Political Science Commons^™

Political Socialization Through Education As A Form Of State Building, Aldo Lopez

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

The objective of this study is to observe the effect of political socialization through education as a tool for state building in three case studies. A background into the topics of political socialization and civic education is made. Civic education theory is applied to the state building experiences of Croatia, Slovenia and Bosnia and Herzegovina. After a qualitative review of the data available, findings are presented and discussed. Further commentary of the impact of such studies within the field of political socialization is also discussed.

Art Of Representation: Portraits Of The Founding Fathers, Ellen Corrigan

Faculty & Staff Research & Creative Activity

Text panel from “The Art of Representation: Portraits of the Founding Fathers,” a local exhibit in support of the Booth Library installation of the ALA-PPO/NEH traveling exhibition Benjamin Franklin: In Search of a Better World, on display January 12-February 25, 2011.

Democracy And Income Inequality: Measurement And Modeling Of The Western Hemispheric Experience, Ross E. Burkhart

Political Science Faculty Publications and Presentations

What is our understanding of the relationship between democracy and income inequality in the Western Hemisphere? This paper specifies a nonlinear relationship between democracy and income inequality in multivariate non-linear models across different regions and time points of the Western Hemisphere as well as the hemisphere based on a common literature (Acemoglu and Robinson 2006, Barro 1999, Boix 2003, Burkhart 1997, Houle 2009). While the literature has rigorously tested these relationships within Latin America (Huber et al. 2006), there has not been a similar test of all of the Western Hemispheric countries, including the industrialized economies of Canada and the …

Free Speech And Autonomy: Thinkers, Storytellers, And A Systemic Approach To Speech, Susan H. Williams

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

Democracy, Freedom Of Speech, And Feminist Theory: A Response To Post And Weinstein, Susan H. Williams

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

Breaking The Iron Law : Robert Michels, The Rise Of The Mass Party, And The Debate Over Democracy And Oligarchy, Peter Albert Lavenia, Jr.

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

This is a reexamination of Robert Michels' work Political Parties: A Sociological Study Of The Oligarchical Tendencies of Modern Democracy and its place in the debate over the rise and role of the mass political party in democracy and democratic thought. It examines Michels' involvement with the German Social Democratic Party and the syndicalist faction around Georges Sorel's Le Mouvement Socialist, as well as his friendship with Max Weber, and his experiences with socialist electoral politics that led him to write Political Parties and explore the nature of political parties and the tension between democracy and oligarchy within them. Time …

Child Soldiers, Armed Conflicts, And Tactical Innovations, Robert Tynes

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Most armed conflicts in the late 20th and early 21st century involve the use of child soldiers. Children have been used in wars before the modern era, but this study argues that a shift has occurred in contemporary conflicts. Child soldier use has become a tactical innovation. Fighting factions utilize children as soldiers in order to gain an advantage on the battlefield. Several different analytical approaches are used in order to test the argument. First, a large-N regression analysis (1987-2007) reveals that depending on the dyadic relationship between government and opposition forces, intensity of war, military expenditures per GDP, political …

Stakeholder, Organizational And Environmental Influences On Nursing Home Regulatory Enforcement : A New Perspective, Tamika R. Black

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

This dissertation proposes a conceptual framework that integrates stakeholder and compliance theory and employs a multi-method approach to examine the influence of stakeholders, bureaucratic discretion and external environment on nursing home inspections and enforcement. Negative binomial regression analysis was conducted on a population of 655 nursing homes in New York to identify determinants of variation in compliance and enforcement (as measured by deficiency citations). As hypothesized, organizational characteristics (i.e., nursing home bed capacity, sponsorship, occupancy rates and Medicaid revenue) were significant predictors of regulatory compliance and quality of care. Nursing home complaints, the presence of family councils, political party of …

The Loud Public : The Case Of User Comments In Online News Media, Naama Nagar

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

In the pre-internet era most members of the public did not have the ability to express their opinions on political issues via the mass media. This dissertation illustrates how the internet changed that by providing average citizens with endless opportunities to be heard. In particular, I analyze user comments on mainstream news sites as a vehicle that enables individuals to have a voice.

Summary Report: Workshop On International Environmental Governance: Grounding Policy Reform In Rigorous Analysis, Center For Governance And Sustainability At Umass Boston

Center for Governance and Sustainability Publications

From June 27 to 28, 2011, the Federal Office for the Environment of Switzerland, the Global Environmental Governance Project of the Center for Governance and Sustainability at the University of Massachusetts Boston, and the World Trade Institute at the University of Bern hosted a workshop on International Environmental Governance: Grounding Policy Reform in Rigorous Analysis. The workshop started a dialogue between academics and researchers on one hand and policymakers on the other in order to provide analytical input to the political negotiations on institutional reform in the run-up to the UN Conference on Sustainable Development in 2012.

The workshop focused …

Global Governance In The 21st Century: Rethinking The Environmental Pillar, Maria Ivanova

Conflict Resolution, Human Security, and Global Governance Faculty Publication Series

The United Nations was created in 1945 without an environmental body. Almost thirty years later, in 1972, governments established UNEP. Twenty years later, in the early 1990s, when rethinking the institutional arrangements, they created the Global Environment Facility and the Commission on Sustainable Development, as well as several core conventions (on climate, biodiversity and desertification). Despite the attempts to bring about further governance reform over the last decade, however, progress has been limited. While governance discussions continued, they were never explicitly on the political agenda. Now, for the first time since the 1992 Rio Earth Summit, a clear political opportunity …

The 2008 Us Presidential Campaign As Represented In The Online Edition Of The Korea Times, Sherri L. Ter Molen

