Models and Methods Commons^™

Happiness Index Methodology, Laura Musikanski, Scott Cloutier, Erica Bejarano, Davi Briggs, Julia Colbert, Gracie Strasser, Steven Russell

Journal of Social Change

The Happiness Index is a comprehensive survey instrument that assesses happiness, well-being, and aspects of sustainability and resilience. The Happiness Alliance developed the Happiness Index to provide a survey instrument to community organizers, researchers, and others seeking to use a subjective well-being index and data. It is the only instrument of its kind freely available worldwide and translated into over ten languages. This instrument can be used to measure satisfaction with life and the conditions of life. It can also be used to define income inequality, trust in government, sense of community and other aspects of well-being within specific demographics ...

The Impact Of Age, Education, Political Knowledge And Political Context On Voter Turnout, Roy Edward Snyder Iii

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The following study will present an examination of factors that impact levels of voting activity among American citizens from 1972 through 2004. The subject of voter turnout has been thoroughly examined by political scientists over the years, as have aspects of youth voting and the influence of education. Many of the same variables presented by scholars in recent years will be employed in this study. However, these earlier studies tend to look only at individual level variables in explaining voter turnout. This study will contribute to a more complete understanding of voting through the analysis of individual, regional, and temporal ...

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

The Downtown Review

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 ...

Terrorism In Pakistan: Incident Patterns, Terrorists’ Characteristics, And The Impact Of Terrorist Arrests On Terrorism, Syed Ejaz Hussain

Publicly Accessible Penn Dissertations

This dissertation, in a 3-paper format, uses three data sets to study three aspects of terrorism in Pakistan. In the first paper, using data from the GTD, I describe empirically the temporal and spatial patterns of terrorism incidents in Pakistan from 1974 to 2007. In addition, I also describe the patterns in target types, weapon types and terrorist types and the patterns prior to and following the U.S.-led invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. Analysis methods include the univariate time series, descriptive statistics and the GIS. The study offers new insights on the measurement of terrorism, the cyclical nature ...

The Practice Of Government Public Relations, Mordecai Lee, Grant W. Neeley, Kendra Stewart

Political Science Faculty Publications

With the recent change of administration in the U.S. executive branch, we have seen increased attention to issues of public information, transparency in government, and government and press relations in the United States and abroad. In addition, rapidly evolving technology and its influence on public communication have left many in government struggling to remain current in this area. Citizens and constituents learn to use interactive tools when searching for information, utilize technology for communications, and now expect government information and services to exist in the same information space as private entities.

This book is an effort of leading experts ...

The Fiduciary Obligations Of Public Officials, Vincent R. Johnson

St. Mary's Journal on Legal Malpractice & Ethics

At various levels of government, the conduct of public officials is often regulated by ethical standards laid down by legislative enactments, such as federal or state statutes or municipal ordinances. These rules of government ethics are important landmarks in the field of law that defines the legal and ethical obligations of public officials. Such provisions can form the basis for the kinds of government ethics training that helps to minimize wrongful conduct by public servants and reduces the risk that the performance of official duties will be clouded by appearances of impropriety. Codified government ethics rules also frequently provide mechanisms ...

Al-Shabaab And Boko Haram: Recruitment Strategies, J. Tochukwu Omenma, Cheryl Hendricks, Nnamdi C. Ajaebili

Peace and Conflict Studies

This paper is an examination of the membership recruitment strategies of two violent extremist organizations (VEOs), namely al-Shabaab and Boko Haram. The majority of the literature on VEOs concentrates on the conceptualization of terrorism, motivations for terrorism and counter-terrorism strategies, as well as a focus on the frequency of VEO attacks, number of fatalities and funding sources. The literature tends to portray poverty as the main driver of recruitment. The focus on recruitment strategies has been relatively recent. There is therefore still a lack of in-depth analyses on the processes of recruitment of specific extremist groups, and this impacts on ...

Slavery Is Bad For Business: Analyzing The Impact Of Slavery On National Economies, Monti Narayan Datta, Kevin Bales

Political Science Faculty Publications

This article, using a novel dataset, demonstrates that slavery is empirically bad for business. Building upon the work of Robert Smith, the authors analysis examines the relationship between the prevalence of slavery in a country (in terms of the proportion of the population enslaved) and several economic measures (the United Nations Human Development Index, growth domestic product in terms of purchasing power parity, access to financial services, and the Gini coefficient). In each instance, controlling for alternative explanations, greater levels of slavery are associated with a decline in economic growth and human development. The findings imply that beyond the morality ...

The Decline In Average Weekly Cinema Attendance, 1930-2000, Michelle C. Pautz

Political Science Faculty Publications

Since the beginnings of the motion picture industry, with the one small Edison studio in New Jersey in the early 1900s, America has fallen in love with films. One could argue and debate the reasons, employing everything from sociology to psychology to economics; but one thing is certain: This love affair has changed over the years. This change is perhaps most evident in the decline in the percentage of the United States population that goes to the cinema weekly. One interesting aspect of cinema attendance is that during the Great Depression, which swept the United States in the 1930s, a ...

Aristotle's Ideal Regime As Utopia, Steven Thomason

Presentations and Lectures

Although Aristotle’s ideal regime discussed in books seven and eight of his Politics seems much more feasible and less utopian than the regime outlined in Plato’s Republic, a few scholars have questioned its feasiblity in light of the real world demands of politics. Similarly, I argue that carefully considered his ideal regime turns-out not to be feasible or a practical recommendation for politics, but rather a thought experiment like Plato’s Republic meant to show the limitations of what is politically achievable. I do so by comparing his ideal regime to his prior discussions of democracy in the ...