Politics and Social Change Commons^™

The Disappearing Middle Class: Implications For Politics And Public Policy, Trevor Richard Beltz

CMC Senior Theses

What does it mean to be middle class? The majority of Americans define themselves as members of the middle class, regardless of their wealth. The number of Americans that affiliate with the middle class alludes to the idea that it cannot be defined simply by level of income, number of assets, type of job, etc. The middle class is a lifestyle as much as it is a group of similarly minded people, just as it is a social construct as much as it is an economic construct. Yet as the masses fall away from the elite, and changes continue to …

We're "Fed" Up And Tea'd Off: Frame Analysis Of The Tea Party Movement, Daniel Peter Flaaen

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

There is a new wave sweeping American politics. Beginning in 2009 as the people's movement, the Tea Party is taking American politics by storm. Hoping to change the way the American public thinks about American politics, the Tea Party is using some innovative tactics. Utilizing the only official Tea Party publication, an analysis of the publication's first year was done to identify the frames that were being put forth by the organization to gain support. By using the cross over frame, the us vs. them frame and the threat frame, the Tea Party hoped to resonate with a large population …

Observations Of Budapest Since 1992, Howard Hunter

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

My wife, Susan, and I flew into Budapest from Moscow in the summer of 1992. It was our first visit to one of the former “satellites” of the USSR, although by 1992 we had spent a good deal of time in the Soviet Union – and then Russia. My work on a joint university project in Moscow had been difficult because of the dramatic changes taking place almost daily in the early 1990s, and we were looking forward to a few days of relaxed tourism in a country that was new to us. I also was intrigued by the plans …

Russian Spirituality And The Theology Of Negation, Mikhail Epstein

Russian Culture

Toward the end of the twentieth century Russian culture found itself at a crossroads which cannot be ascribed to any political election but which rather presupposed a radical change in its religious and social orientation. Two somewhat opposing theses will be developed in this article. First I will discuss the processes of secularization in Russian culture and the necessity of a third, neutral zone between the "sacred" and the "profane." Next, the dangers of social neutralization in culture and the necessity of retaining elements of the dual model along with the introduction of intermediate elements will be presented. We will …

Voter Ideology, Tax Exporting, And State And Local Tax Structure, John M. Foster

Theses and Dissertations--Public Policy and Administration

State and local governments play an important role in financing and delivering public services in the United States. In 2008, state and local governments collected 57 percent of total federal, state, and local revenue (Urban Institute and Brookings Institution, Tax Policy Center, 2009). The decentralization of fiscal responsibility has enabled a high degree of variation in state and local tax structures to emerge. This dissertation presents two empirical studies that extend the positive literature on state and local tax policy.

The extant literature contains evidence of a direct relationship between voter ideology and state and local tax progressivity. However, the …

Making Boundaries And Linking Globally: “Material Politics” Of Phytosanitary Regulation On Mexican Mangos, Kiyohiko Sakamoto

Theses and Dissertations--Sociology

This dissertation illuminates how phytosanitary (PS) regulations enable mango exportation from Mexico to the United States. PS regulations are technical and legal measures to prevent plant pests from proliferating or being transported to other places and are important regulatory mechanisms enabling the globalization of agriculture. My case study investigates how PS regulations enable Mexican mango exportation as an aspect of the globalization of agriculture, illustrating the consequences of PS regulations to humans and non-humans. More specifically, three research questions are posed: (1) How does the PS regulation network operate to draw distinctions between pest/non-pest, thereby enabling the export of Mexican …

Book Review, Darrell A. H. Miller

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Social-Entrepreneurial State And The Equitable Provision Of Urban Essential Goods: A Conceptual Innovation, Qian Forrest Zhang

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

No abstract provided.

Choice, Coercion, Capabilities And Conflict: Multilingualism, Human Development And Peacekeeping In A Globalized World, Megan R. Thompson

Honors Projects

The development of English into an international lingua franca is not an inevitable result of globalizing forces. Instead, the “triumph” of the English language and the consequent decline of the world’s linguistic diversity cannot be viewed in isolation of its parallel history of conquest, violence, power and exploitation. Today, the languages privileged by the powerful—not only English, but also other dominant languages or standard varieties of those languages—determine access to social, economic and political mobility. This fact renders any discussion of language “choice” irrelevant—when a choice yields the sacrifice of basic human capabilities on one hand and the denial of …

Human Trafficking And Slavery: Towards A New Framework For Prevention And Responsibility, Dana S. Hathaway

Dissertations and Theses

Human trafficking and slavery are horrific crimes that require strict penalties for perpetrators and effective protections for survivors, but these crimes are in part facilitated by a system of laws and norms that effectively marginalize certain populations--the "unskilled" migrant. In this thesis I aim to reexamine and reinterpret the problem of human trafficking and slavery in a way that highlights the background conditions to the problem. I argue that the framework used as a conceptual foundation for addressing the problem limits the scope of responsibility. Specifically, the framework fails to acknowledge structural contributing factors I show to be relevant: law, …

[Introduction To] Leadership And Global Justice, Douglas A. Hicks, Thad Williamson

Bookshelf

What does global justice look like, and how can leadership help get us there? The contributors to Leadership and Global Justice confront the conceptual and practical challenges associated with pursuing justice beyond national boundaries. Essays analyze the roles and responsibilities of institutions - states, corporations, international financial institutions, UN bodies, nongovernmental organizations - in making collaborative progress towards international justice. They explore justice in various spheres: citizenship, the marketplace, health, education, and the environment. And they provide creative and constructive moral approaches for evaluating and promoting global justice, including human rights, capabilities, and solidarity of people across boundaries.

