Political Science Commons^™

Pasokification: Fall Of The European Center Left Or A Transformation Of The System, Jacob S. Cox

Governance: The Political Science Journal at UNLV

The party systems of Europe since 1945 have been defined by the division between one large center-left and one large center-right party with usually smaller parties of the center, left, or right. However, in the 21^st century and especially since 2010, the center-left has seen its support plunge across Europe with a few notable exceptions. The Socialist Party of France in 2017 held the presidency and controlled the National Assembly. Nevertheless, not even three years later, the party is on the verge of extinction and beset by numerous splits. The Social Democratic Party of Germany has seen its support …

Understanding Russia, Tyler M. Goldstein

Governance: The Political Science Journal at UNLV

This paper will develop a comprehensive analytical framework that endeavors to explain Russian incursions during the Putin era. The bedrock of this paper’s analytical model is that Russia’s fundamental motivation is having the means to challenge unilateral action and to make the other world powers twice about interfering in Russia’s affairs. This proposed theoretical model will be tested through four case studies, utilizing content analysis and process-tracing. The first case study will cover the Second Chechen War; the second case study will be of the 2008 Russo-Georgian war; the third case study will focus on Russia’s intervention in Ukraine; the …

The Interrelationship Between Gender, Media, And Religion On Electoral Performance, Angelique Shlemon, Kianna Shlemon

Governance: The Political Science Journal at UNLV

This article delves into the gender gap in the United States and how it affects multi-facets of life, especially but not limited to partisanship and electoral performance in America. Different factors are analyzed that might also affect such factors as religion and media coverage. Women's historical suppression has led to an increase of value in public welfare instead of the economy. We examine why women veer towards more liberal ideologies than men. One thing that might affect their gravitation towards liberal ideologies is religion. This paper further examines if religion affects women identifying as Democrats or Republicans. Gender roles have …

The Decline Of Local News And Its Effect On Polarization, Stanley D. Taylor

Governance: The Political Science Journal at UNLV

In recent decades, local news has seen a sharp decline while political polarization has seen an increase. In this paper, I will analyze how these two trends affect one another. I hypothesize that as local news declines, there will be an increase in polarization. To test this, I use figures on newspaper circulation from Pew Research Center as a proxy for local news as well as Voteview’s polarization scores given to each US Congress. After conducting my data analysis, I found support for my hypothesis. There are statistically significant figures that show that as newspapers in circulation decrease, polarization increases. …

Calls For Accountability: Redefining The Culture Of Policing In Las Vegas, Olivia K. Cheche

Governance: The Political Science Journal at UNLV

In summer 2020, national attention on racial injustice brought into focus the culture of policing as a critical area of policy exploration for the United States. The purpose of this policy report is to examine the culture of policing in the Las Vegas metropolitan area, and specifically within Las Vegas's largest police force, the Las Vegas Metro Police Department (LVMPD). Through this case study analysis, the racial, social and fiscal aspects of the culture of policing are investigated between the years 2016 & 2020. The research here presents data on disparities within policing found at the national and local levels. …

[Review Of The Book Christianity, Empire, And The Spirit: (Re)Configuring Faith And Culture, By N. Medina], John Francis Burke

Political Science Faculty Research

No abstract provided.

Media Analysis Of Conflict In Chinese-Zambian Engagement: From Zaffico To The Covid-19 Discrimination Controversy, Nicole Mazurova, Pokai Tsao, Taurence Chisholm Jr.

Southern African Journal of Policy and Development

This paper examines the role media plays in polarising views and escalating tension. The cases studied reflect the competing perspectives on Chinese engagement in Zambia, from the courtship of Chinese investment to rising anti-Chinese sentiment. Based on a comparative media analysis of English and Mandarin news articles about the ZAFFICO and COVID-19 discrimination controversies, we argue that the multi-layered polarisation in Zambia’s media landscape amplifies existing identity-conflicts. Framing—the tone, word choice, and selection of detail—in articles changes with the positionality of the media outlet and shapes the discourse around the cases. Sensationalisation, misinformation, and divergent frames contribute to conflict between …

