Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

The "Europeanization" Of The Western Balkans; Is European Conditionality Fostering Democracy?, George Kostakis

Dissertations and Theses

"This thesis analyzes the current model of European Union conditionality toward the Western Balkans, which based on a dual approach through the Stabilization and Association Process (SAP). Through SAP, the European Union (EU) is trying to stabilize the Western Balkans, while at the same time associating them with EU policies and supporting them in taking over the EU acquis. My hypothesis is that in order to promote democracy and the rule of law, the EU's policy of stabilizing and integrating should be reformed to better strengthen and clarify conditionality. In order to test my hypothesis, I focused on the three …

Does Democratic Peace Theory Apply To Small Powers? A Case Study Of Turkey And Israel, Robert Lattin

Dissertations and Theses

This thesis hypothesizes that shared democratic values and institutional constraints, proposed as explanations by Democratic Peace Theory (DPT), should in theory prevent small powers from engaging in physical conflict. However, because these democracies are small and developing, these constraints may not influence outcomes in the same way as they do in larger and more developed powers. To test this hypothesis, a dyadic case study was conducted of the relationship between Turkey and Israel. Specific focus was given to two related events, both of which could have resulted in a physical conflict between the two countries: the May 2010 Flotilla incident …

Female Leaders And Women's Empowerment; 3 Case Studies, Nicole Dimarco

Dissertations and Theses

"The issue of women’s empowerment and gender equality is a global issue and one that, in many parts of the world, is in dire need of attention. It is for this reason I have decided to examine whether women in positions of power facilitate the enactment of gender-oriented measures or whether they continue to focus on the traditional national security interests, or interests of another kind, of their countries. My hypothesis is that women in power are not significantly more likely than men to pursue gender-specific policies while in office. Instead, much depends on environmental factors and individual personality. Sometimes …

National Sovereignty V Regionalism; Toward A Common Fisheries Policy For Caricom, Andrea Chambers

Dissertations and Theses

The hypothesis which guides this thesis is that successful integration cannot be achieved so long as member states of a regional grouping are unwilling to subordinate the individual interest to the collective interest. The Caribbean Community (CARICOM) – which is the second oldest regional institution in the Western Hemisphere – is the central focus of the work. In order to assess this hypothesis, the study first discusses the relevant integration literature, and then addresses the issue of individual vs. collective interests in CARICOM overall. Next it examines the specific functional area of fisheries which effectively illustrates the complexity of this …

Iran; A Nuclear Super Power? Understanding Nuclear Ambitions, Lindsey Sera

Dissertations and Theses

"Iran is a nation in flux, with a history of political strife and revolution. The everchanging political atmosphere in the nation has made Iran an unpredictable political actor. It is a nation coping with a new governing system, just a few decades out from a revolution from the reign of the Shah of Iran. The fall of reformism has left the nation politically isolated from the international community. Iran is a nation on the brink of nuclear weapon capabilities and with strained relations there is little comfort in sight for an amicable solution. The conservatives of today's Iran seek independence …

The Rising Threat Of Food Security; A Keynesian Solution To A Global Problem, Auour Heoinsdottir

Dissertations and Theses

"Is food security a threat to Global security? Recent history suggests so. After all, since 1947 the international community has struggled to implement agreements on agriculture in the name of preserving peace. Most recently, in the last of the Doha Development Round negotiations, efforts have been made to enhance food security (with measures such as equal access to resources, trade liberation, and the removal of tariffs for developing countries). In my thesis I will explore both the theory of these policies and their efficacy in practice. More specifically, I will examine the limitations of past policies (such as ""anti-dumping"") aimed …

Minority Rights In Europe; The Roma Population As A Case Study, Michael Brooks

Dissertations and Theses

"This thesis undertakes an in-depth analysis of the minority rights of Roma populations living within the European Union. The Roma people face economic, social and political discrimination that permeates both government institutions and society in general and has prevented this minority group from integrating into the workings of society. This issue is important because the Roma lack a positive identity both of themselves and from other groups, which deprives the state of an important source of productivity. This is due in part from their own actions based on chosen isolation to some degree, and also because some Roma have become …

