Political Science Commons^™

Poverty Within Nation-States: The Impact Of Corruption, Trade, Income Inequality, Population Growth, Foreign Aid, And Military Expenditure, Mustafa Karapinar

Graduate Program in International Studies Theses & Dissertations

Theoretical approaches to development have marginalized poverty and the individual from the developmental debates. Instead, these approaches place the state as the conventional unit of development and tended to address poverty at the societal level. In these respects, these approaches have neglected how development affects poverty at the individual level.

This study criticizes one of these approaches, the modernization theory of Development, and analyzes the relationship between poverty and some economic, political, and social factors. These factors include openness to trade, foreign aid, military expenditure, income inequality, corruption, and population. There have been several studies examining the relationship between poverty …

Path Dependence In Intrastate Conflicts: Resources, Regimes, And Interventions, Ivan Medynskyi

Graduate Program in International Studies Theses & Dissertations

This dissertation investigates the patterns of path dependence in intrastate conflicts. It is motivated by three research questions: What factors determine a particular outcome of a civil war? How strong is their impact? What are the causal mechanisms in play? To examine these questions, this study introduces a theory of path dependence to the study of intrastate conflicts that bridges the gap between analyses of the phases of contention.

First, it examines the broad understanding of path dependence that highlights the impact of initial conditions on civil war outcomes. Then, this dissertation explores the narrower notion which focuses on the …

Compulsory Voting In Latin America: Good Or Bad For Democracy?, Ian Hansen, Dr. Darren Hawkins

Journal of Undergraduate Research

Using survey data from across Latin America, I sought to determine whether compulsory voting laws have negative effects on constituents’ views toward democracy. I expected to find that such laws influence voters to have lower appraisals of democracy in their country.

The analysis yielded results that lend significant support to my theory. Controlling for individual demographic variables and the country-level indicators of GDP per capita and GINI Index (which measures economic inequality), it appears that compulsory voting laws do, in fact, have a statistically significant effect on support for and satisfaction with democracy. Further, although the substantive effects are small, …

Voter Turnout: How Femininity And Competence Affect Attitudes Toward Female Political Candidates, Holly Henrich, Dr. Chris Karpowitz

Journal of Undergraduate Research

Currently, the United States ranks as the 86th country in women’s representation in government,with 18.2 percent of seats in the House of Representatives and 20 percent representation in the Senate (Inter-Parliamentary Union, 2014). With a nation that is half comprised of women, questions are raised as to why women have historically been underrepresented in government. More coverage on the physical appearances and fashion choices of female political candidates has far exceeded the coverage given to their male counterparts (Rosholm, 2009). How female political candidates are initially perceived based on their physical attributes may be a contributing factor as to why …

Looking For Two-Sided Coattail Effects: Integrated Parties And Multilevel Elections In The U.S., Amuitz Garmendia Madariaga, H. Ege Ozen

Publications and Research

In the context of the American federalism, integrated parties provide the necessary coordination mechanism for state and federal politicians to be electorally successful. This argument rests on the assumption that voters are able to observe the benefits of voting a straight ticket. We test this individual level explanation by using the CCES data. Moreover, at the aggregate level, we measure the so-called ‘two-sided’ coattail effects in concurrent multilevel elections in the U.S. since 1960. By using a simultaneous equation model, we estimate the reciprocal relationship between presidential and gubernatorial vote shares at the state level. While we find no consistent …

Upholding The Inartful Drafting Of Obamacare, Donald Roth

Faculty Work Comprehensive List

Posting about ­­­­­­­­a recent challenge to the national Affordable Care Act (ACA) from In All Things - an online hub committed to the claim that the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ has implications for the entire world.