Advancing The Human Right To Housing In Post-Katrina New Orleans: Discursive Opportunity Structures In Housing And Community Development, Leigh Graham

Publications and Research

In post-Katrina New Orleans, housing and community development (HCD) advocates clashed over the future of public housing. This case study examines the evolution of and limits to a human right to housing frame introduced by one nongovernmental organization (NGO). Ferree’s concept of the discursive opportunity structure and Bourdieu’s social field ground this NGO’s failure to advance a radical economic human rights frame, given its choice of a political inside strategy that opened up for HCD NGOs after Hurricane Katrina. Strategic and ideological differences within the field limited the efficacy of this rights-based frame, which was seen as politically radical and …

Razing Lafitte: Defending Public Housing From A Hostile State, Leigh Graham

Publications and Research

The contentious politics of the demolition of Lafitte public housing in post- Katrina New Orleans and its replacement with mixed-income properties is a telling case of the strategic conflicts housing advocates face in public housing revitalization. It reveals how the qualified outcomes of HOPE VI interact with local institutional and historical circumstances to confound the equity and social justice goals of housing and community development advocates. It shows the limits to public housing revitalization as an urban recovery strategy when hostile government leadership characterizes a region, and the state is recast as an adversary rather than revitalization partner. This case …

The Romani Place In Kosovar Space: Nationalism And Kosovo’S Roma, Melissa Hughes

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

On February 17, 2008,Kosovo declared its independence. The path to independence and the claim to Kosovo was a long process that developed in three primary phases: A) the fostering of territorial solidarity under direct rule and an emphasis on historical ties to the territory; B) the foundation of the national idea within the realms of proto-nationalism; and C) the emergence of peripheral and mass nationalism. This research seeks to define the development of nationalist ideologies in Kosovo and to explore where Roma fit within those ideologies. An historical and sociological approach to nationalism in Kosovo is critical in understanding the …

Reclaiming Fat, Emilie Debaie

Health Sciences Student Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Changes In New Hampshire’S Republican Party: Evolving Footprint In Presidential Politics, 1960-2008, Dante J. Scala

Carsey Publications

This brief describes a series of dramatic changes in New Hampshire's political landscape over the past four decades. Examining presidential elections from 1960 to 2008, author Dante Scala uncovers a series of significant shifts in New Hampshire's political geography at the county level. He reports that historically Republican counties Grafton and Merrimack have both tilted Democratic consistently in recent decades and that New Hampshire has become less Republican overall. All of these changes have impacted not just general elections in New Hampshire, but the Republican presidential primary as well.

Ask, Tell, Vickie R. Phipps

Catalyst: A Social Justice Forum

When I was designing these marks a year ago, I wanted to acknowledge GLBTQI military persons serving under the unjust policy of Don't Ask, Don't Tell. To accomplish this, one of the counterforms in each of the military branch logos is flipped upside down creating the GLBTQI symbol of an inverted triangle.

On September 20th, 2011, the Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy was repealed.

Before the repeal, the simple act of wearing a t-shirt with one of these logos on it would have been an act of defiance and resistance. Today that same mark serves as a celebration of …

Educating For Peace And Justice In America's Nuclear Age, Ian Harris, Charles F. Howlett

Catalyst: A Social Justice Forum

The emergence of peace education as embodied in the context of peace studies, which emerged during the post-World War II ideological struggle between capitalism and Communism, the nuclear arms race pitting the United States against the former Soviet Union, the Vietnam War, and the civil rights movement in America, met with considerable criticism. There were many within and outside the academic community who argued that peace studies had very little to offer in terms of “real scholarship” and were primarily politically motivated. Some went so far as to insist that this new area of study lacked focus and discipline given …

Do You Believe The Climate Is Changing? Answers From New Survey Research, Lawrence C. Hamilton

Carsey Publications

This brief explores how political views influence Americans’ understanding and perception of science. The research is based on a national version of the Community and Environment in Rural America survey called NCERA, and on New Hampshire’s statewide Granite State Poll. Author Lawrence Hamilton reports that most people on both surveys feel that they understand either a great deal or a moderate amount about global warming or climate change. However, deep partisan divisions affect both personal beliefs about climate change and perceptions of agreement among scientists. Democrats are much more likely to state they believe that climate change is happening, caused …

For The Benefit Of Others: Harriet Martineau: Feminist, Abolitionist And Travel Writer, Laura J. Labovitz

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

One of the distinctive and remarkable traits of Harriet Martineau was her need to publish information that she believed would benefit society. Her publications - Illustrations of Political Economy (1832), Society in America (1837) and Retrospect of Western Travel (1838) - have the distinct characteristic of being published with the intent to inform and educate the British public. Scholars have focused on her later 1848 publication, Eastern Life: Present and Past, as her most important publication. Yet I will argue that it was her earlier works which set the stage for this later, better known book. Her travel to the …