Politics and Social Change Commons^™

Agency Relations: Managing The Transition To Community Impact At United Way Of Broome County, Hayley Keys Rein

MPA Capstone Projects 2006 - 2015

An organization's stakeholders react to major vision changes in various ways. Although some may see the rationale behind changes and potential for improvement, others will be more fearful and anxious. United Way of Broome County has experienced challenges with regard to historic partner agencies' apprehension and entitlement when implementing past vision changes. The research conducted in this study will help elucidate the challenges faced by other United Way organizations when transitioning to Community Impact model as well as the barriers to and factors promoting a successful transition.

Welfare Reform Policies And Their Effect On Poverty Rates Across The United States, Luke N. Welle

Political Science Theses and Capstones

We have all heard the arguments on the pros and cons of welfare reform, its effect on recipient’s lives, and its effectiveness in achieving its goals. In concluding whether or not it is effective in achieving its goals, the actual goals are broad and difficult to define. I consider the goal being reducing the number of citizens living in poverty. My research focuses specifically on how variations in the welfare system perform in reducing poverty rates across the United States. I investigate what governmental policies each state has in place and their effect on poverty. Those states, in which poverty …

Female Genital Mutilation: Policies To Encourage Abandonment, Melissa Arneson

Political Science Theses and Capstones

Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) also known as Female Genital Cutting (FGC) captured my interest the first time I heard about the practice. I assumed, wrongly, that it was only practiced in remote areas of Africa where educational opportunities were few and outside influences were nil. After researching the topic it is clear that is not the case. FGM is practiced in many countries in Africa, the Middle East, and around the world. It is a barbaric practice that has no religious significance and is incredibly harmful to women and their health, both mentally and physically. I focused my research on …

Rebuilding After Hurricane Katrina: The Big Easy, And The Long Road Home., Jennifer S. Boucher

Political Science Theses and Capstones

The objective of this study is to analyze the influences of demographic patterns, planning politics and funding disbursement processes in rebuilding New Orleans, after Hurricane Katrina's storm surge engulfed several neighborhoods of Orleans Parish Louisiana, on August 29th 2005.Immediately following the storm surge, national opinion makers began debating the possibility of shrinking the footprint of New Orleans, as part of the rebuilding process. Although recovery efforts were begun almost immediately, at the five year anniversary of the cataclysmic natural disaster more than a hundred thousand of New Orleanians are still displaced. Utilizing regression analysis as a quantitative measure and qualitative …

Sandino Socialists, Flagwaving Comrades, Red Rabblerousers: The Struggle For A Left Praxis In Northern Ireland, Benny Witkovsky

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

This paper is the outcome of three weeks of research on Left politics in Northern Ireland. Taking the 2011 Assembly Elections as my focal point, I conducted a number of interviews with candidates and supporters, attended meetings and rallies, and participated in neighborhood canvasses. These experiences led me to two contrasting conclusions: in many ways the Left in Northern Ireland appears disconnected from contemporary political scene; and the Left has an important critique to offer the region regarding Sectarianism, the economic collapse and post‐Good Friday Accords politics. Finally, by discussing changes to the Lefts

theories, organizations and environment, I attempt …

Why Now And What's Next: The February 20th Movement’S Challenge To The State, Marina Balleria

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

The Moroccan state takes a nuanced place among autocracies and democracies—the regime features fundamental democratic institutions and while the central power of the monarchy is maintained through a constellation of political, economic, social, and cultural institutions. In this case, David Brumberg’s classification of “liberalized autocracies” is useful, which defines these states as using a mixture of “guided pluralism, controlled elections and selective repression” to maintain and centralize power[1] This political structure of liberalized autocracy creates sufficient political opportunity for various protest movements to emerge but until recently few have successfully enacted change. The February 20^th protest movement, inspired …

Synecdoche, Gerald Torres

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

This article suggests that the ideas of synecdoche and metonymy are not just figures of speech in which the part stands in for the whole. They are potentially useful metaphoric devices to understand the politics of institutional change through the inclusion of the formerly excluded.

