Comparative Politics Commons^™

Why Weak States Balance: National Mobilization And The Security Strategies Of Post-Soviet States, Eteri Tsintsadze-Maass

Theses and Dissertations--Political Science

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the 14 post-Soviet states adopted dramatically differing security strategies towards Russia: some sought security by bandwagoning with Russia while others strove to balance against it. Why did states with similar experiences under Soviet rule and similar asymmetric power positions vis-à-vis Russia adopt such diverse security strategies in the aftermath of the Soviet Union’s disintegration? In contrast to prevailing theories focusing on power, economic interdependence, and cultural similarities, I propose that these variations in post-Soviet states’ security strategies can be best explained by their diverse experiences with national mobilization. The central argument of this …

Understanding Universal Coverage: An Overview Of Universal Health Care & Studies Of Real-World Implementations, Amanda Dombroski

Capstone Showcase

The purpose of this project is to dispel the confusion and misunderstandings surrounding universal health care coverage. To do this, I will identify the four models of universal health care identified by scholars - Beveridge, Bismarck, National Health Insurance, and Out-of-Pocket - and provided real-world examples of these health care systems in practice through analyses of health care in the United Kingdom, Germany, Canada. The Out-of-Pocket model is not analyzed in practice, given it does not allow for equal access for all to health care. Through the identification and evaluation of the four forms of universal health care coverage, I …

Trickle Down Nationalism: Interactions Between Liberal Nationalism And Colonialism In The Raj And Nigeria, Aaryaman Sheoran

CMC Senior Theses

The combination of nationalism and colonialism has remained understudied in academia, despite the important interaction between the two phenomena. European ideas bled over into their colonial empires and began to fill the power vacuum created by colonial enterprises. This study analyzes the impact of British colonialism on the development of national identity in British India and Nigeria.

British influences included large scale economic disruption, cultural reform through ‘westernizing’ the population and abolishing local customs, and creating a new set of institutions to replace traditional power centers. Inevitably, these factors created a nationalist surge across both the Raj and Nigeria, as …

Shutting Down Russia's Superiority Complex. An Analysis Of The International Community's Response To Russia's 2014 Annexation Of Crimea., Luisa Valles

CMC Senior Theses

The United States, the European Union and allies responded to the Russian Federation’s 2014 Annexation of Crimea with economic sanctions. After providing a basic understanding of Russia’s political economy and rent redistribution economic system, this paper supplies an overview of the Western sanctions within Russia’s three economic sectors — the energy industry, the defense industry, and the financial system. From there, I make an analysis of the Russian response to the sanctions is within each sector. Furthermore, I argue that the United States supports ulterior motives for implementing the economic sanctions. Concluding with the effects of the sanctions to Russia's …

The Road To Human Emancipation - The Moral And Political Foundations Of Markets, William Shi

CMC Senior Theses

The thesis aims to provide both a real public ideology and the legal and socioeconomic structures to realize Karl Marx’s ideal of human emancipation. Marx argues that in capitalist society, the legal and political superstructure forces the ruling class to represent its interest as the public interest, which legitimizes the massive inequality in resources and social power. To demonstrate how to realize the substantive public interest, the two parts of the thesis have two goals. The first part aims to formulate a rightful candidate to the public ideology of human emancipation, which represents the substantive public interest rather than the …

“It’S The Procedure, Stupid!”: Amendment Procedures And Their Effects On Constitutional Stability, Joseph Noss

CMC Senior Theses

Constitutions must change. No human can stop time from marching forward, nor the social, economic, cultural, and technological developments associated. As a result, constitutions necessitate mechanisms that allow for their own progress. The amendment procedure of a constitution—the rules that govern what changes can occur—is therefore fundamental to any constitutional system. Importantly, scholars, politicians, and citizens alike fail to take into account the significance of these amendment processes and their effects on the constitutions they govern. While usually treated as a constitutional after-thought, amendment procedures have one of the most pronounced, substantive effects on the permanence of a constitutional order. …

The Impact Of California Senate Bill 826 On Employee Perspectives And Stock Performance On California Tech Firms, Kimberly M. Kaneshina

