Political Science Commons^™

Human Rights Abusers, The Human Rights Council, And The Un, James Pattison

Human Rights & Human Welfare

The predecessor to the Human Rights Council, the Commission on Human Rights, had several notable failings. These included double standards in the selection of which states were to be subject to scrutiny, membership of the Commission by states notable for their egregious human rights records, and the shielding of the P5 members of the Security Council and their allies from criticism. The Human Rights Council, it was hoped, would avoid these flaws and, in doing so, push human rights further up the UN agenda. For instance, the General Assembly Resolution A/RES/60/251, which set up the Council, claimed that the Council’s …

A Predictive Game Theoretic Model To Assess Us - Russian Response To An Islamic Safe-Haven In The Caucasus Region, Christopher Wayne Hartline

Computational Modeling & Simulation Engineering Theses & Dissertations

The thesis examines possible US and Russian policy decisions following the establishment of an Islamist safe-haven in Chechnya. Conflicting national policies affect the possibility of a negotiated settlement. Domestic and international political considerations constrain the decision-making of the two nations. The author applies game theory to examine the sequential decision-making of the two nations. The extensive form model draws outcome payoff values from a bounded uniform distribution. This approach naturally models uncertainty; and, it allows repeated probabilistic instantiations of the model. These instantiations produce a range of solutions. The most likely outcome was a negotiated settlement, generally following a tit-for-tat …

World Values Survey In Cyprus 2006: A Research Note, Birol A. Yeşilada, Craig Webster, Nicos Peristianis, Harry Anastasiou

Political Science Faculty Publications and Presentations

This paper provides an overview of the authors' recent extension of Ronald Inglehart's World Values Survey (WVS) in Cyprus. Whereas the WVS is in its fifth wave of study (Inglehart et al., 1981, 1990, 1995, 2000, and 2006-2007), Cyprus iS included for the first time. Currently, the WVS comprises 99 counrnes around the world and is designed to enable the most comprehensive cross-national comparison of values and norms on a wide range of topICS and to monitor changes in values and attitudes across the globe. The comprehensive survey of Greek and Turkish Cypriots' attitudes, values, and beliefs will certainly enrich …

The Chilean Left In Power: Achievements, Failures, And Omissions, Evelyne Huber, Jennifer Pribble, John D. Stephens

Political Science Faculty Publications

In his introduction to this volume, Weyland locates the administrations of Socialist Presidents Ricardo Lagos (2000-06) and Michelle Bachelet (2006- 2010) closest to the moderate pole among current leftist governments in Latin America. We concur and hope to contribute to the discussion by elucidating the sources of this moderation and examining the performance of these governments in the areas of political management, economic policies, and social policies and labor market reforms. The Lagos and Bachelet governments have pursued similar market-friendly economic policies to their predecessors. Although both presidents have made important progress in overcoming the political institutionallegacies of Augusto Pinochet's …

Landmarks, Portents, Or Just Curves In The Road?, Carol Nackenoff

Political Science Faculty Works

No abstract provided.

Balancing, Generic Polls And Midterm Congressional Elections, Joseph Bafumi, Robert S. Erikson, Christopher Wlezien

Dartmouth Scholarship

One mystery of U.S. politics is why the president’s party regularly loses congressional seats at midterm. Although presidential coattails and their withdrawal provide a partial explanation, coattails cannot account for the fact that the presidential party typically performs worse than normal at midterm. This paper addresses the midterm vote separate from the presidential year vote, with evidence from generic congressional polls conducted during midterm election years. Polls early in the midterm year project a normal vote result in November. But as the campaign progresses, vote preferences almost always move toward the out party. This shift is not a negative referendum …

Return To Unfinished Business: Re-Energizing U.S. Nuclear Arms Policy, William T. Eliason

Graduate Program in International Studies Theses & Dissertations

Today's international environment characterized in nuclear threat terms as having increasing concerns about the potential for terrorist or non-state use of nuclear devices and a decline in the likelihood of the original nuclear weapon states engaging each other in a nuclear war remains in search of a path away from the fear of nuclear attack some twenty years after the end of the Cold War. This research dissertation will seek to answer the question of how best to reestablish a nuclear arms control regime. This dissertation argues that the international environment has fundamentally changed since the end of the Cold …

Nationalizing International Theory: Race, Class And The English School, William A. Callahan

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Much work has been done to deconstruct the links between knowledge and power in IR as "an American Social Science". This topic has arisen again with the re- launching of the English School of IR Theory in 2001. This essay argues that although the English School is critical of the power-knowledge dynamic, it actually exacerbates the problem by deliberately "nationalising" international theory. The essay traces the emergence and logic of the English School and its key concept "International Society". It argues that the English School is tied not only to national identity but to the rules of European Empire. Using …

China's Grand Strategy In A Post-Western World, William A. Callahan

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

A number of different visions of China’s future as a leading world power are competing for public attention and influence. Among them are populist ideas that challenge Beijing’s official rhetoric about “building a harmonious world”, says William A Callahan.

