UNT Libraries - 346 Matching Results

Search Results

prev Results: 41 - 64 next
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
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
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.
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
open access

Naming and Shaming Non-State Organizations, Coercive State Capacity, and Its Effects on Human Rights Violations

Description: Scholars generally assume that states are shamed for their own behavior, but they can also be shamed for the lack of investigation for violence perpetrated by domestic non-state actors. I engage this previously-unstudied phenomenon and develop a theory to explain how states will respond to being shamed for failing to control domestic violence. I examine two types of outcomes: the governments' change in behavior, and the accountability efforts against state agents that have abused human rights. … more
Date: August 2018
Creator: Martinez, Melissa
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
open access

Drug-Related Violence and Party Behavior: The Case of Candidate Selection in Mexico

Description: This dissertation examines how parties respond and adapt their behavior to political violence. Building a theoretical argument about strategic party behavior and party capture, I address the following questions: How do parties select and recruit their candidates in regions with high levels of violence and the pervasive presence of VNAs? Do parties respond to violence by selecting certain types of candidates who are more capable of fighting these organizations? Do parties react differently at di… more
Date: August 2018
Creator: Pulido Gomez, Amalia
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
open access

Rivers, Mountains, and Everything in Between: How Terrain Affects Interstate Territorial Disputes

Description: Geography has been a central element in shaping conflict through the ages, and is especially important in determining which states fight, why they fight, when they fight, and more importantly, where they fight. Despite this, conflict literature has primarily focused on human geography while largely ignoring the geospatial context of ‘where' conflict occurs, or crucially, doesn't occur. Territorial disputes are highly salient issues that quite often result in militarized disputes. Terrain has… more
Date: May 2018
Creator: Burggren, Tyler Matthew Goodman
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
open access

Rentier States and Conflict: New Concepts, Different Perspectives

Description: Since the 1970s, a curious phenomenon has emerged, suggesting that resource rich countries are "cursed" by their resources. Over the last couple of decades, researchers have argued that rentier countries are more likely to have educational underachievement, the Dutch disease, corruption, slower democratization, and conflict. Although current research has proven helpful and productive, some aspects still remain contested in both theoretical and empirical terms. This dissertation aims to fill cer… more
Date: May 2018
Creator: Ozsut, Melda
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
open access

Animal Rights and Human Responsibilities: Towards a Relational Capabilities Approach in Animal Ethics

Description: In this thesis, I analyze some of the most important contributions concerning the inclusion of animals in the moral and political sphere. Moving from these positions, I suggest that a meaningful consideration of animals' sentience demands a profound, radical political theory which considers animals as moral patients endowed with specific capabilities whose actualization needs to be allowed and/or promoted. Such theory would take human-animal different types of relationships into account to deci… more
Date: May 2018
Creator: Guerini, Elena
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
open access

To Intervene or Not to Intervene: How State Capacity Affects State Intervention and Communal Violence

Description: How does state capacity affect the state's ability to intervene in events of communal violence? Communal violence is conflict that occurs between two non-state groups that share a communal identity. The state controls the monopoly on the use of force, so it should be expected that the state will control these violent events. Research on intervention has shown that a state's military is an important indication of their ability to intervene. The study of other elements of state capacity such as t… more
Date: May 2018
Creator: Wilson, Alexander C.
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
open access

When Race Matters: The Influence of Race on Case Clearances in Capital vs. Non-Capital Homicides in Texas

Description: Texas leads the nation in the number of executions carried out since capital punishment was reinstated in 1976. Race was a key factor in the 1972 moratorium, and though the Supreme Court allowed for its return under new statutes, race continues to plague the capital punishment legal system. In this study, I examine the influence of race on case clearances in capital and non-capital homicides in Texas, using the extra-legal and non-discretionary theories from existing clearance literature. I fin… more
Date: December 2017
Creator: Samaniego, Rebekah
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
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
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
open access

Territorial Issue Salience: Escalation, Resources, and Ethnicity

Description: Conflict over territory is a major concern to scholars and policymakers, and much of conflict over territory is driven by the issues that make territory more or less attractive, or salient, to states. I examine the impact that tangible and intangible issue salience has on territorial claims, and in particular, how it drives both conflict and conflict escalation. I argue that intangible issues, such as ethnic or religious kin, plays a greater role in driving more severe forms of armed conflict a… more
Date: August 2017
Creator: Macaulay, Christopher Cody
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
open access

Elections and Authoritarian Rule: Causes and Consequences of Adoption of Grassroots Elections in China

