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Post-Civil War Democratization: Domestic and International Factors in Movement Toward and Away from Democracy

Description: Post-civil war democratization is a critical element of building sustainable peace in the post-civil war states. At the same time, studies of democratic transition and survival suggest that the post-civil war environment is not hospitable to either the transition to or survival of democracy. The post-civil war environment is contentious. Former protagonists are fearful about their security and at the same time they want to protect their political and economic interests. The central argument of … more
Date: May 2010
Creator: Joshi, Madhav
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
open access

Discovery of Resources and Conflict in the Interstate System, 1816-2001

Description: This study tests a theory detailing the increased likelihood of conflict following an initial resource discovery in the discovering nation and its region. A survey of prior literature shows a multitude of prior research concerning resources and nations' willingness to initiate conflict over those resources, but this prior research lacks any study concerning the effects of the discovery of resources on interstate conflict. The theory discusses the increased likelihood of conflict in the discov… more
Date: May 2010
Creator: Clark, Bradley
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open access

The Counterinsurgency Dilemma: The Causes and Consequences of State Repression of Human Rights in Civil Wars

Description: In this project a theory of adaptive differential insurgency growth by the mechanism of repression driven contagion is put forth to explain variation in the membership and spatial expansion of insurgencies from 1981 to 1999. As an alternative to the dominant structural approaches in the civil war literature, Part 1 of the study proposes an interactive model of insurgency growth based on Most and Starr's opportunity and willingness framework. The findings suggest that state capacity, via its imp… more
Date: May 2010
Creator: Quinn, Jason Michael
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
open access

Ecological Sustainability and Peace: The Effect of Ecological Sustainability on Interstate and Intrastate Environmental Conflict

Description: This study examines the relationship between ecological sustainability and violent conflict at both the interstate and intrastate level. In particular, this study explores the effect of ecological sustainability of a society on the initiation and the occurrence of violent conflict. By developing a theory, which is named "Eco-peace," this study hypothesizes that the more ecologically sustainable the socioeconomic system of societies, the less likely the society is to initiate interstate conflict… more
Date: August 2010
Creator: Yoon, Jong-Han
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
open access

Service Matters: The Influence of Military Service on Political Behavior, Ideology and Attitudes

Description: The objective of this research is to explore the influence of military service on political behaviors and attitudes. Existing studies of the military have long recognized the existence of a predominantly conservative political ideology with a resulting propensity for strong Republican Party support within the military community, but have failed to explain the likely causal mechanism for this. Drawing on multiple sources of data from the 2008 Presidential election cycle, I utilized a descriptive… more
Date: August 2010
Creator: Johnson, Catherine L.
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
open access

The Dichotomy of Congressional Approval

Description: This thesis seeks to understand how political awareness affects what information one uses to indicate their approval or disapproval of Congress and its members. More concisely, do more and less aware individuals rely on the same pieces of political information to mold their opinions of Congress? The second question of concern is what role does media consumption play in informing survey respondents about Congress. Third, I consider how survey respondents use cues like the condition of the econom… more
Date: August 2010
Creator: Moti, Danish Saleem
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
open access

Schoolyard Politics: Ethics and Language at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia

Description: The International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) has been both contentious and successful. By examining the ICTY from a Levinasian ethical standpoint, we might be able to understand how the court uses language to enforce ethical and moral standards upon post-war societies. Using linguistic methods of analysis combined with traditional data about the ICTY, I empirically examine the court using ordinary least squares (OLS) in order to show the impact that language has upon the… more
Date: December 2010
Creator: Hatcher, Robert
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
open access

The Enemy of My Enemy: International Alliances Against Transnational Terrorist Organizations

Description: A dearth of pre-existing research in the field prompted this thesis on whether traditional econometric analyses of war deterrent alliances are applicable to modern alliances for counter terror purposes. Apparent foundational and contextual differences between the two types of alliances and the costs and benefits member nations derive from each lead the author to theorize that factors contributing to the formation of each alliance are fundamentally similar. Multiple types of statistical models a… more
Date: December 2010
Creator: Berthume, Joshua Guy
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
open access

Understanding News Media Consumption and Political Attitudes and Behavior in Latin America

