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open access

Political Culture in West and East Germany at the TIme of Reunification: Revisiting the Civic Culture

Description: Studies of political culture have often focused on the impact of political institutions on political culture in a society. The scientific community has accepted the position that institutions shape beliefs and attitudes among the citizens towards the system they live in. This study tests this hypothesis by using survey data collected during the fall of 1990 in the United States, Great Britain, Italy, West, and East Germany.
Date: August 1997
Creator: Baumann, Steffen

Democratic Pantheism in the Political Theory of Alexis de Tocqueville

Description: According to Alexis de Tocqueville, humanity is entering a new age of political and social equality, a new epoch in which the human race has no historical example or experience. As a result, he holds humanity's future will be largely determined by the political and moral choices made in this transitional time. For Tocqueville, the new egalitarian era is a forgone conclusion, but for him, the pressing question is whether humanity will choose a future in which it enchains itself to new forms of … more
Access: Restricted to UNT Community Members. Login required if off-campus.
Date: May 2006
Creator: Bearry, Brian Anthony
open access

The Political Leadership Crisis and Violation of Human Rights in the Arab World: A Study of the Rulership of the Arab Countries, 1970-1990

Description: This dissertation analyzes the political leadership crisis and the violations of human rights in the Arab countries during the period 1970 to 1990. The main purposes of this study could be briefly summarized as follows: (1) to explore scientifically whether there is a political leadership crisis in the Arab World; (2) to explore the concept of political leadership, i.e., what constitutes political leadership, what are its necessary requirements, and what differentiates it from dictatorship; and… more
Date: December 1993
Creator: Benruwin, Mohammed (Mohammed A.)
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
open access

Regional Common Market Control of Foreign Direct Investment

Description: This thesis attempts to show that, although it is in the interest of regional common market organizations to regulate foreign direct investment, such regulation will probably be unsuccessful unless the regulations are lenient to business and are not used as instruments of major political goals. The east African Community, the Andean Common Market, and the European Economic Community are examined. Research sources used were United States government publications, documents from the common market… more
Date: May 1979
Creator: Biven, Sharon M.
open access

The Job of City Manager from Two Points of View

Description: The purpose of this study is to define more clearly the task of the city manager by examining the following perceptions of his role: 1) The city manager perceives himself as being an administrator, leaving the political realm to the city council. 2) The city manager is a policy-maker perceiving that his job includes providing objectives and goals for council and community. He uses his knowledge and experience to create an atmosphere within which various alternatives can be presented with full a… more
Date: December 1973
Creator: Blackburn, Audley
open access

Communication Flow, Information Exchange and Their Impact on Human Rights Violations

Description: Although international human rights declarations exist, violations of human rights are still sad but also common facts around the world. But for repressive regimes, it becomes more and more difficult to hide committed human rights violations, since society entered the "Information Revolution." This study argues that the volume of international information exchanged influences a country's human rights record. A pooled cross sectional time series regression model with a lagged endogenous variable… more
Date: May 1996
Creator: Bonn, Georg
open access

The Dallas Morning News' View Towards International Relations

Description: The purpose of this study is to determine, if possible, North Central Texas views or attitudes toward international relations. These attitudes will be compared to studies on Southern attitudes to determine any similarities or dissimilarities. Literature on Southwestern attitudes is sparse; therefore, all data will be compared with that compiled by political scientists on Southern attitudes.
Date: August 1970
Creator: Bradley, James E.
open access

Religious Engagement and Social Capital in the Islamic Context

Description: Social capital research has traditionally been conducted in western and Christian settings as a precursor of changes such as democratization and development. This paper focuses on Islamic religious engagement and its potential to foster social capital. The model presented here is designed to suggest whether the Islam's influence occurs through doctrinal channels, or through Islam's capacity to organize social structures. The analysis conducted is a linear regression model with measures of socia… more
Date: May 2005
Creator: Brigaitis, Peter
open access

The Road to Development is Paved With Good Institutions: The Political and Economic Implications of Financial Markets

Description: This research seeks to identify the factors that account for the variation in development levels across nations by focusing on the institutional components of development, especially the effects of financial market development on economic and political development. I argue that financial market institutions are critical to economic and political development, and provide a partial explanation for the variation in development observed across nations. Financial market development affects politic… more
Date: May 2008
Creator: Brown, Chelsea Denise
open access

The South in Presidential Politics: The End of Democratic Hegemony

Description: The purpose of this paper is to document and quantify the primary reasons for the gradual erosion of southern Democratic hegemony in presidential elections during the last twenty-four years. The results confirm and reinforce the findings of the historical study, which indicates the primary reason for changing southern allegiance has been the changing philosophy of the Democratic Party in the civil rights field.
Date: August 1973
Creator: Buchholz, Michael O.
open access

