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Rethinking the Study of Conflict and Peace: Making Causal Inferences in Quantitative Conflict and Peace Research

Description: Most research questions and theory in quantitative peace and conflict research are fundamentally causal. However, a large gap exists in the extant literature between research question and research methodology. Not only does most existing methodology fail to achieve what most quantitative peace scholars attempt, but many researchers do not appear to be aware of these limitations. In this dissertation, I outline five key shortcomings within this literature that, left unaddressed, create results t… more
Date: December 2023
Creator: Lookabaugh Jr., Brian Scott
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
open access

The Politics of F. Scott Fizgerald

Description: F. Scott Fitzgerald is valued for his contribution to literary arts, culture and his discussion of the American Dream. I argue that his discussion of the American Dream was a lens through which he gave readers access to political insights and an education about political philosophy, American politics, virtue, and reasoning. The American Dream, at its greatest, for Fitzgerald is a nation building myth but at its lowest is a dull materialistic construct. Throughout his works Fitzgerald connects p… more
Date: December 2023
Creator: Shiveley, Sara Carson
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation

Promoting Women? Causes and Effects of Gender-Informed Transitional Justice

Description: Quantitative research investigating the causes and subsequent impact of transitional justice practices has further developed thanks to the production of cross-national data on justice practices, namely by the Justice Data Project and the Transitional Justice Research Collaborative. Current work, however, does not consider the role of justice from a feminist perspective. For example, with respect to causes, we know little about whether and how justice processes are gender inclusive, and what the… more
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Date: December 2023
Creator: Roark, Polly DeAnne
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
open access

Partisan Media Coverage of Abortion Policy

Description: Public opinion on salient issues and elite's knowledge of the public are both reliant on framed information, as they often depend on the media as a communication tool. Media tone also influences political behavior by affecting the perceptions that the public has on issues and events. In this study I examine the tone and framing of abortion media coverage by three different media outlets each with a different ideology leaning. I test assumptions made by cascade activation model and the economic … more
Date: December 2022
Creator: Graciano, Jennifer
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation

Third Party Actor Interests, Conflict Management Approaches, and Intrastate Conflict Outcomes

Description: This dissertation examines the role of third parties in civil war mediation and peacekeeping efforts. The dissertation makes two primary contributions to the literature. First, it builds upon existing literature by applying state-level arguments of third party involvement in mediation and peacekeeping efforts to the United Nations Security Council and regional IGOs. Second, it investigates the role of communication and coordination between third parties in their conflict management efforts.
Date: December 2021
Creator: Mintun, Daniel T.
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
open access

This Land is My Land: The Dynamic Relationship between Migration and the Far-Right

Description: This dissertation examines the dynamic intersections of the relationship between migration and the far-right through three empirical, stand-alone chapters. The first substantive chapter re-evaluates existing theories of far-right support using a novel theory and comprehensive dataset to assess how immigration opinion and immigration levels interact to shape individual far-right support. The findings suggest that increases in asylum-based migration are associated with increased far-right voting,… more
Date: December 2020
Creator: Winn, Meredith
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open access

Political Stability in Xenophon's Cyropaedia

Description: While there have been several rich studies that have provided insight into the teachings of Xenophon that emerge from a careful reading of the Cyropaedia, the problem of reconciling the apparent good rule of Cyrus with the ruin of his empire persists. I argue that this problem can be reconciled by focusing on the problem that Xenophon initially informs us he is interested in, political stability.
Date: December 2020
Creator: Zitar, Brandon P
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
open access

Does Gender Representation Matter? Gender, Descriptive and Substantive Representation, and Women-Friendly Districts

Description: This dissertation considers how district-level demographic factors favorable to women congressional candidates facilitate substantive representation of women's interests. I contribute to the existing research by linking the literature on women candidate emergence and electoral success with that on descriptive and substantive representation. Beyond simply asking whether and how women in Congress represent women's interests, I argue that the demographic characteristics of districts in which women… more
Date: December 2020
Creator: Friesenhahn, Amy
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
open access

State Capacity, Security Forces and Terrorist Group Termination

Description: This dissertation examines how different forms of state capacity affect the decision of terror groups to end their campaign. Building a theoretical framework about the relationship between state capacity and terrorist group termination, I address the following research questions: How do terror groups respond to the changes in non-repressive forms of state's capacity, such as bureaucratic capacity, extractive capacity, and how do those responses of terror groups affect the chance of their demise… more
Date: December 2019
Creator: Kirisci, Mustafa
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

