American Politics Commons^™

Casar Public Lecture: ‘The U.S. Civil Rights Experience And The Freedom Riders’, The Prince Alwaleed Center For American Studies And Research Casar, Mark W. Deets

Performances, Events, and Presentations

CASAR Public lecture titled: ‘The U.S. Civil Rights Experience and the Freedom Riders’ In celebration of Black History Month, join us in an intriguing discussion about U.S. history with Ms. Joan Trumpauer-Mulholland , an American civil rights activist and one of the Freedom Riders, a group of black and white activists who challenged the legally segregated buses and bus stations of the South by refusing to travel separately. This event was a collaboration between the Public Diplomacy Section at the U.S. Embassy in Cairo and the Prince Alwaleed Center for American Studies and Research (CASAR), School of GAPP, The American …

Conspiracy Theories And Religion: Christian Nationalism And The Rise Of North American Populism, Carmen Celestini

Consensus

No abstract provided.

Understanding The Lgbtq+ Divide: A Review On The Impact Of Geographic Location And Political Climate On Lgbtq+ Patient Care In The United States., Conner Clark

Cooper Rowan Medical Journal

Background:

In the United States, laws and policies are proposed and passed daily that either protect or restrict transgender patients’ access to care. The objective of this study is to review the existing body of literature on the effect of state-level policy on transgender patients’ overall health.

Methods:

Primary literature was identified through PubMed and the National Institutes of Health. Search terms included keywords related to the following concepts: LGBTQ terms, differentiating terms, regional terms, and health outcome terms. Inclusion criteria: Quantifiable studies conducted on the American LGBTQ and Transgender population from January 2015 to April 2023. Exclusion criteria: Studies …

Divisive Or Descriptive?: How Americans Understand Critical Race Theory, Alauna Safarpour, Kristin Lunz Trujillo, Jon Green, Caroline High Pippert, Jennifer Lin, James N. Druckman

Political Science Faculty Publications

Critical Race Theory (CRT) has become a flashpoint of elite political discord, yet how Americans actually perceive CRT is unclear. We theorize that Republican elites utilized a strong framing strategy to re-define CRT as an “empty signifier” representing broader racial and cultural grievances. Using a survey and a pre-registered experiment among U.S. adults (N = 19,060), we find that this strategy worked. Republicans exhibit more familiarity with CRT and hold more negatively valenced (and wide ranging) sentiments toward CRT, relative to Democrats. Moreover, compared to teaching the legacy of racism in schools, Republicans are significantly more opposed to teaching CRT …

A Constellation Approach To Understanding Extremist White Supremacy, Kathleen Blee, Robert Futrell, Pete Simi

Sociology Faculty Articles and Research

Reflecting on long-term intensive ethnographic fieldwork, we sketch a “constellation” framework for understanding U.S. extremist white supremacy. Rather than tracing fluctuating people and organizations to explain the persistence of white supremacist extremism, we suggest that focusing on a core set of practices, ideas, and emotions offers a more complex, nuanced, and useful interpretation. We contrast our constellation framework with more typical “bucket” approaches that tend to compartmentalize a complex reality into categories that do not sufficiently match extremism’s dynamism.

Senatus Exesa: Explaining The Abuse Of Procedure In The U.S. Congress, Ian Klenk

Soaring: A Journal of Undergraduate Research

Senatus Exesa: Explaining the Abuse of Procedure in the U.S. Congress

Abstract

On October 3^rd, 2023, Rep. Kevin McCarthy became the first Speaker of the House of Representatives to be forcibly removed from his position as Speaker of the lower chamber of Congress. Though dramatic, this episode is indicative of the current state of American politics. At a time when political polarization between the two parties has never been higher, norms that were once considered the nuclear option are now understood as the norm. Cynicism and distrust of Congress is at an all-time high, with many Americans disabused …

The Effects Of Empathic Reactions To The Overturning Of Roe V. Wade On Campaign Participation And Voter Turnout: Evidence From The 2022 U.S. Midterm Elections, Cigdem Sirin, José Villalobos

