Political Science Commons^™

Political Culture And School Choice: The Influence Of Constitutions, Case Law And Public Officials In Louisiana And Virginia, Karen M. Hiltz

Graduate Dissertations and Theses

This dissertation focused on the State of Louisiana and the Commonwealth of Virginia, which provides a limited perspective on what directly and indirectly influences school choice programs. Louisiana is a state and has a legal system predicated on French or Napoleonic Law, and Virginia is a Commonwealth and has a legal system predicated on English or Common Law. In order to remedy or minimize constitutional conflicts related to an education system, U.S. political parties have relied on the judicial system and the developing of case law to provide direction that in turn provides fodder for future legislation and education policy. …

American Agribusiness & Biotechnology: A New Era Of Farming, Nicole M. Ryan

Honors Undergraduate Theses

In the past fifty years there has been an incredible amount of change made to the agrarian system of the United States. New discoveries in the realm of biotechnology led to the adoption of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in agriculture, and transformed the industry. Due to regulatory policies set during the nineteen-eighties this technology was able to benefit from widespread commercialization.

Today, we see the effects of this approach and are entering into a highly volatile political climate in regard to GMOs. This paper aims to provide an analysis of the regulatory system in place and the discrepancies that exist …

Chinese Soft Power Promotion In The United States: 2005-2014, Martin Daniel Kalfas

Browse all Theses and Dissertations

This thesis focuses on two research questions regarding the impact of economic crises on states' soft power strategies. Specifically, can economic crises lead states to abandon generating soft power within countries affected by the resulting economic changes? And, does a shift away from soft power promotion policies represent a change in a state's foreign policy strategy? To answer these questions, this thesis utilizes a case study focusing on the People's Republic of China (PRC) from 2005 to January 1, 2015, investigating soft power generating efforts by China in the United States before and after the 2007 Financial Crisis. Research into …

Political Participation And Political Repression: Women In Saudi Arabia, Amalkhon Y. Azimova

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In 2015 Saudi Arabian women were for the first time in history granted political space through electoral suffrage. To evaluate whether the new political opening for Saudi Arabian women has improved women's rights and equality in the Kingdom, I sought to conduct interviews to acquire their views and attitudes. In the process my encounters with Saudi Arabian women revealed their fear, cautiousness, and unwillingness to participate politically, which impelled me to discover the relationship between women's political participation and political repression. In the course of this research I learned that political repression inhibits women's political participation, and in Saudi Arabia …

To Continued Success: Reforming Internal Tunisian Security Policy, Thomas Eli Banghart V

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Tunisia's reputation as the success story from the Arab Spring rests on the integration of a stable democratic regime. Domestic as well as regional threats continue to push the boundaries of this fledgling democracy. Development measures, and reform of the Tunisian Internal Security Forces are paramount for the state's survival. This work presents measures for Security Sector Reform within Tunisia, then proceeds to create a map a developmental intervention aimed at securing stability through several drivers. Understanding that development is a security threat for Tunisia will help allies, other regional actors, NGO's, and other organizations furthers the unique situation where …

With Or Without Class: A Comparative Study Of Union-Worker Cooperative Relations In The U.S. And South Korea, Minsun Ji

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation examines to what extent union-cooperative partnerships in the U.S. and S. Korea might revitalize labor movements and to what extent class-based narratives (or their absence) shape labor movements. Exploring competing labor ontologies, the dissertation analyzes how variants of traditional Marxism and poststructural thinking shape labor campaigns. Through a historical review of union and worker coop activism, and modern case studies of union-coop partnerships among taxi drivers and bus drivers, the dissertation analyzes the consequences of organizing "with" and "without" class narratives.

These labor histories and case studies lend support to the poststructural claim that class identity is constructed …

War Tax Free: Institutional Resiliency For War In The United States, Sarah Nelson Bakhtiari

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The obsolescence of war taxes in the United States after 1968 is a product of the state's increased institutional resiliency for war. Historically, war taxes were raised for purposes of revenue generation for contemporaneous war spending or wartime inflation control. The state's development of a robust tax system that provides high and automatically increasing revenues over time, along with monetary mechanisms for price stability, obviate the need for war taxes. In particular, the development of the income tax system and the use of inflation-targeting monetary policy expanded the state's warfighting capacity without reliance on war taxes. These developments suggest a …

Aid Effectiveness In Afghanistan: The Role Of Local Human Capacity In Explaining The Health Sector's Success, Ahmad Najim Dost

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The effectiveness of development assistance is one of the most contested debates in international development studies. While some of its most ardent supporters consider aid as the key to solving the plight of the developing world (e.g. Sachs 2006), its opponents consider it as part of the problem rather than the solution (e.g. Moyo 2009). By investigating the case of Afghanistan as one of the world's largest aid recipients from 2002 to 2014, I show that one reason for arriving at such diametrically opposed conclusions lies in the narrow definition of aid effectiveness as income growth rates. When this definition …