A Configurable Social Network For Running Irb-Approved Experiments, Mihovil Mandic

Dartmouth College Undergraduate Theses

Our world has never been more connected, and the size of the social media landscape draws a great deal of attention from academia. However, social networks are also a growing challenge for the Institutional Review Boards concerned with the subjects’ privacy. These networks contain a monumental variety of personal information of almost 4 billion people, allow for precise social profiling, and serve as a primary news source for many users. They are perfect environments for influence operations that are becoming difficult to defend against. Motivated to study online social influence via IRB-approved experiments, we designed and implemented a flexible, scalable, …

The Higher Power Of Religiosity Over Personality On Political Ideology, Alexander Ksiazkiewicz, Amanda Friesen

Political Science Publications

Two streams of research, culture war and system justification, have proposed that religious orientations and personality, respectively, play critical roles in political orientations. There has been only limited work integrating these two streams. This integration is now of increased importance given the introduction of behavior-genetic frameworks into our understanding of why people differ politically. Extant research has largely considered the influence of personality as heritable and religiosity as social, but this view needs reconsideration as religiosity is also genetically influenced. Here we integrate these domains and conduct multivariate analyses on twin samples in the U.S. and Australia to identify the …

Syrian Refugees In Canada Transition To Resettlement: Through The Perspectives Of Housing, Income, Female Resettlement, And Mental Health, Floranda Agroam

MA Major Research Papers

War, violence, and fear of persecution are three main reasons to seek asylum. Syria has been experiencing an ongoing civil war since 2011 which has resulted in the external displacement of over 6.5 million Syrians. The value that refugees bring to a nation is more than a statistic, but rather refugees help establish the growth and diversity of a nation, contribute to the economy and most importantly, they are guaranteed protection from persecution, war and violence. Asylum seekers benefit from the refugee status they gain upon entry into Canada along with the many welfare services to help their transition to …

Educational Attainment And Social Norms Of Voting, Eric Hansen, Andrew Tyner

Political Science: Faculty Publications and Other Works

Why does the likelihood of voting increase with education in the U.S.? Prominent theories attribute education’s effect to human capital, which affords individuals resources needed to participate, but neglect social motivations. We test a theory of internalized social norms as another contributing factor, providing evidence in three studies. First, we show that highly educated people are more likely to view voting as a civic duty, and that civic duty partially mediates the effect of education on voting. Second, we show education is associated with a higher likelihood of overreporting voting in the 2016 election. Third, we show that educated respondents …

Shifting The Industrial Food System Towards Sustainability: The Intersections Of Agriculture, Industrialization, & Health, Courtney Marchi

City and Regional Planning

This work traces the impact of the industrialization of corporate agriculture that has agglomerated globally. The aim of this paper is to discuss the major impacts and technicalities behind modern agricultural practices, and to draw attention to the intersections between industrialization, technology, health, and environmental concerns. This paper addresses the social and political implications associated with a global trade system and attempts to remedy some of them through environmentally and socially sustainable, and deconstructive, systemic approaches. There are several intersections between social equity, globalization, and agriculture that Urban and Regional Planners can work intimately with to improve overall food security …

Uni Political Science Newsletter, V16n1, June 2021, University Of Northern Iowa. Department Of Political Science.

Political Science Newsletter

Contents:

--- From the Department Head
--- #PANTHERSVOTE in a Pandemic
--- Poli Sci Senior Receives National Essay Award
--- Ayah Al-Durazi Receives Lux Award for Service
--- Poli Sci Students Receive Campus Leadership Awards
--- Scholarship Recipients
--- Congratulations 2020-21 Graduates!
--- Alumni Spotlight
--- Faculty Updates
--- Warby Leads Study Abroad to Uganda

Moral Psychology And Politics: Evolved Moral Intuitions And Their Links To Contemporary Political Issues, Greta Raser

Student Research

This literature review thesis explores the evolutionary based theory of moral psychology called the Moral Foundations Theory and its innate processes that serve as factors in moral judgments regarding contemporary political issues. This thesis describes the theoretical foundations underlying the Moral Foundations approach, and then proceeds to review empirical sources on its general applicability. It then examines how the approach may be applied to political ideology, as well as the connection to the emotion of disgust. Next, the review continues to explore relations between pathogen and sexual disgust sensitivity and politics. The final section of the thesis body takes a …

