Browsing Department of Government Theses and Dissertations by Title
Now showing items 117-136 of 232
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Liberal theology in the age of equality : Tocqueville and the Enlightenment on faith, freedom, and the human soul
(2010-12)The increasing importance of religious and moral issues in American politics makes salient once again the question of the relationship between religion and democracy. The United States is in the midst of a debate pitting ... -
Local-national relations and the politics of property rights in Algeria and Tunisia
(2011-05)Most models of property rights assume they are supplied by the state on demand from society. Property rights are strong when state institutions enforce the law. The strength of state institutions in the provinces determines ... -
Making markets work in rural China : the transformation of local networks in a Chinese town, 1979-1999
(2001-08)Personal networks (guanxi) have been central to Chinese business organizations. But how do these networks change in China’s economic transition? Based on the data collected in a small town (Beiyuan zhen) in north China, ... -
The making of moderates : U.S. relations with Islamist movements in Morocco and Egypt
(2010-05)The academic literature on Islamist moderation offers several explanations for why some Islamist political movements are moderate and others radical. These theories focus on the movements' ideology, tactics, and internal ... -
Measuring Head Start across states
(2011-05)This paper examines various ways Head Start has been measured across states. The contribution to the literature is to look at new variables, the role they play, and the contribution they make to measuring the effectiveness ... -
The military pension promise : autonomous policy subsystems, blue ribbon defense commissions, and the twenty-first century all-volunteer force
(2015-05)Drawing from previous scholarship, contemporary policy debates, historical records, and 53 interviews with policymaking elites, this dissertation project takes a qualitative, field-based approach to expose the internal ... -
A model of anti-modernism : an introduction to Nietzsche’s rationalistic rejection of liberal democracy
(2010-12)The thought of Friedrich Nietzsche is often taught, but seldom sufficiently understood, and thus what ought to be most challenging to us about Nietzsche – that is, the rationalistic basis of his rejection of liberal democracy ... -
Modern virtue, the pursuit of liberty, and the work of self-government in The spirit of the laws
(2010-12)In The Spirit of the Laws, Montesquieu distinguishes between governing regimes and positive law based on principles that emerge from relationships within the actual world and laws based on prejudices or ignorance which ... -
Mortal gods and eternal laws : Thomas Hobbes and the natural law Tradition
(2010-12)Thomas Hobbes is a major thinker in the tradition of natural law theorizing, but there is much debate over where he breaks with the tradition preceding him. In this study, we argue Thomas Hobbes is best understood as a ... -
A movement of one's own?: American social movements and constitutional development in the twentieth century
(2007)This dissertation examines the interaction between American social movements as they pursue their constitutional rights. The public law literature is dominated by a topdown approach to the study of constitutional politics, ... -
The myth of political participation among Asian Americans
(2012-05)Although Asian Americans have the highest growth rate, their electoral participation does not commensurate with their numerical strength. This research explores the causes of Asian Americans' low level of electoral ... -
Natural right or history? The Lincoln-Douglas debates and the moral foundations of liberalism
(2015-12)This paper re-examines the Lincoln-Douglas debates through a comparison of two works on the subject: Harry Jaffa’s Crisis of the House Divided and John Burt’s Lincoln’s Tragic Pragmatism: Lincoln, Douglas and Moral Conflict. ... -
Negotiating with terrorists in the shadow of American power
(2015-05)Negotiation with terrorists is a controversial policy issue that effects both domestic actors and the international community. Current literature only focuses on the domestic characteristics of this phenomenon though. This ... -
No taxation with information on representation : a survey experiment on tax morale in China
(2016-12)Extant studies on tax morale emphasize the influence of reciprocal motivations on tax compliance behavior. This strand of literature views tax payments as a tax contract between governments and citizens, arguing that ... -
Non-citizen soldiers, veterans, and their families : defense personnel policy and the principles of American politics
(2010-12)This report examines the place of non-citizen soldiers, veterans, and their families in U.S. political and civil life. Historically, military service has allowed marginalized groups to earn their social and political status ... -
On Plato's Hipparchus
(2015-09-23)The Hipparchus, Plato’s short dialogue on the love of gain, generally receives little attention from contemporary scholars. This essay, however, argues that Socrates’ brazenly amoral defense of seeking gain provides deep ... -
On the De Regno of St. Thomas Aquinas
(2013-05)Can explicitly Christian principles be invoked and put into practice in political life without thereby rendering that politics fideistic, exclusionary and immoderate? Could such principles in fact strengthen the rule of ... -
On the transnational trouble with gender: the politics of sexual harassment in Russia
(2005)Through the example of sexual harassment law in Russia, this dissertation argues that cross-cultural research must draw on a genealogical method to attain an accurate and nuanced understanding of politics. Specifically, ... -
The paradox of renter's insurance : resource stabilization funds in Venezuela and Chile
(2010-12)This report, rooted in the conflict over the control of natural resource wealth, departs from the widely-accepted findings of two disparate literatures. First, while recent analyses correctly conclude that natural resources ...
