Political Science Commons^™

The Impact Of Multinational Corporations In China, Steven Max Brown, Dr. Dan Nielson

Journal of Undergraduate Research

Multinational corporations have become a significant part of China’s economy. Every year thousands of new businesses dive into this massive population hoping to capture even a small percent of the market share. Today, billions of dollars continue to pour into projects geared for long term returns as China continues to develop and prosper. The government may claim to be Communist, but the country is already booming with a market economy, private ownership, and entrepreneurial spirit.

A Woman, A Mother: The Womenstats Project, Jana Badger, Dr. Valerie Hudson

Journal of Undergraduate Research

Since the 1970s, the field of gender research has shown incredible correlations between the value and treatment of women and the overall welfare of societies. This research has contributed to international efforts to curb violence against women and open doors of opportunity previously closed to one-half of the world’s population. However, two roadblocks currently impede international efforts toward understanding and improving women’s well-being. First, the data available to researchers is limited and very difficult to access. Second, the variables that are traditionally considered in evaluations of “women’s status” often devalue a woman’s role as a mother, particularly in advanced industrialized …

An Analysis Of State-Level Economic Conditions And Presidential Elections, 1960-2004, Melanie Freeze, Dr. Jeremy Clayne Pope

Journal of Undergraduate Research

Voters look to the economy when evaluating incumbent presidential candidates. For example, the record high inflation, interest rates, and unemployment during Carter’s first term in office are said to have contributed to his defeat in the 1980 presidential elections. The significance of the economy was so large in the 1992 presidential election one campaign strategist bluntly stated, “It’s the economy, stupid.” While national economic factors have always been clearly connected to presidential campaigns, relatively little research exists that examines the role state economies play in determining state-level presidential returns. My research primarily sought to understand whether national or state economic …

The Role Of Perception In The Success Of The Scottish National Party: Internal Colonialism Revisited, S. Spencer Brown, Dr. Danny Damron

Journal of Undergraduate Research

The Scottish National Party has seen growth and decline more than once since its founding in 1937. The party has struggled in several ways, lacking legitimacy, policy, and electoral opportunities. Since the inception of the Scottish Parliament in 1999, the SNP has found hope for more sustained success and publicity. Seven years later support for the SNP, and along with it Scottish nationalism finally seems to be increasing. The intent of my research was to determine a cause of increased SNP support and hopefully link that cause to a broader theoretical explanation. Several factors are present in Scotland that appear …

Mobilizing The Early Voter, Lindsay Nielson, Dr. J. Quin Monson

Journal of Undergraduate Research

Early voting is a rapidly-growing development in American elections. This trend includes both absentee voting, in which a voter submits an application to have a paper ballot mailed to his or her home, or in-person early voting, in which a voter may cast a ballot at an official polling place before the designated election day. Absentee voting was first used during the Civil War to allow military personnel stationed away from their home polling locations to cast their ballots, and most states only made this option available to the general voting populace in the last half of the twentieth century. …

Unveiling Paraguay’S Poverty Relief Programs, Michael Johnson, Dr. Kirk Hawkins

Journal of Undergraduate Research

As a research assistant for Professor Kirk Hawkins and a recipient of an ORCA grant, I went to Paraguay for four weeks to investigate two of the government’s poverty relief programs. To do so, we visited randomly selected literacy sites, interviewing each site’s workers and users to determine the degree of partisan criteria for the allocation of jobs and services. The voluntary interviews lasted an average of 12-15 minutes. In addition, I interviewed the national coordinator of education and health in order to contrast their versions of the programs’ goals with our on-site findings. The research project gave me the …

U.S.-Laos Trade Relations And Economic Development, Dustin R. Roses, Dr. Earl Fry

Journal of Undergraduate Research

To complete this research project I traveled to Laos and spent three weeks conducting interviews with the leaders of export-oriented businesses. My main goal was to investigate the success of normal trade relations status (NTR) as a means of stimulating foreign investment and economic activity in developing nations.

The World Vs. The United States How The International Community Defied A Superpower To Create The International Criminal Court, Anna Sanders, Dr. Darren Hawkins

Journal of Undergraduate Research

The International Criminal Court has been an item of some debate both here in the United States and in the international community. The United States opposition and the subsequent creation of a supranational body without it’s support provide an interesting case for studying international organizations. It is puzzling to consider: why would nations go against the wishes of the world superpower and create a court with unparalleled supranational authority? What influences negotiating positions and how did these change throughout the drafting process? We hypothesized that nations’ positions were influenced by their dependence on other nations. More plainly, we supposed that …

Poe Family Papers (Sc 1116), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Manuscript Collection Finding Aids

Finding aid and scans (Click on "Additional Files" below) or Manuscripts Small Collection 1116. Chiefly letters to James E. Poe, a Warren County, Kentucky native, who later lived in Colorado and Washington Territory, from his family in Kentucky. They write of crops, weather, and their health. They also ask Jim to lead a sober life and consider returning home. Evidently Poe went west after a run-in with the law concerning the making of illegal alcohol. Also, data related to the collection.

On Syria, Putin Upstages Obama At G20 Summit, Nicholas Hayes

University Chair in Critical Thinking Publications

No abstract provided.

