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open access

A History of Overcoming: Nietzsche on the Moral Antecedents and Successors of Modern Liberalism

Description: This work aims to understand human moral psychology under modern liberalism by analyzing the mature work of philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche. I seek to understand and evaluate Nietzsche's claim that liberalism, rather than being an overturning of slave morality, is an extension of the slave morality present in both Judaism and Christianity. To ground Nietzsche's critique of liberalism theoretically, I begin by analyzing his "master" and "slave" concepts. With these concepts clarified, I then app… more
Date: December 2016
Creator: Gill, Rodney W.
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Identity Claims and Leader Survival

Description: The purpose of this dissertation is to show a yet undiscovered link between identity claims and the survival of political leaders. Diversionary theory posits that starting foreign conflicts during domestic hardship may increase the popular approval ratings of the leader and maintain him in power. I suggest that leaders may resort to initiating identity claims as a diversionary action to stay in power. Indeed, using survival analysis, this study finds a connection between the desire of leaders t… more
Date: August 2019
Creator: Krastev, Roman
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Immigration Beliefs and Attitudes: A Test of the Group Conflict Model in the United States and Canada

Description: This study develops and tests a group conflict model as an explanation for international immigration beliefs in the United States and Canada. Group conflict is structured by evaluations concerning group relationships and group members. At a conceptual level group conflict explains a broad range of policy beliefs among a large number of actors in multiple settings. Group conflict embodies attitudes relating to objective-based conditions and subjective-based beliefs.
Date: August 1999
Creator: McIntyre, Chris, 1964-
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

The impact of US-China relations on Taiwan's military spending (1966-1992).

Description: Previous research has shown that Taiwan's military spending is affected either by China's military buildup or the US's military pipeline. This study investigates whether it is also true an ongoing US-China relationship has dynamic effects. Three major findings are obtained from the statistical analyses. First and foremost, the level of US-China conflict has a contemporaneous positive effect on Taiwan's military spending. Second, the analyses also indicate that the volatility of US-China relatio… more
Date: May 2002
Creator: Yu, Tsung-Chi Max
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

In Search of Audience Costs in International Relations: The Media, Personality, and Public Threats

Description: Audience costs, which are defined as political costs for a leader generated when the leader fails to follow through on international commitments, are an important concept in international relations to understand the causes of war and peace. However, despite its prominence, evidence for audience costs is mixed at best. In this dissertation, by conducting a series of survey experiments in the United States, I examine a variety of causal mechanisms and observable implications of audience cost mode… more
Date: July 2023
Creator: Takei, Makito
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Increasing the Players: Expanding the Bilateral Relationship of Conflict Management

Description: This research seeks to explore the behavior of international and regional organizations within conflict management. Previous research on conflict management primarily examines UN peacekeeping as the primary actor and lumps all non-UN actors into a single category. I disaggregate this category, examining how international and regional organizations interact when deciding to establish a peace mission, coordinate a peace mission with multiple organizations, and finally, how this interaction affe… more
Date: May 2014
Creator: Stull, Emily A.
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Innovation in Municipal Personnel Offices: An Exploratory Study of Two Federal Regions

Description: The purpose of this research is to investigate the innovation process in municipal personnel offices by answering three questions. What factors are related to the innovativeness of personnel offices? What factors are involved in the diffusion of personnel innovations from one city to another? What intraorganizational processes are involved in the decision to adopt personnel innovations? This research focuses on ten innovations selected by a panel of both personnel academicians and practitioners… more
Date: August 1980
Creator: Copeland, Curtis W.
Partner: UNT Libraries

Institutionalizing Atrocity: An Analysis of Civil War Legacy, Post-Conflict Governance, and State Behavior

Description: This dissertation examines the behavior of post-civil war governments and explores how the aftermath of civil war not only influences state behavior but how the previous conflict becomes institutionalized through a state's governance decisions. While post-civil war states will each have different governance needs as they endure the post-conflict environment, this dissertation contends that the governance decisions a state chooses are key to understanding, and potentially predicting, future gove… more
Date: May 2020
Creator: Yates, Tyler
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

