Political Science Commons^™

Framing The Debate: The Role Of Gender, Beneficiaries, And Cost In Paid Parental Leave Policy Support, Kimberly Anne Saks Mcmanaway

Wayne State University Dissertations

In 1963, President John F. Kennedy’s Commission on the Status of Women found that the lack of income security during pregnancy and childbearing “one of the major remaining gaps in the protection of workers against losses of income,” (American Women 1963, p. 27). Despite popular support for such a policy, the United States remains one of only three countries that does not have a such a policy (OECD, 2017). Commentators have argued that the Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993 was successful due to the diverse coalition behind it which included feminist groups and conservative religious organizations alike. The …

Debating Ethnic Governance In China, Yan Sun

Publications and Research

Previous scholarship has identified an emerging consensus for ethnic policy reform in China, in the direction of strengthening national integration and a ‘melting pot.’ This article identifies three major contending schools in Chinese debates about the country’s ethnic governance: liberal autonomists, integrationists and socialist autonomists. It argues that the socialist autonomists, who oppose the ‘melting pot,’ have prevailed politically. Contention among the three schools, specifically, revolves around tradeoffs between autonomy and ethnic particularism. That is, compromised autonomy but preferential policies. The liberal autonomists reject the tradeoffs because of the cost to autonomy. The integrationists reject the tradeoffs because of the …

Shifting Power, Status Quo Dissatisfaction, And Power Parity: Their Effect On The Use Of Coercive Foreign Policy In International Relations, Nathan Alvin Andrew

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

How do shifts in the distribution of power effect the foreign policy decisions of states? In this dissertation, I argue that shifts in the distribution of power, status quo dissatisfaction, and power parity work together to significantly impact these decisions. Until this time, the conditional effect of these three variables has only been included in studies of major- or regional-power war, within the theoretical framework of power transition theory. To what extent do these correlates of war apply to foreign policy in general? Borrowing the insights of foreign policy substitution and the logic of the bargaining theory of war, I …

More Guns, Less Butter, And Officers At The Table: Understanding The Nexus Between The Military's Integration Into Politics And Resource Allocation In Democracies And Non-Democracies, Salah Ben Hammou

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The civilianization of government is often seen as a necessary prerequisite for successful democratization and healthy civil-military relations. This thesis explores the impact of integrating the military into political decision-making on the distribution of "guns" and "butter" – military spending and social spending - across dictatorships and democracies. Whereas a general consensus suggests that autocracies allocate greater goods to the military and fewer goods to the general public relative to democracies, an understudied variable is the military's integration into politics in both democracies and autocracies. Given that military elites have greater incentives relative to civilian elites to prioritize military spending …

Examining Partisan Advantage In Congressional Maps Using Simulations Based On Election Data, Zachary James Morgan

Online Theses and Dissertations

Partisan gerrymandering has been and will continue to be a topic of interest in the coming years. States will soon begin their redistricting process following the 2020 Census. We introduce a method of simulating Congressional elections which provides a new way of examining and visualizing the votes-to-seats relationship for a state Congressional map using past election data. We are able to build upon Mira Bernstein's method of uniformly simulating elections by injecting a data-driven component of variation into the simulations. Additionally, we are able to directly evaluate the accuracy of our simulations using a type of cross-validation. We compare our …

The Federal State And Hegemony: Politics In Floyd County, Kentucky And The Latter Years Of The War On Poverty, Riccardo Paolo D'Amato

Online Theses and Dissertations

The central question this thesis addresses is how increasing federal power impacted local peoples, both politicians and otherwise. Kentucky politics was an already convoluted subject of local interconnected patronage without adding even more possible connections. The War on Poverty did just that, adding more players to the ‘game’ of Kentucky politics through numerous influential programs. This thesis closely follows the later years of the War on Poverty in Floyd County specifically to discover what changes were created in the political and social spheres.

This thesis’ findings are based in a contextualized reading of local and foreign newspapers, letters to Representative …

Introduction To Unlikely Heroes: The Place Of Holocaust Rescuers In Research And Teaching, Ari Kohen, Gerald Steinacher

Department of Political Science: Faculty Publications

The aim of this collection is not to provide an all-encompassing work about "rescuers" or the phenomenon of rescue. The topic is too large to cover exhaustively, of course, but doing so is also not our aim. We use a few examples in this volume to illustrate research findings and teaching techniques related to Holocaust rescuers in order to show the issues at stake. We open with some new research on the phenomenon of rescue and resistance during the Holocaust.