http://inallthings.org/upholding-the-inartful-drafting-of-obamacare/

Opportunism In Ugandan Ngos: A Randomized Field Experiment, Eric Reuben Smith

Journal of Undergraduate Research

Corruption undermines the effectiveness of international development. The financial integrity of non-governmental organizations (NGO) can be improved by donor-to-organization contact, but foreign donors rarely travel to countries such as Uganda. This project involved a randomized design to compare the size of project bids by NGO management when approached by potential donors (foreigners) or donor representatives (Ugandan citizens). Local donor representatives were more likely to be denied information during an in-person visit than the foreigners visiting NGOs. Otherwise, foreign potential donors were provided with information that was the same as local representatives, except in 6 instances in which bids were substantially …

Reducing The Gender Gap Through Religious Socialization, Kalifa Smith, Dr. Jessica Preece

Journal of Undergraduate Research

Women are greatly underrepresented in politics. Researchers have studied many potential explanations for this such as the competitive nature of politics, gender role socialization, institutional structures, etc. Yet there is little research on the role of religious socialization on women’s political ambition. In this study I hypothesize that religious leaders are powerful socializers and can increase their church members’ level of political efficacy, thus leading to increased political participation. Through an experimental survey, I examine whether the topics that the First Presidency of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS/Mormon) chooses to focus on affect their church members’ …

Religion’S Role In Parent To Child Political Socialization, Madison Dayton Daines, Quin Monson

Journal of Undergraduate Research

I believe that the religion a person was socialized in has lingering affects on his or her political values. Parents play the most prominent role in the political direction of their children both early in life and up through young adulthood (Niemi and Jennings 1991). This is because parents transmit political values to their children through socialization, the everyday conversations and interactions about the political world as well as broader norms and values that occur within the family, thus influencing their political attitudes and behavior. Religious ties also greatly contribute to individuals’ political attitudes and behaviors (Wald and Calhoun-Brown 2010). …

Smoller/Grindle: Time Is Now For An Ethics Commission, Fred Smoller, Shirley Grindle

Political Science Faculty Articles and Research

"Orange County is the only major metropolitan jurisdiction in California that does not have an Ethics Commission… For these reasons, a group of citizens have written an ordinance to establish an independent, non-partisan Ethics Commission tasked with overseeing ethics and campaign law violations by county elected and appointed officials and county employees."

Home Made, Printed, And Remote Controlled Firearms— Terrorism And Insurgency Implications, Robert J. Bunker

CGU Faculty Publications and Research

This essay in the TRENDS terrorism futures series focuses on trends in the manufacturing of homemade and printed firearms along with the emergence of remote (teleoperated) firearms. Each of these trends is discussed in turn in this short essay, as are the implications of their cumulative effects on terrorism and insurgency. Ultimately, as will be highlighted in this piece, both physical and cyber forms of terrorism are increasingly merging as a result of firearm and computer components becoming more closely integrated [1].

Anan Kalinta [Thailand, Royal Thai Airforce], Anan Kalinta

Digital Narratives of Asia

Anan Kalinta was the Deputy Commander-in-Chief for the Royal Thai Airforce as well as Minister of the Interior in 1991-1992. He shares with DNA his thoughts about what it takes to be a leader in the military, as well as military intervention in politics.

Paving The Way To Scandal: History Repeats Itself, Michael J. Birkner

History Faculty Publications

Presidential candidate Marco Rubio of Florida enjoyed an assist this week managing the fallout from New York Times stories about his personal finances by an unlikely ally: Comedy Central host Jon Stewart, who dismissed the information as an example of “gotcha” politics, unworthy of current discussion. “How is this front page news?” Stewart said, calling the Times reports “inconsequential gossip.” [excerpt]

Teachers – Shaping One Life At A Time, Evan Barrett

Highlands College

A Montana Public Radio Commentary by Evan Barrett.

Published newspaper columns written by Evan Barrett on this topic, which vary somewhat in content from this commentary, appeared in the following publications:

Missoulian, June 16, 2015

Ravalli Republic, June 16, 2015

Montana Public Radio, June 17, 2015

Montana Standard, June 19, 2015

Great Falls Tribune, June 22, 2015

Is George W Bush A Burden Or Blessing For Jeb Bush’S 2016 Campaign?, Justin S. Vaughn

Political Science Faculty Publications and Presentations

Now that Jeb Bush has finally officially announced his bid for the White House, the chattering class can shift its conversation to whether he will win and what hurdles stand in his way.

