Political Science Commons^™

Does Inequality Erode Generalized Trust? Evidence From Romanian Youths, Paul E. Sum, Gabriel Bădescu

Political Science & Public Administration Faculty Publications

Generalized trust is a critical component of liberal democratic citizenship. We evaluate the extent to which exposure to socioeconomic inequality erodes trust among Romanian youths. Using national survey data of Romanian eighth-grade and high school students, we evaluate this effect as a product of socioeconomic diversity within the classroom, controlling for the social status of the students as well as socioeconomic inequality within the community where the school is located. Our analysis shows that generalized trust is higher for students in higher grades. However, despite this maturing effect, students exposed to greater levels of socioeconomic diversity have significantly lower levels …

Framing Effects In A Competitive Environment: Black Lives Matter Versus President Trump, Samantha M. Adams

Honors Theses

How is public opinion in the United States affected by the president and the Black Lives Matter social movement’s competing frames on racial inequality? Political elites have used frames to shape public opinion on a multitude of issues, showing success in select and specific conditions. However, it seems that competition, a moderator of framing effects, is always present in politics, especially between a social movement and president. I expand upon the theory that, in competitive environments, repetition or recent exposure increases a frame’s accessibility in memory, therefore the “loudest” of the two frames is the one that influences opinion. To …

Exploring Creative Problem Solving In Public Policy, Jade A. Costello

Creativity and Change Leadership Graduate Student Master's Projects

This project explores the connection between creativity and public policy-making through guided facilitation. In this exploration, there are several products that have been developed. The first is an index that provides definitions, charts, and process explanations for creativity, facilitation and public policy. The second is a completed facilitation plan that incorporates both the FourSight model for group facilitation (Miller, Vehar, Firestein, Thurber & Nielsen, 2011a) and Marvin Weisbord’s (1992) exploration of creative strategies for discovering common ground through policy conferences. The third product is an evaluation matrix, which would be used post-facilitation to understand the strengths and weaknesses from the …

The Interplay Of Intelligence, Education, And The Media In Western Counterterrorism Strategies, Lincoln Gimnich

International and Global Studies Undergraduate Honors Theses

Terrorist activity has increased and evolved in Western societies in the twenty-first century as terrorist organizations have sought new methods to further their ideologies and goals. Counterterrorism thus requires a similar evolution that undoubtedly reverses the historic trend wherein counterterrorism has been merely reactive. Through interviews with experts, qualitative analysis of governmental publications and documents, and review of existing literature, this project explores the institutions of intelligence, education, and the media and their work within the larger counterterrorism and anti-radicalization framework of Western states. The project focuses specifically on domestic intelligence operations, intelligence sharing agreements, the United Kingdom’s Prevent strategy, …

More Lessons From Vietnam: Comparing Refugee Policy In The Cold War And The War On Terror, Stephen Komar

International and Global Studies Undergraduate Honors Theses

The U.S. response to the Indochinese refugee crisis from 1975-1992 has been hailed as an excellent example of humanitarianism and sound U.S. foreign policy. It’s example has been used to criticize the U.S. for the refugee policy it currently employs in the Middle East, even as it remains heavily involved in the conflicts creating refugee flows there. This paper asks the following questions: How exactly has refugee policy differed between the two situations? Why is it different? And how might the former inform changes to the latter? This paper employs statistical analysis of refugee admissions data to answer the first, …

Zionism, Imperialism, And Indigeneity In Israel/Palestine: A Critical Analysis, Ran Ukashi

Peace and Conflict Studies

This article explores the similarities and differences between Zionism and archetypical European modes of settler colonialism to demonstrate the incongruence between the two phenomena. This analysis is contextualized around the recent discourse surrounding the competing claims of indigeneity to historic Israel/Palestine. The claims of both the Jewish and Palestinian Arab communities are explored to demonstrate that both communities can rightfully claim degrees of Indigenous connection to the territory, but that Palestinian Arab claims of being the sole Indigenous inheritors of the land are dubious. The analysis utilizes Burton's unmet human needs theory, and Kriesberg's theories on identity and conflict intractability …

What Is It Like To Become A Bat? Heterogeneities In An Age Of Extinction, Stephanie Erev