Emotions, Terrorist Threat, And Drones: Anger Drives Support For Drone Strikes, Kerstin Fisk, Jennifer L. Merolla, Jennifer Ramos

Political Science and International Relations Faculty Works

In this article, we investigate how threat perceptions and emotions can jointly impact individuals’ attitudes toward drone strikes. We argue that conditions of threat can increase public support for the use of drone strikes. We further contend that the effect of threat perceptions on support for drone strikes is mediated by negative, emotional reactions, particularly anger. We test our arguments in France, the United States, and Turkey using data generated from nationally representative online surveys, in which individuals were randomly assigned to a control group, a condition in which they read about terrorist threat (with or without a reminder of …

Development Of Violence And Sectarianism In Lebanon, Alicia Mallo

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

The pattern and acceptance of sectarianism and the resultant ethnic violence in Lebanon can be traced back to the mid-19th century as the result of European involvement in the Levant. Through the history of Lebanon in the 19th and 20th centuries, the modern sectarianism and ethnic violence can be better understood as results of international intervention and interference.

The Political, Social, And Economic Variables That Influence American Immigration Attitudes, Brandon Combs

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

Comprehensive immigration policy has been and continues to be a challenge for American policy makers. Although this can be said for many other problems, a holistic approach to immigration policy must address several social, economic, and political ramifications. For instance, in times of economic downturn, policy makers may reassess the economic impacts of increased foreign labor flows as Americans argue they are increasing competition for scarce jobs. Immigration can also become an issue of national security, namely after the 9/11 attacks which heightened perceived fears of immigrants and prompted tighter border protection. In addition, public opinion on immigration is also …

Three Essays On Municipal Structure And Government Fiscal Management Outcomes, Wenchi Wei

Theses and Dissertations--Public Policy and Administration

This dissertation aims to reclassify municipal structures of the U.S. municipalities and investigates the effect of municipal structures on government fiscal management outcomes, including fiscal conditions and fiscal slack balances. This dissertation is comprised of four chapters. The first chapter briefly introduces, and each of the remaining three is an independent research article. The second chapter investigates seven essential structural characteristics of the U.S. municipalities and constructs a municipal structure political-administrative index. It then examines the determinants of municipal structures on a political-administrative dimension. The empirical results show that municipal structure choices are statistically significantly associated with citizens’ socioeconomic and …

The Use Of Force: Hard Offensive Counterterrorism, Daniel Thomas

Browse all Theses and Dissertations

In the following research, I investigate whether hard offensive counterterrorism results in the failure or success of a counterterrorism strategy. In the second chapter, the academic literature of counterterrorism strategies is examined. Next, a hypothesis is put forth that if a hard offensive counterterrorism strategy is utilized, indicators such as high troop levels, more civilian casualties, more negative public opinion, and an increased rate of terrorism, will point to a failed counterterrorism strategy. Then, I put forth a methodology to test the hypothesis while introducing troop level databases, various public opinion polling sources, and terrorist attack databases to investigate the …

The Legalization Of Street Vending In Los Angeles: Exploring The Impact On Vendors And Their Livelihoods, Karen Alpuche Caceres

Pomona Senior Theses

This thesis aims to unpack the impact the legalization of street vending and the subsequent regulation had on sidewalk vendors. Although legalization occurred state-wide through Senate Bill 946 in September of 2017, the rules and regulations for vending were passed at a city-level, and I am focusing on the City of Los Angeles specifically. Through interviews with government officials, non-profit partners and advocates, and vendors from different parts of the City, I analyze information around the policy itself, its history, and the impact it has and is expected to have on vendors and their businesses. While vendors have been central …

Theater And The Rwandan Genocide, Chantal Kalisa

French Language and Literature Papers

In 1994 Rwanda was the scene of genocide, or, more precisely in French, it was Ie theatre dugenocide (theater of genocide). Perpetrators and victims played their role while the rest of the world watched the "spectacle" live on television. Perhaps because of its spectacular aspect, the Rwandan genocide has inspired a number of artistic materials. In the last decade we have indeed witnessed the growth of literary and artistic expression in relation to the Rwandan genocide. Survivors and witnesses have told their stories in books and songs. Journalists, as well as other travelers "to the end of Rwanda," to use …

Prioritized Interests: Diverse Lobbying Coalitions And Congressional Committee Agenda Setting, John R. Hibbing

Department of Political Science: Faculty Publications

For most congressional legislation, committee consideration is the first and most drastic winnowing point. Organized interest groups try to influence this winnowing. Many have suggested such influence arises from organizational resources. I offer an alternative view based on the need of policy-motivated committee agenda setters to assess the viability of bills before granting them consideration. Such needs incentivize agenda setters to favor legislation supported by organizations representing diverse industries, causes, and other interests. Analyzing new data on organizations’ positions on over 4,700 bills introduced between 2005 and 2014, I show that committee consideration favors such “interest diverse” coalitions, not coalitions …

American Government 2e, Glen Krutz, Sylvie Waskiewicz

Open Access Textbooks

Since its founding, the United States has relied on citizen participation to govern at the local, state, and national levels. This civic engagement ensures that representative democracy will continue to flourish and that people will continue to influence government. The right of citizens to participate in government is an important feature of democracy, and over the centuries many have fought to acquire and defend this right. During the American Revolution (1775–1783), British colonists fought for the right to govern themselves. In the early nineteenth century, agitated citizens called for the removal of property requirements for voting so poor white men …

Refugees From Syria Caught Between War And Borders: A Journey Towards Protection, Maissaa Almustafa

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

This dissertation examines the global crisis of protection through the lens of the Syrian refugee crisis and the particular experiences of refugees’ journeys to Sweden.

