American Politics Commons^™

We're "Fed" Up And Tea'd Off: Frame Analysis Of The Tea Party Movement, Daniel Peter Flaaen

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

There is a new wave sweeping American politics. Beginning in 2009 as the people's movement, the Tea Party is taking American politics by storm. Hoping to change the way the American public thinks about American politics, the Tea Party is using some innovative tactics. Utilizing the only official Tea Party publication, an analysis of the publication's first year was done to identify the frames that were being put forth by the organization to gain support. By using the cross over frame, the us vs. them frame and the threat frame, the Tea Party hoped to resonate with a large population …

Latino Voters 2012 And Beyond: Will The Fastest Growing And Evolving Electoral Group Shape U.S. Politics?, Sylvia R. Lazos

Scholarly Works

The author reviews two recent books, Marisa A. Abrajano’s Campaigning to the New American Electorate: Advertising to Latino Voters (2010) and Marisa A. Abrajano’s and R. Michael Alvarez’s New Faces New Voices: The Hispanic Electorate in America (2010). These books are part of a growing literature that scientifically studies the evolving Latino electorate, and attempts to answer difficult questions about this ethnic group’s electorate cohesiveness and how candidates might be able to influence the Latino electorate. A careful read of Abrajano’s recent books brings additional understanding to Latino voter behavior, and by implication, how this key group will influence the …

Political Participation Over The Life Cycle, Jennifer L. Erkulwater

Political Science Faculty Publications

Although we have paid attention to group differences in political activity on the basis of race or ethnicity, gender, and especially socio-economic status (SES), we have so far ignored such disparities among age groups, disparities that will become especially important in Chapter 16 when we consider inequalities in Internet-based political participation. The participatory deficit of citizens who have recently entered the electorate raises the same kinds of questions we have been bringing to inequalities of political voice on the basis of socio-economic status: How do we account for disparities in political activity on the basis of age? What are their …

Congressional Voting On The Federal Debt Ceiling: An Analysis Of Voting Behavior In The House Of Representatives, Juanita Espinoza

MPA/MPP/MPFM Capstone Projects

This paper is an analysis on House Representative voting patterns in regards to increasing the federal debt ceiling. This study relied on data obtained from Howard Rosenthal and Keith Poole on roll call data from 1993 until 2011, with specific attention to House of Representative votes.

This paper focuses on the federal debt ceiling and the recent increases to continue financing government operations. The federal debt has been increasing at unprecedented levels due to the lack of economic growth and financial crisis that have impacted the United States. The impact of increasing the federal debt limit is examined as well …

Talking The Talk And Walking The Walk: Do A Federal Agency's Women-Centered Services Match A Women-Centered Organizational Culture?, Sally Anne Mcshane

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

Federal government agencies that provide services for women would presumably have an internal women-friendly organizational culture. In this study, organizational culture is measured by financial benefits - annual salary and federal General Schedule grade - provided to women. Regression analyses were used to examine whether gender, grade, and type of agency have an effect on salary and grade. Also bonuses to women are examined, as well as whether men or women are the heads of individual agencies or umbrella departments. Women were awarded fewer bonuses and lesser amounts as compared to men. Also women often are leaders of individual women-centered …

Election Law As Applied Democratic Theory, James A. Gardner

Journal Articles

Democracy does not implement itself; a society’s commitment to govern itself democratically can be effectuated only through law. Yet as soon as law appears on the scene significant choices must be made concerning the legal structure of democratic institutions. The heart of the study of election law is thus the examination of the choices that our laws make in seeking to structure a workable system of democratic self-rule. In this essay, written for a symposium on Teaching Election Law, I describe how my Election Law course and materials focus on questions of choice in institutional design by emphasizing election law’s …

Deinstitutionalization And Its Discontents: American Mental Health Policy Reform, Olga Loraine Kofman

