Other Political Science Commons^™

Gypsy Curse Or Gypsy Cursed: An Attempt To Isolate “Roma-Phobia” In The United Kingdom And Russia, Alina Larisa Shvartsman

Featured Research

More commonly known as “gypsies,” the Roma represent a subgroup of the “Romani” people, characterized by migrant lifestyles and transient living patterns. The Roma make up any where from 8 to 14 million people worldwide. History has shown that despite their presence around the world they are among one of most disadvantaged minorities around the world—on need only look at the Nazi regime in Germany to gain some insight as to their treatment over the course of history. While this marks the apex of discrimination against the Roma, they continue to face widespread prejudice. The Roma are treated unfavorably almost …

Reluctance Or Power Hunger: Whom Do Voters Prefer? A Test Of The Wary Cooperator Theory And Evolutionary Political Behavior, Timothy Collins

Department of Political Science: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Do voters prefer political candidates who express reluctance to seek office, or do voters prefer candidates who express great ambition and an implicit hunger for power? This study uses an experimental design to test overall support of reluctant or power-hungry candidates, and discusses which people would select which candidate and why. While limited by the survey design, the evidence suggests that there is no significant overall mean difference for overall support of either candidate. However, personality traits and the degree to which participants perceived certain descriptive attributes of the candidates both play a role in vote likelihood and candidate favorability …

From Boon To Bust: State Lottery Policy & How Stakeholder-Created Beneficiary Fund Structure Determines Vulnerability To Future Legislative Grabs, Lisa Mathews

Department of Political Science: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Funding K-12 education is one of the largest public expenditures for most states in the U.S., and Nebraska is no exception (Nebraska Department of Administrative Services, 2011). Since the 1960s, the policy of state-enacted lotteries has slowly but steadily spread throughout the country with all but seven states now operating a lottery to benefit a range of community and social programs with Education being the most common beneficiary (Novarro, 2002). Since the Nebraska lottery’s inception in 1993, about $400 million has been raised for these primary beneficiaries and other beneficiaries on a smaller scale. Legislative and Constitutional changes have left …

A Forecast For The Middle East: The Reemergence Of An Islamic Caliphate In The Midst Of The Arab Spring, Jennifer M. Basselgia

Senior Honors Theses

The Middle East region is inherently volatile and associated with radical religious behavior. Beginning in December of 2010, a Tunisian street vendor inspired a wave of revolutions and protests launched by the people of many Middle Eastern countries, demanding regime change and democratic ideals. This season of revolution, dubbed the Arab Spring, has been characterized as both a period of Enlightenment in the Arab world and a cause for concern for Western powers.

This thesis will approach the Arab Spring in light of the ideologies and influences swarming into the power vacuum left by the recently deposed governments. It will …

James A. Garfield: 20th President Of The United States, José Villalobos

Selected Works Temporary Series

President James A. Garfield served for only 200 days before an assassin’s bullets ended his unlikely rise to power. Garfield was the last “log cabin” president and a life-long Republican, both in the tradition of his predecessor, Ulysses Grant. In his lifetime, he served honorably as educator, general, and politician. His surprising nomination for president in 1880 earned him the nickname of the “Dark Horse” candidate, and his victory in the general election sealed his place in history as a U.S. president. His rise to power and tragic death highlight an important episode of the Gilded Age. Although Garfield’s time …

James A. Garfield: 20th President Of The United States, José Villalobos

Departmental Papers (PS)

President James A. Garfield served for only 200 days before an assassin’s bullets ended his unlikely rise to power. Garfield was the last “log cabin” president and a life-long Republican, both in the tradition of his predecessor, Ulysses Grant. In his lifetime, he served honorably as educator, general, and politician. His surprising nomination for president in 1880 earned him the nickname of the “Dark Horse” candidate, and his victory in the general election sealed his place in history as a U.S. president. His rise to power and tragic death highlight an important episode of the Gilded Age. Although Garfield’s time …