The Czech Republic's Transition: The Environment and Human Rights

Description: This exploratory case study considers the Czech Republic from 1993 thru 2002 by examining two links: first, between transition and the environment.; second, between the environment and human rights. The study examines data from the Czech Ministry of Environment, the European Union, the World Bank, and Freedom House. The purpose of this study is to better understand the Czech Republic and to generate hypotheses that might be used in future cross-national studies. Chapter III provides the underly… more
Date: May 2003
Creator: Buck, Ryan D.
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

The Undue Burden Standard: The Effects of Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992) on State Abortion Laws

Description: This thesis examines the effects of the change from strict scrutiny to the undue burden standard in Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992). A history of abortion in the United States and the various ways in which government regulates it is explored. Particular attention is focused on the role of the federal judiciary in abortion regulation. Theories of judicial decision making are discussed as means to understand the outcome of cases. Several models are tested to determine which, if any, model exp… more
Access: Restricted to UNT Community Members. Login required if off-campus.
Date: August 2006
Creator: Burlage, G. Rachel
open access

Politics and the American clergy: Sincere shepherds or strategic saints?

Description: Scholars have evaluated the causes of clergy political preferences and behavior for decades. As with party ID in the study of mass behavior, personal ideological preferences have been the relevant clergy literature's dominant behavioral predictor. Yet to the extent that clergy operate in bounded and specialized institutions, it is possible that much of the clergy political puzzle can be more effectively solved by recognizing these elites as institutionally-situated actors, with their preference… more
Date: August 2007
Creator: Calfano, Brian Robert
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.
open access

Suicide Terrorism: A Future Trend?

Description: This thesis reviews the literature on “new terrorism,” to be differentiated from the “old terrorism.” The study tests two hypotheses. First, has an increase in religiously inspired terrorist groups led to an increase in terrorism's lethality? Second, does suicide bombing as a tactic explain the increased lethality of “new terrorism”? The study demonstrates three findings. First, it was found that religiously inspired terrorist groups are more lethal, though not more indiscriminate. Second, th… more
Date: August 2002
Creator: Capell, Matthew B.
open access

A Political and Macroeconomic Explanation of Public Support for European Integration

Description: This study develops a model of macroeconomic and political determinants of public support for European integration. The research is conducted on pooled cross-sectional time-series data from five European Union member states between 1978 and 1994. The method used in this analysis is a Generalized Least Squares - Autoregressive Moving Average approach. The factors hypothesized to determine a macroeconomic explanation of public support for integration are inflation, unemployment, and economic grow… more
Date: August 1997
Creator: Carey, Sean D. (Sean Damien)
open access

The Senate Apprenticeship Norm: A Longitudinal and Multivariate Investigation

Description: This study has as its central focus an investigation into the existence and nature of the apprenticeship norm in the United States Senate. Over its history, the Senate has been frequently portrayed as a body guided by rather restrictive, informal rules of behavior for its members. The apprenticeship norm has been identified by some as the most important of these rules; contributing to the Senate's centralized and conservative policy orientation. More recently, however, it has been argued that t… more
Date: December 1983
Creator: Carter, James L. (James Lee), 1937-
open access

Foucault's Foundationless Democratic Theory

Description: I examine a key shift in Michel Foucault's political philosophy from a position in which he was a staunch anti-humanist, to a final position in which he advocated not only the ability of the subject to influence his political condition, but also the individual freedoms assured by a democratic form of government. I begin by summarizing his overall critique of the post-Enlightenment West, and then explain how his observation of the Iranian Revolution served as a key turning point concerning his a… more
Date: December 2006
Creator: Carter, Kelly A.
open access

State Level Causes of Terrorism: Limits on Political Expression

Description: Expanding on prior research into the state level causes of terrorism, I argue that state repression and limited state capacity reduces opportunities for non-violent political expression and increases the utility of terrorism. I also argue that economic freedom can is a form of political expression that can dissipate political grievances. While previous authors analyzed some of these variables separately using data on transnational attacks, I created a complete model incorporating the three cat… more
Date: December 2009
Creator: Case, Erik S.
open access

Unexpected Unexpected Utilities: A Comparative Case-Study Analysis of Women and Revolutions

Description: Women have been part of modern revolutions since the American Revolution against Great Britain. Most descriptions and analyses of revolution relegate women to a supporting role, or make no mention of women's involvement at all. This work differs from prior efforts in that it will explore one possible explanation for the successes of three revolutions based upon the levels of women's support for those revolutions. An analysis of the three cases (Ireland, Russia, and Nicaragua) suggests a series… more
Date: December 2000
Creator: Casey, Walter Thomas
open access

Factors Affecting the Efficient Performance of the Thai State Railway Authority: a Time-Series Data Analysis

Description: The Thai State Railway Authority (RSR) is a public enterprise in Thailand. As an organization its performance is subject to the argument of contingency theorists that operating efficiency is dependent upon various factors both in the internal and external environments of the enterprise. Most of the internal factors are those that organization theorists in the developed world have identified such as goals and objectives, resources, and organization structures. Meanwhile, external factors such as… more
Date: August 1988
Creator: Chalermpol Waitayangkoon
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