CMC Senior Theses

In 1963, President John F. Kennedy signed the Mental Retardation and Community Mental Health Centers Construction Act, establishing the beginnings of deinstitutionalization in the United States. By some counts, this Act was a stupendous policy success—by others, a dismal failure. 50 years later, no cohesive national mental health care policy has emerged to deal with increased rates of mental illness among the homeless and the incarcerated. However, California has made enormous strides to create a state policy which provides adequate services to the mildly, moderately, and severely mentally ill as well as adequate funding for those services through Proposition 63, …

The Politics Of Physical Education Reform, Ari Zyskind

CMC Senior Theses

The purpose of the paper is to determine why today's youth are so physically inactive by examining the role and efforts of physical education, and the state and federal governments responsibility in supporting these programs, in fighting today's obesity epidemic by creating generations of healthy and physically active children. Research led to the determination that states have failed to maintain and improve physical education resulting in a physically inactive youth. Therefore, the nation should look to federal legislation to support state-led physical education, which this paper found to be constitutional if the enactments followed the provisions established in South Dakota …

The Disappearing Middle Class: Implications For Politics And Public Policy, Trevor Richard Beltz

CMC Senior Theses

What does it mean to be middle class? The majority of Americans define themselves as members of the middle class, regardless of their wealth. The number of Americans that affiliate with the middle class alludes to the idea that it cannot be defined simply by level of income, number of assets, type of job, etc. The middle class is a lifestyle as much as it is a group of similarly minded people, just as it is a social construct as much as it is an economic construct. Yet as the masses fall away from the elite, and changes continue to …

Candidates, Campaigns, And Political Tides: Electoral Success In Colorado's 4th District, Megan Gwynne Maccoll

CMC Senior Theses

The race between Republican Cory Gardner and Democratic incumbent Betsy Markey for Colorado's 4^th Congressional District was a partisan fight for political momentum. In the 2010 campaign cycle, Republicans looked to retake the historically Republican 4^th District as part of a national strategy to win back the U.S. House, while Democrats tried desperately to hold on to both. Cory Gardner was only one of fifty-four Republican challengers to defeat a Democratic incumbent in 2010, but the Gardner-Markey race is particularly interesting as a case study of voter motivation and the mediating forces, both regional and national, that influence …

How To Pick A Running Mate: Rethinking The Vice Presidential Selection Process And Criteria, Jake A. Petzold

CMC Senior Theses

Over the course of American history, the vice presidency has evolved into a meaningful and influential part of the executive branch, and running mates have become an important part of presidential elections. But scholars, pundits, and political professionals continue to discuss and evaluate vice presidential selection in an outdated framework that now borders on superstition. Now that presidential nominees have sole authority to choose their running mates and the resources to take care in the process, voters demand that they do so. The modern presidential nominee should undertake a serious and methodical research and decision-making process, and should choose a …

The Third World War: American Hegemony In Latin America And The Overthrow Of Salvador Allende, Samuel Mitchell

CMC Senior Theses

Why has the United States frequently intervened in the affairs of Latin American governments? How have the motivations changed over time, and how have they stayed the same? Are American Presidents more motivated by economic or political threats to hegemony? What methods has the United States used to maintain its dominance over the Western Hemisphere, and how have they changed?

This paper seeks to address all of these questions, using a full historical examination as well as the case study of Salvador Allende's Chile. Drawing upon numerous scholars' work as well as individual research and investigation, this paper seeks to …

The Federal Judicial Vacancy Crisis: Origins And Solutions, Ryan Shaffer

CMC Senior Theses

This paper examines the causes of the rise in vacancies on the federal courts in recent decades. Under President Barack Obama, the number of vacancies on the federal courts has sharply jumped. This is due to firm opposition by Senate Republicans, who have used the various procedural tools of that body to make it difficult for nominees to get confirmation. This antagonism is the result of a shift in how the parties view the courts and their role in the American political process. The Warren Court's expansion of substantive due process rights increased the Court's powers to the chagrin of …

Addressing The Learning Needs At Occupy Dc, Andrew J. Batcher

Capstone Collection

The purpose of this paper is to examine how learning can help the Occupy movement in Washington DC. It explores three questions. What are the learning needs of the movement? What educational content can help meet those needs? And how can education be practiced in a way that most effectively addresses the learning needs within the real world circumstances of the movement? Research methods include participant observation, surveys, interviews, focus groups, literature review, and primary document review. Data was coded into 11 outcome oriented learning needs and 3 educational orientations which are geared towards meeting those needs. This paper is …

The Fourth Amendment, Ethan Payne

A with Honors Projects

This projects explains the fourth amendment using skits and a PowerPoint presentation.

