economic force.

The prevailing notion regarding the relationship between poverty and inequality with crime and conflict outbreaks is that violence tends to occur in regions where poverty is endemic. Inequality, as it is understood, breeds contempt. In this thesis, I test the hypothesis that extreme levels of poverty and inequality are likely to result in equally high levels …

Framing The Question, "Who Governs The Internet?", Robert J. Domanski

Publications and Research

There remains a widespread perception among both the public and elements of academia that the Internet is “ungovernable”. However, this idea, as well as the notion that the Internet has become some type of cyber-libertarian utopia, is wholly inaccurate. Governments may certainly encounter tremendous difficulty in attempting to regulate the Internet, but numerous types of authority have nevertheless become pervasive. So who, then, governs the Internet? This book will contend that the Internet is, in fact, being governed, that it is being governed by specific and identifiable networks of policy actors, and that an argument can be made as to …

"If You Want To Test A Man's Character Give Him Power" Abraham Lincoln's Character And Use Of Strategic Action: An Analysis Of Presidential Decision-Making, Hannah Sharfman

Senior Independent Study Theses

The examination of President Abraham Lincoln’s performance in office through multiple political theories can help political scientists better understand the decision making process which led to both successful and unsuccessful decisions taken by arguably the most illustrious president in United States history. My research examines three of Lincoln’s major decisions while in office, using the cases of the Emancipation Proclamation (successful decision), the management of General McClellan (failed decision), and his suspension of habeas corpus (mixed decision). My aim is to discover can these theories focusing on presidential character or on the use of strategic action help to explain the …

The Effectiveness Of The Strategies Interest Groups Use To Influence Health Care Reform In The United States: A Case Study Analysis Of President Clinton, Bush, And Obama's Health Care Reforms, Jacquelyn E. Hannan

Senior Independent Study Theses

This independent study explores the effectiveness of the strategies interest groups use to influence health care reform in the United States. This is done through testing three hypotheses The hypotheses are: 1) With all other things being equal, interest groups who are more active with the reform movement are more likely to be successful in their goals than those who are less active, 2) With all other things being equal, interest groups who are aligned with presidential health care reform initiatives are more likely to be successful in their goals than those who are not aligned, and 3) With all …