American Politics Commons^™

Through The Looking Glass: Finding And Freeing Modern-Day Slaves At The State Level, Michelle L. Rickert

Faculty Publications and Presentations

This article delves into the interaction between federal and state laws prohibiting human trafficking. The article advocates for comprehensive human trafficking laws at the state level, including police training, victim aftercare, forfeiture, and prosecution as essential elements. It looks comprehensively at the existing state laws prohibiting human trafficking. Additionally it examines the five existing models for state law and suggests benefits and potential improvements for each model. The article concludes y advocating a holistic law prohibiting human trafficking in the Commonwealth of Virginia.

Energy: A Review Of Federal And Indiana State Information Resources, Bert Chapman

Libraries Research Publications

Provides an overview of U.S. Government and Indiana State Government energy information resources.

Agriculture: A Review Of Federal And Indiana State Information Resources, Bert Chapman

Libraries Research Publications

Provides an overview of information resources on agriculture from the U.S. Government and Indiana State Government.

Return To Unfinished Business: Re-Energizing U.S. Nuclear Arms Policy, William T. Eliason

Graduate Program in International Studies Theses & Dissertations

Today's international environment characterized in nuclear threat terms as having increasing concerns about the potential for terrorist or non-state use of nuclear devices and a decline in the likelihood of the original nuclear weapon states engaging each other in a nuclear war remains in search of a path away from the fear of nuclear attack some twenty years after the end of the Cold War. This research dissertation will seek to answer the question of how best to reestablish a nuclear arms control regime. This dissertation argues that the international environment has fundamentally changed since the end of the Cold …

Balancing, Generic Polls And Midterm Congressional Elections, Joseph Bafumi, Robert S. Erikson, Christopher Wlezien

Dartmouth Scholarship

One mystery of U.S. politics is why the president’s party regularly loses congressional seats at midterm. Although presidential coattails and their withdrawal provide a partial explanation, coattails cannot account for the fact that the presidential party typically performs worse than normal at midterm. This paper addresses the midterm vote separate from the presidential year vote, with evidence from generic congressional polls conducted during midterm election years. Polls early in the midterm year project a normal vote result in November. But as the campaign progresses, vote preferences almost always move toward the out party. This shift is not a negative referendum …

The Political Personality Of U.S. President Barack Obama, Aubrey Immelman

Psychology Faculty Publications

This paper presents the results of an indirect assessment of the personality of U.S. president Barack Obama, from the conceptual perspective of personologist Theodore Millon.

Information concerning Obama was collected from biographical sources and media reports and synthesized into a personality profile using the Millon Inventory of Diagnostic Criteria (MIDC), which yields 34 normal and maladaptive personality classifications congruent with Axis II of DSM–IV.

The personality profile yielded by the MIDC was analyzed on the basis of interpretive guidelines provided in the MIDC and Millon Index of Personality Styles manuals. Obama’s primary personality patterns were found to be Ambitious/confident …

Presidential Elections, Southwest Minnesota State University

Elections/Voting

Bibliography and photographs of a display of government documents from Southwest Minnesota State University.

"American Dream" Or Global Nightmare?, Melanie E. L. Bush

Journal of Global Initiatives: Policy, Pedagogy, Perspective

In the United States we are witnessing a period of heightened contestation about the parameters of nationalism, patriotism, and loyalty. The oft-heard phrase "Support the Troops" now signifies the desire both to send more soldiers to war and to bring home those already in combat. This "nation of immigrants" has spawned a new generation of "minute-men" to defend national borders while mainstream discourse touts the benefits of "diversity." Dreams of upward mobility present for some during the mid-20th century seem now hazy at best as the proportional income of those at top grows while the rest of the population increasingly …

Spot Off: The Gao Takes On The Tsa’S Behavior Detection Program, Ibpp Editor

International Bulletin of Political Psychology

The United States Government Accountability Office (GAO) has recently Issued Efforts to Validate TSA’s Passenger Screening Behavior Detection Program Underway, but Opportunities Exist to Strengthen Validation and Address Operational Problems (May 2010, GAO-10-763). This IBPP article will describe and comment on the main GAO findings and additional data on which the findings are based. The article will end with some basic challenges to behavior detection as a useful security measure.

Letter: Edna Saffy; Phyllis B. Andruskiewicz, Edna Louise Saffy

Saffy Collection - All Textual Materials

Letter from Dr. Saffy regarding the Jacksonville’s Women of Influence” project. Date: May 13, 2010.

Beyond Racial Precedents: Loving V. Virginia As An Appropriate Legal Model And Strategy For Same-Sex Marriage Litigation, Michael J. Csere

Honors Scholar Theses

This thesis explores how LGBT marriage activists and lawyers have employed a racial interpretation of due process and equal protection in recent same-sex marriage litigation. Special attention is paid to the Supreme Court's opinion in Loving v. Virginia, the landmark case that declared anti-miscegenation laws unconstitutional. By exploring the use of racial precedent in same-sex marriage litigation and its treatment in state court cases, this thesis critiques the racial interpretation of due process and equal protection that became the basis for LGBT marriage briefs and litigation, and attempts to answer the question of whether a racial interpretation of due process …

Executive Power And The People: Does The President Care What You Think?, James Ringold

Honors Scholar Theses

I sought to examine the relationship between public approval of the president and his subsequent behavior. Specifically, I looked at the relationship between public approval and signing statement usage along with their usage following the 2006 outcry against President Bush's use of them.

