American Politics Commons^™

Contractual Democracy From Statehouse To School Board: Shifts In Legislation And School Board Authority In Kentucky, Hannah M. Edelen

University of Kentucky Doctoral Dissertations

School boards have long been regarded as a cornerstone of American democracy, providing local governance over public education. While considerable scholarship highlights the increasing involvement of state and federal governments in education, relatively few studies examine with specificity how legislatures shape the local authority of these governance structures. This study investigates how the Kentucky State Legislature has influenced the authority of local school boards over three legislative sessions (2020–2022) and how board members perceive their evolving role. Using a multi-method approach and conceptualized in principal-agent theory, this research contributes to understanding how legislatures shape the governing responsibilities of school boards …

How Does Residing In A Battleground State Explain Republican Elites Election-Denial Rhetoric On Social Media?, Caedmon P. Brewer

Theses and Dissertations--Political Science

After the 2020 election the U.S. democratic process was challenged by Republican challengers many of which were office holders including the president. Many of these criticisms were shared and perpetuated in online spaces What encourages elites to post on social media about election denialism? This paper attempts to partially answer the question by performing an analysis on Facebook posts made by 1,154 congressional candidates between 2023 and 2024 using a dictionary search method to flag posts for election denialism. I propose a theory that suggests the combination of political, financial, and media attention given to battleground states encourages candidates in …

Owning The Green Grid: The Political Economy Of Renewable Energy Policy Design, Joshua A. Basseches

Faculty Scholarship

How corporate ownership of the electricity grid matters to state-level renewable energy policymaking.

Historically (and for the foreseeable future), most public policy action in the United States to combat the global climate crisis has taken place at the state level. Former President Joe Biden’s administration marked a significant departure from that trend, as his policies pursued a strategy of “electrify everything” (transportation, buildings, and industry). But who owns the electricity system that is the linchpin of such a strategy, and how does this ownership affect the policy preferences of interest groups at the state level? Owning the Green Grid addresses …

The Return Of Donald Trump: A Multidisciplinary Analysis Of The 2024 Presidential Election, Joan Hanson

Scripps Senior Theses

Donald Trump’s 2024 victory made him only the second president in American history to win a nonconsecutive reelection bid. This thesis serves as a preliminary investigation into why a decisive share of American voters chose Trump for a second time, drawing on voter behavior theory, analysis of digital political advertising and social media content, as well as recent election data. Theoretical frameworks including retrospective and prospective voting, as well as ideological innocence each offer plausible explanations for Trump’s repeat victory. Analysis of digital advertising and social media content leading up to the 2024 presidential election further suggests that these platforms …

The Politics Of Fatness And The Demand For Our Collective Joy, Sky Caldwell

Scripps Senior Theses

The Politics of Fatness and the Demand for Our Collective Joy aims to assess the political-economic reasonings behind the return of overt anti-fatness and its coincidence with the re-normalization of the far right. My research looks at the sudden mass marketing of GLP-1 drugs and the use of the body as a spatial fix during recession-era economic conditions. First, this interdisciplinary project asks why the body positivity movement has not been successful in the greater fight against anti-fatness. Then, through archival research, discourse analysis, ethnographic interviews, and photography, my project explores various case studies of successful spaces and collectives working …

Redling And Soil Contamination In Los Angles County: Mapping The Influence Of Polutants And Regulatory Landscapes On Enviromental Justice Outcomes, Gillian G. Maynard

Scripps Senior Theses

This thesis examines soil contamination in Los Angeles as a pervasive yet underexamined environmental justice issue, rooted in the region’s history of industrialization, racialized land-use policy, and regulatory failure. It argues that soil operates as both a long-term repository and an active pathway of toxic exposure, embedding environmental risk directly within residential landscapes. Through an analysis of key contamination sources, including legacy lead pollution, urban oil extraction, wildfire-related toxins, and industrial sites such as the Santa Susana Field Laboratory and the Exide battery recycling facility, this study demonstrates how contaminants persist across generations, often long after their original sources have …

More Than Meets The Eye: Operation Blue Star & Us-India’S Deadly Exchange, Jannat Verma

Scripps Senior Theses

Operation Blue Star is often memorialized as an independent action carried out by India's Congress Party. While such an understanding is not entirely historically inaccurate, it fails to account for the role played by US influence in the operation. An examination of CIA files and America's involvement in the subcontinent during the Cold War calls for a re-interpretation of Operation Blue Star, not as a solo campaign, but rather as a product of counterinsurgent and deadly exchange between the US and India.

Appalachia In Presidential Campaign Rhetoric Since 1964, Meredith Morello

Scripps Senior Theses

This thesis examines how presidential candidates have invoked Appalachia in campaign rhetoric from Lyndon B. Johnson's 1964 election through 2024, arguing the region functions not as a geographic reference but as a strategically deployable political symbol. Through mixed-methods analysis of 83 campaign-period sources archived in the American Presidency Project, a structured thematic coding schema traces how candidates frame the region across six decades using two analytically distinct modes: objective-economic and moralized-culture framing.