Selected Works Temporary Series

In June 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court’s Dobbs ruling overturned Roe v. Wade, reversing the nearly 50-year-old landmark decision that affirmed a woman’s constitutional right to abortion. Several months later, voters turned out in record numbers for the 2022 midterms, though a widely predicted “Red Wave” vote did not materialize. There has since been speculation that overturning Roe v. Wade played a crucial role in the midterms, generating a “Blue Tsunami” or “Roevember” driven largely by young, pro-choice women voting out of self-interest. We posit instead that group empathy was the key motivational mechanism in the link between opposition to …

Did The Change In Snap Ebt Benefits In Response To Covid-19 Affect Poverty, Snap Participation, And Food Insecurity Rates?, Paige Thing

2024 Awards for Excellence in Student Research and Creative Activity - Documents

The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, is one of the most important welfare programs the United States government offers. In fiscal year 2015, one in every seven Americans received SNAP assistance. Previously called food stamps as they were first introduced with the passing of the Food and Agriculture Act in 1977, this program has been helping individuals struggling with food insecurity for decades (Ziliak 2016). Benefits are no longer dispersed with physical stamps, restricting what households can and cannot buy. Now benefits are distributed via a debit card-type system. This is where the EBT gets added to the program …

The Effects Of Empathic Reactions To The Overturning Of Roe V. Wade On Campaign Participation And Voter Turnout: Evidence From The 2022 U.S. Midterm Elections, Cigdem Sirin, José Villalobos

Departmental Papers (PS)

In June 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court’s Dobbs ruling overturned Roe v. Wade, reversing the nearly 50-year-old landmark decision that affirmed a woman’s constitutional right to abortion. Several months later, voters turned out in record numbers for the 2022 midterms, though a widely predicted “Red Wave” vote did not materialize. There has since been speculation that overturning Roe v. Wade played a crucial role in the midterms, generating a “Blue Tsunami” or “Roevember” driven largely by young, pro-choice women voting out of self-interest. We posit instead that group empathy was the key motivational mechanism in the link between opposition …

The Voice Of Reason: The Rhetoric Of Women Politicians In A Polarized U.S. Congress, Ingrid Ryan

Honors Program Theses

Political rhetoric can be utilized as a divisive tactic in the modern polarized age to separate the Democratic and Republican public in U.S. congressional speeches. Once holding an educational purpose in the 1980s, U.S. House representatives and senators now must focus on their political party’s issue goals to ensure their re-election. This research investigates common political rhetoric tools – while evaluating women politicians’ speeches about abortion, the 2020 U.S. Presidential election, and Donald Trump’s two impeachments – to find if they encourage partisan polarization or anti-democratic behavior. This research focuses on these speeches from U.S. House Representatives Ilhan Omar and …

I'Ve Registered To Vote... Now What?, Gabriel Giberson, Jasmine Cintron Soto, Lauren Shelton, Hayley Piazza

Student Zines

This zine was created by students from the Center for Community Action and Research to support voter outreach during the 2024 presidential election.

Government Corruption In The Northern Triangle Of Central America As A Major Factor In The Immigration Crisis In The United States, Kenia Karina Rodriguez Turcios

Honors Program Theses and Research Projects

Immigration trends to the United States from Central America are often blamed on violence and insecurity created by cartels and street gangs. However, corruption in the government system in Central America is an understudied factor that might influence immigration from the region. This article adds to the literature on immigration by proposing that government corruption in the Northern Triangle is an important “push” factor which leads individuals to emigrate to the United States. Incorporating the role of corruption in our understanding of why we see large numbers of individuals fleeing their home countries to enter the United States provides us …

What Removal Causes Are Most Common For Children In Foster Care? Are There Discrepancies Across Age Groups?, Elise Woodliff

Social Work Theses - Archive

Although there has been recent focus on child welfare to prevent removals, little literature has examined reasons children are removed among diverse developmental stages. The present study explores the multifaceted demographics of children in the foster care system in order to recognize who is being affected by what removal causes. The purpose of this study is to better understand the foster care system to target interventions and screenings for children under eighteen years of age in the United States. Quantitative measures were used to analyze statistics that were made available through the Adoption and Foster Care Analysis and Reporting System. …