The Political Personality Of U.S. President Barack Obama, Aubrey Immelman

Psychology Faculty Publications

This paper presents the results of an indirect assessment of the personality of U.S. president Barack Obama, from the conceptual perspective of personologist Theodore Millon.

Information concerning Obama was collected from biographical sources and media reports and synthesized into a personality profile using the Millon Inventory of Diagnostic Criteria (MIDC), which yields 34 normal and maladaptive personality classifications congruent with Axis II of DSM–IV.

The personality profile yielded by the MIDC was analyzed on the basis of interpretive guidelines provided in the MIDC and Millon Index of Personality Styles manuals. Obama’s primary personality patterns were found to be Ambitious/confident …

All Politics Are Suboptimal, Todd Landman

Human Rights & Human Welfare

Despite its intentions and founding principles, the United Nations is fundamentally a political organization and therefore subject to the machinations of states as they seek to maximize their self interest, protect their reputations, and advance their power. The UN Security Council itself is a product of World War II and reflects a settlement from the end of the war that many perceive as highly inappropriate to the balance of power and global realities of the world today.

Overcoming History And Human Rights At The Un, Sonia Cardenas

Human Rights & Human Welfare

Criticism is most useful when it imagines viable alternatives. This is why the most recent wave of outrage over the elections to the UN Human Rights Council seems counter-productive. Yes, egregious human rights violators have been elected to the Council. Yes, Iran was kept off the Council in exchange for a seat on the women’s rights commission . And, yes, the elections were uncontested, with regional blocs putting forth the same number of candidates as vacancies. These facts have led observers to describe the body as a farce, as all pretense, and to decry US participation in the Council.

Cooperative Strategies On Parallel Tracks: The Nepad And Agoa Initiatives, Guelmbaye Ngarsandje

Graduate Program in International Studies Theses & Dissertations

In July 2001, at the 37th of the former Organization of African Unity, African heads of states launched the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD), a combination of the Omega Plan from Abdoulaye Wade and The Millennium African Renaissance Partnership initiated by Thabo Mbeki, respectively presidents of Senegal and South Africa. This was an achievement of tasks given by their peers in Algiers in 1999. Previously to that, the Clinton administration initiated the African Growth and Opportunity Act passed in law in 1998. Though the two programs aim at African development, they did not take in account each other.

This …

Stanley Mcchrystal, Felix Dzerzhinsky, Jérôme Kerviel: Are We All Ciphers?, Ibpp Editor

International Bulletin of Political Psychology

This article examines the fall of United States (US) Army General Stanley McChrystal, and the concepts of the self and identity.

Presidential Elections, Southwest Minnesota State University

Elections/Voting

Bibliography and photographs of a display of government documents from Southwest Minnesota State University.

An Update On Suicide Terrorism, Ibpp Editor

International Bulletin of Political Psychology

The author considers the potential moral and ethical merits of suicide and suicide terrorism from a historical and philosophical perspective.

A Two-Edged Sword: The Economy Cooperation Framework Agreement Between The Republic Of China And The People's Republic Of China, Chi-An Chou

Brigham Young University International Law & Management Review

No abstract provided.

An Excerpt From 'And One Fine Morning: Memories Of My Father', Nicholas Hayes

University Chair in Critical Thinking Publications

No abstract provided.

Psychologists Gone Wild: The Politics Of Scientific Psychology, Ibpp Editor

International Bulletin of Political Psychology

With power on the line in science, one should expect controversy beyond the substantive. In scientific psychology—whether discovering human nature or discovering what can be said about it—the search for the what of human nature becomes a mask for human nature.

The Political Economy Of Poverty In The ‘Glocal’ Context: A Multilevel Cross-National Study, Philip Young P. Hong

Dissertations

The purpose of this study is to examine the extent to which socio-politico-economic factors at the structural level impact individual poverty across 17 developed countries in a period of welfare state retrenchment and growing international interconnectedness. This dissertation contributes to a newly developing body of knowledge on cross-national comparison of individual poverty using multilevel analyses. This method allows for modeling various determinants of poverty (variables with different units of analysis at both individual and structural levels) together in a single analysis. The OECD and Luxembourg Income Study (LIS) data were used to conduct a cross-national comparative analysis of 17 affluent …