Description: News media consumption is vital to understanding democracy in Latin America. Democracy in the region lacks consolidation that may be encouraged by the ability of news media to shape individuals' political attitudes and behaviors. Yet, we know very little about how citizens of Latin American countries consume news media or how that consumption affects attitudes and behavior. This study offers a region-wide examination of the factors that shape news media consumption and the effects of that consu… more
Date: May 2011
Creator: Salzman, Ryan
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
open access

Examining the Effect of Security Environment on U.S. Unilateral Military Intervention in Civil Conflicts

Description: This study focuses on how perceived security environment affect U.S. unilateral, military intervention in civil conflicts, using the concept of Bayesian learning to illustrate how threat perceptions are formed, how they change, and how they affect the U.S. decision to intervene militarily in civil conflicts. I assess the validity of two primary hypotheses: (1) the U.S. is more likely to intervene in civil conflicts with connections to a threatening actor or ideology; and (2) the U.S. is more li… more
Date: August 2011
Creator: Aubone, Amber
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
open access

Beggars, Brides, and Bards: The Political Philosophy of Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew

Description: To do justice to Shakespeare’s comprehensive moral and political thought this paper seeks to discover what we can learn from the political philosophy of his largely neglected comedy, Taming of the Shrew. Not only does this endeavor provide a valuable forgotten link within the critical analyses of the theorists, but it also corrects the various misinterpretations of the play among contemporary critics. I argue that the play surveys various key themes that are rooted in classical political philos… more
Date: August 2011
Creator: Murphy, Stephanie Miranda
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
open access

The Threats to Compliance with International Human Rights Law

Description: In this project I investigate the factors shaping compliance with international human rights agreements and I provide a definition of compliance, which goes beyond “ratification.” I argue that compliance is a multistage process, built upon three different steps: ratification/accession, implementation, and what I call “compliant behavior.” As an alternative to the dominant structural and normative explanation of compliance, I suggest that the factors affecting compliance are not only endogenous … more
Date: December 2011
Creator: Aloisi, Rosa
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
open access

Electoral System Effects On Anti-muslim Sentiments In Western Europe

Description: The purpose of this thesis is to answer the question, why is there a variation in anti-Muslim sentiments across Western Europe? There is existing literature on individual and country-level variable s to explain why prejudice exists, but this research examines the impact of political institutions on anti-Muslim sentiments. Based on new institutionalism theory, electoral systems can shape public attitudes by providing far-right parties a platform to put their concerns on the agenda, and these par… more
Date: December 2011
Creator: Saleemi, Asmara
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
open access

Europeanization and the Rise of Extremist Parties

Description: The research question addressed by this study is: what is the relationship between Europeanization and the rise of extremist parties? In particular I examine the impact of Europeanization on the rise of extreme right parties in Europe from 1984 to 2006. Europeanization in this paper is defined as a process whereby the transformation of governance at the European level and European integration as a whole has caused distinctive changes in domestic politics. This process of Europeanization is one … more
Date: December 2011
Creator: Dague, Jennifer Lee
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
open access

Repression, Civic Engagement, Internet Use, and Dissident Collective Action: the Interaction Between Motives and Resources

Description: This dissertation investigates three questions: First, what conditions make dissident collective action such as protest, revolt, rebellion, or civil war more likely to happen in a country? Second, what conditions make citizens more likely to join in dissident collective action? Third, does Internet use play a role in dissident collective action, and if so, why? I argue that motives and resources are necessary rather than sufficient conditions for dissident collective action. I develop an analyt… more
Date: May 2012
Creator: Wu, Jun-deh
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
open access

The Organic-Progressive Principle in the Political Thought and Internationalism of Woodrow Wilson

Description: This is an investigation of the intellectual roots of the political thought and internationalism of Woodrow Wilson, the twenty-eightieth president of the United States. Exposed to the influence of Darwin, Wilson believed that politics had to be redefined as an evolutionary process. the older mechanical understanding of politics was to be replaced with an organic understanding of political development. This allowed Wilson to synthesize a concept of politics that included elements from the Chr… more
Date: December 2011
Creator: Flanagan, John Patrick
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
open access