In doing so, the dissertation challenges the dominant narratives that represent refugees either as victims who deserve aid in their regions, or as threats when they exert their agency and journey towards the global north. In the same vein, the dissertation problematizes the dominant narrative of the “European crisis of migration” and proposes that the “unauthorized” arrivals of refugees in Europe are reflections of a global crisis of protection, a crisis that develops as a …

The Use Of Public Consultation To Construct Sex Work Related Policies, Ryan Horan

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

The present study is a qualitative analysis of the Online Public Consultation of Prostitution -Related Offences (OPCPRO), conducted by the Canadian Department of Justice in 2014. This research describes themes that arose within the discourses of respondents to the OPCPRO, and offers a critical examination of the use of online consultations in the production of public policy. I argue that respondents to the OPCPRO, regardless of their support or opposition for criminalization of sex work, strategically draw on values echoed within the Charter of Rights and Freedoms to frame their policy propositions as consistent with sex workers individual rights. I …

กระบวนการสร้างกรอบโครงความคิดของขบวนการเสื้อแดง จังหวัดขอนแก่น, ชุติเดช สำเร็จ

Chulalongkorn University Theses and Dissertations (Chula ETD)

วิทยานิพนธ์ฉบับนี้ อธิบายความขัดแย้งทางการเมืองไทยในช่วงสองทศวรรษที่ผ่านมา ผ่านการวิเคราะห์ขบวนการเสื้อแดง จังหวัดขอนแก่น โดยใช้ทฤษฎีกรอบโครงความคิด (framing) เป็นเครื่องมือหลักในการทำความเข้าใจขบวนการ วิธีการดำเนินเลือกใช้การวิจัยด้านเอกสาร (documentary research) การสัมภาษณ์เชิงลึก (in-dept interview) ประวัติศาสตร์จากคำบอกเล่า (oral history) และการสนทนากลุ่ม (focus group) ของผู้นำและมวลชนคนเสื้อแดงจังหวัดขอนแก่น งานศึกษานี้ชี้ให้เห็นว่ากรอบโครงความคิดของความอยุติธรรม (injustice frame) เป็นกรอบโครงความคิดหลัก (master frame) ของขบวนการเสื้อแดงเชื่อมโยงรวบรวมความคิดทางการเมืองของชาวบ้านที่หลากหลาย อยู่กระจัดกระจายและอ่อนแอได้ กรอบโครงความคิดที่ถูกสร้างขึ้นได้ร้อยรัดทัศนคติที่แตกต่างกันของปัจเจกบุคคล และสร้างความหมายร่วมกันของคนเสื้อแดงลุกขึ้นมามีปฏิบัติการทางการเมือง อย่างไรก็ตามกระบวนการสร้างกรอบโครงความคิดของขบวนการเสื้อแดงก็มิได้เป็นไปอย่างง่ายดาย แต่ทว่างานศึกษานี้ค้นพบกระบวนการตอบโต้กรอบโครงความคิด (counter framing) การปะทะ ต่อสู้ ต่อรองของมวลชนในฐานะผู้กระทำการทางการเมือง (political actor) มวลชนมิได้นำเชื่อกรอบโครงความคิดที่ถูกผลิตขึ้นอย่างง่ายดาย จนในบางครั้งมวลชนเองก็มีความพยายามที่จะลบล้างเพื่อสร้างกรอบโครงความคิดใหม่ขึ้นมาทดแทน (reframing)

Un Peacebuilding Efforts In Post-Conflict Situations, Zag Legrand Kimpolo-Nkaya

Dissertations and Theses

This thesis analyzes the work of the United Nations Peacebuilding Commission, Fund, and UN Family organizations in ensuring stability and development in underdeveloped and developing countries during post-conflict situations. This work defines and examines peacebuilding and development using data from the PBC, PBF, Polity IV, the Human Development Index Report, and other sources, including UN documents. Three case studies where chosen to evaluate the effectiveness of peacebuilding missions in accordance with the PBC priorities: Sierra Leone, Côte d’Ivoire, and Central African Republic. The UN work has contributed to development in these cases; however, improvements were needed in some areas as …