Unveiling The Headscarf Debate; A Study Of Multiculturalism, Zaineb Malick

Dissertations and Theses

"Thanks to the deepening of globalization, we live in an increasingly diverse world. International migratory patterns bring people of different, often less familiar, cultures to other parts of the world, including the West. For some, assimilation into a dominant culture and broader national identity seems appropriate; for others who want to preserve their unique identity, there is a struggle in accommodating to the new norms and behaviors of their host country. This paper attempts to survey the challenges of multiculturalism; more specifically, it reviews the difficulty in integrating non-western norms into western culture. As I will discuss in greater detail, …

Psychosis In Films: An Analysis Of Stigma And The Portrayal In Feature Films, Yancy Aracena

Dissertations and Theses

Films have a major impact on popular beliefs in American society. The images and ideas in movies are absorbed without difficulties into the popular imagination. This effect can leave long-lasting impressions. Movies can inspire people to raise awareness of various issues such as mental illness but can lead to inaccurate assumptions and stigma. In this thesis, I write about the media and its portrayal mental illness and especially how mental illness can be cast in a negative light with little positive effects. I viewed films with depictions of mental illness and developed four categories for analysis: 1) ―The thin line …

Triangular Diplomacy And The End Of The Vietnam War; Forcible Diplomacy And Feeble Bombings, Christian Fauerbach

Dissertations and Theses

No abstract provided.

Immortalizing The Spirit Of The Colonizer, Maximiliano Lombardi

Dissertations and Theses

"European colonial expansion has institutionalized and simultaneously normalized, at the global level, the supremacy of a class, of an ethno-racial group, of a particular type of state organization, spirituality, an epistemology, a particular kind of institutionalization, a production of knowledge, language, pedagogy, and an economy oriented toward the accumulation of global capital. To understand these processes we cannot separate them from each other. In fact, even the word ""capitalism"" is misleading because it leads us to think of an economic system, when in reality it is a hegemonic system that transcends economic relations and includes race, sex, gender, spiritual, linguistic, …

An Endless Array Of Options; How The Internet Is Revolutionizing The Ways We Meet And Mate, Maria Montesano

Dissertations and Theses

Marriage rates are at a record low in the United States and there are currently more single people searching for partners than there have ever been at any point in our history. The Internet has revolutionized many aspects of our lives and it is increasingly playing a role in the formation of relationships. Much the way one looks for work online; shops for clothes, stays in contact with friends, or gathers information - one may now search online for a suitable romantic partner. Using a qualitative approach, this study seeks to explore the experiences of online dating site users through …

The Security & Development Nexus, Manizha Sayar

Dissertations and Theses

In the 21st century the need for conflict and post-conflict reconstruction efforts have increased since a number of conflicts in Asia, Africa and Eastern Europe necessitated the building of newly-democratized states while aiming to achieve security and promoting development. The difficulties that arise when helping to reconstruct states that have failed or those approaching a “failed state” status is that they are neither stable nor have a secure environment which prevent the opportunity for economic development, despite reconstruction efforts. These are the most difficult of situations due to the interconnectedness and direct correlation of the two significant criterions for established …

Get In The Game: Developing An Information Literacy Classroom Game, Maura A. Smale

Publications and Research

Much current research in the field of games-based learning demonstrates that games can be successfully incorporated into educational contexts to increase student engage-ment, motivation, and learning. Academic librarians are also using games as an innova-tive instructional strategy to strengthen students’ research skills and their understanding of information literacy concepts. This article discusses the development and implemen-tation of Quality Counts, a classroom information literacy game designed to teach un-dergraduate students how to evaluate Internet sources. After a brief overview of the game’s development and rules, the article describes the process of playing Quality Counts in several classes and presents the results …

Reflections And The Narrative Turn In Social Work, Benjamin C. Shepard

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Siue Students Visit Joplin One Year Later, Aldemaro Romero Jr.

