Political Science Commons^™

Organized Labour’S Impact On The 2020 Election, Cooper Pryde

CMC Senior Theses

Against all odds, Donald Trump won the 2016 election. A critical reason why this happened was his support amongst union members. Specifically, this helped him with the crucial Rust Belt swing states of Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. Joe Biden learned from this and ran on the most pro-labour platform in recent history. This platform ingratiated him with union leadership who donated generously to his campaign. Unions also spent considerable resources politically organizing for the campaign. Organized labour’s support was a vital reason why Biden won all three swing Rust Belt states and ultimately the presidency. Organized labour did not only …

Education Inequality In The United States: A Wicked Problem With A Wicked Solution, Lincoln Bernard

CMC Senior Theses

A problem wicked in its complexity and detriment; the United States has failed most of its students in its inability to address the unashamedly rampant inequality throughout its public education system. The inequality in American public schools appears evident and boundless, but the causes of that inequality, and especially its solutions, are not as obvious. It is easy to explain away the system’s failures as a product of the United States’ ultra-varied environment, but further investigation reveals much of the systems problems are self-caused, resulting from the United States’ uniquely local approach to supporting its schools. A misguided fear of …

‘It’S Like Baking A Cake’: An Analysis Of Conscience Voting In The New Zealand House Of Representatives Since The Introduction Of The Mixed-Member Proportional System In 1996, Harrison Hosking

CMC Senior Theses

Conscience voting in the New Zealand House of Representatives offers a unique opportunity to assess Sam Peltzman’s ‘Principal-Agent Theory’ as outlined in his 1984 paper, Constituent Interest and Congressional Voting.

This thesis begins with a brief assessment of the principal-agent model (and other literature regarding parliamentary representation) before looking at the New Zealand Parliamentary system and the phenomenon of private member’s bills and how they aid the legislative process. This is followed by an exploration of a constructed dataset of conscience votes that have occurred since the inception of the mixed-member proportional (MMP) electoral system in 1996. An analysis …

Donald Trump’S Authoritarianism: The Decline Of Democracy Under Trump, Gabe Fisher

CMC Senior Theses

Donald Trump was the most anti-democratic president in American history. During his 2016 campaign, he encouraged violence at his rallies. He also levied harsh attacks against his opponents and even called one a “devil.” When he assumed office as president, he demanded complete loyalty and levied attacks against the press that conjured up memories of notorious autocrats. And when he lost a free and fair election in 2020, he discontinued a 200-year-old tradition and a hallmark of American democracy: the peaceful transfer of power. He also incited an insurrection when he unsuccessfully overturned the election’s results. The GOP has continued …

Politics Of The Obesity Epidemic, Jacob Lyle

CMC Senior Theses

American society has long been obsessed with the issue of obesity. The turn of the 20th century broadly marked the beginning of America's current collective understanding of obesity. Throughout the century, the salience of the issue waxed and waned due to various factors. Around 2000, obesity became a major political issue. Media coverage of the issue exploded, and it became a hot topic for political debate. This paper looks to conduct a complete reckoning of the obesity epidemic that includes contextualizing the economic, cultural, and political factors that have shaped the issue throughout the 20th and 21st centuries.

Care Ethics, Disability, And Public Policy, Piper Gibson

Honors Theses and Capstones

No abstract provided.

Regulatory Agency Capture: How The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission Approved The Mountain Valley Pipeline, Aakshi Agarwal

Harvey M. Applebaum ’59 Award

The FERC’s history of approving nearly 100% of pipelines and divisive pipeline cases like the Atlantic Coast Pipeline and Mountain Valley Pipeline have driven landowners’ long-standing claims of regulatory agency capture of the FERC. The present research substantiates the claim of capture with a case study of the Mountain Valley Pipeline and uncovers that the FERC is both culturally and corrosively captured. This research also suggests that the capture of the FERC began at its conception during the natural gas crisis and subsequent natural gas bubble, which caused the FERC to follow the industry’s lead. These findings indicate that the …

Noise: A Flaw In Human Judgment. [Book Review], Michael Cohen

School of Public Service Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Batman Saves The Congo: How Celebrities Disrupt The Politics Of Development, Alexandra Cosima Budabin, Lisa Ann Richey

Books and Book Chapters by University of Dayton Faculty

How celebrity strategic partnerships are disrupting humanitarian space: Can a celebrity be a "disrupter," promoting strategic partnerships to foster ideas and funding to revitalize the development field, or are they just charismatic ambassadors for big business? Examining the role of the rich and famous in development and humanitarianism, this book argues that celebrities do both, and that understanding why and how yields insight into the realities of neoliberal development.

Contents:

• Introduction
• Chapter 1. Celebrity, Disruption and Neoliberal Development
• Chapter 2. Narrating the Congo: Dangerous Single Stories and the Organizations that Need Them
• Chapter 3. Choosing the Congo: How a Celebrity …

America’S Presidential Crisis Of Legitimacy: How The Electoral College Became Obsolete And How We Can Fix It, Julia Rose Foodman

Scripps Senior Theses

The goal of this thesis is to critique the current American Presidential electoral system, the Electoral College, and to show what an alternative could potentially mean for the American people. This paper seeks to answer the following questions: What are the main arguments for the Electoral College, why are they troubling, and how can we mend American Presidential elections for the greater purposes of political equality, democracy, and freedom? To do so, core arguments made by conservative pundits in favor of the Electoral College are outlined in order to bring attention to their logical, political, and moral inconsistencies. The inequalities …

Ghosts Who Linger- How Dictators Retain Partial Legitimacy Post-Transition, Lillian Perlmutter