Signifying The Place Of Unforgettable Memory: Atrocity And Trauma In A Post-Conflict Landscape, Ralph J. Hartley

Department of Anthropology: Faculty Publications

After active inter-group lethal violence subsides places at which atrocities occurred are often assigned significance, reflecting an altered social topography influenced by ideology that may foster the hardening of socio-ethnic boundary distinctions. While using a comparativist approach, this paper explores the relationships between socio-cultural trauma, places of atrocity, and socio-political polarization. Two sites in the former Yugoslavia and in Rwanda, where highly publicized massacres occurred, illustrate the power of place significance in social environments vulnerable to flare-ups of violent conflict.

Justice, Culture And The Political Determinants Of Indigenous Australian Health, Dominic O'Sullivan

Aboriginal Policy Research Consortium International (APRCi)

Indigenous Australian health is distinguished by a median age of death in the order of 20 years less than that of the non-indigenous population (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2009). This makes Australia unique among comparable post-colonial societies in failing to make substantive reductions to the indigenous/non-indigenous health differential. Relatively poor indigenous housing, educational attainment, labour market participation and access to traditional resources for economic purposes contribute to the differen- tial. These contributing variables have an inherently political character which is integral to examining the just distribution of public authority, the purpose of political activity, equal political participation and cultural responsiveness …

Producing Edible Landscapes In Seattle's Urban Forest, Rebecca J. Mclain, Melissa R. Poe, Patrick T. Hurley, Joyce Lecompte, Marla R. Emery

Environment and Sustainability Faculty Publications

Over the next decades, green infrastructure initiatives such as tree planting campaigns, and ecological restoration will dramatically change the species composition, species distribution and structure of urban forests across the United States. These impending changes are accompanied by a demand for urban public spaces where people can engage in practices such as gleaning, gardening, and livestock production. This article analyzes the institutional framework that undergirds efforts in Seattle, Washington to normalize the production and use of edible landscapes. We focus attention on the role of grassroots fruit gleaning groups and highlight their bridging function between Seattle's agriculture and forestry policy …

One State Or Two In Israel/Palestine: The Stress On Gender And Citizenship, Gordon Babst, Nicole M. Tellier

Political Science Faculty Articles and Research

As is the case with any of the three great Abrahamic religions, there is considerable ambiguity regarding the status and role of women both within doctrinal interpretations, and between religious and other cultural traditions in the community. These ambiguities are reflected in political practice and condition women's aspirations regarding what is possible for them to achieve. Nowhere is it more true that understandings of religious imperatives permeate politics and work to make other lines of division all the more intractable than in Israel/Palestine. The proclivity to violence between the two peoples not only victimizes women, but foreshortens attention to their …

Ford Foundation, José Villalobos

Selected Works Temporary Series

No abstract provided.

Ford Foundation, José Villalobos

Departmental Papers (PS)

No abstract provided.

Explaining Success And Failure In Climate Policies: Developing Theory Through German Case Studies, Roger Karapin

Publications and Research

Theories of environmental outcomes have been developed mostly through large-N cross-national studies, which have a structuralist bias and do not include the mechanisms through which inferred causes operate. Structured, focused case studies can help overcome those limits by incorporating political processes and identifying causal mechanisms. Here, comparisons of climate policy outcomes within Germany are used to test and develop theory, by explaining the differences among nine cases with the help of process tracing. The findings suggest that environmental-outcome theories should be modified to include: external events and advocacy-coalition formation as key processes; multiple causal paths through which green parties improve …

Climate Policy Outcomes In Germany: Environmental Performance And Environmental Damage In Eleven Policy Areas, Roger Karapin

Publications and Research

Germany has reduced its emissions of greenhouse gases more than almost any other industrialized democracy and is exceeding its ambitious Kyoto commitment of a 21% reduction since 1990. Hence, it is commonly portrayed as a climate-policy success story, but the situation is much more complex. Generalizing Germany's per-capita emissions to all countries or its emissions reductions to all industrialized democracies would still very likely produce more than a two-degree rise in global temperature. Moreover, analyzing the German country-case into eleven subcases shows that it is a mixture of relative successes and failures.