Political Science Faculty Publications and Presentations

In his celebrated 1974 essay “What Is It Like to Be a Bat?,” Thomas Nagel stages a human-bat encounter to illustrate and support his claim that “subjective experience” is irreducible to “objective fact”: because Nagel cannot experience the world as a bat does, he will never know what it is like to be one. In Nagel’s account, heterogeneity is figured negatively— as a failure or lack of resemblance—and functions to constrain his knowledge of bats. Today, as white-nose syndrome threatens bat populations across North America, might figuring heterogeneity positively, as a condition of creativity, open up new modes of receptivity …

Gendered Speaking Patterns In Supreme Court Oral Arguments From 1981-2016, Gillain Purser

Honors Theses

This research attempts to discover whether or not the Supreme Court of the United State is subject to implicit gender biases during oral argumentation, largely through examining speaking time and the number of questions each justice is able to ask during a case's oral argumentation period. While there is substantial research on gender’s impact on communication and decision-making processes, as well as gender’s impact on court decisions, most research stops before it gets to the Supreme Court of the United States. There are two main goals to this research: First, to determine whether or not women Justices are impacted by …

An Unlikely Populist: Donald Trump And The Rhetoric Of Elite And Minority Resentment, Jared Quigley

Honors Scholar Theses

Populist rhetoric is a political language employed by individual leaders which divides the populace into two categories: a pure, moral people and a corrupt elite. In this paper, I examine Donald Trump as a populist, focusing on Moffit’s political style approach (Moffit 2016) and Mudde’s definition of populism as an ideology (Mudde 2004). Listening to speeches from the campaign, I study how the components of these definitions of populism apply to Trump. I also examine the groups that Trump defined as “the people,” “the elite,” and the “undeserving minority groups.” I argue that while Trump does exhibit certain behaviors expected …

The Path To Terrorism: The Islamic State And Its Recruitment Strategies, Laura Turner

Honors Scholar Theses

The Islamic State, commonly known as ISIS, a terrorist organization that commits acts of such brutality that even Al Qaeda has denounced it, has recruited approximately 21,000 foreign fighters from countries all over the world. Why is this group so appealing? What has made it so effective at recruitment? What methods does it employ to recruit so many individuals? This paper seeks to answer these questions by examining the recruitment strategies of ISIS. Case studies of individual foreign fighters are analyzed to assess the strength of three explanations of ISIS’ recruitment methods that dominate the current literature: strategic targeting, online …

Impact Of A Charter School On House Capitalization In A Title I Environment, Mark Haskew

Masters Theses

This study used a mixed-methods approach to determine whether a charter school could influence house capitalization and whether it could induce some families to stay in the school district. It examined home sale values around a charter school in an area covered by underperforming Title I schools. There was a positive but statistically insignificant change in a pre/post comparison of home sale prices, but the increase was consistent with nearby control schools. However, a survey of charter school families found that 25 percent would have left the district had they not been enrolled at the charter school. A plurality said …

Determinants Of The Generalized Trust Radius In Scripted Fragile Sub-Saharan African States, Anthony Caito

Dissertations

Trust between strangers does not come easily in collectivist societies governed by coercive institutions and subject to unstable market forces. More than one-third of all states are fragile, yet the trust literature has shown little interest in explaining the variability of generalized trust among them; instead fixating on social capital, the consequence of the expansion of generalized trust, putting the cart before the horse and leaving unexamined many of its causes. The enhanced accuracy of the reconfigured World Values Survey trust question has generated new research opportunities to address this concern. This dissertation advances the trust literature through identifying, measuring, …

The Words Of War: A Content Analysis Of Republican Presidential Speeches From Dwight D. Eisenhower, Richard M. Nixon, George W. Bush, And Donald J. Trump, Patrick Lee

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In this analysis of public speeches from four American presidents from the Republican party, the ways in which those presidents discuss and position American defense activities and stances are examined, to track the progression from the 1960s to the present. Presidents from one party were chosen, who presided over a period of active armed conflict or cold war. The addresses analyzed comprised public addresses to Congress or the American people. The analysis groups recurring frames--conceptually developed based on framing and agenda setting theories--into thematic categories for each president. Some frames were more salient for certain presidents than for others. Other …

Us China Trade Dispute Over Intellectual Property, Mozi Luo

Master's Projects

How have Section 301 investigations impacted trade relations between China and the U.S. in clean energy area, and between Japan and the U.S. in semiconductor and auto part areas, and does the impact provide a guide for the possible outcome of the upcoming Section 301 investigation of China?