Interest Groups And The 2008 Elections, Justin Roller

Honors Capstone Projects and Theses

No abstract provided.

Think Outside The Cell: Are Binding Detention Standards The Most Effective Strategy To Prevent Abuses Of Detained Illegal Aliens?, Federico D. Burlon

Political Science Honors Projects

In the last twenty years the U.S. government has increasingly utilized detention to control illegal immigration. This practice has become controversial because it has caused numerous in-custody abuses and deaths of immigrants, asylum seekers, refugees and even citizens. Immigrant rights advocates have called for the passage of binding detention standards to prevent in-custody abuses. This thesis’s policy analysis reveals, however, that while they may finesse the practice of immigration detention, such binding standards would be ineffective in protecting immigrants’ rights. Instead this policy analysis calls for and explains the feasibility of discontinuing the practice of mass immigrant detention.

Global Agricultural Price Supports: The Political And Economic Forces That Drive Unsustainable Agricultural Protectionism Policy, John Francis Hays

Dissertations

Agricultural tariffs and price supports are the last bastion of US and European protectionism. While all other areas of commerce have embraced change and welcomed open-market international commerce, agriculture has remained the lone holdout.

The small farmers for whom these support programs were designed no longer exist. Yet governments appropriate billions of dollars annually for the continued support of these outdated programs.

The fact that these governmental agencies resist change, even in an age of economic crises, record national debt, and one of the highest negative trade balances in history, is testimony to American civic indifference.

Public apathy precludes timely …

Human Rights Pragmatism Under Obama, Sonia Cardenas

Human Rights & Human Welfare

Bypassing realists and idealists, President Obama has staked out a boldly pragmatic approach to human rights. Critics depict the policy shift as “the downfall of human rights” and a set of “empty promises.” The problem is not with Obama’s embrace of pragmatism, or his rejection of ideology, to advance human rights. The problem is in the emphasis: human rights pragmatism should not privilege external inducements over vital on-the-ground domestic realities.

The Televised Presidential Debate: Decreasing Effectiveness And The Impact Of The New Media Spin In The Fourth Age, Marcus Stevens

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

This Capstone Project focuses on the entire history of televised presidential debates in America. Beginning with the Kennedy-Nixon debates of 1960 and ending with the Obama-McCain debates of 2008, I examine and analyze academic books, articles and data in order to answer several questions: Did the American public continue to tune in to televised debate for information throughout the years? Have the debates lost their ability to maintain interest, change or affect electoral outcomes, or help inform the masses of the actual policies and promises of the candidates? Have the advances in technology and media had any effect on these …

Changing Constituencies And International Trade: The Role Of Organized Labor On The Trade Platform Of The Democratic Party, Chad Ivan Brooker

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

Abstract

Problem:

There has been much talk over the past 50 years of the role of American labor in a changing American industrial market. As the world has become increasingly connected, American workers who tout high levels of labor rights, high wages, and safe working conditions have been hard pressed to compete with emerging economies that often share little of these same principles or legal decrees.

The debate over American competitiveness in the world has been fought on the picket lines, on the streets, in back rooms and most importantly in the stolid, white, columned halls of Congress. While liberalized …

Religion And Regionalism: Congregants, Culture And City-County Consolidation In Louisville, Kentucky, Joshua D. Ambrosius

Political Science Faculty Publications

Literature on religious involvement in public affairs typically examines the national scene, particularly public opinion and political behavior in presidential elections. Few scholars examine religious actors in urban politics and policymaking. Those who do study local politics emphasize morality policy and ignore issues of metropolitan governance and institutional design, central concerns of the urban politics field. This dissertation fills that gap by studying Louisville, Kentucky, site of the first large-scale city-county consolidation since 1969. I ask: does religion affect how people vote in a consolidation referendum and shape their opinions about merged government? I employ a survey instrument (N=807), collected …

Partisan Defection And Change In The 2008 Us Presidential Election, Herbert F. Weisberg, Christopher J. Devine

Political Science Faculty Publications

Party identification remained an important determinant of vote choice in the 2008 election. Indeed, the extent to which people voted according to their partisanship remained as exceptionally high as it had been in the 2004 election. The Democrats led in partisanship, with a greater lead than in 2004. The ANES four‐wave panel survey shows that some change occurred in the Democratic direction during 2008. The Democrats gained among most population groups, with the exception of older citizens. Obama's victory margin was due to his carrying pure independents and the growth in strong Democrats as opposed to strong Republicans. Both candidates …