American Politics Commons^™

Left Or Right, Loyal Or Disloyal: Ideology, Partisanship, And Empire In The Construction Of Interwar Japanese American Politics, Vivian Yan-Gonzalez

Asian American Studies Faculty Articles and Research

This article examines the first cohort of Japanese American voters in California in the interwar years, in order to explore the construction of racialized parameters on Japanese American political agency. Inter-imperial competition between the United States and Japan over the future of the Pacific, along with the popular and legal linkage of race and citizenship, produced a persistent distrust of Japanese American voters. Although Japanese Americans shaped their political strategies to appease these suspicions, militarized state demands for loyalty after the attack on Pearl Harbor sharply contracted their options from a range of diverse ideologies and partisanship to a narrow …

Funded To Win? Super Pacs And Electoral Advantage In The Southeast, Kyle Winstead

Poster Presentations

In 2010, two key pieces of legislation were passed: Citizens United v. FEC and Speechnow.org v. FEC. The results of these cases led to the creation of a new type of organization known as the super PAC. After their inception, the amount of super PACs exploded going from 83 in 2010 to 2,393 in 2016. Since then, the number of super PACs has remained relatively constant with a total of 2,458 super PACs in 2024. While Super PACs constitute a new method of civic participation in politics, there are concerns regarding their potential influence. The results of this research support …

The Impact Of Previous Police Contact And Attitudes Toward Police On Firearm Carriage In A College Student Population, Amanda Kroll

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study examines whether an association exists between police contact and firearm carriage. Additionally, the present study examines whether the intrusiveness of police contact has an association with firearm carriage. Questionnaires measuring participant demographics, perceptions of the police, contact with the police, and firearm carriage were administered to 222 participants recruited through undergraduate psychology courses at a state university in the Midwest. Results indicated that participants with a history of contact with the police were more likely to carry a firearm than participants with no contact with the police. Regarding frequency of firearm carriage, participants with a history of police …

The Effects Of National Elite Signaling On Ranked Choice Voting In Utah, Mathew Woodman

All Graduate Reports and Creative Projects, Fall 2023 to Present

Ranked-Choice Voting (RCV) is a voting method used in few cities in the United States. There has recently been an increase in interest in adoption of the voting method in other cities using pilot programs, much like the one introduced in Utah. Ranked-Choice Voting has become a topic of contention with strong disapproval coming from opponents of the voting system. The questions are why there is disdain for Ranked-Choice Voting, and why such disdain seems to exist more heavily in Republican camps. Public opinion polling from “likely and confirmed Utah voters” in Salt Lake, Utah, and Grand Counties, conducted by …

Where Did All The Democrats Go?, Reese Adkins

Political Science Theses and Capstones

Following the reelection of President Obama in 2012, many political scientists such as Ruy Teixeira and John B. Judis, believed that this signaled the beginning of many Democratic electoral victories to come. They published their argument in their book, The Emerging Democratic Majority, in which they explained the Democratic Party’s plan to gain a systemic advantage in presidential elections. This was to be achieved by winning elections through winning the vote of minority groups, white women, and young college-educated people. This has been far from the case. Donald Trump, with political experience, shocked the world after winning the 2016 election …

Funded To Win? Super Pacs And Electoral Advantage In The Southeast, Kyle Winstead

Honors Theses

2010 saw the introduction of a new player on the field of electoral finance, the super PAC. This introduction came with much controversy due to the widespread fear that super PACs could undermine the election system by giving wealthy individuals or organizations an undue influence. The literature on super PACs influence on the electoral system is inconclusive, with different studies having mixed results, meaning more information needs to be gathered. In this paper, I attempt to learn more about super PACs influence, particularly on congressional elections, by examining the results of congressional elections across three states: Alabama, Georgia, and Florida. …

Trust Across Difference In Radical Social Movement Organizations: The Case Of The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, Kerstin Miller

Master's Theses

Social movement literature does not properly address trust between activists as a foundation of social movement organizations. This thesis aims to fill that gap by examining how trust within the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, a radical civil rights organization in the sixties, was built and broken over the course of the decade. I drew on first-hand accounts written by SNCC activists to find patterns in how they thought about trust building and trust breaking in their own organization. I found that trust was built primarily through sustained interaction between activists, and that trust in the organization led to activists being …

Three Essays In The Economics Of Disagreements: Incentives, Measurement And Persistence, Mustafa W. Alam

All Dissertations

This dissertation presents three chapters that contribute to the study of economic forces shaping disagreements in society.

