Models and Methods Commons^™

Ai And The Music Industry: Its Current Status And A Speculative Projection Of Its Evolutionary Trajectory, Rhett D. Morris, Clayton Rosati, Stefan Fritsch

Honors Projects

Music serves as one of society's biggest cultural outlets, allowing millions to share in what used to be a uniquely human form of expression. The commodification of music has built a huge industry full of companies and platforms that have used technology and property laws to shape music's relationship with the public. This study aims to look into the future to see how AI and its implementation could affect the structure of the music industry. To look into the future, this piece establishes two of the most pressing kinds of AI technology for the music industry and looks to contextualize …

The Institutional Production Of Ethical War Across Modern Conflict, Katerina Udov

Binghamton University Undergraduate Journal

This paper argues that modern warfare operates through an ethical infrastructure that enables, rather than restrains, the use of violence. Contrary to the common assumption that moral frameworks such as Just War Theory function as safeguards against harm, the historical record shows that ethical language, humanitarian rhetoric, and democratic narratives serve as mechanisms to legitimize intervention, manufacture consent, and naturalize civilian suffering. Through case studies including Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, U.S.-backed coups in Latin America, and French intervention in Mali, the paper traces how political leaders, media institutions, and corporate actors frame war as a moral necessity while pursuing strategic and …

Boundaries Of Inequality: The Political Economy Of Redlining And Modern Mortgage Credit, Kyle Guo

Harvey M. Applebaum ’59 Award

This paper investigates the legacy of historical redlining on contemporary access to mortgage credit across three distinct urban policy environments: Baltimore, Philadelphia, and Manhattan. I find that while historical redlining is associated with a statistically significant negative effect on mortgage approval rates, the magnitude of this direct effect is relatively small. In comparison, applicant race, particularly for Black applicants, is a stronger predictor of mortgage approval rates across cities and models. This study utilizes 1930s Home Owners’ Loan Corporation (HOLC) residential security maps and Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA) data from 2007 to 2017, and uses ordinary least squares (OLS) …

Welcome Tilly Norwood: Forecasting Hollywood’S Ai Policy Futures, Samuel P. Rooker

Senior Honors Projects, 2020-current

In late 2025, weekly trade publication Variety Magazine reported on the announcement of a new acting talent in Hollywood: Tilly Norwood. Norwood is an industry outsider and the pet project of Eline Van der Velden, who unveiled the actress’ existence to the world at the Zurich Film Festival. The announcement quickly gained media coverage while Van der Velden has since faced cyclical backlash from Hollywood trade unions, which does not seem entirely without reason. Tilly Norwood is a digital persona, a generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) program, designed by Van der Velden’s novel AI talent studio, Xicoia, to become the next …

Ai Is Taking Over!: A New Generation Of Unemployment Fears, Amaya V. Hepburn

Student Scholar Symposium Abstracts and Posters

The growing panic surrounding AI taking over the workforce is strong in a distinct group of demographics, in contrast to the fear of computers taking over the workforce that was seen in previous generations. This suggests that AI developments have sparked a wave of fear that is unlike the fear of tech developments in the past. I have discovered that this fear is prevalent across several demographics: age, employment, and income. By cross-analyzing through the 2017 and 2025 fear surveys, I discovered that fear of AI is more prevalent in younger generations and is more threatening to students entering the …

Money And State Politics: State Legislature Partisan Dynamics And Ideology Outcomes Following Citizens United V. Fec, Jillian E. Pastore

Bates College Journal of Political Studies

What effect has Citizens United v. FEC had on state-level partisanship and the policy outcomes that follow from it? Scholarship on the influence of corporate and union spending in political campaigns has largely centered on federal elections. In this paper, I extend the analysis to the state level, leveraging the fact that Citizens United created a natural experiment across the states. Prior to the Supreme Court ruling, roughly half of the states prohibited corporate and union independent expenditures in state elections (including for governor, state senate, state house, and state supreme court races). The Citizens United decision effectively nullified these …

Organizing To Engage: A Framework For Conflict Strategy, Paul Mason Carpenter

Dissertations

Conflict strategy can be exceedingly complex. While many of the basics are simple, even the simple can be highly complicated to execute. The Schlieffen Plan in World War I appeared straight forward, but execution was a great deal more complex. It failed and the result was years of trench warfare.  In addition, leaders entering conflict may not fully appreciate the full context, its effect, and the need for a long term result--a better state of peace.

