Political Science Commons^™

Fluttering Beauty, Jonathan Jeffrey

SCL Faculty and Staff Publications

This article chronicles the efforts of Lillian Iona (Tyne) Pace (1925-2010) in getting the Viceroy butterfly designated as the Kentucky state butterfly.

Alliances And Preferences: Party System Institutionalization's Potentially Intervening Role On Pre-Election Cooperation In Australia, Fiji, And Papua New Guinea, Lee T. Barrow

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This research project examines the intervening role of party system institutionalization in determining the effect of electoral rules on the behavior of political parties. Highly institutionalized systems differ across multiple dimensions--supply stability, volatility of results, and rootedness of parties--from fluid systems. Party behavior can be depicted rationally as a response to both institutional incentives and the historical and sociological context of a nation's party system. Electoral incentives promoting certain types of party behavior can be negated by party system mechanics that deter those behaviors. The research uses a medium-N structured, focused comparison of elections from Australia, Fiji, and Papua New …

Leaving A Legacy, Walter Lotze

Human Rights & Human Welfare

The ongoing conflict in Somalia, and the complexities that come with finding lasting solutions to a conflict that has raged for decades now, continue to perplex the international community. While a range of previously tried and tested approaches to conflict management are being applied, it is becoming apparent that the international toolkit for responding to conflict situations of such complexity is extremely limited. Indeed, as one international conference after another on Somalia takes place, compacts are signed and funding windows established, old frameworks are abandoned and new ones are forged, and roadmap after roadmap pave the way for further engagement, …

Somali Battlegrounds: On Interest And Accountability, Ines Mzali

Human Rights & Human Welfare

In the wake of the latest and deadliest of Al-Shabab's attacks in Kenya since Kenyan troops entered Somalia in October 2011, Ben Rawlence reiterates the question raised anew by each attack: "What is Kenya doing in Somalia and is it worth the price?" The question leads him to explore the contradiction between the official objectives of the mission and Kenya's particular motivations to launch an offensive of its own. This problematic discrepancy also draws attention to the question of accountability when violations of international humanitarian law have occurred in the context of a military operation by a neighboring country and …

Slavery In Europe: Part 1, Estimating The Dark Figure, Monti Narayan Datta, Kevin Bales

Political Science Faculty Publications

The estimation of the “dark figure” for any crime (the number of actual instances of a specific crime committed minus the reported cases of that crime within a population) has primarily rested on the ability to conduct random sample crime surveys. Such surveys are based on the assumption that victims experience crimes that are discrete, time-bound, and of relatively short duration. The crime of enslavement, however, presents a special challenge to estimation because it is of indeterminate duration. This challenge is compounded by the fact that victims of slavery are also often isolated by the stigma linked to sexual assault, …

Human Development Dynamics: An Agent Based Simulation Of Macro Social Systems And Individual Heterogeneous Evolutionary Games, Mark Abdollahian, Zining Yang, Travis Coan, Birol Yesilada

Political Science Faculty Publications and Presentations

Purpose: In the context of modernization and development, a complex adaptive systems framework can help address the coupling of macro social constraint and opportunity with individual agency. Combining system dynamics and agent based modeling, we formalize a simulation approach of the Human Development (HD) perspective to explore the interactive effects of economics, culture, society and politics across multiple human scales.

Methods: Based on a system of asymmetric, coupled nonlinear equations, we first capture the core qualitative logic of HD theory, empirically validated from World Values Survey (WVS) data. Using a simple evolutionary game approach, second we fuse endogenously derived individual …

C. S. Lewis: The Art And Power Of Mythopoeia, Megan Joy Rials

Honors Capstones

No abstract provided.

Women’S Political Leadership In Boston, Center For Women In Politics And Public Policy, University Of Massachusetts Boston

Publications from the Center for Women in Politics and Public Policy

The center tracks the status of women at all levels of government in the New England states. It also provides dynamic web resources to inform and support public leadership of women of color.

This fact sheet presents information and statistics following the 2013 municipal elections in the City of Boston.

An Analysis Of The Relationship Between Capitalism And Imperialism Through Adam’S The Wealth Of Nations, Carmella O'Hanlon

Political Science Student Scholarship

Discusses capitalism and imperialism within the context of Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations.

Moocs And Modern Democracies, Richard L. Pate

WCBT Faculty Publications

A discussion of the imposition of the interests of the few on the collective through a subtle but effective manner: the eventual, complete development of Massive Open Online Courses. It is this article’s premise that this development together with current marketing efficacy and the present economic goals of modern democracies, is probable to result in a shrinkage of the market place of ideas and, paradoxically, likely to result in a diminution of democracy in the world.

'Dred Scott V. Sandford' Analysis, Sarah E. Roessler

Student Publications

The Scott v. Sandford decision will forever be known as a dark moment in America's history. The Supreme Court chose to rule on a controversial issue, and they made the wrong decision. Scott v. Sandford is an example of what can happen when the Court chooses to side with personal opinion instead of what is right.