In Chapter 1, I demonstrate that political polarization can intensify due to innovations in the information market even if a population's ideological distribution is fixed. Viewership-maximizing news firms cater to a diverse audience who assess source accuracy using noisy private signals that vary in precision and ideological bias. If better-informed consumers disproportionately migrate to newer platforms for news (e.g., the Internet), traditional media firms increase news slant to appeal more to less-informed partisans on both sides of the ideological spectrum. This leads to …

Constructing A State: Canals And The Transformation Of The Economy, Politics, And Finance In Nineteenth-Century New York, Youwei Xing

All Dissertations

This dissertation consists of three essays in economic history, unified by a focus on one of America's earliest transportation infrastructures, the canal system, in nineteenth-century New York. Each chapter explores a different aspect of the state's transformation: its economy, politics, and finance, each of which helped construct New York as the Empire State.

The first chapter studies the economic impact of canals on economic modernization from three aspects: sectoral transition, urbanization, and banking development. Contrary to much of the modern literature finds transportation infrastructure leads to decentralization, I find the opposite-evidence of centralization. Specially: (1) canal towns experienced a transition …

Entropy Economics And American Politics In A Multipolar World. An Interview With James K. Galbraith. (Interviewed By Lillian Cicerchia), Lillian Cicerchia, James K. Galbraith

Emancipations: A Journal of Critical Social Analysis

No abstract provided.

Eviscerating The State: The New Oligarchic And Authoritarian Project To Undermine American Constitutional Democracy, Jean Cohen

Emancipations: A Journal of Critical Social Analysis

No abstract provided.

Ngo Advocacy And Immigration Policy Reform In San Diego, Benicio Benavides-Garb

csuglobaljournal

The field of immigrant policy is a highly contested space, and among the primary actors involved in immigrant advocacy are non-governmental organizations (NGOs). Throughout California, NGOs are involved at the local, state, national, and international levels. In addition to introducing some of the directions being taken by NGOs in the San Diego area, this paper will examine the work of the San Diego City Council. The included NGOs were selected based on their intentional work in providing “systems-level” support, such as progressive immigration policy reform and advocacy. These organizations are the following: the Partnership for the Advancement of New Americans …

Exploring The Roots Of Republican Factionalism In Contemporary U.S. Politics, Emma Seel

DU Undergraduate Research Journal Archive

The Republican Party has experienced significant internal divisions in recent elections, with the 2024 Presidential Primary revealing a party divided between two factions: Donald Trump’s followers, often referred to by his “Make America Great Again” (MAGA) slogan; and those that adhere to traditional Republican values that have defined the Grand Old Party (GOP) for decades. While MAGA Republicans still espouse conservative social values, they break away from the party when it comes to their “America First” ideology, another popular Trump slogan. The United States has long been a leader on the world stage, a position that both Democrats and Republicans …

Defending The Golden Fleece: A Study Of Disruption And Resilience In The Movement To Defund Public Libraries In Louisiana, Ciel Lane Quebedeaux

University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

In this moment of societal change and institutional capture, public educational institutions have become sites of contention where national ideological and political debates are carried out in local school and library board meetings across the country. In Louisiana, the creation and expansion of a statewide conservative organization has led to the defunding of public libraries sparked by accusations of grooming and inappropriate programming. In response, local library defenders have created another statewide organization to share information and organizing strategies to combat disinformation campaigns propagated by conservative organizers at local and state levels. This qualitative study includes in-depth interviews with library …

Diversity, Equity, And Inclusion Under Siege Worldwide: Moving Beyond Limiting Notions Of Gender And Sexuality In Education Organizations And Leadership, Margaret Grogan

Education Faculty Books and Book Chapters

As 2025 gets underway in the United States, educators across this country, like in many others, are bracing for unprecedented opposition to their diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs and policies. Newly elected President Trump is rapidly dismantling many federal agencies, cutting off aid to foreign entities, and causing major apprehension across the globe. His stated agenda to eradicate progressivism echoes many other international ultraconservative and far-right movements, who applaud his authoritarian regime. To mount the best possible resistance to these disturbing developments, and, indeed, to expand and strengthen DEI work, this chapter argues for collective action across all the …

Election Performance In The Mountain West, 2008-2020, Monserrat Cristando-Romo, Maryam Raja, Annie Vong, Caitlin J. Saladino, William E. Brown Jr.