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

More Than Just A Drop In The Bucket: Black Instructional Librarians Teaching For Academic Success, Lisa A. Ellis

Publications and Research

As American society is changing due to new technologies and globalization, institutions of higher education have had to implement new teaching and learning practices to address student success, especially among Black students. Working collaboratively with college administrators and faculty, instructional librarians are in a unique position to participate in a variety of instructional programs to teach information, communication and technology (ICT) literacy. For Black Instructional Librarians working with underserved college students, many who are Black, they understand the importance in helping these students to develop a high level of ICT literacy skills, not only to attain academic success, but also …

When And How Many: The Effects Of Third Party Joining On Casualties And Duration In Interstate Wars, Zachary Shirkey

Publications and Research

What makes some wars longer and more severe than others is an important question in international relations scholarship. One underexplored answer to this question is the role that third party joiners play in lengthening conflicts, especially those states that intervene militarily after a war’s initial stages. This article argues that late joining complicates bargaining by adding new issues to the war and increases uncertainty about the relative balance of forces. Thus, more information will be needed to resolve the bargaining impasse. This means additional fighting and a longer war. This lengthening in turn increases the number of casualties. This is …

Facebook: Shifting Privacy, Identity, And Power Online, Rachel Verni

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Due to staggering technological shifts in recent decades, the Internet has become a routine fixture in everyday life. The popularity of social networking sites, in particular, raises myriad questions regarding identity construction and social interaction. It is also unclear how these practices are related to perceptions of privacy. This dissertation examines how traditional notions of privacy compare, and apply, to privacy on the Internet and considers how issues of power are (re)created in online spaces. By focusing on identity enactment strategies and social connectivity practices, this work sheds light on the ways in which individuals define privacy and choose to …

Full Circle, John A. Drobnicki

Publications and Research

The author looks back on twenty-five years of working in libraries, and reflects on how some duties have not changed.

Phenomenological Theories Of Crime, Peter K. Manning, Michael W. Raphael

Graduate Student Publications and Research

The distinctive aspect of phenomenological theories of crime is that they are based upon a stated epistemology: how things are known and a specific ontology—the nature of social reality. This specificity aligns itself with neo-Kantian concern with forms of knowing, interpretation, and meaning, as well as with 20th-century concern with perception, cognition, and the framing of events. While there are influences of phenomenological thinking on varieties of theorizing, such as symbolic interactionism, critical theory, queer theory, and gender-based theories of crime, these ideas are refractions and are inconsistent in their reference to and understanding of the foundational phenomenological works. A …

Whose Budget? Our Budget? Broadening Political Stakeholdership Via Participatory Budgeting, Celina Su

Publications and Research

In this thought piece, I attempt to contextualize New York City’s inaugural participatory budgeting (PB) process in the larger landscape of American political participation. I discuss how the bottom-up way in which stakeholders wrote the process’s rules in the first place, alongside the core role played by the two lead organizations, helped to broaden notions of stakeholdership among constituents. Ultimately, the first year’s primary achievement regarding political participation was not a specific set of outcomes, but a debut as an unfinished form of governance—one that began to engage traditionally marginalized constituents, to trigger their political imagination, and to prompt them …

Conference Interpreting As Extreme Language Use, Loraine Obler

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Hyphens For Disambiguating Phrases: Effectiveness For Young And Older Adults, Inge Anema, Loraine Obler

Publications and Research

The purpose of this study was to investigate whether hyphens that disambiguate phrasing in ambiguous sentences influence reading rate and reading comprehension for younger and older adults. Moreover, as working memory (WM) has been implicated in age-related changes in sentence comprehension for both auditory and written materials, we asked if it contributed to comprehension of our sentences with hyphenated and non-hyphenated ambiguous noun phrases (NPs), predicting that the hyphens would reduce WM load. Twenty younger (M = 24 years) and 20 older (M = 73 years) adults read sentences with either ambiguous or non-ambiguous NPs that were either hyphenated or …