Rules And Rocks: The Us-China Standoff Over The South China Sea Islands, Mel Gurtov

Political Science Faculty Publications and Presentations

The article discusses ongoing territorial tensions in the South China Sea.

"The long-running, multi-party dispute over control of islets in the South China Sea (SCS) is worsening both in rhetoric and provocative activity. Meeting in late May at the Shangri-La Dialogue on regional security, US and Chinese defense officials sparred over responsibility for the increased tension, though they stopped short of issuing threats. In fact, all sides to the dispute say they want to avoid violence, prefer a diplomatic resolution, and support freedom of navigation. Both the US and China insist that the dispute notwithstanding, their relationship overall is positive …

Terrorism And Global Domestic Insurgency Nexus: A Case Of Boko Haram Insurgency In Nigeria, Augustine N. Eneanya

Journal of Public Management & Social Policy

The paper examines the link between Non-state armed Islamist groups’ terrorism and global domestic insurgency, using Nigeria as a case study. It adopts a combination of deprivation – frustration – aggression theory, social learning and social identity theories as its framework of analysis. The primary focus of inquiry is on secondary data, purposively sampled from books, journals articles, and reports of periodicals, internet and existing statistics. Qualitative research and secondary data analysis method were adopted. Using discourse, descriptive and explanatory techniques, the paper attempts to establish the relationship between Non-state armed Islamist groups’ support and Boko Haram insurgency in Nigeria. …

Towards Policy Advocacy — Activism, Advocacy And Political Empowerment: An Exploratory Study On Hispanic Environmental Justice Nonprofits, Jo Marie Rios

Journal of Public Management & Social Policy

Environmental justice groups have incorporated as nonprofit organizations that tend to limit the ability to access the political and policy processes due to the restrictive IRS lobbying codes. Policy advocacy begins to address the roles and tactics that could be utilized by these nonprofits to influence public policy making and includes activities and tactics such as media campaigns, research, educational outreach, activism and political empowerment with the ultimate goal of influencing the initial stages of the policy process. This research uses a multiple streams approach to operationalize the advocacy variables and tactics used by these Hispanic environmental justice nonprofits and …

Extractive Sector Policymaking And Governance In Ghana: A Study Of The Role, Knowledge And Capacity Challenges Of Civil Society Organizations, Emmanuel K. Sakyi, Emmanuel O. Oritsejafor

Journal of Public Management & Social Policy

This study describes and examines data on perceptions of role, capacity and knowledge challenges confronting civil society organizations (CSOs) in their attempt to influence extractive industry policymaking and governance in Ghana. Qualitative technique was employed in collecting data for the study. In all, twenty one CSOs were purposively selected and interviewed using issue-driven semi-structured interview technique. The findings of the study reveal that CSOs have good knowledge concerning policymaking and management issues in the extractive sector. It further indicates that Ghanaian CSOs had formed coalitions which gave them a better ‘bargaining power’ to be able to advocate for the ordinary …

Measuring Public Manager Cultural Competence: The Influence Of Public Service Values, Thomas Longoria, Nandhini Rangarajan

Journal of Public Management & Social Policy

This study develops a public manager cultural competence instrument. The proposed instrument includes items from existing cultural competence instruments from professional fields (e.g., Nursing, Social Work, and Medicine) and new items developed specifically for measuring public manager cultural competence. We find that self-reported bilingual respondents have higher cross-cultural competence scores on three dimensions (attitudes, skills, knowledge). Minority respondents have higher cross-cultural competence scores on two dimensions (skills, and behavior). Gender and international travel experience do not result in statistically significant differences. Implications for the promotion of cultural competencies in graduate education settings and in public sector organizations are considered and …