Political Science Commons^™

Strategic Silence: The Greek Left's Avoidance Of The 1922 Asia Minor Catastrophe During The Refugee Crisis, 2015–2019, Harry Courts

College Honors Program

This thesis examines why the Greek political left, and specifically the SYRIZA government under Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras during the time period from 2015 to 2019, made near-absent reference to the 1922 Asia Minor Catastrophe when addressing the refugee crisis of those years. The Catastrophe, in which approximately 1.3 million Orthodox Greeks were displaced from Anatolia, is the foundational trauma of modern Greek nationhood and a living presence in Greek political culture. When hundreds of thousands of Syrian, Afghan, and Iraqi refugees arrived on Greek shores from 2015, the historical parallel was widely noted. That SYRIZA rarely drew it requires …

Balancing Civil Liberties And Civil Rights, Adam Opp

Journal of Statesmanship & Public Policy: Briefs and Commentaries

The Framers stressed the importance of civil liberties when drafting the United States Constitution to guarantee the freedoms of individuals. However, for decades, there has been an increased focus on civil rights to protect individuals from discrimination and ensure their equality under the law. The question becomes how civil liberties and civil rights intersect, and whether this intersection is always positive, or if advocating for civil rights can come at the expense of civil liberties. This paper will discuss civil liberties and civil rights, examine how policy processes impact civil rights, and address concerns about the grave consequences for the …

How Religion, Morality, And Worldview Impact Public Policy, Adam Opp

Journal of Statesmanship & Public Policy: Briefs and Commentaries

It is important to examine the intersection between religion, morality, and worldview when analyzing the creation of public policy. Faith and spiritual beliefs play a key role in how an individual behaves as a policymaker and how they view the role of government. Religion considers the critical role of authority, which the government must analyze if the people have given it the authority to take a course of action. Morality asserts that the purpose of government is to maintain a system of justice that protects individual rights. Worldview highlights the framework individuals take in approaching the role of government and …

The Offense-Defense Balance And The Modern System In Ukraine, Daniel Hogestyn

Master in Public Policy Theses

This thesis evaluates whether the Russo Ukrainian war represents a revolution in military affairs (RMA) by testing Stephen Biddle’s "modern system" theory of battlefield outcomes against recent combat operations. Applying Biddle’s formal model to the 2023 Ukrainian offensive in Zaporizhia, the thesis finds that the offensive's failure conforms closely to Biddle’s causal logic, with force employment variables drawn from 20th century combat sufficient to account for the outcome. Biddle's model in military power argues that force employment has explained victory and defeat since World War I, rather than technology or numerical preponderance alone. Many commentators claim that proliferation of small …

Electoral Threshold: Pros-Cons And Political Party Consensus In Indonesia, Azka Abdi Amrurobbi, Donis Daviska, Alam Mahadika

Jurnal Wacana Politik

The debates surrounding the parliamentary threshold and presidential threshold have become a recurring phenomenon, particularly in the period leading up to general elections in Indonesia. This paper aims to examine the pros and cons of the implementation and determination processes of both thresholds. Employing a qualitative research method and library research as the primary data collection technique, to validate the data then this research used data triangulation technique. In the Indonesian context, the thresholds applied constitute a form of formal threshold, namely thresholds determined through political and legislative processes in parliament. Consequently, threshold policies are heavily influenced by the configuration …

Stablecoins, Geopolitical Shocks, And Imperfect Arbitrage: A Case Study Of Türkiye, Vincient Arnold

Master in Public Policy Theses

On March 19, 2025, a key Turkish opposition political figure was unexpectedly arrested on what were presumed to be politically motivated charges. In response, the lira depreciated sharply. Meanwhile, Türkiye has a large and active dollar stablecoin market. Using a time series dataset of trade-frequency Tether vs. lira trading, I exploit this natural exogenous geopolitical risk-off event to investigate the response function of stablecoin traders active in Türkiye to this shock. I find that the shock is associated with a large (5.33% ) abnormal depreciation of the lira. Further, I show that the shock is associated with an abnormal widening …

Silicon Rivalry: Understanding The U.S.-China Ai Competition In Southeast Asia, Daniel Christopher Kent

Master in Public Policy Theses

In the rising global strategic competition between China and the United States, artificial intelligence (AI) has taken on a special significance given its potentially transformative impact upon economics and security. Yet while the dialogue around the “AI race” is typically centered on foundational model capability enhancement, application in security contexts, and chip design and manufacturing, there is much less attention paid to its impact on geopolitics. In particular, AI diplomacy—the work of a state to spread its model of AI governance, evangelize its AI companies, and develop critical AI interdependencies and linkages around the world—is far less studied. Nowhere is …