Essays In Health Economics, Leigh Ann Leung

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Health is defined as an individual's mental or physical condition and being healthy means to be free from illness or injury. Health is relevant to both the supply and demand sides of the national economy. On the demand side, consumers derive satisfaction from being healthy. Consumers purchase goods and services to improve their health but also engage in activities that impair health such as smoking or drinking too much. On the supply side, firms produce health care goods and services to meet the market demand for health care derived from consumers' demand for better health. In addition, health augments labor …

The Creeks, Beaches, And Bay Of The Jamaica Bay Estuary: The Importance Of Place In Cultivating Relationships To Nature, Kristen L. Van Hooreweghe

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

It is often assumed that people living in urban areas lack connections to the natural world and are the source of environmental problems. This assumption, however, is an oversimplification of urban life. Employing an eco-ethnography, with participant observations, qualitative interviews, and an environmental history, this study examines New York City's Jamaica Bay estuary and surrounding neighborhoods to understand how residents cultivate their relationships to nature in a dense urban setting. Many residents near Jamaica Bay have developed a strong connection to place that is rooted in their regular, embodied experiences living, working, playing, and praying on the Jamaica Bay estuary. …

Risky Businesses: A Micro-Level Spatiotemporal Analysis Of Crime, Place, & Business Establishment Type, Christopher R. Herrmann

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Continuing advances in the fields of environmental criminology and geographical information sciences are facilitating place-based research. One of the current trends in environmental criminology is the focus on micro-level `places' including street segments, property lots, and specific kinds of buildings and facilities in understanding crime patterns and the opportunity structure that permits crime. Despite important findings on the concentration of crime in urban areas, there continues to be substantial gaps in our knowledge about micro-level spatiotemporal patterns of crime. These gaps in micro-level environmental criminology research have primarily been a result of the lack of access to data, availability of …

The Prison Fix: Race, Work, And Economic Development In Elmira, New York, Andrea R. Morrell

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Based on more than a year of ethnographic and archival research in Elmira, New York and, to a lesser extent, New York City, this dissertation analyzes the social, economic, and political processes through which Elmira, New York was transformed by the construction of the Southport Correctional Facility in 1988 as a project of economic development during a period of massive expansion of the New York State prison system. It focuses on the unfolding of the project of mass incarceration and its impact on the lives of Elmira's citizens and workers, as well as the men incarcerated in Elmira's prisons and …

Exploring Change In Local Criminal Justice Systems: An Examination Of The Implementation Of The Justice Reinvestment At The Local Level Model In Three U.S. Counties, Suzanne Rebecca Neusteter

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Tough on crime policies in the U.S. began to emerge in the 1970s and steeply escalated through the 1980s and 1990s, prompting massive growth of correctional populations and criminal justice costs. Although many of these policy and legislative reforms were enacted at the federal and state levels, they have trickled down and greatly affected localities across the country. The recent economic downturn has exerted additional pressures on local governments. These factors have prompted the development of a number of planned change strategies designed to curb the escalating growth and related costs in criminal justice systems. One such approach, Justice Reinvestment …

Strengths And Weaknesses Of The U.S.-Based Refugee Resettlement Program: A Survey Of International Rescue Committee Employee Perceptions, Jennifer Mincin

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The International Rescue Committee (IRC) is among nine agencies in the United States that resettles refugees. There are two core national resettlement programs: the State Department's Reception and Placement (R&P and the Health and Human Services' (HHS) Matching Grant (MG). These two programs largely have been designed to accomplish refugee self-sufficiency by way of early employment programming and services. Resettlement agencies, such as the IRC, are now beginning to initiate other program areas aside from early employment such as health and wellness, children and youth, and other concepts of financial literacy and economic empowerment.

This staff self-sufficiency study surveyed IRC …