Political Science Commons^™

Crittenden, John Jordan, 1787-1863 (Sc 708), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Manuscript Collection Finding Aids

Finding aid and typescript (Click on "additional files" below) for Manuscripts Small Collection 708. Letter written by John Jordan Crittenden, United States Senator from Kentucky, Frankfort, Kentucky, to Ohio Congressman, J. W. Allen, concerning the recent defeat of Henry Clay and the Whig Party.

Seeking Stability In An Oily World: The Gulf War And American Imperialism, Kate Keleher

The Macalester Review

Oil has profoundly shaped the political, economic, and social structures of the twentieth century and it continues to shape the global order today. As both a source and a medium of power, oil binds together seemingly disparate elements into a highly sensitive web. This paper examines the first Gulf War as a turning point in the narrative of oil and power. The United States’ engagement in the Gulf War reasserted American dominance over the Middle East and ushered in a new era of oil security. In the war’s aftermath, the United States assumed roles that indicate an agenda of new …

Social Movements And Free Riders: Examining Resource Mobilization Theory Through The Bolivian Water War, J.P. Weismuller

The Macalester Review

Mancur Olson's free rider problem suggests that self-interested individuals would be more rational to abstain from rather than participate in collective action. This possibility is particularly problematic for social movement theories attempting to account for movement emergence. In this essay, I critique resource mobilization theory's solution to Olson's problem, arguing that its "elite support hypothesis" cannot account for the emergence of entirely grassroots movements. However, through an analysis of the Bolivian Water War, I ultimately suggest that resource mobilization theory can be salvaged. I claim that a distinction between "vertical" and "horizontal" organizations allows resource mobilization theory to maintain its …

Statehouse Mosaics And The American Electorate: How State Legislatures Affect Political Participation, Robynn Kuhlmann

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Comparatively few studies have explored how variations in state governing institutions influence voting behavior. Utilizing lower chamber state legislative election returns from the years 2000 through 2010, and the 2002 through 2010 GSS data series, this dissertation focuses on how US state legislatures influence voting behavior and political attitudes of the American electorate. Specifically, this research takes on a comparative approach and illustrates how institutional differences in the size, capacity, and composition of the US state legislatures affect the electorates’ propensity to vote and how politically efficacious people feel.

The Skeptical Forsythe: Peace, Human Rights, And Realpolitik, Rhoda E. Howard-Hassmann

Political Science Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Islamophobia, Euro-Islam, Islamism And Post-Islamism: Changing Patterns Of Secularism In Europe, Peter O'Brien

Political Science Faculty Research

Modern secularism, as theorized by prominent liberal philosophers such as John Rawls and Jürgen Habermas, prescribes that the state should treat all religions equally on condition that they and their adherents relinquish their theocratic aspirations and recognize the political sovereignty and superiority of man-made law. Convinced that the secular bargain undermines the moral virtue of society and its members, a small, fragmented, but nevertheless conspicuous number of Islamists in Europe prefers to observe Islamic law in all walks of life, private and public. Alarmed by Islamists and informed by Orientalist readings of Islam, an increasingly vehement and vociferous contingent of …

Scott, Ian. American Politics In Hollywood Film (Book Review), James Castonguay

Communication, Media & The Arts Faculty Publications

Book review by James Castonguay.

Scott, Ian. American Politics in Hollywood Film. 2nd ed. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2011. ISBN 9780748640249, ISBN 9780748640232 (pbk.)

Rhyme Or Reason:That Is The Question?, Jim Roche

Articles

Noting that “the aesthetic should not be limited merely to the way things look” the organisers of this conference sought “in part to address the discursive limitation in architecture and related subjects by broadening the aesthetic discourse beyond questions relating to purely visual phenomena in order to include those derived from all facets of human experience”.

So where does etchics come in? Well, the introductory brochure noted that most philosophical trained aestheticians will say that “the aesthetic is everything” hinting perhaps of the necessity for a more haptic experience of architecture. It also drew on Wittgenstein’s quote that “ethics and …

Gender Inequality In Deliberative Participation, Christopher F. Karpowitz, Tali Mendelberg, Lee Shaker

Communication Faculty Publications and Presentations

Can men and women have equal levels of voice and authority in deliberation or does deliberation exacerbate gender inequality? Does increasing women's descriptive representation in deliberation increase their voice and authority? We answer these questions and move beyond the debate by hypothesizing that the group's gender composition interacts with its decision rule to exacerbate or erase the inequalities. We test this hypothesis and various alternatives, using experimental data with many groups and links between individuals' attitudes and speech. We find a substantial gender gap in voice and authority, but as hypothesized, it disappears under unanimous rule and few women, or …

Learning From Brazil And India: The Difference That Inclusion Policies Can Make, Bernd Reiter

Government and International Affairs Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Objectivity And Balance In Conflict Reporting: Imperatives For The Media Amid The Tensions In The South China Sea Dispute, Huong Thu Thi Vu

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This cross-cultural study explores practice of journalists during June and July of 2011, the most recent peak period of the multi-national conflict in South China Sea. It examines factors that influence journalists and news media outlets when reporting a conflict in which their country is a party, using the theory of news framing process and war journalism.