Capture: here the hazard is that those who find themselves in a position to use institutional power may find themselves subject to pressure to conform to the norms and values of those who have traditionally benefitted from the conventional use of that institution's authority. This will often be subtle and it may merely be a …

Gender Stereotypes In The American Electoral Process, Samantha Stinedurf

Political Science Theses and Capstones

Gender stereotypes can increase the negative perception of female candidates during an election. This can decrease a female politician's chances of running for office and/or being elected to office. When these stereotypes are attached to female candidates, it can cause bias against them which then effects voting behavior among both men and women voters. Many of these stereotypes include looking at the typical personality traits as well as the perception of competency when dealing with social, economic and foreign policy issues. How do gender stereotypes present bias against women? Using data from the American National Election Study I assess the …

Economic Circumstances And Support For Universal Health Care, Daniel Cotter

Political Science Theses and Capstones

There have been many differing opinions over the new health care bill passed in 2010. My research is aimed at finding what factors play a role in forming an opinion on the new health care bill. Specifically looking at the economic and demographic circumstances of citizens of the United States and how it has affected their opinions on the health care bill. I use data gathered from the Pew Research Center and ran crosstabs on various different variables including opinions on the current economy, demographic characteristics, as well as opinions on the current health care plan. I anticipate finding that …

The West's Feet Of Clay: Transmuting The Pillars Of Liberty From Gold Into Dross, Jin Seock Shin

Senior Honors Theses

This study seeks to support the centrality of the Judeo-Christian heritage to the growth and sustenance of liberty, a form of individualism limited by moral values. The pillars of liberty—self-government, private property, representative government, and limited government—reflect the structural contributions made by the Judeo-Christian heritage. Unfortunately, much of Western civilization suffers from a spiritual crisis, which has introduced and exacerbated fractures in the pillars. Pitirim Sorokin’s social and cultural analysis of Western civilization provides a framework to better understand the fractures evident in the history of liberty in Europe and America, and developed in each pillar of liberty—fractures that reaffirm …

Zenga Zenga, Tente Tente: Can Tunisian Humanitarian Efforts Save And Preserve The Ideals Of The Revolution?, Ava Hess

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

“We are a part of the revolution, even if we are five or six hundred kilometers from Tunis, ” though the muggy tent I am sitting in feels like it could be much further than several hundred kilometers from the country’s capital or indeed from any city of today’s world. In fact, my mind wanders in a heat haze, it feels like it could even be on a different planet… “We are a part of it,” he repeats. Outside, I can hear the determined desert winds raise sand high up and into the clouds, covering the landscape in a filmy, …

Post-Revolutionary Effects: Political Self-Education Of Tunisian Youth, Erica Zarlenga

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Tunisia is a country with a rich and diverse historical and cultural background that has absorbed many ideas from western thought into its political and educational systems. For many years, the Tunisian “Republic” had the appearance of a government similar to Western democracies, yet the president’s actions were very far from those of a democratically elected president. The flaws in former president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali (Ben Ali)’s government in addition to sweeping unemployment and underdevelopment were the factors which led to the major uprising that became the Tunisian revolution. Although the revolution was a great symbolic victory for …

Duality In Bouazizi: Appraising The Contradiction, Alec Jacobson

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

We know that Mohammed Bouazizi lived in Sidi Bouzid and that he was often the sole income for a poor family. We know that he sold fruit from a cart and that, while vending on December 17^th, 2010, he had an altercation with the police, and later doused himself in flammable liquid in front of the municipal offices and struck a match. There are some who know more – childhood friends, neighbors, customers, cousins – who knew the man and interacted with him over the course of his relatively short life. But for us, the general public of …

The Successes And Shortcomings Of Participatory Slum-Upgrading In Villa 31, Jacob Perten

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

In Villa 31, an urban shantytown in the heart of Buenos Aires, a team of technical professionals and community members are working together on a slum-upgrading project. Through a participatory approach, in which community members are involved in all aspects of the upgrading process, this project seeks to better overall conditions through infrastructural and structural improvements. This study investigates the participatory process used in the upgrading of Villa 31, and using theoretical best practices as a basis of comparison, underscores key achievements and limitations of the current project. Based on chosen shortcomings, the final section makes recommendations to maximize participatory …