Strategy and tactics may be challenging to transform as an engagement evolves. In addition, strategists must often commit to courses of action within very …

Converting The Social Security Trust Fund Into A Sovereign Wealth Fund: A Proposal To Secure The Future, Keanu Moore

Dartmouth College Master’s Theses

This thesis proposes the conversion of the Social Security Trust Fund into a sovereign wealth fund (SWF), paired with the phased creation of a mandatory retirement savings system for all working-age Americans. In response to forecasts projecting Trust Fund depletion by 2034, the proposed portfolio shift would diversify assets beyond U.S. Treasuries into global equities, real estate, alternatives, and fixed income, with the goal of enhancing long-term returns while remaining passively managed. While this reform would extend the Fund’s solvency, it is not, on its own, a permanent fix. To ensure structural sustainability beyond the exhaustion date, the thesis proposes …

Authoritarian Development & Political Economy Of East Asia: The Making Of South Korea’S Developmental Regime, Christopher J. Chung

CMC Senior Theses

This thesis investigates the historical evolution of South Korea's developmental trajectory during the Park Chung-hee era (1961-1979), a period that left an indelible mark on the country's political economy and industrial landscape. Rather than treating Park's regime as its own starting point, this thesis situates it within a longer historical arc beginning with Japanese colonial rule and continuing through Syngman Rhee's aid-dependent republic, arguing that Korea's developmental success was neither institutionally inevitable nor externally engineered, but the product of a historically specific and ideologically driven state-building project. Four primary questions guide this research: what historical conditions shaped the institutional landscape …

From Collective Punishment To Collective Action, Samuel N. Johnson-Saeger

CMC Senior Theses

Regime change may be sought in two primary ways, absent a turn to internal or external violence: through nonviolent resistance, from within, and sanctions, from abroad. This paper is about how those two pathways are intertwined. I challenge two different strands of the existing literature. First, I show that Liou et al. (2022)'s finding that sanctions increase the predicted probability of nonviolent resistance movement progress is subject to substantial upward bias from country heterogeneity. Incorporating country fixed effects, I show that sanctions, on average, have no statistically significant effect on resistance outcomes. Second, I challenge Chenoweth and Stephan (2008)'s argument …

Investigating The Relationship Between Noun Classes And Plant Folk Taxonomy In Chasu Language Of Kilimanjaro Region In Tanzania, Peter Rabson Mziray

Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences

The current study investigates the relationship between noun classes and plant folk taxonomy in Chasu (G 22). The study focuses on two objectives: the first objective is to describe the plant folk taxonomy in Chasu and the second objective is to determine the relationship between noun classes and plant folk taxonomy in Chasu. Data were collected from rural villages in Same and Mwanga districts by using free listing, field interviews (jungle-walk-and-identify), and written texts containing Chasu plant names. The findings reveal that Chasu folk taxonomy reflects different ethnobotanical categories; including a unique beginner which is mmea/mimea ‘plant(s)’, and three life …

The Jokowi Effect On The Victory Of Prabowo: Do People Vote For Continuity?, Cakra Yudi Putra, Dyah Ayu Febriani, Andri Tantyo Cahyo Nugroho, Teguh Dartanto