Description: This dissertation investigates the relationship between elections and authoritarian rule with a focus on the case of China's adoption of elections at the grassroots level. In this dissertation, I look at the incentives facing Chinese local governments in choosing between holding competitive elections or state-controlled elections, and how the selection of electoral rules shapes the public's preferences over political institutions and influences the citizens' political behaviors, especially voti… more
Date: August 2017
Creator: Tzeng, Wei Feng
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
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
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
open access

Crossing Over: Essays on Ethnic Parties, Electoral Politics, and Ethnic Social Conflict

Description: This dissertation analyzes several topics related to political life in ethnically divided societies. In chapter 2, I study the relationship between ethnic social conflict, such as protests, riots, and armed inter-ethnic violence, and bloc partisan identification. I find that protests have no effect on bloc support for political parties, riots increase bloc partisan identification, and that armed violence reduces this phenomenon. In chapter 3, I analyze the factors that influence the targeting o… more
Date: August 2017
Creator: Stewart, Brandon
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
open access

Protests in China: Why and Which Chinese People Go to the Street?

Description: This research seeks to answer why and which Chinese people go to the street to protest. I argue that different sectors of Chinese society differ from each other regarding their tendencies to participate in protest. In addition to their grievances, the incentives to participate in protest and their capacities to overcome the collective action problem all needed to be taken into account. Using individual level data along with ordinary binary logistic regression and multilevel logistic regression … more
Date: May 2017
Creator: Chen, Yen-Hsin
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
open access

The Relationship between Judicial Independence and Ethnic Conflict

Description: The relationship between judicial independence and the levels of ethnic conflicts in developing countries has remained a significant research area due to increased cases of the conflicts with lack of judicial independence in the countries. Judicial independence is seen as an essential element of democracy in that an independent judiciary can act as an arbiter between different groups and institutions. The main aim of this study was to examine the relationship between judicial independence and … more
Date: May 2017
Creator: Laoye, Oluwagbemiso T.
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
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.
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
open access

The Strength of a Witness: Empowerment and Resiliency in the Aftermath of Atrocity

Description: Victims and witnesses that testify before an international criminal tribunal such as the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) willingly subject themselves to scrutiny and bare their wounds before the world. Does this experience cause these vulnerable individuals undue psychological harm, re-traumatization, or worse? Existing literature indicates this may be the case, however using a new dataset I find the opposite to be true. Witnesses at the ICTY report feeling mor… more
Date: December 2016
Creator: McKay, Melissa
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
open access

Friends of the State Courts: Organized Interests and State Courts of Last Resort

Description: Why do interest groups participate in state courts of last resort by filing amicus curiae briefs? Are they influential when they do? This dissertation examines these questions using an original survey of organized interests that routinely participate in state supreme courts, as well as data on all amicus curiae briefs and majority opinions in over 14,000 cases decided in all fifty-two state supreme courts for a four year period. I argue that interest groups turn to state judiciaries to achiev… more
Date: December 2016
Creator: Perkins, Jared David
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
open access

Trade Negotiations in Agriculture: A Comparative Study of the U.S. and the EC

Description: This study applies Destler's institutional counterweights to Putnam's two-level analysis, substituting Liberal Institutionalism and Realism for internationalism and isolationism, in a comparative case study of the roles played by the U.S. and the EC in multilateral trade negotiations in agriculture under the aegis of the General Agreement for Tariffs and Trade during the first half of the Uruguay Round. Using game theory as an analytical tool in the process, this present study demonstrates that… more
Date: December 1994
Creator: Gordon, H. William (Harold William)
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
open access

International Debt Crisis: Interaction of Economics and Politics

Description: This study attempts to examine the international debt crisis in the 1980s from a primarily political perspective, to permit a greater understanding of the interaction between economics and politics in the course of crisis management The process of dealing with the current international debt crisis provides an pat case for investigation of how economic concerns affect political outcomes, and how political factors influence economic outcomes, and how political factors influence economic policies.… more
Date: August 1987
Creator: Lu, Tailai
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
open access

The Journalist as Legislator

Description: The focus of the study is the way which members of the press corps in the Texas Capitol influence policy-making through their friendships with legislators and through the news stories which they write. Methods of study included questionnaires to reporters and to legislators, interviews with members of both groups, and review of news stories written about the regular session of the 64th Texas Legislature. Respondents reported that journalists were used as "expert consultants" in legislative stra… more
Date: December 1975
Creator: Linn, Travis
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
Back to Top of Screen