The Political Economy Of Congressional Patent Policymaking In The Late 20th Century, Jesse T. Richman

Political Science & Geography Faculty Publications

Beginning in the early 1980s, the U.S. Government reformed the patent law in ways that made patents easier to acquire and defend, but further efforts to expand the rights of patent owners had stalled by the mid-1990s. I use a political economy model to explain these changes in terms of the shifting constituency interests represented by members of the U.S. Congress. As the distribution of patenting became less skewed in the 1980s, more members represented constituencies likely to benefit from inefficient patent policy. But as the distribution of patent holding became more skewed once again in the later 1990s, support …

Advocacy Coalitions In Iowa And Illinois: Examining Same-Sex Policy Subsystems, Heather (Aiden) Ethington

Masters Theses

Literature on LGBT politics and rights has been limited. at best. Little information exists as to how coalitions form and build on successes and failures. Seeking to expand the body of research. this study examined the interest group coalitions active on either side of the highly divisive issue of same-sex marriage. Through a comparative case study, the research showed that at the subnational level many issues affect coalition success, including political culture, divisiveness, and in what arena policy change is occurring. Unsurprisingly, the study shows that perturbations in the subsystem led to the greatest response from coalitions, which led to …

Polarization In Congressional Committees, Andrew Age

Masters Theses

This thesis analyzes whether polarization is occurring in congressional committees, both the House of Representatives and the Senate standing committees, from 1970-2010. Sean Theirault's (2006) research of polarization on the floor of Congress is the foundation for identifying similar results in the standing committees. In addition, committees will be separated into three different types: regional, national, and power. These types are based on previous categorizing strategies by Glenn Parker and Suzanne Parker (1979), Keith Krebhiel (1990), Garry Young and Valerie Heitshusen (2003), and Gary Cox and Matthew McCubbins (2007). The separation of committees is to find if some committees polarize …

Not-So Splendid Isolation: An Ipe Study Of Iranian Sanction Busting, Ryan Christopher Rilea

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study analyzes the US sanction regime imposed on the Islamic Republic of Iran. This single case study assesses its weaknesses and shortcomings in order to present a preliminary conclusion of the character of Iranian policies to bust the US sanctions regime. In charting the evolution of the US sanction regime through three distinct "waves" of sanctions the study highlighted the general shortcomings of the regime. First, the US sanction regime has failed to impose significant costs on Iran. Second, the slow pace of unveiling each new wave of sanctions failed to bring the necessary immediate pressure on Iran. Third, …

Affirmative Action In Higher Education And The Talented Twenty Program In Florida, Miguel Ubiles

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Affirmative action in higher education is a necessary component for ethnic minorities to be afforded postsecondary educational access and opportunities to improve their socioeconomic status. The ban of affirmative action in undergraduate admissions, wherever instituted, has decreased the undergraduate enrollment of ethnic minorities. The broad objective of this research is to demonstrate how the elimination of affirmative action has lessened postsecondary educational access for minorities, who presently account for the majority or near-majority population in several states and will soon account for a much larger segment of the national population. This study will use two series of multiple regression models …

A Wolf In Military Clothing: A Case Study Examination Of Lone Wolf Terrorism And The Roles And Responsibilities Of Government Agencies, Peter Bandel

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Since the fall of September, 2011, there has been a major increase in awareness and study of global terrorism. Academia, the media, politicians, and the average citizen all have varying definitions, ideas, and concerns about terrorism. The focus has mainly been on international terrorism. Terrorist organizations like Al Qaeda have permeated the discussion. However, there is a growing concern of the "lone wolf terrorist." A lone wolf terrorist acts without a terrorist organization and is capable of having his/her own radical agenda with the audacity and simplicity to carry it out solely and enact great damage. The focus in the …

Stephen Colbert’S Super Pac: A Better Tomorrow?, Shannon K. Anderson

Pepperdine Policy Review

No abstract provided.