Purchasing Power: The Effects Of Foreign Investment On Political Development In Kazakhstan, William Curtis Sullivan

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines the effects of foreign direct investment on Kazakhstan's political growth. Kazakhstan's transition to a market economy was plagued by corruption, and heavy investment in the oil industry generated resource dependency concerns. The regime later began to exert control over the oil industry through renegotiated contracts and legislative changes. This enriched and empowered the regime. As a result, Kazakhstani presidentm Nursultan Nazarbayev, was able to consolidate control over the state by employing "soft authoritarian" tactics and by rewarding political supporters. The regime was able to employ these tactics because of the wealth that foreign investment created. Thus, control …

Lawyers Need Law: A Study Of Constitutional Arguments Made To State Supreme Courts, Richard S. Price

Political Science - Dissertations

Dismayed over the increasing conservatism of the U.S. Supreme Court, state judges, lawyers, and scholars in the 1970s argued for a new judicial federalism. State courts, using state constitutions, may provide protections exceeding the federal minimum. In addition to allowing states to experiment with solutions to rights disputes, and recognizing unique state traditions, judicial federalism had instrumental value in ensuring state level protections that were protected from review at the federal level. While supporters saw judicial federalism as a means of realizing the principle of dual constitutional rights protection through principled development of a body of state law, the reality …

A Sanctuary For Discussion: Liberal Religion And Foreign Policy Attitudes, Madeline M. Hoffer

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

Through a series of focus groups conducted in liberal churches, I find that people who attend liberal churches have matching liberal political views. I also find that these liberal congregations do not look to their ministers to dictate acceptable foreign policy views, but that ministers do sometimes discuss foreign policy with their congregations. Most importantly, I find that members of liberal churches have many opportunities to discuss foreign policy issues among themselves, and that members often gain information by participating in these discussions.

Adviser: Alice J. Kang

Social Issues, Authoritarianism, And Ideological Conceptualization: How Policy Dimensions And Psychological Factors Influence Ideological Labeling, Christopher J. Devine

Political Science Faculty Publications

Ideology's crucial theoretical and empirical role in explaining political behavior makes it imperative that scholars understand how individuals conceptualize and apply ideological labels. The existing literature on this topic is quite limited, however, because it relies almost exclusively upon data from the 1970s and 1980s, and it does not examine how psychological factors influence conceptualizations of ideological labels. This article uses data from two original laboratory experiments to test the relative impact of four major policy dimensions on participants' evaluations of candidate ideology and to test authoritarianism's role in shaping ideological conceptualization. These analyses indicate that individuals most often define …

The Regime Legitimacy Of One-China: How The Vatican Can Make China Whole Again, Jonathan David Bradley

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Currently, the sovereign state of Vatican City does not formally recognize the People's Republic of China. Nor does the Vatican recognize the Chinese Communist Party as the legitimate regime over China. Instead the Vatican recognizes the Republic of China on the island of Taiwan. There are 23 countries in the world who share the Vatican's legitimization of the Republic of Taiwan. The largest concentration of those countries is in heavily Catholic Central America. This thesis looks at the dynamics of the Sino-Vatican relationship in three areas: political tension management of the Chinese people by the CCP, improved relations between the …

Ask What Your Country Can Do For You: Social Spending And Satisfaction With Democracy In Latin America, Kenneth Retzl

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Past research on social policy in Latin America has primarily focused on how each countries' policies were formed, the institutional framework that bred the policies, or the economic constraints that necessitated certain reforms. Little work has been done to examine the effects those policies have had on the populace. This thesis attempts to determine if there is a relationship between social spending and satisfaction with democracy. The research takes two forms. First I present case studies of Brazil, Ecuador, and Venezuela. The second is an ordered logit hierarchical linear model utilizing survey responses from the 2005 Latinobarometer survey. In total …

Caught In The Immigration Cross-Fire: The Changing Dynamics Of Congressional Support For Skilled Worker Visas, Maryam Tanhaee Stevenson

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This project examines the congressional politics associated with legislation on skilled foreign workers, specifically the H-1B visa which was created by the Immigration Act of 1990. It attempts to explain why legislative policies were successful on a small scale between 1998 and 2004 and completely unsuccessful after 2004.

Specifically, this study is a longitudinal qualitative analysis that uses Krehbiel's pivotal politics model (1998), Cox and McCubbins' party politics models (2005; 2007), Sinclair's (2007) unorthodox lawmaking theory, and Gilmour's (1995) strategic disagreement model to explain four key periods of H-1B legislation: (1) the passage of the Immigration Act of 1990; (2) …

"It Was Awful, But It Was Politics": Crittenden County And The Demise Of African American Political Participation, Krista Michelle Jones

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Despite the vast scholarship that exists discussing why Democrats sought restrictive suffrage laws, little attention has been given by historians to examine how concern over local government drove disfranchisement measures. This study examines how the authors of disfranchisement laws were influenced by what was happening in Crittenden County where African Americans, because of their numerical majority, wielded enough political power to determine election outcomes. In the years following the Civil War, African Americans established strong communities, educated themselves, secured independent institutions, and most importantly became active in politics. Because of their numerical majority, Crittenden's African Americans were elected to county …

Guardians Of The Countryside Public Choice Theory And The Farm Lobby In The Eu's Common Agricultural Policy, Amy J. Costa

Graduate Program in International Studies Theses & Dissertations

Through various waves of reform, the European Union's Common Agricultural Policy remains inefficient without meeting all of its stated goals. The MacSherry reforms of 1992 resulted in the opposite of what leaders intended: higher spending and a growing bureaucracy. Later in the 1990s, Agenda 2000 slashed its originally planned cutbacks after farmers protested. Though support exists for reducing spending on agriculture, market intervention remains.

This thesis explores the problem through the use of public choice theory. -Consumers make too large a group to organize effectively or inform themselves about the issue, while farmers consist of a smaller group with well-defined …