International Learning and the Diffusion of Civil Conflict

Description: Why does civil conflict spread from country to country? Existing research relies primarily on explanations of rebel mobilization tied to geographic proximity to explain this phenomenon. However, this approach is unable to explain why civil conflict appears to spread across great geographic distances, and also neglects the government’s role in conflict. To explain this phenomenon, this dissertation formulates an informational theory in which individuals contemplating rebellion against their gove… more
Date: August 2014
Creator: Linebarger, Christopher
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

International Peacekeeping Operations: Sinai, Congo, Cyprus, Lebanon, and Chad Lessons for the UN and OAU

Description: Peacekeeping is a means by which international or regional organizations control conflict situations that are likely to endanger international peace and security. Most scholars have viewed the contributions of peacekeeping forces only in terms of failures, and they have not investigated fully the political-military circumstances" under which conflict control measures succeed. This dissertation is an attempt to bridge this gap and to show how the OAU compares with the UN in carrying out peacekee… more
Date: December 1989
Creator: Demsa, Paul Meslam, 1949-
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

International Political Economy of External Economic Dependence and Foreign Investment Policy Outputs as a Component of National Development Strategy: Nigeria 1954-1980

Description: This study examined the effects and expectations of external economic dependence on foreign investment policy outputs with particular reference to the Nigerian experience between 1954 and 1980. Three basic kinds of external economic dependence were studied: foreign investment, the penetration of the Nigerian economy by foreign capital through the agency of the multinational corporations (MNCs); foreign trade, a measure of the Nigerian economy's participation in the world market; and foreign aid… more
Date: December 1986
Creator: Ighoavodha, Frederick J. O. (Frederick J. Ofuafo)
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Interstate Influence Strategies in Border Crises: 1918-2015

Description: Within interstate militarized disputes, states use different kinds of influence strategies, like bullying, reciprocating, and trial-and-error. My dissertation examines state influence strategies within border disputes. This context serves as a hard test which could testify if state behaviors in world politics are mainly driven by the salience of contested issues. Or other factors, like leader militarized backgrounds (e.g., participating in rebellions or military service), may also at work. On t… more
Date: August 2020
Creator: Yao, Jiong
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Is Modernization the Engine of Political Instability?: A Pooled Cross-Sectional Time-Series Test of Causality

Description: Traditional studies of the modernization-instability thesis have neglected the simultaneous influence of time and place on the relationship between modernization (social mobilization and political participation) and political instability, and the possible causal linkage between the two concepts. Empirical support for modernization-instability hypothesis will be obtained if and only if there is a strong positive correlation between modernization and political instability and the former causes th… more
Date: August 1990
Creator: Umezulike, Bedford Nwabueze
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Is the Road to Hell Paved with Good Intentions? The Effect of U.S. Foreign Assistance and Economic Policy on Human Rights

Description: Theories in the international political economy literature, economic liberalism and dependency, are explored in order to test the effect of U.S. aid, trade, and investment on human rights conditions in recipient states. Two measures of human rights conditions serve as dependent variables: security rights and subsistence rights. The data cover approximately 140 countries from 1976-1996. Pooled cross-sectional time series analysis, utilizing ordinary least squares (OLS) with panel corrected stand… more
Date: August 2001
Creator: Callaway, Rhonda L.
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Judicial Enforcers? Exploring Lower Federal Court Compliance in Regulating the Obscene

Description: Although federal circuit and district court judges are placed within a federal hierarchy, and receive legal and judicial training that emphasizes the importance of the judicial framework and its structure, such judges are also subjected to other pressures such as the types of litigants within the courtrooms as well as their local political environment. Furthermore, such judges are apt to form their own views about politics and legal policy and are often appointed by presidents who approve of th… more
Date: May 2004
Creator: Ryan, John Francis
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

The King Arrives: Chinese Government Inspections and Their Effects

Description: This dissertation studies a critical facet of Chinese politics, inspections by higher Chinese government to villages. Principally, it looks at how village economic development determines government inspection decisions and how inspections, once conducted, impact village politics. Specifically, I argue that villages perceived as destabilizing to the Chinese regime, villages with higher levels of economic inequality and villages located at the two extremes of economic development, should see more… more
Date: August 2017
Creator: Xi, Jinrui
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Knowing What is Useful: Rousseau's Education Concerning Being, Science, and Happiness