Sexual Violence By Government Security Forces: Leaders, Institutions, And Culture, Margaret Avera

Political Science ETDs

I assess how the interaction between leader preferences, regime type, and agent personal motives impacts patterns of sexual violence. I ask, “Why do some government security forces perpetrate sexual violence while others do not?” and “How does the interaction between leader motives and institutions impact victimization patterns?” I found that police corruption was correlated with sexual violence by government security forces, but military corruption was not. My findings indicate the importance of moving beyond a conflict scope and distinguishing between different types of state security actors. In addition, I use natural language processing methods to collect disaggregated allegation data to …

Inherited By “Merit”: What Caste Carries Across The Indian American Diaspora, Aarushi V. Jaiswal

English Undergraduate Distinction Projects

This project traces the rhetorical formation termed “meritocratic nationalism,” a political vocabulary that makes national belonging conditional on moralized merit, converting structural advantage into the language of individual character. Meritocratic nationalism is traced across three political figures whose rhetoric represents successive moments in a single ideological trajectory. Reading Narendra Modi’s 2014 and 2018 Independence Day addresses and his 2014 Madison Square Garden speech to the Indian American diaspora as the formation’s originating texts, this project argues that Modi’s recurring moral tetrad of conduct, values, traditions, and ability translated the structurally concentrated advantages of India’s upper-caste professional class into a universalist …

Rural Minds In Modern Politics: Kinship Networks And Voting Patterns: A Comparative Analysis Of Appalachia And Rural Spain, 1986–2024, Alyce Sarah Blow

Senior Theses

This paper examines how rural identity, kinship networks, and community relationships shape voting behavior through a comparative analysis of rural regions in the United States and Spain. With a base structure on sociological and political research on rural development and the rural–urban political divide, this study explores how social trust, family reputation, and community ties influence electoral support in rural communities. Using electoral data from national archives and the Global Elections Database, the analysis focuses on voting patterns from 1986 to 2024 in two rural U.S. congressional districts, West Virginia’s 2nd and Pennsylvania’s 9th, and two rural regions in Spain: …

Imperial Continuities Beneath A Post-Colonial Pretense: Uncovering The Economic Foundations And Covert Objectives Of Operation Ajax, Fatimah Waqas

Senior Theses

Economic self-determination, that is, the right of a state to protect its national resources and direct its own growth, remains a topic of contention and struggle for numerous countries in the Global South. These nations’ attempts at advancing their economic self-determination are often exploited and sabotaged by industrial Western powers, notably the United States, which frequently employs covert operations and media propaganda to disguise its economic and imperial pursuits in developing, resource-rich nations. The case of Iran during the early 1950s is especially exemplary, as the nationalization of oil under Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh presented a direct conflict with U.S. …

Kenyan Foreign Policy In The Multipolar World, Maryclaire Mcadams

Senior Theses

In April 2025, in a speech to university students in Beijing, China, Kenyan President William Ruto announced, “Ladies and gentlemen, Kenya and China are not merely trade partners. We are co-architects of a new world order.” The speech was a bold departure from Ruto’s announcement just a year earlier that Kenya would officially achieve Major Non-NATO Ally status with the United States. The stark contrast in public statements from Kenya’s president within just a few months signals a shift in the international order. A system that once compelled states like Kenya to bandwagon with the United States now allows them …

The Rejection Of Ostpolitik: Was Germany’S Pragmatic Special Relationship With Russia A Missed Opportunity For European Stability?, Sebastian Friedrich Orth

Senior Theses

Although the German government under Chancellors Gerhard Schroeder and Angela Merkel had success in improving relations with Russia in the 2000s through mutually beneficial trade initiatives, the leaders’ plans were foiled by the persistent pressure from the United States to support NATO expansion. In revisiting this period, one can discern the beginning of a phase of Germany’s attempts to take a more active role in European leadership, which has been fraught with difficulties due to the country’s own postwar traditions of restraint and promotion of peace. Twenty-five years later, as negotiations to end the war in Ukraine are ongoing, the …

Narrating Conflict And Producing Identity: The Institutional Roots Of Youth Division In Kosovo And Serbia, Adelina Makovic