Five major structural patterns emerge: Johnson's institutionalization of the region as bounded domestic poverty; strategic silence during national instability; reframings enabling rhetorical reentry; symbolic portability across ideological projects; …

Just War Theory In The Hunger Games: Suzanne Collins’S Critique Of Violence, Power, And Rebellion, Laila Hannum

Scripps Senior Theses

This thesis applies just war theory to Suzanne Collins's The Hunger Games trilogy, arguing that while the districts' rebellion satisfies the principles of jus ad bellum (justice in going to war), it systematically violates jus in bello (justice in the conduct of war) and jus post bellum (justice after war), and ultimately replicates the oppressive structures of the Capitol it sought to overthrow.

Drawing primarily on Michael Walzer's Just and Unjust Wars and on Brian Orend's ideas on post-war justice, this thesis traces the rebellion's moral arc across all three novels. Chapter One shows that the rebellion meets the criteria …

Fear, Memory, And Deterrence: Reassessing Nuclear Peace In The 21st Century, Nathan H. Schroeder

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

This research investigates the paradox of nuclear peace theory: the idea that nuclear weapons, despite their destructive capacity, have contributed to a more stable global order. By tracing the historical development of nuclear arsenals and the strategic logic of deterrence, the project examines whether the post-1945 decline in large-scale wars between superpowers and wartime deaths can be attributed to the threat of mutual annihilation. It also explores the psychological and cultural consequences of this deterrence-based peace, including the normalization of fear and its potential link to desensitization toward violence in younger generations. From Cold War-era school drills to modern apocalyptic …

The Quantifiable Effects Of Constitutional Interpretation, Carter Ridgway

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

The Constitution of the United States is a document that has been for centuries the focus of academic inquiry and scrutiny from a range of differing methodological approaches. Among these factions vying for supremacy in the realm of constitutional interpretation have risen to predominant methodologies. On one side lies the originalist method which is formed around the core principle that the best way to protect the constitution and the rights granted therein is to interpret from the perspectives and values of those who constructed it. Alternatively, those who prefer the doctrine of living constitutionalism, sometimes referred to as constitutional realism, …

Ohio Redistricting And The Meaning Of Fairness, Elena G. Klingler

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

The failure of Ohio’s Issue 1, a redistricting reform amendment to the state constitution proposed in 2024, has been a topic of significant discussion. Though the controversial change to the language of the amendment made by the Ohio Ballot Board has often been identified as the consequential factor, the full implications of this change – why it was made, what it says about the meaning of ‘gerrymandering’ and ‘fairness,’ and why different groups define those words differently – have not been fully explored. This project will qualitatively assess whether the failure of Issue 1 was affected by definitional disagreements based …

Immigration As A Catalyst To The Far-Right: The Case Of Vox And Spain, Evelyn R. White

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

Over the last decade or two, the world has witnessed a global rise in the popularity and success of far-right wing parties. This new era of the radical right raises questions of what is causing and fueling these political movements. Political Scientists have identified several contributing factors from the global economic crisis of 2008, the migrant crisis of 2015 and the global pandemic in 2020. This research paper aims to demonstrate how immigration acts as a catalyst to the far-right by intersecting with political science ideologies and other variables. The focus of this paper is how the Vox Party found …

A Look Deeper Into Ohio’S Opioid Crisis And The Lasting Political Effects Of The Issue, Robert C. Dunn

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

This research studies how the opioid crisis deepened partisan divisions in Ohio from the late 1990s to the present. By investigating political responses from both policy-makers and voter behavior following the introduction of OxyContin. This study will focus on the relationship between addiction and overdose rates, which influences those ideological divides. Using qualitative research, such as political rhetoric and legislative responses, and quantitative research, such as election results, to find a correlation between the opioid crisis and partisan polarization. This project aims to highlight how politically motivated decision-making can prevent proper bipartisan responses.

Artificial Elections: How Artificial Intelligence Can Affect Elections And Decide Our Future, Ryan D. Granger

Honors Undergraduate Theses

This thesis examines the growing role of artificial intelligence (AI) in democratic elections, highlighting both its transformative potential and its associated risks. Drawing on a qualitative analysis of existing literature, the study explores how AI is increasingly integrated into political campaigns, election administration, and voter engagement. Key benefits include enhanced data analysis, personalized political messaging, and improved efficiency in campaign operations. AI also supports real-time fact-checking and more accurate vote tabulation, which can strengthen transparency and trust in electoral processes. However, the thesis emphasizes that these advantages are accompanied by significant challenges. AI technologies enable the rapid creation and dissemination …