Economics and Finance in Indonesia

The 2024 Indonesian presidential election marked a striking realignment as Prabowo Subianto—a former opposition leader—secured victory with the tacit endorsement of outgoing President Joko Widodo (Jokowi). This study investigates how the enduring popularity and policy achievements of Jokowi shaped voter preferences in favor of Prabowo, effectively positioning the election as a referendum on political continuity. Building on theories of economic voting and retrospective performance evaluation, the analysis explores the impact of district-level economic indicators, social media penetration, ideological orientation, social assistance distribution, and sociocultural characteristics on electoral outcomes. Employing Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) regression on data from 481 administrative regions, …

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 …

Drivers And Barriers To Financial Transparency In Georgia’S Local Governments, Min S. Kim

The Guardianship Journal

This study investigates the determinants of financial transparency in local governments, specifically measured by the availability of financial documents on official websites. Hypotheses were developed to examine the relationships between financial transparency and three categories of influencing factors: community environmental characteristics, governance structures, and financial conditions. Using empirical analysis on a sample of 159 counties in Georgia, the findings reveal varying levels of support for the proposed hypotheses. Key determinants of financial transparency include population size, median household income, and the size of the board of commissioners. Conversely, financial condition factors were not found to significantly influence financial transparency. These …

Assessing Brazil’S Economic Trajectory Post Democracy: A Synthetic Control Approach To The 1985 Transition, Mohammad Saqlain Khurshid

Theses and Dissertations

Brazil’s democratic transition in 1985 marked a pivotal moment in its political and economic history. Following 21 years of military rule, the transition introduced sweeping political reforms amidst significant economic instability. This study examines the causal impact of democratization on Brazil’s economic trajectory using the Synthetic Control Method (SCM). By constructing a synthetic counterfactual, this research estimates the economic effects of democratization. The findings suggest a negative impact of democratization on the per capita GDP of Brazil, amounting to an average annual reduction of approximately $887 per year during 15 years following the democratization. However, this effect is not statistically …

Assessing High-Speed Rail (Hsr) Policy And Politics In Washington State: Avoiding The Mistakes Of The Past, Landen K. Hashimura

All Master's Theses

While international standard high-speed rail (HSR) has yet to be successfully completed in the US, there is a national interest in the topic, as evidenced by recent federal initiatives to research HSR across various corridors. The Cascadia Corridor has been identified as a region with high potential for HSR, leading to an ongoing study in the State of Washington. Given the tumultuous history of American HSR development, the Cascadia HSR initiative needs to avoid the mistakes of the past. Two major contributing factors to this failure to build HSR are uneven political support for HSR and poor policy frameworks. Despite …

Reducing Food Scarcity: The Benefits Of Urban Farming, S.A. Claudell, Emilio Mejia

Journal of Nonprofit Innovation

Urban farming can enhance the lives of communities and help reduce food scarcity. This paper presents a conceptual prototype of an efficient urban farming community that can be scaled for a single apartment building or an entire community across all global geoeconomics regions, including densely populated cities and rural, developing towns and communities. When deployed in coordination with smart crop choices, local farm support, and efficient transportation then the result isn’t just sustainability, but also increasing fresh produce accessibility, optimizing nutritional value, eliminating the use of ‘forever chemicals’, reducing transportation costs, and fostering global environmental benefits.

Imagine Doris, who is …

A New World Order?: Considering Slaughter’S Notion Of The Disaggregated And Networked State, Darlene N. Moorman

The Downtown Review: An Interdisciplinary Journal Written and Peer-Reviewed by Mandel Honors College Students at Cleveland State University

This paper briefly explains Slaughter's (2004) argument for the emergence of a new world order defined by a disaggregated and networked state where the relevance of soft power has become all the more critical in conversations of politics and corresponding theory. This transformation (arising in the face of the so-called 'globalization paradox') is considered, exploring (a) what this means for the world system and (b) what concerns it may consequently bring.

