For this project, I examine why the majority of white women voted for Trump in the 2016 election, a fact that came as a shock to many observers. However, with few exceptions, white women have been shown to support conservative candidates in presidential elections since the 1950s. Yet, Donald Trump’s election can be considered unique as he was still able to gain most white women’s support despite his displays of various behaviors that could be regarded as overtly sexist. In this research design, I analyze white female voters using data from a 2016 Pilot Study by the American National Election Survey and hypothesize that racial resentment and internalized sexism are the primary factors that drove white women to support Donald Trump, controlling for partisanship, economic anxiety and other factors that might influence vote choice. I employ linear regression models using R programming software to examine a relationship between 2016 vote choice, racial resentment and internalized sexism systematically. In doing so, my analysis takes an intersectional approach, where both race and gender dynamics are useful in providing an explanation for white women’s support for Trump.

Since the 1920s, plea bargaining in the United States criminal justice system has become status quo. Today, over 95% of federal cases have resulted in plea bargains and never been tried in court. The power of the prosecutor within the legal system has also increased substantially over the last century leading many scholars to believe that the proliferation of plea bargaining is a direct result of heightened prosecutorial power. Prior literature has addressed the increased power of the prosecutor and the need for reform if plea bargaining rates are to change, but has not yet provided an empirical observation as to whether prosecutorial reform makes a significant impact in plea bargaining. In this paper I theorize that the prosecutor’s discretion over exculpatory evidence plays an integral part in states’ reliance on plea bargaining and that states that attempt to reign in prosecutorial power experience reduced rates of pleas. To test this theory systematically, I have run a multivariate analysis at the county-level to compare rates of plea bargaining across states that have reformed prosecutorial discretion and states that have not. If states with a model rule suppressing prosecutorial power show a statistically significant difference in plea rates, criminal justice reform advocates should turn their attention to prosecutorial reform.

Scholars recognize that politicians’ perceptions of their electability influence their home style, or the way in which they present themselves to their constituents. Marginality, or the proportion of a politician’s co-partisans in the electorate, is common indicator of electability. However, marginality fails to capture how polarization of the electorate augments politicians’ vulnerability. This study introduces a new indicator of electability that captures statewide polarization in the electorate. Building off the finding that more marginal Senators emphasize support for appropriations to build non-partisan support, I expect that Senators in more polarized states will emphasize their support for appropriations after controlling for marginality. Appropriations credit-claiming builds non-partisan support without alienating more partisan voters. I employ multilevel linear regression analysis to examine the relationship between state-level partisan polarization and topic expression in Senate press releases systematically. A positive relationship between partisan polarization and appropriations credit-claiming may reveal a mechanism by which polarization paradoxically minimizes the partisan content of Senators’ home styles.

Although legislative partisanship has traditionally been studied through measures like floor votes or debates, scholars have found that social media also provides a conducive environment for negative and positive displays of party politics. This project codes Tweets from both Washington and Texas State legislators in 2017 as either “partisan” or “neutral” in order to create a proportion for each category and correspondingly identify the extent to which these legislators participate in partisan behavior online. Then, these proportions are compared with an individual legislator’s roll call votes, markers of their general level of polarization, in order to view whether or not they are behaving in a more partisan manner online than their votes would indicate. My paper posits that the unique conditions of social media cause legislators to behave differently, resulting in a comprehensive increase in legislator partisanship. This research holds importance in future studies by shedding light on how social media is used by those in our state governments, especially as it pertains to their party posturing online.

One of the most common questions that scholars of democratic theory address is how to best allocate and balance power across the different structures within a government. Historically, many theorists and philosophers have postulated that structures with separation of power are more effective at resisting tyrannical rule. Though researchers have established the effects of an imbalance of power between two branches of government, no study has attempted to systematically account for the relative balance of power among all three branches working in tandem or develop empirical metrics to this end. In this study, I theorize that designing separate branches of government that are equally strong strengthens conflicts across institutions, which ultimately leads to more robust protections against tyranny. I evaluate this model quantitatively by developing and introducing a new measure, the Separate Powers Index (SPI). My SPI assesses the balance of power between the three branches of government as postulated in a sample of 130 of the world’s constitutions. Using multivariate regression methods, I compare the SPI with a cross-national index of free expression in a cross-sectional analysis during the year 2008, I can systematically examine whether there is a relationship between structural provisions of institutions that distribute power and their outcomes to protect their citizens. In addition to providing a novel measure of tripartite power balance in national constitutions, the result of this study has a large impact on all scholars of constitutionalism and civil liberties.

A declassified 1962 document shows that the Kennedy Administration considered “Operation Northwoods,” a plan to fabricate a terror attack and blame it on the Cuban government in order to legitimize an invasion of Cuba. The Northwoods plan was rejected by President Kennedy. This tactic of faking an attack for political purposes is called a “false flag” attack. Modern conspiracy theorists use Operation Northwoods as evidence that the American government fakes terror attacks in the 21st century, considering attacks such as the September 11, 2001 attacks and the 2018 Parkland shooting to be “false flag” events. I engage with the Operation Northwoods document, detailing its contents and implications. I then analyze the impact of the document in the conspiracy fringe, looking at its reference in various new media spaces, such as the online conspiracy editorial InfoWars and the alt-right social media platform Gab. I find that the power of the Northwoods document is often overestimated and exaggerated on online spaces and that the conspiracy theorists use motivated reasoning to further their belief in conspiracy.  Online spaces allow for the spread of false conspiracy narratives by enabling people with fringe beliefs to connect with each other more effectively. The wide propagation of Northwoods as evidence that major contemporary tragedies are fraudulent is a supreme example of dangerous information which can be spread unchecked online.

With the adoption of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, United Nations Member States committed to ensure international development that “leaves no one behind,” and pledged to reach “the furthest behind first.” Recognizing that globally persons with disabilities as a group are often among those left furthest behind, the Executive Office of the UN Secretary General and the Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities are reviewing how UN operations can better integrate and promote the rights of persons with disabilities. To support that review, a study was commissioned to assess the current state of disability inclusion within UN operations at the headquarters and country levels. In December 2018, a research team led by the School for Global Inclusion and Social Development at the University of Massachusetts and supported by undergraduate students at the University of Washington completed a baseline assessment of disability inclusion within the 40 UN agencies, funds and programs which are members of the UN Sustainable Development Group, and 40 UN Country Teams. Although the assessment is not currently public, this presentation discusses the results of our research which focused primarily on evaluating UN entity disability inclusion through public sources alongside staff survey responses.