Elections & Governance

This fact sheet presents data on the Election Performance Index (EPI) and voter turnout in the Mountain West states of Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, and Utah for the 2008, 2012, 2016, and 2020 presidential elections, as originally reported by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Election Data & Science Lab in their Elections Performance Index.

Stewards Of Place, Stewards Of Democracy: The Role Of Regional Public Universities In Rural Political Well-Being, Katie Kleinhesselink

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This qualitative embedded single-case study explored how a rural-serving regional public university (RPU) contributed to the political well-being of its politically polarized service region ahead of the 2024 presidential election. Guided by the stewardship of political place theoretical framework, which integrates rural consciousness, the Community Capitals Framework, and the stewardship of place framework for RPUs’ public engagement, the study utilized policy discourse analysis to examine regional residents' and internal constituents' perceptions regarding WPU’s role in promoting regional political well-being. Data collection included semi-structured interviews, direct observations of campus civic engagement events, and institutional document reviews.

The study demonstrates that regional …

Sustaining Queerness: A Phenomenological Study Of Colorado Educators, Devani Lemmon

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to engage queer Colorado educators to explore how to sustain their identities as queer educators in a politically fractured state. By focusing on Colorado, I could assess the extent to which the legal protections afforded there adequately support educators in sustaining themselves. Additionally, the findings from Colorado had the potential to further illuminate factors influencing teacher sustainability and retention on a much larger scale. The questions for this research project were: 1) How are queer educators sustaining themselves and each other in an increasingly volatile political climate? 2) What, if any, factors impact queer …

Amplifying Extremism: Small Town Politicians, Media Storms, And American Journalism, Nik Usher, Jessica C. Hagman

Communication: Faculty Scholarship

Within a week, a no-name Republican state representative from a town of 384 people in Illinois catapulted from obscurity to a prime-time appearance on Fox News' Ingraham Angle. This newly empowered politician, Darren Bailey, would go on to steer the pro-business Republican party in Illinois toward extremism. Democratic backsliding emerges across all levels of politics, but the threats posed by small-town politicians have been overshadowed by national-level politicians. This microstudy of a single politician's debut in the public eye showcases a novel approach to media corpus construction that combines proprietary and open databases, aggregated search tools, and targeted searching, and …

Opinion: The Constitution - Not Trump - Demands Our Allegiance, Christian G. Fritz

Faculty Scholarship

Supporting the Constitution not only requires submission to constitutional authority but implies resistance to powers that are exercised unconstitutionally. Such resistance might take the form of brave individuals living up to their oath of office or courts defending the rule of law and the Constitution. But while the Supreme Court plays a key role in interpreting the Constitution and holding a president in check, it has long been recognized that others besides the court have always been necessary to help monitor America’s constitutional order. The practice of resisting unconstitutional acts of the federal government by sounding the alarm was described …

How Far-Right Populism Harms Ethnic Minorities’ Health: The Case Of The United States, Dina Rosenberg

Working Papers Series

Public health is a political issue, and the health of ethnic minorities is a key component of it. We argue that far-right populism, whether grassroots or elitist, harms the health of immigrants and minorities. Anti-minority attitudes and policies—such as health chauvinism promoted by far-right populists—along with hate rhetoric and ensuing personal and institutional discrimination create a climate of hostility that negatively affects health outcomes in underprivileged communities. We hypothesize that immigrants and ethnic minorities living in such a climate are more likely to experience health problems and underutilize healthcare. To test this, we leverage the significant variation between U.S. states …

Unpacking The Orders, Leonard J. Santos

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

At the end of the first week of his presidency this year in 2025, Donald Trump signed a total of thirty-six executive orders. After only one month, that number had gone up to seventy-six. He is currently on track to sign the highest number of executive orders in his first year in office of any president in the last 50 years, and potentially even the last 100 years if he keeps moving at this rate. In the first 90 days of his term, Donald Trump has signed 159 executive orders, more than any other president in the history of the …

The Seduction Of Journalism In Atlanta: William Randolph Hearst And The Atlanta Georgian, Andrew J. Bramlett

The Kennesaw Journal of Undergraduate Research

The Atlanta Georgian was founded in 1906, quickly becoming a rival of the already established Atlanta Constitution and Atlanta Journal. Its founding editor, John Temple Graves, was a devoted believer of the New South Movement and a prominent ally of newspaper mogul William Randolph Hearst. In 1912, Hearst purchased the Georgian, expanding his influence into the South. The Georgian was a small piece of his grander plan to become President of the United States, and he quickly turned it into Atlanta’s most discussed newspaper. However, since the first edition of the Georgian was published in 1906, Hearst’s presence …