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

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
open access

The Gulf Cooperation Council, 1981-1994

Description: The purpose of this study is to analyze the foreign policy outcomes of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) to understand the extent to which a Regional Intergovernmental Organization (RGO) consisting of developing nations is able to promote regional cooperation. Much of the literature on integration and the formation of Intergovernmental Organizations was developed with regard to western nations. These approaches are examined for their contributions to foreign policy behavior analysis and with r… more
Date: December 1997
Creator: Thackwray, Elizabeth C.
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
open access

Montesquieu, Diversity, and the American Constitutional Debate

Description: It has become something of a cliché for contemporary scholars to assert that Madison turned Montesquieu on his head and thereafter give little thought to the Frenchman’s theory that republics must remain limited in territorial size. Madison did indeed present a formidable challenge to Montesquieu’s theory, but I will demonstrate in this dissertation that the authors of the Federalist Papers arrived at the extended sphere by following a theoretical pathway already cemented by the French philosop… more
Date: December 2015
Creator: Drummond, Nicholas W.
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
open access

Foreign Sponsorship and the Development of Rebel Parties

Description: This dissertation examines the emergence, survival, performance, and national impact of rebel parties following negotiated settlements. Building on a growing literature examining the environmental and organizational factors affecting insurgent-to-party transformations, this dissertation asks why some insurgent organizations thrive as political parties in post-conflict environments and others fail to make such a transformation. I propose that foreign actors play a pivotal role in the formation o… more
Date: December 2015
Creator: Marshall, Michael C.
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
open access

Not All Truth Commissions Are Alike: Understanding Their Limitations and Impact

Description: This dissertation project develops a theoretical understanding of how truth commissions achieve legitimacy and thus contribute to peace and stability in the aftermath of major traumatic events (e.g. civil war, mass killings, regime changes). I identify three components of truth commission legitimacy---authority, fairness, and transparency---that facilitate beneficial outcomes for societies emerging from a period of severe human rights repression or civil war. I theorize and test how institution… more
Date: December 2014
Creator: Nichols, Angela D.
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
open access

Why Be Friends? Amicus Curiae Briefs in State Courts of Last Resort

Description: While there has been a substantial body of research on interest group activity in U.S. federal courts, there has been comparatively little analysis of interest group engagement with state courts. Given that state courts adjudicate the vast majority of cases in the American legal system and very few cases are appealed to the Supreme Court, understanding why organized interests participate in these courts is of great importance. The present study analyzes interest group involvement as amicus curi… more
Date: December 2014
Creator: Perkins, Jared D.
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
open access

The First Days of Spring: An Analysis of the International Treatment of Homosexuality

Description: In recent history, the rights of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered (LGBT) persons have been in constant fluctuation. Many states criminalize homosexual behavior while other states legally recognize same-sex marriages and same-sex adoptions. There are also irregular patterns where LGBT interest groups form across the globe. With this research project, I begin to explain why these discrepancies in the treatment of homosexuality and the formation of LGBT interest groups occur. I develop a t… more
Date: December 2013
Creator: Galvan, Michael R.
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
open access

Electoral Rules, Political Parties, and Peace Duration in Post-conflict States

Description: This dissertation examines the following research question: Which types of electoral rules chosen in post-conflict states best promote peace? And are those effects conditional upon other factors? I argue that the effects are conditional upon the types of political parties that exist in the post-conflict environment. Although this explanation is contrary to scholars that speak of political parties as products of the electoral system, political parties often predate the choice of electoral system… more
Date: December 2014
Creator: Kisin, Tatyana Tuba Kelman
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open access

New Wine in Old Wineskins: Hobbes’s Use and Abuse of Religious Rhetoric

Description: Thomas Hobbes’s knowledge of religious doctrine, typology, and use religious rhetoric in his writings is often glossed over in an over-eager attempt to establish his preeminence as a founder of modern political theory and the social contract tradition. Such action, however is an injustice to Hobbes himself, who recognized that in order to establish a new, and arguably radical, political position founded upon reason and nominalist materialism he had to reform people’s understanding of religious … more
Date: December 2014
Creator: Higgins, Nicholas J.
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
open access

Ethnic Similarity and Rivalry Relations

Description: Research on ethnicity and conflict treats the concept of ethnicity as defining the actors in these conflicts, whereas research on the construction and maintenance of ethnic identity explores why ethnicity unifies individuals into a single social group. What happens when this unifying concept is divided between two enemy countries? How does this situation influence peace settlements over territorial issues, armed conflict, and economic relations between these countries? To answer these questions… more
Date: December 2014
Creator: McCallister, Gerald L. Jr.
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
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