Senior Theses

This thesis examines how education and media shape the ethnic and national identities of postwar youth in Kosovo and Serbia, and how these identities influence the narratives these youth form of the war and of each other. Although born after the war, youth in both countries inherit divergent narratives of the war through school, traditional media, and social media. Using a qualitative, multi-source methodology, this thesis conducts a comparative analysis of textbooks, reporting and regional survey data on institutional trust. The findings reveal that textbooks in Kosovo and Serbia present accounts of the war that are ethnically biased and selective, …

Beyond Authorization: United Nations Institutional Reform And Humanitarian Intervention, Basma Laassel

Senior Theses

The United Nations’ failures to prevent mass atrocities in Rwanda (1994), Srebrenica (1995), and Syria (2011) have sparked persistent calls for institutional reforms to overcome P5 veto gridlock and bureaucratic paralysis. This thesis asks the question: “what United Nations reforms could realistically enhance the UN’s ability to effectively intervene in cases of humanitarian crises?” To answer this question, this thesis employs rigorous counterfactual analysis to test whether three specific institutional reforms would have realistically prevented these humanitarian catastrophes: (1) providing the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) with limited binding authority under Chapter VII of the UN Charter, (2) the UN …

Incorporating Principles And Wisdom From Hospital Chaplaincy And Pastoral Ministry To Create A Ministry Model To Address Social Isolation And Loneliness In Black Churches, Albert A. Kemp

Doctor of Ministry Projects and Theses

To address the growing and widespread epidemic of social isolation and loneliness, with special focus on Black churches, this dissertation developed a program with the following areas of application: 1) how healthcare trained chaplains can coordinate with churches to positively impact individuals identified as lonely and socially isolated with better social and physical health, 2) how principles of chaplaincy and pastoral care can mitigate and intervene competently when such people are identified, and 3) how the project’s model can be organized, taught, and incorporated into existing arenas of church ministry.

The purpose of the project was to create a ministry …

Boundaries Of Inequality: The Political Economy Of Redlining And Modern Mortgage Credit, Kyle Guo

Harvey M. Applebaum ’59 Award

This paper investigates the legacy of historical redlining on contemporary access to mortgage credit across three distinct urban policy environments: Baltimore, Philadelphia, and Manhattan. I find that while historical redlining is associated with a statistically significant negative effect on mortgage approval rates, the magnitude of this direct effect is relatively small. In comparison, applicant race, particularly for Black applicants, is a stronger predictor of mortgage approval rates across cities and models. This study utilizes 1930s Home Owners’ Loan Corporation (HOLC) residential security maps and Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA) data from 2007 to 2017, and uses ordinary least squares (OLS) …

Behind The Scores: How Federal Education Legislation Influenced Dayton Public Schools’ Special Education System For Students Of Color, Simran Kaur

Aurora

This paper analyzes the district special education system of Dayton Public Schools’ through federal legislation requirements and state-reported data to evaluate access, implementation, and equity. Findings show that while the district meets several procedural requirements at federal levels, students with disabilities (especially Black students) face limited access to general education environments, family engagement, and disability identification at a local level. Risk ratios reveal subjective disability categories, which is contributing to the district’s low Achievement Gap Closing rate through the state-wide report card.

Red, Blue, And Bordered: Factors Influencing Immigration Attitudes, Estefania Morales Vilchis

Political Science Student Papers and Posters

The paper will explore the various social and individual variables that will impact how people perceive immigration as either beneficial to society or a societal threat. Some of the primary variables that will be examined in detail are one’s political affiliation, age, and geographical location; this will address the profound "why" behind our current beliefs on newcomers. The study will particularly address the "Contact Hypothesis" versus "Group Threat Theory" through the lens of how one's personal experiences with immigrants, or lack of, will shape public opinion. The study will focus on the rising psychological issue of "demographic anxiety", specifically, fears …

Welcome Tilly Norwood: Forecasting Hollywood’S Ai Policy Futures, Samuel P. Rooker

Senior Honors Projects, 2020-current

In late 2025, weekly trade publication Variety Magazine reported on the announcement of a new acting talent in Hollywood: Tilly Norwood. Norwood is an industry outsider and the pet project of Eline Van der Velden, who unveiled the actress’ existence to the world at the Zurich Film Festival. The announcement quickly gained media coverage while Van der Velden has since faced cyclical backlash from Hollywood trade unions, which does not seem entirely without reason. Tilly Norwood is a digital persona, a generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) program, designed by Van der Velden’s novel AI talent studio, Xicoia, to become the next …