Newspaper Ownership Structure and the Quality of Local Political News Coverage

Description: This research sought to ascertain how newspaper ownership structures influence the quality of local political news coverage. More specifically, do independently owned newspapers tend to produce larger quantities of quality local political reporting than do corporately owned and publicly traded newspapers? In the thesis, I develop an understanding of "quality" news coverage as being coverage that is thematic, or providing interpretive analysis and supplying contextual information. Additionally,… more
Date: May 2012
Creator: Clark, Karla Christine Marie
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
open access

The Political Determinants of Fdi Location in Prchina, 1997-2009: Application of a New Model to Taiwanese Fdi in Mainland China

Description: This research seeks to identify the political determinants that account for the uneven geographical distribution of foreign direct investment (FDI) across Chinese counties. I compare the political determinants of Taiwanese FDI (TDI) and non-Taiwanese FDI site selection across counties in China. I focus on the central-local politics in China, especially the effect of county government autonomy on FDI and TDI site selection. I investigate whether the effect of county government autonomy and i… more
Date: August 2012
Creator: Lu, Kelan
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
open access

Explanation for the Variation of Women’s Rights Among Moderate Muslim Countries

Description: Due to the actions of radicals and extremists, many in the West have come to view Islam as a religion of gender inequality that perpetuates the severe oppression of women. However, there is actually great variation in women’s rights across Muslim countries. This thesis presents a theoretical framework seeking to explain this variation, by examining differences in family law. The theory supposes that variation can be explained by the strategic actions of political leaders. From this theory, I hy… more
Date: May 2012
Creator: Sortor, Angela E.
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
open access

Federalism and Civil Conflict: the Missing Link?

Description: This thesis investigates federalism and civil conflict. Past work linking federalism and civil conflict has investigated the factors that pacify or aggravate conflict, but most such studies have examined the effect of decentralization on conflict onset, as opposed to the form federalism takes (such as congruent vs incongruent forms, for example). I collect data on civil conflict, the institutional characteristics of federalist states and fiscal decentralization. My theoretical expectations are … more
Date: August 2012
Creator: Lancaster, Ross
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
open access

No Greater Error: Negotiated Agreements and Their Effects on the Conclusion of Interstate War

Description: Negotiated settlements, formal treaties to unilateral cease-fires, are often accepted to be the preferable method to end war. When negotiated agreements are used in the normal business of international politics they can be potentially helpful devices; however, when they are relied upon for a nation's security or war prevention and conclusion they can prove disastrous. It is the presence of force variables, and not the formality of an agreement which effectively concludes a war. I recategorize … more
Date: December 2012
Creator: Kendall, David F.
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
open access

Endogenous Information and Inter-state War Expansion

Description: Scholars have long debated the causes of late third party state joining in ongoing inter-state wars. This research has generally concluding that peace-time conditions, measured in terms of: third party capabilities; proximity to warring states; and inter-state alliances, are determining factors in the decision to join. However, these studies utilize theories derived from static pre-war measures of capabilities and motivation to explain late joining; indeed, the same measures that fail to predi… more
Date: December 2012
Creator: Liebel, Steven R.
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
open access

Minority Hiv Rates, Inequality, and the Politics of Aids Funding

Description: Since the 1990s, the HIV/AIDS epidemic has increasingly impacted minority groups in the United States, particularly African Americans. Why is this happening? Comparative studies of developing nations have convincingly established a relationship between concentrated poverty, ethnic boundaries, and lack of effective governmental response as contributing to high levels of infection in those countries. To date, however, no study has sought to apply these insights to the American context. This disse… more
Date: August 2012
Creator: Miles, Thomas
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
open access

Does Euroscepticism Matter? the Effect of Public Opinion on Integration

Description: This dissertation seeks to test the proposition that public opinion is a driving force in integration, and thus examines the effect of euroscepticism on EU integration. Utilizing an understanding of integration as the process of European states achieving similar legal, social, cultural, political and economic policy outcomes while ceding greater policy power to European institutions, the relationship between aggregate level euroscepticism in EU member states (the United Kingdom, Germany, Irela… more
Date: December 2012
Creator: Williams, Christopher J.
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
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