Political Science Commons^™

The Trouble With Transitions: Preserving Government Records During A Presidential Transition, Sarah C. Slinger, Nicholas Mignanelli

Scholarly Works

Times of transition from administration to administration are often, if not always, trying periods for the United States and its people. In particular, concerns arise over the preservation of documents from one administration to the next. This is especially true when the torch of executive power passes from one party to the other. Although preservation of information is a seemingly objective endeavor, it is difficult to abstain from politics when the documents involved are inherently political. Recently, the Trump Administration has expressed its intentions to scale back the size of government and take key offices—such as the Department of Energy—in …

Sweden’S Floating Refugee Camp: A New Form Of Spatial Segregation?, Miranda L. Weinstein

Sustainability and Social Justice

This paper looks at the structure of discrimination and marginalization of refugees and asylum-seekers. The paper investigates a new form of housing –– floatels –– which was seen in Sweden in 2016. This paper explores the relevant literature on identity, biopower, and spatial segregation, to make the case that floatels are contemporary forms of encampment. Floatels are clear examples of the State’s use of biopower to spatially segregate certain undesirable populations. By providing a case study of the situation in Sweden, the overall goal of the paper is to highlight the issues and complexity involved in refugee housing. In particular, …

Beyond Coattails: Explaining John Paul Hammerschmidt's Victory In 1966, Jesse Ray Sims

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study examines the campaign issues, demographic factors, and voting trends that helped Republican John Paul Hammerschmidt defeat incumbent Democratic congressman James W. Trimble in Arkansas’s third congressional district in 1966. Much of the historiography addressing this election largely neglects the historic significance of Hammerschmidt’s successful campaign and the factors contributing to his victory. Instead, historians primarily write about the election of Republican Winthrop Rockefeller to the governor’s office that year.

This thesis pieces together several theories on how Hammerschmidt defeated Trimble, including the effect of Winthrop Rockefeller’s coattails, the demographic changes taking place in the Ozarks beginning in the …

The European Union's Response To The Syrian Refugee Crisis: National Factors That Affect Compliance In France And Spain, Sarah Cockcroft, Nicole Provax

Senior Theses

Beginning in 2011, the Syrian Refugee Crisis refers to refugees that come to Europe in an effort to escape the civil war in Syria. The influx of refugees from Non-European Union Member States, specifically those from Syria, threatens the stability and the status quo of the European Union. This population is particularly relevant because their status as refugees and their large numbers indicates a level of uncertainty about short term and long term assistance expectations. In order to understand the European Union’s response to the Syrian refugee crisis, it is necessary to determine the ways in which the national implementation …

The Woman Card: Hillary Clinton's 2016 Presidential Campaign As A Case Study On America's Gendered Politics And Their Impact On Female Presidential Campaign Efficacy, Skylar Mcclain

Senior Theses

I posit that the gendered American cultural expectations for women, although they are not as rigid as they once were, inhibited the efficacy of Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign and impacted voter behavior. By assessing the indicators most commonly used in gender stereotypes; personality traits, domestic behaviors, occupations, and physical appearance, it is possible to construct a realistic portrait of Clinton’s public gender persona and the resulting electoral response.

Afro-Mexicans And The Struggle For Recognition, Kimberly Medina

Senior Theses

In light of the Mexican government’s concession to include “Afro-descendant” as an ethnic category in the 2015 Intercensal Survey, this thesis project aims to: 1) understand the contributions and experience of Afro-Mexicans within Mexican society, 2) understand the importance of official recognition as an ethnic group, 3) understand why, relative to the rest of Latin America, Mexico took so long to officially recognize its Afro-descendant population, 4) analyze the Afro-Mexican movement towards recognition, paying particular attention to its composition and strategy and 5) determine what recognition in the intercensal survey means for the future of the movement, the Afro-Mexican population …

Obligations Of The State: State Behavior And The Occurrence Of State Success, Brendan Mark Morris

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The start of the twenty-first century has coincided with the emergence of the concept of state failure as a major humanitarian and security concern. While the occurrence of state failure has received much attention, there has been little agreement on the actual definition and conceptualization of state failure. This study intends to aid in the improvement on the discourse of state failure by providing a new approach on failed states that analyzes shifts in state fragility. In this new approach, this study focuses on the occurrence of state success and explain how states succeed by focusing on the fulfillment of …

South Africa And Sexual Orientation Rights At The United Nations: Batting For Both Sides, Eduard Jordaan

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

In 2011 South Africa led the UN Human Rights Council to adopt the first-ever UN resolution on sexual orientation. In 2014, South Africa was the only African state to support the follow-up to the 2011 resolution. These actions create the impression that South Africa is strongly committed to the international advancement of sexual orientation rights. However, this article scrutinises South Africa’s actions on sexual orientation rights at the UN for the period 1995–2015 and will demonstrate South Africa’s inconsistency, its frequent failures to support sexual orientation rights internationally, and its various actions against the advancement of these rights. The article …

Sector-Specific Development And Policy Vulnerability In The Philippines, Jacob I. Ricks

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Why does a state build institutional capacity in certain sectors rather than others? Despite having gained leverage explaining the emergence of institutions in the developmental states of East Asia, we have comparatively weak accounts for sub‐national variation in institutional strength, a much more common phenomenon. Investigating the surprising achievements of the Philippines’ National Irrigation Administration, this article advances a theory of sectoral success in the face of a generally poor developmental record. The author demonstrates that executives will only construct institutional capacity when facing strong political pressure combined with resource scarcity. Such vulnerability permits politicians to exercise discretion in choosing …

(Re)Painting Self: Art Therapy And Ontological Security In Refugee Children, Domonique Jimerson