Scripps Senior Theses

On September 30, 2018, California Senate Bill 826 (CA SB 826) was passed. This Bill requires a quota for women to serve on California headquartered and public corporate boards. This study focuses on California tech firms, which I define as firms that are reliant on technology to create their main product or platform; but, are not aerospace or telecommunication firms. My thesis is a two-part analysis: exploring employees’, who worked at companies that were impacted by this Bill, perspectives, as well as, discovering if there is a relationship between percentage of female directors and stock price performance. Most employees were …

Electoral College Reform: Past, Present, And Future Implications Of The United States Electoral College System, Madison Mckinney

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

The United States’ Electoral College system has been a topic of debate for several years, gaining even more attention from the recent 2000 and 2016 elections. This has become a controversial topic throughout history for several reasons, but mostly because twice in the modern presidency, candidates have won the presidency by winning the electoral vote while losing the popular vote. This paper will examine the history and creation of the Electoral College, how the Framers’ intended it to function, several positive and negative factors of the current system, and compare arguments for and against Electoral College reform. Some reform options …

The Political Viability Of Carbon Pricing: Policy Design And Framing In British Columbia And California, Roger Karapin

Publications and Research

The adoption of climate policies with visible, substantial costs for households is uncommon because of expected political backlash, but British Columbia's carbon tax and California's cap-and-trade program imposed such costs and still survived vigorous opposition. To explain these outcomes, this paper tests hypotheses concerning policy design, framing, energy prices, and elections. It conducts universalizing and variation-finding comparisons across three subcases in the two jurisdictions and uses primary sources to carry out process tracing involving mechanisms of public opinion and elite position taking. The paper finds strong support for the timing of independent energy price changes, exogenous causes of election results, …

From Hobbes To Habermas: The Anti-Cultural Turn In Western Political Thought, Ralph Gert Schoellhammer

Theses and Dissertations--Political Science

The theme of this dissertation is the anti-cultural turn of Western Political Thought that has emerged out of Enlightenment thinking and was first turned into a comprehensive political idea by Thomas Hobbes.

Beginning with an overview of psychological research into the phenomenon of culture I put forward the argument that human beings are by nature social and individualistic, but that they oscillate between their ability to put group-interests before individual interests and vice versa. Culture is the main mechanism that influences which interest we give priority. This mechanism work through emotional attachments that create intuitions about what is morally right …

The Political Viability Of Carbon Pricing: Policy Design And Framing In British Columbia And California, Roger Karapin

Publications and Research

The adoption of climate policies with visible, substantial costs for households is uncommon because of expected political backlash, but British Columbia's carbon tax and California's cap-and-trade program imposed such costs and still survived vigorous opposition. To explain these outcomes, this paper tests hypotheses concerning policy design, framing, energy prices, and elections. It conducts universalizing and variation-finding comparisons across three subcases in the two jurisdictions and uses primary sources to carry out process tracing involving mechanisms of public opinion and elite position taking. The paper finds strong support for the timing of independent energy price changes, exogenous causes of election results, …

Microfinance In Latin America: Poverty Alleviation And The Impact Of Institutional Mimicry, Lindsay Jouben

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Microfinance has become a program of choice in the international development community. The World Bank has promoted microfinance programs under the idea that poverty alleviation can be accomplished by mainly providing credit. [1] As such, these policies are often replicated throughout the developing world. This replication is done through international organizations adopting a standard of best practices for the microfinance field. Best practices consist of a complex set of standard by which all banks must adhere if they receive funding from the World Bank or International Monetary Fund. These best practices, following neoliberal economics, lay out how microfinance should operate …

Ending The Spanish Exception: Explaining The Rise Of Vox, Ethan J. Vanderwilden

Honors Theses

The “Spanish Exception” refers to Spain’s lack, until recently, of a populist right-wing party. Vox became the first party to the right of the conservative PP to win seats in a regional election in 2018 and in general elections in April and November of 2019. Vox is currently the third largest political party in the Spanish parliament, bringing an end to Spanish exceptionalism. This thesis addresses the rise of Vox through a conceptual framework of political opportunity structure. The framework allows for multiple explanations to account for Vox’s sudden breakthrough. I argue that opportunities present in 2018 and 2019 at …

Taming The Prince: Bringing Presidential Emergency Powers Under Law In Colombia, Andrea Scoseria Katz

