Political Science Commons^™

Quality Journalism In The Digital Age: Strategies To Adapt And Remain Profitable, Jack Brewster

Honors Papers

In the United States, the news media is commonly referred to as the “fourth estate” because we rely on it to fulfill a variety of functions essential to a healthy democracy. We trust the media to, among other things, tell us what is going on in the world, contextualize and provide historical background on current events, filter politicians’ spin, fact-check, be a “watchdog,” promote robust civil discourse, and enable understanding of complex issues.

Up until the last decade or so, the media could meet this “standard” without sacrificing its financial well-being. The internet and the smartphone, however, changed everything. The …

Forecasting Changes In Religiosity And Existential Security With An Agent-Based Model, Ross J. Gore, Carlos Lemos, F. Leron Shults, Wesley J. Wildman

VMASC Publications

We employ existing data sets and agent-based modeling to forecast changes in religiosity and existential security among a collective of individuals over time. Existential security reflects the extent of economic, socioeconomic and human development provided by society. Our model includes agents in social networks interacting with one another based on the education level of the agents, the religious practices of the agents, and each agent's existential security within their natural and social environments. The data used to inform the values and relationships among these variables is based on rigorous statistical analysis of the International Social Survey Programme Religion Module (ISSP) …

The Effects Of Moral Message Framing On Political Ideology, Matthew Christiansen

All Master's Theses

There is disagreement as to whether and to what extent the American public is becoming more polarized, but certain issues such as climate change have been found to be polarizing. However, ideologically congruent moral message framing has been shown to moderate attitudes towards climate change and may provide a method to reduce polarization and moderate extreme attitudes. The current study attempted to broaden previous findings to investigate whether moral message framing could result in not only shifting relevant attitudes, but political ideology as a whole. Operating under Moral Foundations Theory (Haidt & Graham, 2007) two proenvironmental messages were constructed using …

Residential Solar In Washington State, Sam Pfeifer

All Master's Theses

Electricity generated through residential solar provides a low carbon source of electricity. However, diffusion of residential solar remains low across the United States. Growing this diffusion takes an understanding of localized uptake trends, which can focus policy and business efforts to help increase residential solar market penetration. This is the first research to investigate residential solar uptake in Washington State and to examine environmental education as a potential driver of residential solar uptake. Through a snapshot analysis which considers environmental, economic, education, and cultural variables the present research fills this gap. Triangulated results include mapping of variables, ordinary-least squares multiple …

Water Demand, Adaptive Capacity, And Drought: An Analysis Of The Upper Klamath Basin, Oregon And California, Patricia Snyder

All Master's Theses

Freshwater demand and scarcity issues are an issue of global concern, in particular for the American West as global climate models suggest precipitation regime changes and an increase of drought. This research conducts a case-study of the Upper Klamath Basin, located in south-central Oregon and northern California, a microcosm of the arid and semi-arid American West that experienced an economically, socially, and ecologically impactful drought in the early 2000s. Through a mixture of qualitative and quantitative methods this research: 1) identifies key stakeholders, their goals and key policies; 2) conducts an adaptive capacity assessment of water management within the basin; …

Is There “Hope For Every Addicted American”? The New U.S. War On Drugs, B Stone

Publications and Research

The U.S. has been waging a War on Drugs for the last forty years. But in the mid-2010s, a series of reforms have rejected this militant approach. How did these policies manage to break through a gridlocked Congress? What is the nature of these reforms, and what are their political implications? Using critical discourse analysis, I demonstrate that a new policy framework of “addiction recovery” defines the political crises of the opioid epidemic, the failure of the War on Drugs, and mass incarceration in terms of disease, attributing Drug War injustices to prejudice against “addiction,” rather than a constellation of …

When The Tables Are Turned: The Effects Of The 2016 Us Presidential Election On In-Group Favoritism And Out-Group Hostility, Burak Oc, Celia Moore, Michael R. Bashshur

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

The outcome of the 2016 U.S. Presidential election was a big surprise to many, as the majority of polls had predicted the opposite outcome. In this two-stage cross-sectional study, we focus on how Democrats and Republicans reacted to this electoral surprise and how these reactions might have influenced the way they allocated resources to each other in small groups. We find that, before the election, Republicans showed greater in-group favoritism than Democrats, who treated others equally, regardless of their political affiliation. We then show that Democrats experienced the election outcome as an ego shock and, in the week following the …

โลกาภิบาลมาตรฐานอาหาร : กรณีศึกษามาตรฐานข้าวอินทรีย์ไทย, ไพลิน กิตติเสรีชัย

Chulalongkorn University Theses and Dissertations (Chula ETD)