The Adoption Of Feminist Policies Under Conservative Governments, Malliga Och

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation sheds light on the role conservative governments play in promoting feminist policies despite an inherent tension between conservative principles and feminist claims. It is critical to focus on the process by which conservative governments adopt or reject feminist policies not only because we know little about the process, but also because conservative governments represent the least likely case. As such, we can learn more from the case of conservative governments than from the experience of leftist parties as it allows us to understand the influence of variables beyond an egalitarian ideology. Specifically, the dissertation will consider feminist policies …

Cuba After Fidel: Economic Reform, Political Liberalization And Foreign Policy (2006–2014), Arturo Lopez-Levy

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation discussed Cuba's processes of economic reform and political liberalization, and their impact on Cuba's foreign policy's adaptation to the post-Cold War. The first part of the dissertation explains economic reform and political liberalization from the perspective of partial reform equilibrium as a result of the Cuban Communist Party's focus on domestic stability and international legitimacy. The second part of the dissertation focused on Cuba's foreign policy dynamics associated to the domestic reform, the changes in the international system after the end of the Cold War and the asymmetric conflict between Cuba and the United States.

Distributive Conflict And Regime Change: A Qualitative Dataset, Stephan Haggard, Terence Teo, Robert Kaufman

Political Science Publications

No abstract provided.

Strange Fruit: Race, Terror, And The War On Terror, Lisa M. Tillmann Ph.D.

Faculty Publications

This poem examines drone warfare as a form of lynching. “Strange Fruit” links the deaths of Pakistani children Zeerak and Maria Khan to the murders of Thomas Shipp and Abram Smith, documented in the most infamous lynching photograph in U.S. history.

Evocative Objects: A Sexual Violence Primer, Sharon Sliwinski

Data and Test Instruments

This commentary on Nina Berman’s series, “Object Lessons,” examines the photographer’s strategy of photographing trial evidence from cases of sexual slavery and human trafficking as a study in object relations.

Hard International Law-Contributing Organizations As Networks, Charles Boehmer, Renato Corbetta

Selected Works Temporary Series

This paper explores the networks that intergovernmental organizations(IGOs) create in the international system and explore how states relate to eachother in such networks. It focuses in particular on the network of IGOs that actas creators of and agents for hard international law. We introduce new data thatallows us to investigate which institutional traits and functions are most closelyrelated to IGOs’ contribution to the implementation and enforcement of informalinternational law. We map out and explore the network of “highly legalized”IGOs for the years 1980–2005 as well as the affiliation networks emerging fromstates’ membership in such IGOs. Combining international relations theory withnetwork …

Group Empathy In Response To Non-Verbal Racial/Ethnic Cues: A National Experiment On Immigration Policy Attitudes, Cigdem Sirin, Nicholas Valentino, José Villalobos

Selected Works Temporary Series

No abstract provided.

The Effect Of Group Empathy On U.S. Intergroup Attitudes And Behavior In The Context Of Immigration Threats, Cigdem Sirin, Nicholas Valentino, José Villalobos

Selected Works Temporary Series

No abstract provided.

Bilal, Bilal, Tsos

TSOS Interview Gallery

Bilal was 23 years old when he drowned in Greece. He was cheerful, intelligent, and full of energy.

He was a journalist in Afghanistan who received a death threat from the Taliban. His family decided that he should flee the country alone for survival since they couldn’t afford for the whole family to go.

He escaped from the camp in Moria by finding a hole in the fence. He outran the police, found a ship in port, and jumped on it as it was leaving. He later had 10 unsuccessful attempts to leave Greece for Germany. He was caught by …

Zurvan, Zurvan, Tsos

TSOS Interview Gallery

Zurvan and his family had a good life in Afghanistan. He worked as a clerk in a spice shop. After doing business with a foreign company, the Taliban threatened him with death. To escape this threat, he and his family escaped to Iran and hired a smuggler to get them to Turkey. From there, they traveled to Greece in an overloaded boat. They have been living in a camp in Greece, stuck in limbo, ever since. Zurvan feels hopeless, like everyone in the camp is being treated in an inhumane manner. He also feels guilty for bringing his children into …

Aarash, Aarash, Tsos

TSOS Interview Gallery

As an anti-corruption journalist in Afghanistan, Aarash’s family’s life was threatened by warlords. His car was shot at, their guesthouse was bombed, and later when they were threatened at gunpoint, they tried to make a new life in India. But in India, they discovered difficulties in obtaining permanent visas so they had return to Kabul where they hid at a friend’s house for 20 days while obtaining documentation to flee to Turkey. Once in Turkey, they learned that Afghan registries had been closed since 2010. They determined that they needed to either apply for asylum in Turkey or leave for …

Idiris, Idiris, Tsos

TSOS Interview Gallery

Idiris is an 18-year-old Somalian refugee now living inUtah. He describes his life, mentioning that he only lived in Somalia for six years then moved to Ethiopia, where he stayed for seven and a half years.His life inEthiopia was peaceful and happy in comparison to Somalia, where Idiris and his family witnessed continuous violence. Idiris’s father eventually learned of the opportunities and education available in America and decided to move his family there for a better life, leaving behind family and friends. Coming to America, Idiris and his family did not know what their new home would be like. They …