Impact And Enlightenment Of Eu’S “Industry 5.0” To High-Quality Development Of China’S Manufacturing—Research On Application Of Think Tank Double Helix Methodology, Lu Zhao, Dawei Song, Feng Zhang, Jiaofeng Pan

Bulletin of Chinese Academy of Sciences (Chinese Version)

The world is experiencing a great change with the combined impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. In the post-epidemic era, the world's major economies have begun to plan their strategic adjustments, economic revival and transformation. Industry 5.0, as the EU's new strategy to plan the "New Industrial Revolution" and promote industrial transformation in Europe, has raised wide attentions in the world and has become a hotspot of think tank research. Guided by the think tank double helix methodology, this study constructed a cognitive framework to study industrial strategy and its related complex system issues such as international relations, science and technology …

Perceptions Of Economic Vulnerability And Public Opinion In The United States: A Theoretical, Historical, And Quantitative Approach, Cody R. Melcher

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation combines three related essays that analyze the effect of the perception of economic vulnerability on the social and political attitudes of Americans. Through a heterodox reading of W.E.B. Du Bois’s intellectual work and political career in the latter half of his life, the first essay develops the theoretical thrust of the dissertation. It is argued that Du Bois primarily grounds white supremacy in an elementary feature of capitalism: the fact that survival under capitalism presumes the successful engagement, either directly or indirectly, with the labor market. Due to the historical legacy of slavery, however, labor market competition in …

Deploying Digitalisation And Artificial Intelligence In Sustainable Development Research, Peter Yang

Faculty Scholarship

Many industrialised countries have benefited from the advent of twenty-first century technologies, especially automation, that have fundamentally changed manufacturing and industrial production processes. The next step in the evolution of automation is the development of artificial intelligence (AI), i.e. intelligence which is demonstrated by machines and systems, which cannot only perform tasks but also work synergistically with humans and nature. Intelligent systems that can see, analyse situations and respond sensitively to real-time cues, from human gestures and facial expressions to pedestrians crossing a busy street, will reshape transportation, precision agriculture, biodiversity conservation, environmental modelling, public health, construction and manufacturing, as …

Dead Money: Measuring The Influence Of Representatives On Government Spending, Adhitya Venkatraman

CMC Senior Theses

In line with popular criticisms of Congressional pork barrel spending, I find that that individual representatives do wield significant influence in securing government contracts for their districts. Using federal contract data organized at the congressional district level from FY 2001 – FY 2021, I estimate how individual members of the House of Representatives affect funding outcomes. My identification strategy leverages changes in contract funding that occur during exogenous vacancies occurring in the middle of a term. By comparing contract funding outcomes during vacant quarters to non-vacant quarters, I estimate the amount of individual influence exercised by representatives.

During vacant quarters, …

Promoting Regulatory Prediction, Jonathan S. Masur, Jonathan R. Nash

Faculty Articles

It is essential for environmental protection that private actors be able to anticipate government regulation. If, for instance, the Biden Administration is planning to tighten regulations of greenhouse gas emissions, it is imperative that private companies anticipate this regulatory change now, not a few years from now after they have constructed even more coal- and gas-fired power plants. Those additional power plants will mean more irreversible greenhouse gases, and these plants can be politically challenging to shutter once built. The point is general to private actors making decisions in the shadow of potential government regulation. Better information about future government …

Insurgency, Political Risk, And Foreign Direct Investment Inflows In Nigeria: A Sectorial Analysis, Danjuma Iyaji

CBN Journal of Applied Statistics (JAS)

This study examines, among others, the effect of terrorism, political violence, corruption, and religious tension on FDI inflows to the banking, construction, manufacturing, oil and gas, and telecommunication sectors in Nigeria. Thus, empirical models were estimated using the fully modified ordinary least squares (FMOLS) technique. The study spans from 2008Q1 to 2017Q4. Findings show that terrorism adversely affects FDI inflow to telecommunication sector, while corruption positively impacts on the oil and gas sector. Thus, this study among other things, recommends the intensification of effort in the war against terrorism and strengthening of relevant anti-graft agencies to adequately fight corruption in …

An Inferentially Robust Look At Two Competing Explanations For The Surge In Unauthorized Migration From Central America, Nick Santos