Boiling Behind Bars: Exploring The Hidden Toll Of Extreme Heat On Mental Health In Texas Prisons, Sandra K. Miller

Social Work Theses - Archive

The State of Texas supports the largest prison system in the US and held 132,859 people in 100 units scattered across the state as of December 2023. Approximately 70% of Texas prison beds are not air conditioned, despite the state’s reputation for dangerously hot, humid summers. The State has officially recorded temperatures inside Texas prison facilities as high as 120 degrees with heat index values of over 150. Although there is a growing body of research on the negative physiological and psychological consequences of extreme heat among the general public, little is known about the physical and emotional toll of …

A Cherokee Historiography: 125 Years And The Trail Of Tears, Joshua Huberman

History - Master of Arts in Teaching

Synthesis Essay..............................3

Document Section.........................28

Textbook Engagement...................38

Bibliography....................................48

Body. Freedom. Choice: Creating Artwork In Post-Roe America, Erin Sedra

Graduate Theses/Dissertations

I knew from a young age that I never wanted children. Whenever I expressed my disinterest in motherhood, I was often met with bewilderment, disapproval, and hostility. The church I was raised in taught me that my value and worth as a woman directly correlated with the power of my birthing hips. This fundamentalist upbringing has significantly shaped my relationship with my femininity, my body, and my artwork. When I feel powerless, turning to my art gives me a sense of control and self-expression. This body of work began as a reaction to the overturning of Roe v. Wade and …

Bureaucratic Autonomy And The Policymaking Capacity Of United States Agencies, 1998-2021, Nicholas Bednar

Articles

Despite a renewed interest in the health of the US administrative state, the absence of meaningful time-series measures of bureaucratic capacity hinders the testing of core theories of bureaucratic and executive politics. Using over 190 million personnel records, I estimate 5590 yearly policymaking-capacity scores for 261 unique agencies from 1998 to 2021. These measures provide an invaluable tool as either an independent or dependent variable in studies of administrative policymaking. To illustrate the value of these measures, I test longstanding theories about the relationship between bureaucratic autonomy and capacity. In contrast with emerging survey research, this study demonstrates that agencies …

Presidential Investment In The Administrative State, Nicholas Bednar, David E. Lewis

Articles

In this paper, we explain how presidents strategically invest in administrative capacity, noting that presidents have few incentives to invest effort in capacity building in most agencies. We test our account with two analyses. First, we examine the time it took for the Bush, Obama, Trump, and Biden Administrations to nominate individuals to appointed positions. We find that presidents prioritize appointments to policy over management positions and that nominations occur sooner in agencies that implement presidential priorities. Second, we examine the responses of federal executives to the 2020 Survey on the Future of Government Service to see whether perceptions of …

“Because I Said So”: How National Leaders Use Rhetoric To Frame The Issues Of National Security And The War On Drugs, Saul Valle

History and Political Science | Senior Theses

In the preamble of the 2024 presidential election seasons in both the United States and Mexico, there has been an increase in aggressive outspoken expression by national leaders regarding how to best handle the issue of drugs and drug use across the Western hemisphere. These types of sweeping policies are often credited to President Richard Nixon, who on June 18th, 1971, initiated his “War on Drugs,” a global policy campaign intended to address the production, distribution, and consumption of the illicit drug trade. Existing scholarship on this topic has extensively analyzed the early years of the American war on drugs …

“We’Ll Offer Asylum Just So Long As…” The Discrimination Of Poc And Lgbtq+ Refugees In Ongoing Refugee Crises, Faith N. Schaefer

Undergraduate Honors Theses

An ongoing refugee crisis is apparent in global politics and foreign relations. Still, the way receiving countries regard certain communities in this critical period has brought to light the inhumane discrimination solely based on one’s skin color and/or sexual identity. Despite the “open arms” policy that most nations tend to project, there is an unwritten protocol along borders that some states have chosen a “pick and choose” approach when it comes to People of Color (POC) and Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, and other gender non-conforming (LGBTQ+) individuals who are fleeing their country of origin. Any such prejudice and inequity …