วิทยานิพนธ์ฉบับนี้จัดทำขึ้นโดยมีวัตถุประสงค์สามประการ ประการแรก เพื่อคลี่คลายให้เห็นถึงการทำงาน ของกระบวนการโลกาภิบาลมาตรฐานอาหาร โดยมีกรณีศึกษาคือมาตรฐานข้าวอินทรีย์ โดยศึกษาในแง่ของที่มา ตัวแสดง ที่เกี่ยวข้อง ที่มาของสิทธิอำนาจ ตลอดจนปฏิสัมพันธ์ของตัวแสดงเหล่านั้น ประการที่สอง คือเพื่อศึกษารูปแบบการ อภิบาลมาตรฐานข้าวอินทรีย์ในประเทศไทย โดยศึกษาเชื่อมโยงกับกระบวนการโลกาภิบาลมาตรฐานเกษตรอินทรีย์ และ ประการสุดท้ายคือเพื่อทำความเข้าใจกับปัญหาและอุปสรรคของการอภิบาลมาตรฐานเกษตรอินทรีย์ในไทย และ เสนอแนะแนวทางการแก้ไขปัญหา วิทยานิพนธ์ฉบับนี้ใช้ระเบียบวิจัยเชิงคุณภาพโดยใช้การวิจัยเชิงเอกสาร และการ สัมภาษณ์ผู้ให้ข้อมูลหลักที่เกี่ยวข้อง จากการวิจัยได้ข้อค้นพบว่า การริเริ่มการทำเกษตรอินทรีย์เกิดขึ้นจากตัวแสดงที่ไม่ใช่ รัฐที่เล็งเห็นปัญหาของการเกษตรแบบสมัยใหม่ จากนั้นจึงเกิดการรวมตัว สร้างเครือข่ายระหว่างประเทศจนเกิดเป็น องค์กรระหว่างประเทศนอกภาครัฐอย่างสหพันธ์เกษตรอินทรีย์นานาชาติ หรือ IFOAM ที่มีบทบาทสำคัญในกระบวนการ โลกาภิบาลมาตรฐานเกษตรอินทรีย์ ถึงแม้ว่า IFOAM จะไม่ได้มีสิทธิอำนาจบังคับเหมือนรัฐ และไม่ได้มีอำนาจในเชิง เศรษฐกิจเหมือนบรรษัทข้ามชาติทั้งหลาย แต่ IFOAM คือชุมชนองค์ความรู้ด้านเกษตรอินทรีย์ ที่ถือครอง ‘สิทธิอำนาจเชิง ความรู้' และสิทธิอำนาจดังกล่าวได้ทำงานผ่านกระบวนการโลกาภิบาลในสามมิติ ได้แก่ มิติของการวางระเบียบกฎเกณฑ์ มิติของการแข่งขันเชิงความรู้ และมิติของการเสริมพลังอำนาจ ในกรณีของประเทศไทย การอภิบาลมาตรฐานเกษตร อินทรีย์แสดงให้เห็นถึงการขัดกันของสถาบันที่เป็นทางการและไม่เป็นทางการ การขาดความร่วมมือระหว่างภาครัฐและ เอกชนจึงเป็นปัญหาสำคัญในการพัฒนากระบวนการอภิบาลมาตรฐานเกษตรอินทรีย์ที่มีประสิทธิภาพในประเทศไทย

Scandal And Mass Politics: Buganda's 1941 Nnamasole Crisis, Carol Summers

History Faculty Publications

Summers discusses Buganda's 1941 Nnamasole crisis following the Christian marriage of Irene Namaganda, Buganda's queen mother who was pregnant with her slightly older lover. Namaganda's Christian marriage was powerfully scandalous, profoundly violating expectations associated with marriage and royal office. The scandal produced a political crisis that toppled Buganda's prime minister, pushed his senior allies from power, deposed the queen mother, exiled her husband, and changed Buganda's political landscape. The scandal launched a new era of public mobilization and protest that took Buganda's politics beyond the realm of deals between the oligarchy and British elites, and into public gossip, newspapers and …

Power, Profit, And Political Participation: How Neoliberal Rationality Limits Citizen Influence In A Democracy, Emma Woods

Senior Independent Study Theses

Democracy’s promise is that citizens hold the ultimate power in government. However, the ascension of neoliberal rationality, an economic rationality that focuses primarily on economic growth with political activity being secondary or merely instrumental to economic growth, acts as a threat to that promise. This paper offers a critical analysis of political participation in a democracy, using two theoretical frameworks, liberalism and neoliberalism. Based in these theoretical frameworks, it provides an analysis of how changes in individual conceptions of self have institutional effects on politics. Laying out the framework of neoliberalism, tracing its ideological roots in liberalism and its subsequent …

The Effect Of Participation In Party Politics On Terrorist Organizations: A Case Study Of Hamas And Hezbollah, David Newman

Honors Theses

This thesis sought to explore the effect of participation in party politics on terrorist organizations through a comparative case study of Hamas in the Palestinian Territories and Hezbollah in Lebanon. The project was inspired by the existing literature on party-terror linkages and inclusion-moderation theory. The methodology used to test this relationship required analysis of the histories of the two organizations to identify each organization's years of participation and non-participation in party politics. Then, using the data compiled by the Global Terrorism Database, I calculated the average number of terrorist incidents per year across the phases of participation in party politics …

It Is Impossible To Overdo Luxury: French Variety Of Capitalism And Its Contribution To Luxury Market Presence, Emily Henderson