Bloody Sunday: A Comparative Analysis Of Nonviolent Marches In Selma And Derry, Samantha J. Romero

Honors Undergraduate Theses

This thesis examines two different nonviolent civil rights marches: Selma’s march for voting rights in 1965 in the United States and Derry’s march to end internment without trial in 1972 in Northern Ireland. The two marches yielded drastically different outcomes despite employing the shared tactic of nonviolence. This research addresses the vital role that the political opportunity structure, rather than tactical repertoire alone, plays in determining whether state repression leads to reform or further conflict. Through a controlled comparative analysis, the research positions the march itself as a constant across the two cases. Subsequently, governmental allies, institutional openness, and regime …

Examining The Relation Between Cognitive Reflection And Directional Reasoning In The Context Of Political Affiliation, Ian Dargitz

West Chester University Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Final Projects

The intent of the study was to examine contributing factors to political bias, in particular the role of cognitive reflection. I hypothesized that in an explicitly partisan context, cognitive reflection would be predictive of greater bias.

Participants completed the cognitive reflection test (CRT). They then read a prompt claiming that people with either conservative or liberal beliefs tended to score higher on the CRT, using either explicitly partisan (e.g., "Medicare for All") or relatively neutral language (e.g., "low-cost health insurance.") After reading this prompt, they were asked whether they believe the CRT is a valid measure of reflective ability. Participants …

The U.S. Campaign Gacha System And Youth Underrepresentation, Rebecca Burrows, Eleanor Harris

Undergraduate Research Posters

This research investigates why young people remain underrepresented in elected U.S. offices and why youth voter turnout has historically remained low. Motivated by persistent shortcomings in U.S. youth turnout, the dominance of older elected officials, and recent high-profile victories by young mayoral candidates, this study asks whether young candidates (< 40) increase youth voter turnout in U.S. elections—and, if so, whether structural factors prevent these candidates from winning. Existing literature on descriptive representation and electoral inequality suggests that young candidates may energize youth voters yet face systemic disadvantages that hinder their success. This research contributes to the literature by exploring how the U.S. campaign finance system shapes young candidates’ electoral viability. Using a qualitative comparative case study design, we analyzed four large U.S. mayoral elections: two with victorious young candidates (Boston 2021; New York City 2025) and two where no candidate under 40 appeared on recent ballots (Los Angeles and Columbus). For each city, candidate eligibility rules, ballot requirements, party bylaws, primary election methods, and campaign finance laws were examined using publicly available legal and institutional documents. This approach allowed us to identify structural barriers while remaining open to unanticipated patterns across cases. Our findings reveal no explicit legal or party rules that impede young candidates. Instead, obstacles lie implicitly in the U.S. campaign finance system’s lack of limits on contributions, candidate spending, and the normalization of high-cost campaigning. These conditions allow older candidates—who are more likely to possess greater financial resources—to outcompete younger challengers, limiting youth descriptive representation and alienating youth from electoral politics. We conclude that youth underrepresentation is sustained less by overt legal barriers than by embedded systemic inequalities in campaign finance, an issue with broader implications for electoral integrity, representative democracy, and youth voter turnout in the United States.

Revenge Of The Interceptors? The Dod, Congress, And The Return Of Space-Based Missile Defense During Trump 45, Chad Mcelroy

CMC Senior Theses

The initiation of the Golden Dome for America program has brought space-based missile defense (SBMD) to the forefront of American national security policy and rekindled debates that had laid dormant since the administration of President Ronald Reagan. How, forty-two years after President Reagan first proposed the Strategic Defense Initiative, did SBMD return as a national priority? In lieu of public information about the ongoing Golden Dome initiative, this thesis explores the first Trump administration, otherwise known as Trump 45, in order to analyze the development of SBMD proposals by its proponents in Congress and the Department of Defense. I used …

Understanding The Flow: Deconstructing The Link Between Immigrants And Fentanyl, Madeline F. Nesbitt

CMC Senior Theses

This thesis explains how a false link between undocumented immigration and fentanyl becomes widely accepted in the United States. Empirical data show that most fentanyl enters through legal ports of entry and that U.S. citizens account for the majority of those caught transporting it. Why, then, do 41% of Americans attribute overdose deaths to migrants trafficking fentanyl? This project examines how this myth is built, repeated, and sustained, and what policy consequences follow from it.

When complex social problems lack clear culprits, political actors often manufacture them through scapegoating. Current literature documents how political actors link immigrants to drug crimes, …

Bitcoin And The American Conflict Over Money And Property, Jacob Smagula

CMC Senior Theses

I argue that Bitcoin is the latest expression of the recurring American conflict over who controls the terms of money and property, and that the political coalition formed around Bitcoin shares the same characteristics as earlier coalitions formed around this struggle. I review three historical cases that each produced a coalition opposing the existing monetary order: the Bank War of the 1830s, the Free Silver movement of the 1890s, and the populist backlash against the Federal Reserve during the 1979 Farm Crisis and the 2008 Great Recession. I find that Bitcoin’s architecture, which allows for self-custody, permissionless access, and an …

America Against America: A Western Analysis, Matthew Glumac

A with Honors Projects

A 2000-word book report on Wang Huning's "America Against America."