Scripps Senior Theses

In Chile and Italy, how did the dictators’ legacies withstand movements to break away from the dictatorial ideology and decades of political and social change? In other words, how did legislation drafted during the Pinochet regime in Chile withstand the deterioration of Pinochet’s public image in the years after the transition, and how did Mussolini’s cult of personality withstand the condemnation of his ideology and agenda in the post-war period in Italy? What is the mechanism that allows a dictator’s public persona to separate from his ideology or legislative record? I argue the mechanism that allowed portions of these dictators’ …

A ‘Hermit Kingdom’ No Longer? Kim Jong-Un’S Two Years Of Diplomatic Summits And What North Korean Media Can Tell Us About Them, Jaimie Ding

Scripps Senior Theses

This thesis examines the English-language output of the Korean Central News Agency, the main news agency of North Korea. I conduct an analysis of the KCNA news coverage of a series of diplomatic summits that North Korean leader Ki Jong-un holds with Chinese president Xi Jin-ping, South Korean president Moon Jae-in, and U.S. president Donald Trump from 2018-2019. For this analysis, I coded for certain phrases and rhetoric and examined the content of each article to look at how news coverage of these summits reflects North Korea’s foreign policy goals and stances toward the respective countries. I found several recurring …

Violence Against Asians: When Is Racial Hate A Crime?, Anna M. Agathangelou, Kyle Killian

Journal of Feminist Scholarship

In this article we focus on the mass shootings of Asian women at Atlanta spas. After the perpetrator killed six Asian women, he told the police that he wanted to eliminate “all Asians” and spoke of the “temptation” of the massage parlors and spas. We ask at what point will these forms of anti-Asian violence first be acknowledged, and then seen as a clear and present danger? To answer these questions we trace the historical roots in US history, and domestic and foreign policies of such violence. We reflect on a history of imperial politics, the means and methods of …

Effects Of States’ Laws On Youth Physical Activity Participation And Obesity Prevalence, Chae Young Chang

Midwest Social Sciences Journal

The alarming prevalence of obesity and lack of physical activity among adolescents led to immediate policy action to address these concerns. Accordingly, many states introduced and enacted their own legislation to encourage physical activity in schools. Few studies have explored the effectiveness of the new legislation, however, especially at the state level. To answer the fundamental question of whether policy is effective and to describe the varying effects of state obesity policies, this study analyzed the Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System from 2007 to 2017. Using the difference-in-differences method, this study found that legislative efforts to encourage physical activity had …

Fictional Foreign Policy: How Madam Secretary And House Of Cards Depict United States Foreign Policy., John Heyrman

Commonwealth Review of Political Science

This paper analyzes the ways that United States foreign policy is depicted in two prominent current television programs: House of Cards and Madam Secretary. Both of these programs have had frequent plots in which the fictional foreign policy of the U.S. deals with issues very similar to those that the United States has actually confronted in recent years. Examples include nuclear proliferation negotiations with Iran and U.S. concern over anti-gay legislation in Russia. Several of these fictional stories are analyzed here to consider how processes and policies of the U.S. are portrayed. Madam Secretary does much more to demonstrate …

Party Registration Deadlines And Hidden Partisanship: An Individual Analysis, Matthew Thornburg

Commonwealth Review of Political Science

Many voters in states with party affiliation identify with or lean towards one political party but are not registered with it. This sort of “hidden partisanship” may be intentional be it may also result from a combination of changes in a voter’s party identification and the electoral institutions in place. In many states it is difficult to change party registration due to early deadlines intended to prevent crossover voting. Using individual-level survey data, I find that hidden partisanship in a state increases, the further in advance of the primary the deadline to change party affiliation is. This deadline affects primary …

The Nature And Extent Of Presidential Pardon Power: An Analysis In Light Of Recent Political Developments, Max Guirguis Ph.D.

Commonwealth Review of Political Science

Long recognized as the most sweeping and least checked power vested in the Chief Executive, the pardon power received renewed scholarly attention with the federal investigation of the Trump White House. President Trump’s assertion via a Twitter post that “the U.S. President has the complete power to pardon” provoked a heated national debate on the reach of his pardoning authority. This paper is an attempt to elucidate the nature of the pardon power by examining its historical contours and the constitutional principles governing its exercise.

Complete Issue - Volume 5, Number 1 (2021)

Commonwealth Review of Political Science

Complete Issue

Profitable Retail Customer Identification Based On A Combined Prediction Strategy Of Customer Lifetime Value, Yinglu Sun, Dong Cheng, Subir Bandyopadhyay, Wei Xue

Midwest Social Sciences Journal

As a fundamental concept of customer relationship management, customer lifetime value (CLV) serves as a crucial metric to identify profitable retail customers. Various methods are available to predict CLV in different contexts. With the development of consumer big data, modern statistics and machine learning algorithms have been gradually adopted in CLV modeling. We introduce two machine learning algorithms—the gradient boosting decision tree (GBDT) and the random forest (RF)—in retail customer CLV modeling and compare their predictive performance with two classical models—the Pareto/NBD (HB) and the Pareto/GGG. To ensure CLV prediction and customer identification robustness, we combined the predictions of the …

Presidents And The U.S. Constitution: The Executive’S Role In Interpreting The Supreme Law Of The Land, Mitchell Scacchi

Honors Theses and Capstones

In 1832, President Andrew Jackson issued a veto message claiming the same duty as the Supreme Court to interpret the U.S. Constitution. Do modern presidents exercise the principal role in interpreting the U.S. Constitution that President Jackson claimed was their duty, and, if so, in what ways do they choose to articulate their interpretations? The hypothesis is that modern presidents have exercised a principal role in interpreting the U.S. Constitution similar to the interpretative duty expressed by President Jackson, and they perform this duty, in part, through the issuance of veto messages and signing statements. After a content analysis of …