Saying One Thing, Doing Another: Is Discrepant Enforcement Of Laws Protecting Women And Girls Related To Discrepant Enactment Of International Law By Nation-State?, Carl Brinton, Dr. Valerie Hudson

Journal of Undergraduate Research

In short, the project was a great success. The hypotheses tested all came out with greater statistical significance than we had even hoped for. The implications of our findings have a deep potential impact, and beyond merely presenting the findings at the annual meetings of the American Political Science Association, we are now in the final stages of editing the paper to submit it to the International Studies Quarterly journal for publication.

Prosecutor Discretion At The Special Court For Sierra Leone, Chad Losee, Dr. Darren Hawkins

Journal of Undergraduate Research

Some have argued that, once established, international criminal tribunals, like the one established in Sierra Leone, are not responsive to external influence given their independence and insulation.1 I tested this hypothesis as the null by comparing the discretion granted international prosecutors by court creators with the latitude actually exercised. Are prosecutors really intractable? Or, do prosecutors consider the preferences of external actors when they make their investigative decisions?

Waging The Moral Equivalent Of War: The Political Conditions For Alternative Fuel Reform In The United States And Brazil, Logan Richards Clark, Dr. Kirk Hawkins

Journal of Undergraduate Research

Energy often plays a central role in both domestic and international conflict. Many scholars, activists and policymakers agree that the environmental, economic, and political costs of the United States’ self-proclaimed “addiction” to oil for its use as transportation fuel, among other functions, are unsustainable, even dangerous. They assert that the industrialized world’s dependence on fossil fuels is perpetuating global warming, leading us to a world wide economic “peak-oil” shock, and setting up massive geopolitical struggles across the globe. If the global community is to avert the potential calamity that a continued dependence on unsustainable energy may incur, a wide-scale effort …

A Brief Analysis Of Chinese Foreign Aid, Steve Kapfer, Dr. Eric Hyer

Journal of Undergraduate Research

As development continues to remain a stubborn, yet salient problem to address, an increasing number of researchers are trying to determine what factors affect development. One of the most popular means of promoting development is through official development aid (ODA) because it is thought to provide the necessary capital and technical know-how needed to spur development. However, the benefits of ODA are increasingly being called into question as economic analysis shows marginal growth rates in many targeted developing countries, and in those targeted countries aid produces decreasing marginal returns.

Using The Federalist To Better Understand The Constitution: Does Publius’S “Split Personality” Pose A Problem?, Chris Bates, Dr. Brent Gilchrist

Journal of Undergraduate Research

Considered by many to be the seminal work in American political theory, The Federalist has long stood as one of the most important commentaries on the American Constitution and constitutional system. Despite the work’s near canonical status, however, a number of authors have questioned its value as an instrument for understanding and interpreting the Constitution. One of the most important challenges to The Federalist’s interpretive value comes from Douglass Adair’s and Alpheus Thomas Mason’s split personality thesis, which claims that Hamilton’s and Madison’s respective papers espouse fundamentally different and even contradictory views. If true, the split personality thesis poses significant …

Self-Determination And Independence Movements In Europe: The European Union’S Role, Jeannine Plamondon, Dr. Danny Damron

Journal of Undergraduate Research

The European Union (EU) was created to bring European countries together, but could it also have the effect of breaking countries apart? This was the question I chose to evaluate for my research. I worked as an intern with the Scottish National Party (SNP), a political party seeking independence for Scotland from the United Kingdom, in the European Parliament in Brussels Belgium. On the European level, the SNP combines with other independence-seeking parties from various minority nations across Europe, such as the Catalonians and Basques in Spain, the Welsh in the United Kingdom, the Flemish in Belgium, etc. Together these …

Republican Primary Donor Retention In The 2012 General Election Do Divisive Primaries Affect Campaign Donors?, Robert Richards, Dr. Jay Goddliffe

Journal of Undergraduate Research

In recent presidential elections, we have seen many long, drawn out nomination battles in party primary elections. The divisive primary hypothesis states that divisive presidential primaries hurt the party’s performance in the general election (Kenney and Rice 1987). Research on this claim has generally focused on the party’s performance in terms of vote shares (for example, see Henderson, Hillygus, and Tompson 2010), but there are problems with this approach. Aggregate vote data only allows analysis of two points in time (the primary and the general election), and does not permit an analysis of individual behavior. Panel survey data can give …

Does Prospect Theory Work In Politics?, Brian Reed, Dr. Jeremy Pope

Journal of Undergraduate Research

Here I present the results of an experiment designed to address our limited but critical understanding of decision making when faced with uncertainty, and specifically how individuals make such decisions when part of a group (or government). The purpose of this research is to determine whether individuals behave according to rational choice theory or prospect theory when faced with making an uncertain decision on behalf of a group.

What It's Like To Be A Radical Conservative, Stephanie K. Adamczak

SURGE

“What is your major?”

“Environmental Science.”

The snarky retort, “Don’t go joining GreenPeace now, you’re becoming a radical.”

I know there are many uses of the word “radical,” but in this context, I know that it is not meant as a compliment. Because I study environmental science and global climate change, this person associates me with radicals – those utilizing extreme methods to bring about extreme changes. [excerpt]

Social Norms And The Tragedy Of The Commons: Evidence From Everyday Water Conservation, Ryan Hill, Dr. Josh Gubler

Journal of Undergraduate Research

This experiment tested how social norms affect individual incentives to conserve common-pool resources. We have tested this question with a simple field experiment on BYU campus. We observed individuals using public water sources after being treated with different inducements to conserve water. We are interested to see if individuals change their behavior in response to reminders of social norms immediately before making a decision to conserve scarce water. If there is an effect, does it vary based on the wording and nature of the reminder?