Carlos Figueroa On State Power And Democracy: Before And During The Presidency Of George W. Bush. By Andrew Kolin. New York, Ny: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011. 251pp., Carlos Figueroa

Human Rights & Human Welfare

A review of:

State Power and Democracy: Before and During the Presidency of George W. Bush. By Andrew Kolin. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011. 251pp.

Measuring Ambivalence About Government In The 2006 Anes Pilot Study., Michael D. Martinez, Jason Gainous, Stephen C. Craig

Faculty and Staff Scholarship

Although scholars increasingly recognize that people often possess multiple and even conflicting attitudes about a given topic, our understanding of the nature, causes, and consequences of such attitudinal ambivalence is limited by a lack of consensus as to how the concept should be operationalized. In this paper, we examine three separate measures (one subjective, two operative) of ambivalence regarding "the federal government in Washington" that were asked in the 2006 ANES Pilot Study. Our findings indicate that while the operative measures are less susceptible to question-order and response-order effects, none of the three indicators fares particularly well in various other …

Public Participation In Emergency Management, Jason Alexander Rood

Dissertations and Theses

With disasters increasing in frequency and costs each year, this study seeks to explore ways greater public participation can assist emergency managers in their mission to keep communities safe. Specifically this study examines the policy process and administrative functions of emergency management to illuminated the benefits and hindrances involved in greater participation. This study conducted a qualitative analysis of governmental documents, disaster case studies, international research, as well as political science and administrative doctrines, to arrive at its conclusions. The results of this study reveal that the public is a largely untapped resource in the emergency management field. Engaging the …

Child Soldiers: Solutions From A Humanistic Lens, Ursula Wylan

Master's Theses

This paper examines the issue of Child Soldiers using case studies of three conflicts in which children were found fighting. The paper also looks at the CSPA and the Presidential waiver of four countries by President Obama.

American Exceptionalism, U.S. Foreign Policy, And The 2012 Presidential Campaign, Jason Edwards

Communication Studies Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Feminizing Presidents: Joseph Keppler And Gender In Gilded Age Political Cartoons, Jerome Gonzalez

American Studies Senior Theses

Amid the crowded newsstands of American cities in the late nineteenth century, the average reader flipping through a copy of Puck, a weekly humor magazine devoted to political and social issues, may have been surprised to see an unusual print: that of the President of the United States depicted in women’s clothing, with feminine features, performing a womanly task! These few drawings, alluding to both literary and social ideas, done by the Austrian immigrant artist Joseph Keppler, appeared in his Puck magazine in the years 1877, 1880, and 1884, coinciding around an election year. While Presidents Rutherford B. Hayes, James …

Staff Of The People? Assessing Progress In Descriptive Representation Under The Obama Administration, José Villalobos

Selected Works Temporary Series

Over the past few decades, presidents have made some increasingly noticeable efforts to fill their administrations with a higher number of minorities. Though not yet fully representative of the general public, such advances in descriptive representation are a sign of progressive change occurring within the executive branch, with positive potential implications for the state of representative democracy and public policy. In this article, I survey the current state of descriptive representation under the Obama presidency and the extent to which the president’s policy agenda has substantively addressed the needs of historically underrepresented groups. Descriptively, I find that President Barack Obama …

New York: An Analysis Of Current Changes In Party Support, Kerianne E. Kane

Senior Honors Projects

This paper is an analysis of the recent changes in party support throughout the state of New York. Based on research by James Gimpel and Jason Schuknecht in their 2004 book “Patchwork Nation,” the focus is on determining which specific factors have been contributing to the shifts in support for the two major parties in key regions of the state. In particular, migration and immigration as well as demographic changes within New York’s electorate are considered. More importantly, economic changes within the state and the effects they have had on party support are examined as well. My research is based …