Political Hate Machines: Outside Groups And The 2012 Presidential Campaign Advertising Market, Martin Nader

Department of Political Science: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This dissertation explores the rise of outside groups and their influence in the 2012 presidential campaign advertising market. Unlike official candidates, outside groups are not vulnerable to the potential electoral risks of public backlash for being too negative; therefore, outside groups do not possess the same incentives as official candidates to regulate their use of attack ads. Compared to campaign ads produced by official presidential candidates, ads produced by outside groups are (1) overwhelmingly negative attack ads, (2) utilize a backwards-looking retrospective orientation, and (3) draw heavily on negative emotions like anger, fear and disgust.

Considering the role of outside …

Electoral Competition In Connecticut's State House Races: The Trial Run Of The Citizens' Election Program, Lesley A. Denardis

Political Science & Global Affairs Faculty Publications

The Citizens Election Fund, Connecticut's version of a clean elections law, was established in 2005 in the wake of the corruption scandal during the administration of Governor John Rowland. Modeled after the public financing systems of Maine and Arizona, Connecticut's law has been touted as the most comprehensive in the nation. This paper will address whether the introduction of the Citizens' Election Program has increased the level of electoral competition by specifically focusing on state house seats in Connecticut during the 2008 and 2010 election cycles. Contestation for seats in the Connecticut General Assembly is a particularly salient issue due …

Reexamining Cultural Orientation Provided To Newly Arrived Refugees, Sara E. Matchulat

Capstone Collection

The provision of cultural orientation is one of many services required by the contract between resettlement agencies and the federal agencies overseeing refugee resettlement, the Cooperative Agreement. This paper explores World Relief in Moline, Illinois as a case study for how small resettlement agencies can provide meaningful and memorable cultural orientations. In order to accomplish this goal, this research utilizes the Empowerment Theory to explore how recently resettled refugees’ perceptions can be taken into consideration as orientation materials are examined. Research sought to compare Cooperative Agreement requirements to current orientation materials, interviewed service providers and recently resettled refugees, and utilized …

Lakoff’S Theory Of Moral Reasoning In Presidential Campaign Advertisements, 1952–2012, Damien S. Pfister, Jessy J. Ohl, Marty Nader, Dana Griffin

Department of Communication Studies: Faculty Publications

This study examines the presence and distribution of George Lakoff’s Strict Father and Nurturant Parent paradigms of moral reasoning in presidential campaign advertisements between 1952 and 2012. Results show that Republicans outpace Democrats in the general use of moral reasoning and that Republicans are far more likely to use Strict Father language than Democrats. The study found no difference in the use of Strict Father= Nurturant Parent morality throughout history, during times of war and recession, or if the candidate was an incumbent. The Strict Father and Nurturant Parent models of moral reasoning were also evaluated based on their relationship …

The Uneven Representation Of Women In Asian Parliaments: Explaining Variation Across The Region, Devin K. Joshi, Kara Kingma

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Although home to the majority of the world's women, Asia is the continent with the smallest proportion of women in Parliament. Rarely studied from a comparative perspective, this article examines the uneven representation of women in the lower houses of contemporary Asian parliaments. While socio-economic modernization and industrialization are generally expected to increase the proportion of women in positions of political influence, we find that differences in electoral and party systems across Asia play a greater role than levels of female literacy, urbanization, or per capita income. In particular, Asian parliaments with strict quotas and a higher number of (three …

Campus Camp Wellstone At Wsu: A Blog Post, Courtney Mccaw

Feminist & Queer Praxis

This blog post written for the WSU Improving Our World Blog, which showcases the work WSU students do to improve our community and world.

Addressing “This Woeful Imbalance”: Efforts To Improve Women’S Representation At Cia, 1947-2013, Brent Durbin

Government: Faculty Publications

This collection consists of some 120 declassified documents, the majority of which are being released for the first time. The collection includes more than 1,200 pages from various studies, memos, letters, and other official records documenting the CIA's efforts to examine, address, and improve the status of women employees from 1947 to today.

Key documents include the 1953 Panel on Career Service for Women (dubbed the "Petticoat Panel"); a 1976 letter written by DCI George H.W. Bush nominating three female officers for the Federal Woman's Award: a poignant 1984 memo on career opportunities for women; a 1992 summary of he …

Powers, Caleb, 1869-1932 (Sc 2777), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Manuscript Collection Finding Aids

Finding aid and scans (Click on "Additional Files" below) for Manuscripts Small Collection 2777. Letter, 6 December 1902, from Caleb Powers to Lovin Richards, Hillsdale, Kentucky, thanking him and other Republican residents of Simpson County Precinct Number 1 for donations toward his legal expenses in connection with his retrial on a charge of complicity in the assassination of Kentucky governor William J. Goebel. Includes the list of donors and amounts contributed; also includes a letter, 25 July 1903, from J. B. Howard to the postmaster of Hickory Flat, Kentucky, requesting a house-to-house canvass for donations to defend against the same …

A Taxonomy Of Determinism, Brant Williams, Dr. Brent D. Slife

Journal of Undergraduate Research

In psychology, there has been a great deal of debate about the issue of determinism. Many psychologists argue that we are determined by our genetics and our environment. However, there are many psychologists who strongly disagree with this idea. This debate has continued for many years without resolution and in the process has generated much confusion. This confusion is in large part due to a lack of a standard definition of determinism. Currently, there is no accepted standard definition of determinism and each researcher defines determinism differently. The result of this is that often researchers are arguing about two different …