Politics As Usual: Racial Pay Inequity And The Illusion Of Inclusion In The Rise And Fall Of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, And Accessibility Executive Orders, Francois C. Melville

West Chester University Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Final Projects

This research examines pressing moral policy questions of our time: who determines when the United States of America has fulfilled its broken promise of equality for all, and what constitutes an appropriate measure of reparative justice. It interrogates why the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) Executive Orders (EOs) implemented across presidential administrations, intended to advance social equity, were grounded in conflict and symbolic gestures rather than scientifically evidenced issues such as wage inequality directly linked to upward career mobility. Race conscious policy generates cultural clashes centered on the perception that gains made by Black and Brown Americans come at the …

Symbolic Racism And Punitive Policy Preferences In The First Quarter Of The Twenty-First Century, Anthony T. Fulinello

Honors Undergraduate Theses

Despite the decay in the acceptability of explicit racism brought about by the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, implicit racism may continue to inform individual decision making even into the first quarter of the twenty-first century. Utilizing data from 25 years of the General Social Survey, this study examines how indicators of symbolic racism, a form of implicit racism, impact punitive policy preferences among the general United States population using separate logistic regression models isolating each indicator, plus a full model, for each outcome. Punitive policy preferences were operationalized as support for increased spending on crime prevention …

The Tech-Nuclear Renaissance: A New Critical Juncture For American Nuclear Energy Policy, Henry P. Otte

CMC Senior Theses

Nuclear energy has re-emerged as a central priority in American energy policy. This thesis examines the Trump administration’s efforts to support nuclear energy development and plant restarts, and asks whether today’s nuclear renaissance represents a critical juncture for nuclear energy policy. By analyzing American, French, and Swedish nuclear energy history, this thesis applies a three-variable analytical framework, state autonomy and administrative structure, political permeability, and crisis influence, to identify the institutional conditions necessary for durable policy change and evaluate the structural characteristics of this new environment. The central finding is that today’s push is distinct from prior attempts at expansion, …

America’S Recount Addiction, Derek T. Muller

Book Chapters

Election recounts are costly and rarely change the results. By narrowing recount laws and relying on more precise safeguards, states can cut costs, deliver final results more swiftly, and reinforce public confidence in elections.

Imprint: NYU Global Access Publications, 2026, Open Access Since 2026.

Constructing The Political “Other”: Affective Polarization And Cross-Ideological Portrayals On Instagram, Amanda M. Novellin

Electronic Theses & Dissertations (2024 - present)

Instagram has frequently been characterized by users as a platform that permits the circulation of hostile and adversarial political content due to comparatively limited moderation practices. In January 2025, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced changes to content moderation policies on Facebook and Instagram, including the removal of third-party fact-checking mechanisms. These platform-level changes further reshaped the political information environment in which online discourse occurs. However, even prior to these policy changes, Instagram had established itself as a prominent space for highly polarized political expression across the ideological spectrum.

This thesis examines how political polarization in the United States is reflected …

Show Me The Money: Candidate Attributes, Fundraising, And The Impact On Congressional Representation., Dhanya Nair

Graduate Studies Theses and Dissertations 2026

What explains women’s candidate emergence in congressional primaries? Does candidate education, experience, and background influence how voters donate to male and female candidates? Using an original dataset, I examine the circumstances under which women are more likely to enter a congressional primary.  This thesis accounts for the variation in candidate emergence across Congressional districts related to district partisanship, candidate quality and fundraising capacity.   The theory suggests that the persistent gap in representation is partly due to women self-selecting to run in districts that favor their candidacy.  Strategic entry serves as a buffer against perceived bias in fundraising and electability. Additionally, …

Acts Of Becoming: A Phenomenological Investigation Into The Lived Experiences Of West Virginia Teacher-Activists, 1990 To The Present, Phillip Elias Howard

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

This critical phenomenological dissertation explores the lived realities of becoming a West Virginia teacher-activist. Presenting the experiential accounts of three participants, its semi-structured questions Show the lifeworld forces, inherited (factical) self-identities, and occupational, "on-the-ground" classroom experiences that inspired its research collaborators to assert themselves as unionists and natural teacher-organizers. This dissertation utilizes a collection of Marxian, phenomenological, and post-structural interpretation devices to develop robust, sensemaking themes which reveal the meaning of participants’ lived reflections. It also provides thick descriptions of co-researchers' historic and current political, economic, and socio-cultural backdrops amid West Virginia’s right-wing political realignment of the 2010s, the eternal …