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

To be a refugee is to know loss intimately. The refugee experience can be characterized by the multidimensional loss the loss of loved ones, support networks, economic security, culture, safety, and home.^{1 2} The compounding of traumatic experience can have a profound effect on belief systems and identity. This paper will explore the relationship between trauma and ontological state in resettled refugee children. The philosophical concept of ontological security considers the ability create consistent expectations about the way the world operates to a stable mental state.³ The three states of ontology security and shock will be useful in …

The Engaged Eurosceptic: Explaining Eurosceptic Success And Failures In European Parliamentary Elections, Nathan William Henceroth

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Eurosceptic political parties are predicted to over perform in second-order elections such as the European Parliamentary (EP) elections. Yet, not all eurosceptic parties have been successful in taking electoral advantage of their second-order electoral benefits. I argue that EP voters respond to EP legislative behavior and reward eurosceptic parties that actively oppose the EU by posing questions and attending plenary sessions, while EP voters punish eurosceptic parties that do not actively participate in the EP. Furthermore, the media provide the vital link between eurosceptic party EP legislative engagement and EP voters by providing increased levels of media exposure for engaged …

Same Revolution, Different Outcome: Why Did The Syrian Regime Survive The Arab Spring?, Adam Alrowaiti

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

The Arab Region faced a wave of massive public demonstrations in 2011. People across the region demanded freedom, justice, and equality. That movement overthrew some of the region’s dictatorship regimes that had been in power since decades. In Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Yemen the regimes collapsed in the face of the people’s revolution. However, public demonstrations and opposition could not overcome the Al-Assad regime in Syria. This thesis seeks the reasons behind the survival of the Syrian regime when other regimes collapsed. The thesis analyzes the case of Syria by comparing it to the case of Libya, since Libya went …

Politics, Technology, And Libertarianism, Thomas J. Perry

Honors Projects

In recent years, technology has started to play a major role in the U.S. political climate. Specifically, it has created a platform for outside groups, such as libertarians, to have their voices heard. This brought forward an important research question: How has technology helped or hindered the ability of individually focused libertarians to organize for collective action? Through the exploration of previous research, two major findings are discovered: 1) technology and the growth of individualism in politics are intertwined and 2) technology and individualism both have ties to libertarianism. The implications of libertarianism are analyzed further through the study of …

The American Political Mindset: The Relationship Of Exceptionalism And Cynicism In Public Opinion, Anya Kaiser 3068310

Honors Projects

This research investigates the pervasiveness of both political cynicism and American exceptionalism within American society. Throughout history, there has been an interaction between the public's feelings of American exceptionalism and cynicism in the United States, starting at the nation’s founding and continuing into recent times (Chaloupka, 1999). As an inter-disciplinary and mixed-methods study, this research utilizes both a nationally representative quantitative data-set and a qualitative analysis of Allen Ginsberg’s (1959) poem “America,” a cultural representation of the relationship between American exceptionalism and cynicism. Using the American National Election Studies’ 2012 survey on trust in government (N = 5,914), I examine …

Regime Transition And The Judicialization Of Politics In Latin America, Mishella Salome Romo

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

At what point can we discern when a regime has transitioned from one that suffers from predictable pathologies of hyper-presidentialism, to one that is increasingly authoritarian? Democratic politics and regime crisis have often been analyzed through lenses of populism (which employ anti-liberal forms of governance) and presidentialism (which create institutional pathologies from within). Nevertheless, both have undermined the role of the court in shaping regime transition. The judicial decisions explored in this paper will reveal that the high court is the final indicator of a regime shift from hyperpresidentialism to a more authoritarian system. To substantiate this claim, this paper …

Defining Discourse : An Analysis Of The Promulgation And Justifications Of New Jersey Public University Speech And Expression Policies, Matthew Elias Bosque

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

The purpose of this research is to investigate the New Jersey Anti-Bullying Bill of Rights Act (N.J.S.A 18A:37-13 et seq.) and New Jersey's overall attempt at combating bullying in public schools in both secondary and higher education. It is found in this research that the New Jersey statute holds potentially unconstitutional provisions in the language of the statute. By examining both the First and Fourteenth Amendment, this research taps into cases like Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District, Davis v. Monroe County Board of Education, and DeJohn v. Temple University in order to craft both a sound and …

Analyzing The Effects Of Preprimary Broadcast Media On Presidential Nominations From 1980-2016, Jarred Ralston Cuellar

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study attempts to discover if broadcast media released during the preprimary period has an effect on the Presidential nomination process, and if so in what way? Several OLS regression models, based on Randall Adkins and Andrew Dowdle’s Presidential nomination forecasting models, were created as an attempt to not only find a statistically significant effect between broadcast media and aggregate vote percentage, but also in an effort to create more effective forecasts. I have drawn my sample from every open nomination race dating back to 1980, and used both cable and network broadcasting sources. I have covered not only the …

Jones Studies The Condition Of American Politics., Aldemaro Romero Jr.

Publications and Research

There are many reasons why people decide upon a career. Some follow family tradition, others seek careers with the potential for a big paycheck, still others are inspired by a particular professor in college. But in certain cases, something more mundane explains how a person arrives at such a momentous decision.

“I grew up in a family where, every morning as I was eating my cereal before going to school, the radio was on with the news,” says Dr. David Jones, a professor and Chair of the Department of Political Science at the Weissman School of Arts and Sciences in …

Adrift At Sea: How The United States Government Is Forgoing The Fourth Amendment In The Prosecution Of Captured Terrorists, Frank Sullivan

Penn State Journal of Law & International Affairs (2012 - Present)

No abstract provided.

Air Traffic Control: How Mexican Cartels Are Utilizing Drones To Traffic Narcotics Into The United States, Britton Shields

Penn State Journal of Law & International Affairs (2012 - Present)

No abstract provided.