La Educación Intercultural Bilingüe En Cusco: Un Análisis Crítico Del Discurso De Algunos Sectores Involucrados Con Su Implementación, Maggie Hutchison

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

En la segunda mitad del siglo XX en el Perú, la iniciativa de la Educación Intercultural Bilingüe, o la EIB, ha sido una manera importante de promover la revaloración de las lenguas y culturas indígenas y contribuir a un cambio social donde los espacios nacionales políticos y sociales incluyen por primera vez a las poblaciones indígenas sin la discriminación del pasado. La EIB tendrá mayor posibilidad de realizar un cambio social en el Perú si tiene el apoyo de todos los sectores involucrados con su implementación exitosa y más extendida. Cada sector tiene su propio discurso y comprensión de la …

Derechos Humanos Y La Manera De Defenderlos - Human Rights And The Manner Of Defending Them, Savannah Martínez

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

This short essay revolves around the definitions and defense of Human Rights in the Spanish city of Granada. As a sociology major, I chose this topic because I desired to observe and to learn about a social phenomenon happening in this diverse and rich city. Similarly, while Granada has and is experiencing social issues like immigration, I am from an area of the same multicultural roots. As such, I saw a connection in how the society is grappling with issues of how to enforce and secure Human Rights for those that desperately lack them. This opportunity presented itself and I …

Conciencia Social En Granada: Los Éxitos Y Las Dificultades - Raising Social Consciousness In Granada: Successes And Difficulties, Heidi Hong

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Through my community service project at Granada Insider, an English language tourist magazine, I was encouraged to research upcoming events that may give tourists a different perspective of Granada. As I compiled lists of activities in Granada, I was struck by the quantity of events that promoted consciousness about critical themes concerning gender, immigration, and social justice. At my home institution, I had been involved in various campus organizations that are concerned with social issues. My personal interest led me to investigate the role of the provincial government in raising consciousness in public locations. In my project, I establish …

Building Houses, Making Homes: The Experiencing Of Returning To Post-War Sanski Most, Claire Griffith

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Over half of Bosnia’s population was displaced by the war from 1992-1995. One of the political objectives of the war was the separating of Bosnia’s ethnically intermixed population into homogenous spaces. This was achieved through ethnic cleansing of communities. Broadening the discussion of ethnic cleansing, authors, such as Gearoid O Tuathail and Carl Cahlman, have analyzed ethnic cleansing, as it occurred in Bosnia, within the framework of ‘domicide,’ or the ““he intentional exercise of violence to destroy a particular type of spatiality: homes. It is ‘the deliberate killing of home’” (O Tuathail and Dahlman, 244). Assuming ‘domicide’ rather than just …

A Long Road Home: Housing Rights In South Africa’S Informal Settlement, Joe Slovo, Kaitlyn Bowles

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Most countries legally consider housing to be a necessary human right. But for
millions of individuals in this world, adequate housing is out of reach. Homelessness is evident in different manors throughout the world, but in South Africa, the problem of insufficient housing develops itself in the form of informal settlements. One such settlement, Joe Slovo1, is situated just outside of Cape Town, and is the primary focus of this paper. Recently, Joe Slovo has been a prominent feature in the local news because of its involvement in a Constitutional Court case. On March 30, 2011, 20,000 residents of Joe …

Relative Democracy: Rwandan Perspectives On Representative Government, Gabriel C.J.M. Nahmias

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

The primary objective of this research is to ascertain, at least in part, the importance Rwandan’s place on different aspects of democracy. This is done with the hope of giving Rwandans more voice in the discussion of the “democratization” of their own country. With Rwanda’s unique culture and history, the application of “democracy” within this nation should be done, in the mind of the researcher, in accordance to the context, and the only people who fully understand this context are Rwandans themselves. The secondary objective is to hypothesize why these aspects have particular importance in the Rwandan context. The tertiary …

The Impact Of Qmm On Social Relations In Fort-Dauphin, Christopher B. Collier

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

My interest in this subject began with a general desire to understand how Malagasy society adapts to “outsiders.” We learned throughout the semester about the various external forces that have shaped the culture of the island since the arrival of the first people here thousands of years ago. At first, my ideas were focused more on the experiences of people immigrating to Madagascar. I observed very particular patterns: immigrants of certain ethnicities fill specific socioeconomic niches in specific geographic areas, and with varying reception from the Malagasy community.

