39 Matching Results

Search Results

Results: 1 - 24 next
open access

Resource Evaluation and Presidential Decision-making: Predicting the Use of Force by U.S. Presidents, 1976 - 1988

Description: In order to explain presidential decisions to use force, a model is developed that incorporates three distinct decision-making environments. The results indicate the president is responsive not only to domestic and international environments, but also to the resource evaluation environment. The evidence here demonstrates that while these two environments are important the president can't use force arbitrarily; rather, his evaluation of resources available for the use of force can limit his abil… more
Date: May 1997
Creator: Waterman, Peter A. (Peter Alan)
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

U.S. Foreign Assistance and Democracy in Central America: Quantitative Evaluation of U.S. Policy, 1946 Through 1994

Description: U.S. policymakers consistently argue that U.S. security depends on hemispheric democracy. As an instrument of U.S. policy, did foreign assistance promote democracy in Central America, 1946 through 1994? Finding that U.S. foreign assistance directly promoted neither GDP nor democracy in Central America, 1946 through 1994, I conclude that U.S. policy failed consistently in this specific regard.
Date: August 1996
Creator: Lohse, Stephen Alan
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
Partner: UNT Libraries
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
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Ethnic Groups and Institutions: Can Autonomy and Party Bans Reduce Ethnic Conflict?

Description: Can institutions successfully reduce ethnic conflict? Institutions such as autonomy and federalism are often advocated as a means to prevent ethnic conflict, however empirical evidence is largely mixed with regards to their effectiveness. In a similar manner, political parties have begun to receive more scholarly attention in determining their relationship with ethnic conflict, but their evidence is also mixed. In this research I examine autonomy, federalism, and the banning of political partie… more
Date: August 2020
Creator: Holloway, Troy
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

School of the Americas Graduates and the Possible Increase of Sexual Violence in South America

Description: The School of the Americas (SOA), currently known as the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHINSEC), is a Latin American training program run by the U.S. army since 1946. While the U.S. claimed they were training young men to serve as security personnel for South America, the trainees were often violent, acting more like CIA-trained terrorists, killing innocent people and serving as leaders in some of the worst South American dictatorial regimes. Most of these regimes heavi… more
Date: August 2022
Creator: Hicks, Allison A.
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

The Subjective Economy and Political Support: The Case of the British Labour Party

Description: During the past two decades, extensive research efforts have focused on the conventional wisdom that the economy has a direct influence on a party's destiny. This hypothesis rests on the implicit assumption that the linkages between macroeconomic variables such as inflation and unemployment and party support are direct and unmediated. As the present study indicates, however, objective economic measures only serve as a proxy for the invisible force that drives voters' party support. Once the rel… more
Date: December 1992
Creator: Ho, Karl Ka-yiu
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
Partner: UNT Libraries
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.
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Political Culture in the United States: A Reexamination of Elazar's Subcultures

Description: This thesis discusses the use of Daniel Elazar's theory of political subcultures in the United States. The first chapter is an introduction to the concept of political culture. The second chapter discusses Elazar's theory and method. The third chapter points out the problems in Elazar's theory and his method with a discussion of recent studies. The fourth chapter outlines the present analysis and the method used. The fifth chapter sets out the conclusions and offers avenues of new direction in … more
Date: May 1993
Creator: Jogerst, Meredith Brandes
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Developing Capacity: The IMF's Impact on State Capacity

Description: The purpose of this thesis is to examine the impact of International Monetary Fund (IMF) loans since the adoption of the governance mandate on overall government capability. The study will explore whether the presence of IMF loans in developing countries enhances state capacity. Administrative capacity is of particular importance because it is a requisite for the integration of state and society in the national political arena and encourages joint involvement of government and citizenry in over… more
Date: December 2006
Creator: Harper, Christine
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Judicial Creativity or Justice Being Served? A Look at the Use of Joint Criminal Enterprise in the ICTY Prosecution

Description: The development of joint criminal enterprise at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) has been controversial since the doctrine was first created in 1997. For the judgments rendered by the ICTY to be perceived as legitimate, the doctrines used to bring charges against defendants must also be perceived as legitimate. The purpose of my thesis is to study the application of joint criminal enterprise at the ICTY and examine how the doctrine has influenced the length… more
Date: December 2008
Creator: Williams, Meagan
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Does Natural Resource Wealth Spoil and Corrupt Governments? A New Test of the Resource Curse Thesis

Description: Countries with rich natural resource endowments suffer from lower economic growth and various other ills. This work tests whether the resource curse also extends to the quality of regulation and the level of corruption. A theoretical framework is developed that informs the specification of interactive random effects models. A cross-national panel data set is used to estimate these models. Due to multicollinearity, only an effect of metals and ores exports on corruption can be discerned. Margina… more
Date: August 2004
Creator: Petrovsky, Nicolai
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Does Policy Lead to Progress? An Investigation into the Relationship between Women-Friendly Policies and Women's Descriptive Representation