Communication Faculty Research Publications

Because public opinion has been found to influence government policy (Page & Shapiro, 1983, p. 185) and because media are cultural products that “mirror society” and “contribute to the reconstruction of the culture” (Czarniawska, 2006, p. 250), I conducted a rhetorical analysis of the coverage of the 2008 US presidential campaign in the online edition of the English language newspaper, The Korea Times. Using Entman’s (2007) concept of framing bias in the media as a means to influence the distribution of power, I found that The Korea Times used the deictic expression ‘we’ to express and (re)construct nationalistic views of …

Cocina Peruana Para El Mundo: Gastrodiplomacy, The Culinary Nation Brand, And The Context Of National Cuisine In Peru, Rachel Wilson

Exchange: The Journal of Public Diplomacy

Gastrodiplomacy, or the use of food in the construction of a nation brand, is one of many tools that a government can employ in its broader strategy of cultural diplomacy. The idea of pleasing the global palate while at the same time improving a country's image lies at the core of any culinary diplomacy initiative, and the case of Peru is no exception. By utilizing the promotional campaign "Cocina peruana para el mundo" ("Peruvian cuisine for the World"), the Peruvian government is attempting to construct a national brand centered on its cuisine. This paper investigates the specific context of the …

The Power Of Culture In Diplomacy: The Case Of U.S. Cultural Diplomacy In France And Germany, Sofia Kitsou

Exchange: The Journal of Public Diplomacy

Cultural diplomacy represents a facet of diplomacy that has not been utilized completely in building better diplomatic relations and, although it could serve as a linking bridge toward better relations, it has been underestimated, if not neglected. Foreign positive perceptions of the United States declined considerably especially during the George W. Bush administration, as a result of various actions taken by the United States in the international arena that were unpopular. Anti-Americanism reached its peak in Europe because of the unilateral decision to proceed with the war in Iraq while the transatlantic rift between traditional partners such as the United …

Transnational Ngos: A Us Perspective, George E. Mitchell

Political Science - Dissertations

This study examines how leaders of transnational NGOs (TNGOs) across the United States understand transnational activism and the roles their organizations play in world affairs. Three roles are identified: alleviation, realization and environmentalism. Analysis suggests that scholarship in international relations focuses disproportionately on the least common and least resourceful types of TNGOs and routinely mischaracterizes a small number of highly visible organizations as exemplary. Leaders' perspectives on organizational mission, activities, autonomy, collaboration, effectiveness and obstacles reveal that the most numerous and resourceful TNGOs are technocratic agencies favoring a materialistic, ameliorative approach to transnational activism. Moreover, to the extent that TNGOs …

The Effects Of Settlement Policy On Refugee Political Activism: Sudanese Refugees In Australia And The Us, Hannah Allerdice

Political Science - Dissertations

South Sudanese refugees are strongly motivated to effect change in South Sudan. After resettlement to the US, this motivation has resulted in much transnational political activism on their part. In Australia, Sudanese refugees have concentrated primarily on domestic political and social integration. Why? In this project I examine the possible causes of this difference, including the institutions, the policies, and the agents who implement settlement programs. I argue that refugee settlement policies of host countries directly shape the political activities of their refugees. When a host country provides assistance to integrate refugees, the government's policies and the individuals who implement …

A More Global Court? Judicial Transnationalism And The U.S. Supreme Court, Angela G. Narasimhan

Political Science - Dissertations

For many decades, Supreme Court justices and legal scholars have argued over the validity of different tools in constitutional interpretation, including social science data, public opinion and, most recently, laws and standards of decency from abroad. Although several of those currently on the bench maintain that foreign laws have no place in American constitutional adjudication, the larger universe in which their institution operates has become increasingly transnational since the end of the Cold War. The term judicial transnationalism has been coined to describe this phenomenon, characterized by unprecedented levels of interaction and exchange between foreign courts and legal activists. This …

Taxes, Welfare And Democratic Discourse: Mainstream Media Coverage And The Rise Of The American New Right, Matt Guardino

Political Science - Dissertations

Research demonstrates that news media can shape mass opinion on specific public policy issues in politically consequential ways. However, systematic and critical empirical analysis of the ideological diversity of such news coverage is rare. Scholars have also illuminated how and why U.S. economic and social welfare policy has shifted rightward in recent decades, but they have failed to consider media's role in shaping public opinion to democratically legitimate this major reorientation of political economy to favor business and upper-income constituencies. I combine neo-Gramscian theorizations of hegemony, popular common sense and articulation with social scientific research on framing, priming and psychological …

The Anglo Politics Of Latino Education: The Role Of Immigration Scripts, Edmund T. Hamann

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Faculty Publications

In the 41 states without a substantial historic Latino population, large-scale schooling of Latinos is a comparatively new issue and the nature of that schooling is fundamentally shaped by how the more established (usually Anglo) populations understand this task. This chapter describes the understandings that led to, but also limited, one particularly comprehensive attempt in Georgia to respond to Latino newcomers. In that sense, this is a study of the cosmologies that can undergird the politics of schooling of Latinos. This chapter utilizes the concept of the script, or broadly shared storylines about how things are or should be, to …

The Impact Of Political Corruption On Social Welfare In The Federal Republic Of Nigeria, Heather Crowe

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study is to understand to what extent political corruption affects social welfare in Nigeria using a qualitative case study design. This thesis argues that political corruption leads to a concentration of wealth among a minority of elite government officials, resulting in extensive deficiency of social welfare. In addition, political corruption has secondary and tertiary effects throughout society that further exacerbate social welfare conditions. For this study, social welfare is measured by a comprehensive range of social indicators including but not limited to: level of poverty, income inequality, level of infrastructure, and health. Political corruption can only …