Agents Of Alignment: Political Realignment As Social Movement Strategy, Matthew Miles Goodrich

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The fields of social movement studies and political realignment theory do not often overlap in political science. But by conceiving of realignment as a strategy of social movements, this paper reveals terrain in the political struggle that conventional scholarship can miss. I draw from two historical case studies – the industrial labor movement in the 1930s and the civil rights movement in Mississippi the 1960s – to explore how social movement strategists fought to shape the contours of emerging political orders to achieve their goals. I find that the labor movement pursued a reciprocal strategy of alignment with the Democratic …

The Invisible Hand Of Networked Repression, Thuy Anh Tran

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

U.S. history is awash with contentious episodes involving a legion of governmental and non-governmental actors operating through an array of means and arenas to destroy the political opposition. Yet, there has been little systematic examination in the repression literature of how and why repressive efforts proliferate so far beyond the police, military, and intelligence agencies tasked and equipped to preserve the existing order. This dissertation presents a novel framework for studying the relational basis of repression—particularly as it is organized, mobilized, and extended through a networked social structure. Social network analysis and interpretive case studies are conducted on two historical …

Moving The Needle: The Policy Of Change On Syringe Access, New York City And State, 1988–2023, Joyce Rivera

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

By the mid-1980s, the HIV/AIDS epidemic breached a longstanding consensus between the political class and its bureaucratic alliances that had relied for decades on attitudes and orientations that championed punitive prohibition toward drugs as a bedrock principle of policy making. This ‘focusing event’ created an opening for HIV/AIDS activists to build a movement that offered an alternative, a more effective and just approach to how government policies and practices can manage illegal drugs and the persons who use drugs.

The dissertation uses several theoretical and methodological tools to address the central research objective that highlights the critical role played by …

Why Democracy Has Lost The Trust Of Modern People In The Modern Era, Erica Rubel

University Honors Theses

This thesis examines the growing crisis of democratic legitimacy among young people in the 21st century. Across the United States and globally, young people are increasingly disillusioned with formal democratic systems, not because they are disengaged or apathetic, but because they feel systematically excluded from structures that claim to represent them. Through an interdisciplinary framework rooted in political theory, affect studies, intersectionality, and critical media analysis, this research argues that democratic trust cannot be repaired without emotional truth, structural accountability, and reimagined participation.

Drawing on the work of Lipset (1959), Crenshaw (1989), Cohen (2020), Papacharissi (2015), and Spade (2020), this …

The Long Arm Of The Law: The Far-Reaching Effects Of The Carceral State On Families, Madison Squiers

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis investigates the extended consequences of mass incarceration in the United States, focusing on the social, economic, and psychological impacts on the nuclear families of incarcerated individuals. Through a comprehensive literature review of peer-reviewed studies published between 2000 and 2024, this study highlights how female partners and children of imprisoned men face significant hardships, including emotional trauma, financial instability, and social stigma. These burdens are most acutely experienced by low-income families and communities of color, reflecting broader patterns of structural inequality. The findings underscore how punitive criminal justice policies—especially mandatory minimum sentencing and the War on Drugs—have created ripple …

Sociology: Culture, Marcia Morrison

Open Educational Resources

This work examine culture. It begins by examining the foundations of culture to include norms, values, language, symbols and knowledge. In looking at each, it breaks down the implication of each to the development of ourselves as well as the person in the environment. It moves on to look at contexts of culture such as dominant cultures juxtapose to competing cultural systems, and how the various elements of culture can serve to either promote or minimize the various cultural constructs within society.

The Activists’ Choice: Ballot Initiatives As A Step Towards Pro-Choice Efforts, Levi C. Mahler

Culture, Society, and Praxis

Following the overturn of Roe V. Wade, many U.S. state legislatures failed to implement abortion rights that satisfy the general population. When the public disapproves of legislative law, some U.S. states allow citizens and activists the right to pursue a ballot initiative. With enough voter signatures, these ballots can turn into new laws. However, with ballot initiatives being a multi-step, lengthy process, what ultimately pushes activists to pursue this path? My research analyzes this novel intersection of political science and sociology fields to contribute to the current lack of literature on activists' decisions to pursue ballot measures for abortion rights. …