Scholarship@WashULaw

Can courts check presidential power exercised in a crisis — and should they? The case of Colombia, which recently turned on its head a history of presidential overreach and judicial rubber-stamping, provides an answer in the affirmative. As in much of Latin America, throughout Colombia’s post-independence history, bloodshed fueled authoritarian tendencies, with presidents exploiting the need for “order” to centralize power. One critical weapon in the presidential toolkit was the power to declare a state of emergency. During the twentieth century, these decrees became a routine pretext for the President to govern unilaterally, acquiesced to by the legislature and rarely …

Economic Sanctions & Political Unrest: Cuba And Iran, Bailey Nicole Sellers

UNF Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study observes the relationship between economic sanctions and civil unrest. Through a comparative lens, this paper assesses two case studies: Iran and Cuba and attempts to explain why Iran experiences high frequencies of protests in comparison to Cuba.

Un Viaje Gráfico De Crítica Política: Análisis Geográfico-Temático De Los Diseños De Eneko De Las Heras Sobre Los Periódicos Interviú Y 20 Minutos, Giovanni Pietro Vitali

Artl@s Bulletin

Esta contribución pretende ser una tentativa de análisis crítico y geográfico del trabajo del caricaturista venezolano Eneko de Las Heras Leizaola. En este artículo proponemos un análisis espacial y cronológico de sus dibujos de humor gráfico y de denuncia social publicados en los periódicos Interviú y 20 Minutos entre los años de 2007 a 2018. El sustento de dicho análisis reside en el empleo de herramientas digitales. Demostraremos cómo Eneko representa, incluso si hay algunas críticas sociales en respuesta a fenómenos económicos, políticos y bélicos, nuevas formas de contar cuestiones sociales como el sexismo o la ecología.

Salutogenesis And The Prevention Of Social Death: Cross-Cultural Lessons From Genocide-Impacted Rwandans And Indigenous Youth In Canada, Jobb D. Arnold

Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal

Combining trans-disciplinary theories with cross-cultural ethnographic research, this paper explores community-based approaches to genocide prevention among Canadian-Indigenous groups as well as with Rwandan student genocide survivors. A Salutogenic framework is used to examine community responses to the micro-foundations of genocide (Antonovsky 1987). These processes are explored using first-hand accounts from “New Family” networks of student genocide survivors in Rwanda and members of a Canadian urban-Indigenous “Village.” These perspectives shed light on how locally adaptive, socially networked practices can help promote emergent forms of genocide prevention (Williams 1977). This paper focuses on three areas of local practice that have helped build …

Stages Of Historical Development Of The System Of Selection Of Leading Personnel In Central Asia, Fazliddin Ravshanov

The Light of Islam

The article is devoted to the study of the historical experience of Central Asia on issues of public administration, its organizational system, leading employees, their vibrators, selection and appointment. Taking into account information in this area, the author presents the main stages of the evolution of the formation and development of national traditions and values in the system of selection of heads of government and public administration. The article considers the following five stages of estorical evolution in chronological order using the structural and functional method, as well as comparative analysis: the first is the period from ancient history to …

Moroccan Islamists Debate The Causes Of Violent Extremism, Jack V. Kalpakian

Journal of Global Initiatives: Policy, Pedagogy, Perspective

Using Moroccan sources associated with the Islamist movement, this paper outlines the theological and political challenges facing Morocco in terms of violent extremism, especially those posed by certain Wahhabi and Salafist views that reject mainstream Moroccan Islam. It outlines the state’s response to terrorism and evaluates its causes as offered by several Islamist Moroccan intellectuals.

Ireland And Iceland In Crisis D: Similarities And Differences, Arwin G. Zeissler, Daisuke Ikeda, Andrew Metrick

Journal of Financial Crises

On September 29, 2008—two weeks after the collapse of Lehman Brothers—the government of Ireland took the bold step of guaranteeing almost all liabilities of the country’s major banks. The total amount guaranteed by the government was more than double Ireland’s gross domestic product, but none of the banks were immediately nationalized. The Icelandic banking system also collapsed in 2008, just one week after the Irish government issued its comprehensive guarantee. In contrast to the Irish response, the Icelandic government did not guarantee all bank debt. Instead, the Icelandic government controversially split each of the three major banks into a new …