After President Donald Trump’s memorandum on August 14, 2017 stating that China’s behavior regarding intellectual property rights (IPR) and the high technology industries adversely influences the U.S. economy, the United States Trade Representative (USTR) declared the initiation of a section 301 investigation of China on the topic of technology transfer and intellectual …

Nowhere To Run: Measuring How Refugee Flows And Rights Shape Civil Conflict, Katherine Emma Felt

Graduate Dissertations and Theses

In civil wars, innocent civilians live in the shadow of violence and destruction. This can range from low-level violence to aggressive campaigns of shelling of urban areas and massacres of entire villages in rural settings. In some cases, civilians respond to this violence by fleeing from the conflict to find refuge in neighboring states; however, in other civil wars, civilians remain trapped in the conflict zone, creating humanitarian disasters. This dissertation argues that civilians will flee when they have a reasonable, safe place to seek refuge, but in the absence of a safe place to seek sanctuary, civilians have no …

Is All Politics Local? Determinants Of Local And National Election Campaigns, Colm A. Fox

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

In recent decades election campaigns have shifted their focus from the local to the national level, increasingly featuring party leaders, labels, and national platforms. Despite this trend, there remains significant variation in the local/national orientation of campaigns across countries and parties. This article tests several propositions on why campaigns adopt a local or national orientation by analyzing a unique collection of more than 12,000 geocoded Thai election posters. Specialized software was used to measure the spatial proportions of visual and textual content on each poster. Using Thailand’s mixed electoral system to enable a controlled comparison of electoral rules, I demonstrate …

The Two Foundings Thesis, Sonu Bedi, Elvin T. Lim

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Constitutional interpretation generates intense debates over rights and powers. Countless U.S. Supreme Court decisions, articles, and books discuss these debates. With regard to powers, these debates often center around a nationalistic view of the U.S. Constitution, where the U.S. Congress has broad and expansive powers, or a states’ rights view of the document, where Congress has narrow and limited powers.1 With regards to rights, these debates often center around an emphasis on a moral reading of various clauses2 versus an emphasis on originalism

Human Trafficking: Flying Under The Radar, Amber L. Hulsey

Dissertations

The global hegemon, the United States encompasses roughly 57,000 to 63,000 of the roughly 45.8 million slaves present across the world today (Walk Free Foundation 2016a). This dissertation research uses the theoretical lens of Human Security as a unique approach in that it is people-centered, focusing on the individual, rather than the more traditional theories in international relations that emphasize the state as the central actor. This dissertation focuses on the understudied area of human trafficking into and within the United States. More specifically, the objective of this research examines the movement of trafficked persons via air and details actions …

Political Accountability And Determinants Of Governance Under Principal-Agent Theory, Matthew Bluem

Dissertations

This study examines the theory that quality of governance is largely dependent upon political accountability, and that the effect of political accountability on governance varies based on three main determinants: level of democracy, level of information available to the public, and diversification of the economy (Adserà et al. 2003). With quality of governance, represented by the World Bank’s World Governance Indicators (WGI), as the dependent variable, this study considers how these three independent variables, and several control variables, affect governance quality. Incorporating data from 2010 – 2015 for 143 countries in both cross-sectional OLS and fixed effects panel regression analysis, …

Security Is Local: An Analysis Of The Use Of Community-Based Security Forces During Counterinsurgency Operations, Alexander Stephenson

Dissertations

Counterinsurgency (COIN) operations are the most common type of military operation conducted by the United States and other Western powers. In most cases, conventional forces intervening in an insurgency are limited in personnel and turn to local community-based security forces to mitigate this shortcoming after initial attempts fail to defeat an insurgency with the conventional forces available. While the use of community-based security forces is a common element of COIN operations, little research has been conducted to determine the factors that contribute to their successful employment. A synthesis of existing COIN and community-based policing theory provides a model to evaluate …