Honors Theses

This study seeks to explain the dominance of French companies in the luxury fashion industry. The study aims to prove that France's unique model of capitalism contributed to the strong position of French luxury fashion. By using the theoretical framework of the varieties of capitalism the study analyses France's variety of capitalism, the evolution of the French luxury market, and ultimately compare how French luxury fashion firms fit the needs of the luxury fashion industry. Ultimately, the findings indicate that while the history of French fashion is the cause for its dominance until the postwar period, the French variety of …

Terrorism In The Time Of Schengen, Alaina Bierdz

Honors Theses

This paper investigates the relationship between the Schengen area in Europe and terrorism. The Schengen agreement was implemented in 1995; since then, internal borders between the contracting parties have been abolished. This paper emphasizes the rationale that Schengen made member-states more vulnerable to terrorist attacks because the agreement inherently involved less regulation. In order to test this rationale, this study uses James Q. Wilson's choice theory. This theory refers to the school of thought which maintains that rational wrongdoers act as if they weigh the possible benefits of criminal or delinquent activity against the expected costs of being apprehended. Specifically, …

Abortion Access And Child Maltreatment: A Cross-National Analysis, Alexandra Gersdorf

Honors Theses

This thesis has examined the impact of restricted abortion access on different indicators of child maltreatment. Drawing from literature linking unwanted pregnancies to child maltreatment, I posited that given the proposed relationship between unintended pregnancies and child maltreatment, we should expect to see increased instances of maltreatment within countries that allow less of forbid women from accessing abortions. For this purpose, I created an index of abortion access to numerically rate a country's level of liberality or restrictiveness. Then, using data from 49 countries, this thesis examined the potential linkage across a variety of measures that indicate child maltreatment while …

Social Media Use And Negative Partisanship Among College Students, Savannah Maas

Honors Theses

Since the creation of the United States of America, the political climate has vastly changed and adapted, each time period with its own distinct characteristics. Today, the American electorate and Congress are more polarized than ever and negative partisan-ship has become a central characteristic in politics. Partisan identities of voters are more homogenous than ever and approval rates of people's opposing parties are at an all-time low. People's political decisions have begun to be more driven by dislike of the opposing party than support of their own. Social media has also grown over recent years and has begun to play …

Bit By Bit: An Analysis Of The Role Of Bilateral Investment Treaties On China's Investment In Latin America, Matthew Forgette

Honors Theses

Over the past 15 years, the political and economic relationship between China and Latin America has progressed rapidly. Chinese investment in Latin America has risen to unprecedented levels, and numerous Latin American leaders have praised and welcomed China's growing influence in the region. A key component of this burgeoning relationship has been the emergence of bilateral investment treaties between China and Latin American nations. Over the past 30 years, China has signed a bilateral investment treaty with 12 different Latin American countries. In light of their increasing importance, this paper seeks to analyze the role of bilateral investment treaties in …

Biodiversity Gains? The Debate On Changes In Local- Vs Global-Scale Species Richness, Richard B. Primack, Abraham J. Miller-Rushing, Richard T. Corlett, Vincent Devictor, David Johns, Rafael Loyola, Bea Hass, Robin J. Pakeman, Liba Pejchar

Political Science Faculty Publications and Presentations

Editorial: Do changes in biodiversity at local scales reflect the declines seen at global scales? This debate dates back at least 15 years...

Making Medicaid Work In The Mountain State? An Assessment Of The Effect Of Work Requirements For Medicaid Beneficiaries In West Virginia, Simon F. Haeder

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

West Virginia is one of the poorest states in the nation, and West Virginians face some of the highest rates of illness and disability. One of the few bright spots for the health of West Virginians have been government-funded programs like Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP). The Affordable Care Act (ACA), including the expansion of Medicaid under Governor Tomblin in 2014, has brought health coverage and access to care to hundreds of thousands of West Virginians. Today, about a third of West Virginians rely on Medicaid, and the program has become the backbone of the state’s health …

European Spaces And The Roma: Denaturalizing The Naturalized In Online Reader Comments, Theresa Catalano, Grace E. Fielder

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Faculty Publications

With the entry of several Eastern European nations into the European Union (EU), a “third” space has developed in the discourse for nations perceived as not fully integrated “inside” the EU system. This article investigates the construction of this “third space” in the resultant “moral panic” about undesired immigration from other EU countries and its potential drain on the social services of the United Kingdom and links it to Euroskeptic discourse in British media. The article uses construal operations from cognitive linguistics combined with critical discourse studies as a way of denaturalizing the discourse in online comments that focus on …

Saving Students: European Student Relief In The Aftermath Of World War I, Benjamin L. Hartley

Faculty Publications - George Fox School of Theology

The World’s Student Christian Federation established the European Student Relief (ESR) organization in 1920 in order to respond to the refugee and hunger crises emerging in the wake of World War I in Europe. Although nearly forgotten today, it was the first truly international ecumenical relief agency in the world. This article tells the story of ESR in reference to its efforts at building interorganizational coalitions and as a force for “internationalism.” The ESR’s story is instructive as the world marks the hundredth anniversary of the end of World War I and is once again confronted with refugee crises.