Domestic Terrorism In The Developing World: Role Of Food Security, Nisha Bellinger, Kyle T. Kattelman

Political Science Faculty Publications and Presentations

This article sheds light on the root causes of terrorism by assessing the effect of food security on domestic terrorism among developing countries. Food security is a fundamental physiological need and captures a core well-being outcome. We argue that food insecurity creates grievances among citizens and increases demand among them for action against the government. Terrorist organisations provide the opportunity for citizens to channel their grievances against the government by resolving collective action problems and mobilising citizens. We demonstrate the link between food insecurity and domestic terrorism through quantitative analyses on a sample of 70 developing countries from 1980 to …

The Second Kashmir (Informational) War Of 1965, Navdip Hans

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The Second Kashmir (Informational) War of 1965 considers that Pakistan over-optimistically assessed information prior to the onset of hostilities with India. This thesis posits that information released from significant battlefield events quickly dispelled Pakistan's optimism which led to an accurate updating of beliefs and expectations. This resulted in a downward revision of demands by Pakistan to convergence with India resulting in settlement ending the war.

The Compressed Modernity Of Legalizing Same-Sex Marriage In Taiwan: Digital Activism, Human Rights Discourse, And Intertwined Sexual, Political And National Identities, Jyun-Jie Yang

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In 2019, Taiwan became the first Asian country to officially legalize same-sex marriage. Remarkably, the Taiwanese queer movement achieved the goal of marriage equality in only 30 years, with the first tongzhi (同志) activist group organized in 1990. Compared to Euro-American social movements, Taiwanese tongzhi activism has experienced a “compressed modernity” (Chang, 1999, 2010a, 2010b), which accelerates cultural and social transformations. Although Taiwanese academia has been significantly influenced by queer studies as a form of western knowledge production, local scholars and activists created a new interpretation from “queer” to “tongzhi.” Entangled with complex political identifications in post-martial-law Taiwan, …

The Linknyc Kiosk: Phone Booths, Urban Culture, And The Neoliberal Dream For New York City, Michael A. Villanova

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis provides a history of the development policies around the phone booth in New York City as a “dialectical image” to understand the use of urban culture as a means of achieving political ends. First, I lay out a cultural history of public communication devices in their relation to the political and material changes in New York City since the late 19^th century. By doing so, this thesis explains how the cultural significance of the phone booth opens essential points of connection between notions of autonomy, uses of technology in the public sphere, and the relation between politics …

Work-Family Reconciliation Policies Reexamined: Good Or Bad For Gender And Class Inequality In Employment Across Twenty-Four High-Income Countries?, Sarah L. Kostecki

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In this dissertation, I am in conversation with the small but influential gendered tradeoffs literature. First, multidimensional, disaggregated, and precise policy measures were developed for two of the most widely studied work-family reconciliation policies—leave and ECEC. I constructed a comprehensive set of leave and ECEC policy measures for 24 high-income countries using secondary and country-specific sources. The goal was to determine which countries provide leave and ECEC policies that are “well-developed” across multiple policy dimensions. The new measures were then used in combination with the LIS microdata to reevaluate the gendered tradeoffs hypothesis—whether well-developed leave and ECEC support women’s employment …

El Pueblo Unido: How Threats Increased Latinx Turnout In Arizona’S 2020 General Election, Conner Martinez

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Latinx voter turnout in the United States has persisted to remain below White, Black, and Asian Americans. In 2020, county level data shows Latinx turnout reached historic levels in Arizona’s 2020 general election (Pew Research 2020; Census 2020). But throughout the past two decades, Latinx’s in Arizona have faced some of the harshest anti-immigrant policies in the nation. Currently, the literature on Latinx mobilization shows mixed results on the impact of political threats on Latinx turnout (Jones-Correa et al. 2018). Through in depth interviews with Latinx organizational leaders who managed mass mobilization efforts in 2020, this paper explores the role …