This illustrates several major problems with the literature …

Prose And Polarization: Environmental Literature And The Challenges To Constructive Discourse, Paige E. Costello

CMC Senior Theses

This work explores how authors employ literary modes to persuade readers towards one side or another of the environmental debate and whether the works promote constructive discourse on environmental issues. It uses two seminal works from each side of the environmental discourse, Silent Spring and The Population Bomb and The Ultimate Resource and The Skeptical Environmentalist, to analyze stylistic differences and similarities, to compare public reception, and to explain the increasing polarization of environmental discourse.

Do Political Contributions Purchase Regulatory Discretion In Mining Inspections?, Neil K. Malani

CMC Senior Theses

A vast literature acknowledges the corruptibility of regulators; however, empirical tests on the matter have been limited to two-agent models examining the rulemaking process and price regulation of natural monopolies. It remains an open question whether political contributions, by driving legislative pressure, can entice laxity from regulators in their application of the rules. To remedy this issue, I observe the highly-regulated coal mining industry for which there exists several points for inspector discretion. By comparing the outcomes with Congressional coal mining contribution levels, I am able to ascertain capture across several dimensions. Specifically, I find that contributions are associated with …

Gender Bias In Employment Contexts: A Closer Examination Of The Role Incongruity Principle, Crystal L. Hoyt

Jepson School of Leadership Studies articles, book chapters and other publications

This research extends the role incongruity analysis of employment-related gender bias by investigating the role of dispositional and situational antecedents, specifically political ideology and the salience of cues to the traditional female gender role. The prediction that conservatives would show an anti-female candidate bias and liberals would show a pro-female bias when the traditional female gender role is salient was tested across three experimental studies. In Study 1, 126 participants evaluated a male or a female job applicant with thoughts of the traditional female gender role activated or not. Results showed that when the gender role is salient, political ideology …

The Women And Peace Hypothesis In The Age Of Nancy Pelosi: Can Female Leaders Bring About World Peace?, Jeannette Haynie

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

The women and peace hypothesis suggests that women are more likely than men to choose peace and compromise over violent conflict, whether as ordinary citizens or as government leaders. I test this concept by analyzing the percent of women in the parliaments and executive cabinets of 93 nations over a 31-year-period, comparing these figures to the presence of violent interstate conflicts for each country-year. Controlling for wealth, democratic status, national capabilities, military expenditures, and contiguity, I find moderate support for the women and peace hypothesis. This support continues when democratic system type is interacted with the measured office. While women …

Systems At Play: The Construction Of International Systems In Social Impact Games, Jorge Albor

Master's Theses

This thesis explores how game makers conceive of and navigate the intersection between digital systems and real world systems by asking, how can social impact game designers shape procedural rhetoric to effectively address complex real world systems with digital systems? By examining three game case studies, I reach four significant findings regarding player agency, subversive play, design approaches to scale, and game difficulty in regards to systems fluency.

Territoriality, Sovereignty And The Nation-State System In Israel-Palestine: The Creation Of The Palestinian Bantustan “State” And Shifting Palestinian Resistance Tactics, Sara Nichole Hughes

Master's Theses

The conflict in Israel-Palestine is over the sovereign control of territory and takes place within a global framework made up of clearly defined nation-states. It is within this framework that Israeli colonial expansion and construction of the separation barrier in the West Bank attempt to maximize Israeli annexation of the oPt while creating a Palestinian Bantustan “state” to contain and isolate the Palestinian people in non-sovereign territorial enclaves through the use of territoriality as a strategy for exercising sovereignty. In response to this obvious process of cantonization, Palestinians are resisting by supporting Israeli annexation – of the West Bank and …