Description: It is generally accepted among scholars that increases in descriptive representation result in increases in substantive representation. Although women's descriptive representation has increased in recent years, women are still underrepresented in politics. One reason for women's underrepresentation is that female candidates must overcome additional barriers in order to get elected, including on the low number of women in the pipeline to elected office, party gatekeeping, women's lower levels of… more
Date: July 2023
Creator: Lambert, Jessica Rudd
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
Partner: UNT Libraries
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
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Modernization and Political Instability: a Theoretical and Empirical Exploration

Description: The present study is an effort to examine and understand the relationship between modernization and political instability. The following chapters focus on the effects of modernization on political instability. Data on twenty-four African nations are analyzed to test empirically the validity of the hypothesis. Chapter IV concludes the thesis by offering a general summary and conclusions.
Date: December 1986
Creator: Umezulike, Bedford Nwabueze
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Rubber Stamps and Litmus Tests: The President, the Senate, and Judicial Voting Behavior in Abortion Cases in the U.S. Federal District Courts

Description: This thesis focuses on how well indicators of judicial ideology and institutional constraints predict whether a judge will vote to increase abortion access. I develop a model that evaluates a judge's decision in an abortion case in light of ideological factors measured at the time of a judge's nomination to the bench and legal and institutional constraints at the time a judge decides a case. I analyze abortion cases from all of the U.S. Federal District Courts from 1973-2004. Unlike previous st… more
Date: August 2007
Creator: Craig, McKinzie
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

The Issue with Latino Voter Turnout: How Does the Issue of Immigration Affect Latino Voter Turnout?

Description: In this study, I investigate how the issue of immigration affects Latino voter turnout. I hypothesize that U.S. Latino citizens who view immigration as highly important and helpful to the United States will be more likely to turn out to vote in midterm and presidential elections. In addition to a contextual analysis on elections in Arizona and California, I perform a probit regression analysis on survey data from Pew Hispanic's 2004 National Survey of Latinos on Politics and Civic Participati… more
Date: August 2013
Creator: Robert, John M.
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

The Blessed and the Damned: Peacemakers, Warlords, and Post Civil War Democracy

Description: This thesis seeks to explain how democracies emerge out of the ashes of civil wars. This paper envisions transitions to democracy after a civil war largely as a function of the peace process. Democracy is thought of as a medium through which solutions to the problems and issues over which the civil war was fought can be solved without violence. Transitions to democracy are more likely if there is a large bargaining space and the problems of credible commitments to democratization can be solved.… more
Date: August 2007
Creator: Wright, Thorin M.
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

The Impact of the Civics Curriculum on the Political Attitudes and Behavior of R. L. Turner High School Students

Description: The purpose of this study is to analyze the impact of the civics curriculum on the political attitudes and behavior of R. L. Turner High School students. The impact of the civics curriculum is determined by analyzing the ability of the curriculum to achieve some of the most commonly avowed objectives of civic education. If the objectives of the civics curriculum are being attained, the political attitudes and behavior of students who have completed the course should be different from those of s… more
Date: August 1971
Creator: Couch, Stephen L.
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

What Can the Collective Action Problem Tell Us about the Recurrence of Civil War and the Long-term Stability of a Country?

Description: This study attempts to explain why some countries experience multiple civil wars while others who have experienced a civil war build long-term stability from the rubble of conflict. The explanation of why civil war recurs focuses on the collective action problem, centering on the rebel leaders' ability to solve the Rebel's Dilemma. I further argue that once the Rebel's Dilemma has been solved once it is much easier for rebel leaders to solve it again and again. The empirical finds suggest … more
Date: December 2005
Creator: Kohler, Matthew
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Too Important to Democratize: Lessons from the Arab Spring

Description: While the Arab Spring has resulted in numerous different political outcomes across the Arab world, conventional theories of democratization are lacking in explaining these divergent outcomes. Developing a theory of democratization, strategic importance and external intervention, I examine the relationship between national strategic importance and democratization. I argue that strategically important states will be targeted by external actors in attempts to stifle or thwart democracy because dem… more
Date: May 2020
Creator: Lookabaugh, Brian Scott
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
Partner: UNT Libraries
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
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Human Rights and the Strategic Use of US Foreign Food Aid

Description: How does respect for human rights affect the disbursement of food aid by US foreign policymakers? Scholars analyzing foreign aid generally look at only total economic aid, military aid or a combination of both. However, for a more nuanced understanding of human rights as a determinant of foreign aid, the discrete foreign aid programs must be examined. By disentangling component-programs from total aid, this analysis demonstrates how human rights influence policymakers by allowing them to distri… more
Date: December 2007
Creator: Fariss, Christopher J.
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
Partner: UNT Libraries
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
Partner: UNT Libraries
Back to Top of Screen