I came to realize, however, that similar patterns take place even between …

Review Of Hollowing Out The Middle: The Rural Brain Drain And What It Means For America. By Patrick J. Carr And Maria J. Kefalas., Peter F. Korsching

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences (through 2013)

"Hollowing out the middle" refers to the loss of the well-educated young adults in rural communities of America's Heartland-the Corn Belt and Great Plains. Declining rural communities invest their meager resources to educate their brightest youth, thereby providing them opportunities for rewarding careers in distant cities. This further contributes to the communities' woes because it guarantees not only population loss, but also loss of expertise and leadership that could help them solve their problems. Carr and Kefalas's contribution to understanding the dilemma of rural communities promoting and supporting the loss of the best and brightest is through an in-depth analysis …

Courts, Social Change, And Political Backlash, Georgetown University Law Center

Philip A. Hart Memorial Lecture

On March 31, 2011, Professor of Law, Michael Klarman of Harvard Law School delivered the Georgetown Law Center’s thirty-first annual Philip A. Hart Lecture: “Courts, Social Change, and Political Backlash.” Included here are the speaker's notes from this lecture.

Michael Klarman is the Kirkland & Ellis Professor at Harvard Law School. Formerly, he was the James Monroe Distinguished Professor of Law, Professor of History, and the Elizabeth D. and Richard A. Merrill Research Professor at the University of Virginia School of Law. Klarman specializes in the constitutional history of race.

Klarman holds a J.D. from Stanford Law School, a D.Phil. …

The State Of The Fair Trade Movement, Jeff Goldman, Executive Director

Fair Trade Universities' National Convergence

No abstract provided.

Torch (March 2011), Brandon Baldwin, Civil Rights Team Project

Torch: The Civil Rights Team Project Newsletter

No abstract provided.

Animal Rights As A Mainstream Phenomenon, Bernard E. Rollin

Animal Rights Movement Collection

Businesses and professions must stay in accord with social ethics, or risk losing their autonomy. A major social ethical issue that has emerged in the past four decades is the treatment of animals in various areas of human use. Society’s moral concern has outgrown the traditional ethic of animal cruelty that began in biblical times and is encoded in the laws of all civilized societies. There are five major reasons for this new social concern, most importantly, the replacement of husbandry-based agriculture with industrial agriculture. This loss of husbandry to industry has threatened the traditional fair contract between humans and …

Asian Americans And Politics: Voting Behavior And Political Involvement, Elizabeth Hoene

Political Science Theses and Capstones

Voting behavior and political involvement are two commonly studied topics among political scientists today, most commonly involving Caucasian, African, and Hispanic Americans. However, there have been relatively few studies done on Asian American and Asian immigrant voting behavior and their political involvement. What causes Asian Americans and Asian immigrants to vote the way they do? How involved are they in American politics and why? These are questions that I am aiming to answer through the studying of the Pilot National Asian American Political Survey 2000- 2001 from the Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research. Socioeconomic factors such as income, …

Litigation, Legislation, And Democracy In A Post-Newspaper America, Ronnell Anderson Jones

Washington and Lee Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Emergence Of Latin America: A Break With History?, Mauricio Cardenas

Brookings Scholar Lecture Series

The idea is to discuss recent economic and social trends in Latin America, many of which defy the conventional wisdom in the U.S. about the region. At the same time, the region is divided between two ideological camps, so progress will not be uniform between countries. Understanding the origins and implications of the ideological divide is crucial.

The People Want The Fall Of The Regime: Schooling, Political Protest, And The Economy, Filipe R. Campante, Davin Chor

Research Collection School Of Economics

We provide evidence that economic circumstances are a key intermediating variable for understanding the relationship between schooling and political protest. Using the World Values Survey, we find that individuals with higher levels of schooling, but whose income outcomes fall short of that predicted by their biographical characteristics, in turn display a greater propensity to engage in protest activities. We discuss a number of interpretations that are consistent with this finding, including the idea that economic conditions can affect how individuals trade off the use of their human capital between production and political activities. Our results could also reflect a link …