Description: Is there a relationship between science and happiness and, if so, what is it? Clearly, since the Enlightenment, science has increased life expectancy and bodily comfort. Is this happiness, or do humans long for something more? To examine these questions, I investigate the works of Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Specifically, I focus on the Discourses and the Emile, as he states in the Confessions that these works form a whole statement concerning the natural goodness of man. I agree with the literature… more
Date: August 2017
Creator: Gross, Benjamin Isaak
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Korean Electoral Behavior: The 1992 and 1997 Presidential Elections

Description: This is a study of Korean presidential elections. Its purpose is to determine how Koreans voted in the 1992 and 1997 presidential elections and to examine the factors that contributed to winners. In addition, the study compares the two elections by developing three models: candidate choice, voter turnout and political interest models. Using post election data from the Korean Social Science Data Center a multinomial logit regression was used in the candidate choice model. It shows that Korean v… more
Date: May 2000
Creator: Kang, Kyung-Tae
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

The Law and Human Rights: Is the Law a Mere Parchment Barrier to Human Rights Abuse?

Description: This study is the first systematic global analysis of the impact of law on human rights, analyzing the impact of twenty-three constitution provisions and an international covenant on three measures of human rights behavior, over the period of 1976-1996. Three sets of constitutional provisions are analyzed, including 1) ten provisions for individual freedoms and due process rights, 2) nine provisions for elements of judicial independence and 3) four provisions that outline procedures for states … more
Date: December 1999
Creator: Keith, Linda Camp
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

The Legal System and Political Development in Communist China, 1949-1969

Description: This study deals with the legal system of Communist China from 1949 to 1969 with three purposes: to discuss the role of law in Communist China's political development; to discuss the patterns of Communist China's political development as reflected in the patterns of her legal development; and to discuss some aspects of development theories on the basis of the findings of this study.
Date: August 1973
Creator: Lee, Shane R. (Shane Rong), 1942-
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Letters, Liberty, and the Democratic Age in the Thought of Alexis de Tocqueville

Description: When Alexis de Tocqueville observed the spread of modern democracy across France, England, and the United States, he saw that democracy would give rise to a new state of letters, and that this new state of letters would influence how democratic citizens and statesmen would understand the new political world. As he reflected on this new intellectual sphere, Tocqueville became concerned that democracy would foster changes in language and thought that would stifle concepts and ideas essential to t… more
Date: December 2009
Creator: Elliot, Natalie J.
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Linkages between the Texas Supreme Court and Public Opinion

Description: This investigation sought to identify linkages between the Texas Supreme Court and public opinion through 1) a matching of written decisions with scientifically conducted public opinion polls; 2) direct mention of public opinion and its synonyms in Texas justices' decisions; 3) comparison of these mentions over time; and 4) comparison of 10 personal attributes of justices with matched decisions. The study moved the unit of analysis from the U.S. Supreme Court to the state court level by using c… more
Date: May 1995
Creator: Ragland, Ruth Ann Vaughan
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Making It Personal: The Psychological Lifecyle of Witnessing before the ICTY

Description: Extant transitional justice literature examining processes and functions of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia have traditionally looked at the output and outcomes from an institutional level of analysis and have neglected to examine how the witness feels about his or her own participation in the process. This project provides deeper perspective from the individual level of analysis based on sequential phases of the testimony process lifecycle: the reason the witness … more
Date: August 2019
Creator: McKay, Melissa M.
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Management of Communal Conflict in the Middle East: The Case of the Kurds

Description: The objective of this study is to describe and analyze the management of communal conflict in the Middle East, focusing on the Kurds. To this end, an effort is made to examine (1) the means that have been used to manage the Kurdish conflict by Middle Eastern countries; (2) the degree of success or failure of applied measures and (3) possible explanations for the first two questions.
Date: December 1983
Creator: Khosrowshahi, Manouchehr Rostamy
Partner: UNT Libraries
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