Dissertations

The last 8 years have seen a dramatic increase in the flow of Central American apprehensions by the U.S. Border Patrol. Explanations for this surge in apprehensions have been split between two leading hypotheses. Most academic scholars, immigrant advocates, progressive media outlets, and human rights organizations identify poverty and violence (the Poverty and Violence Hypothesis) in Central America as the primary triggers responsible. In contrast, while most government officials, conservative think tanks, and the agencies that work in the immigration and border enforcement realm admit poverty and violence may underlie some decisions to migrate, they instead blame lax U.S. immigration …

Big Five Personality Traits And Political Orientation: An Inquiry Into Political Beliefs, Ian E. Phillips

The Downtown Review: An Interdisciplinary Journal Written and Peer-Reviewed by Mandel Honors College Students at Cleveland State University

Personality research centered on the Big Five personality traits has heavily impacted our understanding in regards to what forces orient a person on a political spectrum. Examining how personality differences interact with political orientation, this research seeks to provide information on what makes someone either more or less likely to be liberal or conservative based on their temperament. In this paper, previous personality research is synthesized into one discussion, centered on what the effects of each trait are and how they impact political orientation, the heritability of personality, and what implications there are for such research in the realm of …

Voter Rationality In The United States, Asael Marvel

Honors Program Theses

The decade preceding 2020 has brought into question the political rationality of the average American voter, as it seems many individuals may vote against what is best for themselves. This begs a simple question, are American voters voting in their won rational self-interest, this project looks into a myriad of theories on voter rationality and the processes behind how voters may calculate or come to their voter decisions in an election in order to answer these questions. Then using the 2012 Cooperative Congressional Election Survey creates a method to analyze whether a specific group within the US is voting rationally, …

Neither “Post-War” Nor Post-Pregnancy Paranoia: How America’S War On Drugs Continues To Perpetuate Disparate Incarceration Outcomes For Pregnant, Substance-Involved Offenders, Becca S. Zimmerman

Pitzer Senior Theses

This thesis investigates the unique interactions between pregnancy, substance involvement, and race as they relate to the War on Drugs and the hyper-incarceration of women. Using ordinary least square regression analyses and data from the Bureau of Justice Statistics’ 2016 Survey of Prison Inmates, I examine if (and how) pregnancy status, drug use, race, and their interactions influence two length of incarceration outcomes: sentence length and amount of time spent in jail between arrest and imprisonment. The results collectively indicate that pregnancy decreases length of incarceration outcomes for those offenders who are not substance-involved but not evenhandedly -- benefitting white …

‘It’S Like Baking A Cake’: An Analysis Of Conscience Voting In The New Zealand House Of Representatives Since The Introduction Of The Mixed-Member Proportional System In 1996, Harrison Hosking

CMC Senior Theses

Conscience voting in the New Zealand House of Representatives offers a unique opportunity to assess Sam Peltzman’s ‘Principal-Agent Theory’ as outlined in his 1984 paper, Constituent Interest and Congressional Voting.

This thesis begins with a brief assessment of the principal-agent model (and other literature regarding parliamentary representation) before looking at the New Zealand Parliamentary system and the phenomenon of private member’s bills and how they aid the legislative process. This is followed by an exploration of a constructed dataset of conscience votes that have occurred since the inception of the mixed-member proportional (MMP) electoral system in 1996. An analysis …

The Effects Of Racial Capitalism On Poor White Laborers, Amy Whittaker

Liberal Studies (MA) Final Essays

While always remembering that racial capitalism’s very nature ensures that non-white Americans suffer incomparable racial oppression, this paper will endeavor to expose the devastation caused to American society as a whole by explaining the ways in which racial capitalism destroyed poor white labors ability to participate fully in the economic system and strangled its chances of living the American dream. It is my hope that by discussing the missing piece of the poor white laborers’ experience under racial capitalism will unite poor white laborers and poor black laborers to work together to end racial capitalism, policing, and the carceral system. …