In 2016, the Ukrainian Constitutional Court (UCC) went through internal institutional reform where the court amended the constitution to grant additional review powers and changed the procedure for the appointment of judges. These institutional changes were essential for the court to gain independence and legitimacy. This research paper examines how and why these institutional reforms impacted participation in the Ukrainian judicial system. I hypothesize that these reforms expanded societal access to the court which increased participation, accountability and enforcement of constitutional rights. To examine these questions, this analysis engages in a case law analysis of judgments of the UCC between 1997 and 2019. I mainly focus on the judicial review by individual and assess how the court has ruled in these cases. In this research, I expand our understandings of democratic participation to include society engaging with the judicial branch and bringing constitutional rights claims. Preliminary findings suggest that these new institutional reforms will broaden access to the UCC, which will increase participation within the Ukrainian judicial system. Implications of the research arise around the history of corruption and a legacy of distrust towards the Ukrainian government, and the possibility of a new avenue of democratic participation that may enhance and expand societal trust in government.

Legal theorists have studied the advantage third party actors have in courts due to their powerful social and political presence. Third parties are interveners outside of the defendant and plaintiff that can provide comparative research, expertise, or assert a political opinion on a case. This study examines if, how, and why third parties affect international court decisions by expanding the development and protection of rights. I hypothesize that the presence and participation of third parties can lead to an expansion in the scope of treaty rights and findings of a violation. To examine these questions, I utilize the European Court of Human Rights Database (ECHRdb), focusing on cases including third party interveners in a single area of law, Article 8 (right to private and family life) between 1984 and 2014. The analysis codes interpret the types of organizations participating, and the ways in which the decisions expand or redefine convention rights. The preliminary findings of this research explicate the increase of particpation by third parties in international courts over time and how their presence can impact court jurisdiction. The results of this study are relevant for scholars and practitioners concerned with the growing role of the third party interveners in international legal processes and the impact of their actions on rights development and protection. 

Recognition of LGBTIQ+ rights has expanded rapidly over the last few decades, yet remain contentious in many countries. Debates over the religious, moral and political stakes of acknowledging these human rights have persisted on a global scale. The purpose of this study is to understand how international legal systems are responsive to LGBTIQ+ legal claims. This is done through examining LGBTIQ+ rights complaint cases before the United Nations (UN) treaty-based bodies to analyze the degree to which LGBTIQ+ rights have expanded in scope and what factors impacted this expansion. The UN complaints procedures allow individuals or groups to assert claims and challenge the denial of rights by the State outside of their own national court systems. While committee decisions are not binding, they can be valuable advocacy tools that can empower domestic actors, validate claims of rights, and provide guidance for State action. The extent to which complaints processes are being used to assert the rights of LGBTIQ+ people has not yet been comprehensively examined. This paper will review decisions and state party reports published in the UN Jurisprudence Database and Treaty Body Database to consider how rights and politics have influenced treaty body verdicts, and then conclude that while broad language and increased political traction can lead to expansions of rights, narrow phrasing and controversial issues, such as family life, can restrict treaty body decision-making. Although the focus of this paper is on LGBTIQ+ rights, this study provides a general framework for utilizing complaint cases to analyze how specific human rights have progressed at the UN.

The Constitutional Court of Taiwan (Court) has been the subject of extensive research in the field of comparative judicial politics, recognized for its protection of civil rights and curtailment of Taiwan’s authoritarian government in the 1990s. However, the literature does not continue its examination of the Court into the 21st-century, and little is known about the Court’s ongoing role within the new democratic government of Taiwan. My research fills this gap in the literature by examining the activity of the Constitutional Court over the last two decades and its engagement with constitutional questions. What role has the Court played in the new, democratic polity of Taiwan? Has the Court progressively developed the body of constitutional law in Taiwan, or has it adjudicated conservatively over political and individual rights issues? To examine these questions, I analyze a number of cases from 1985-2017, coding Court decisions to determine the subject, frequency, and trend of its decisions. I also draw from existing literature to investigate these cases’ context and significance. Preliminary findings suggest that the Court has exercised judicial restraint when faced with constitutional questions involving salient political questions or institutional government powers, and deferred to other state bodies in fear of damaging its own legitimacy. In contrast, the Court has actively developed the constitution in individual rights issues and expanded civil liberties. My findings suggest that constitutional courts in new democracies cannot be categorized simply as either activist or constrained. Instead, judges selectively address constitutional questions and issue judgments that strike a balance between restraint and activism to strengthen their legitimacy.

Courts are a critical institution in democratic societies. Yet their role of protecting minority voices and clarifying executive and legislative power, forever place these institutions in a legitimacy crisis. Place this court in a transitioning democracy and the challenges of balancing political and societal interests are even greater. The Hungarian Constitutional Court (HCC) is my experiment. During the first period of the HCC (1990-1998), the Court relied heavily on activist constitutional interpretation and the use of abstract review through actio popularis participation in order to create legitimacy as a new institution and as a protector of the new Hungarian democracy. Through the following period, 1998-2010, the Court became much more moderate and the use of actio popularis decreased steadily. The purpose of this study is to test how changes in the HCC's methods of constitutional interpretation and access to the HCC affected the legitimacy and power of the HCC and how that legitimacy and power connects to the protection of a new democracy. To answer these questions, I engage in a historical analysis examining the criticism of the court during the first twenty years of the HCC, including an in-depth analysis of cases that use activist or text-based interpretation constitution and their negative impact on the HCC's legitimacy. I also construct a data set of the trends in the use of actio popularis within the court and an analysis of its effect of different levels of access on the Court's perceived legitimacy. Preliminary findings suggest that inconsistencies with the methods of constitutional interpretation used by the Court and decreased access to the HCC have decreased the Court's legitimacy to the point that the Court is no longer a powerful institution and no longer able to protect Hungarian democracy.

With rapid technological advances, robots, unmanned vehicles, and other artificial intelligence (hereby referred to as AI) – simulation of human behavior on a computer - entities proliferate into everyday lives. Increasingly, the military is using AI to put troops out of harm’s way; however, a question of criminal liability arises when certain weapons and drones could cause damage on a grand scale, at a distance, and with higher propensity. Who is to be held responsible for the potentially widespread war offenses of these automated systems when there is not necessarily someone controlling those systems on the ground: the manufacturer, the programmer, or the AI entity itself? While questions of such caliber have fanned the flames of widespread opposition to autonomous weapons, the purpose of this study is to determine ways for adjudicating them as used in war scenes instead of banning them, and to that end, this project turns towards International Laws (specifically Criminal Law) and explores the precedence set by past trialed cases to establish an understanding of responsibility as attached to certain individuals in mass violations. It further moves on to examine the types of adjudicated crimes and review statistical data surrounding the summoning of each of International Criminal Law’s provisions in individual cases as to develop a definition of prosecutable criteria in terms of weapons and destruction in order to find an outlet with jurisdiction to assess the admissibility of autonomous weapons. Preliminary findings bolster a greater demand for the International Criminal Court (that prosecutes grand scale murder and war crimes) as a candidate for trying individuals for AI-related violations. With the presence of such institution’s already well-defined regulations that can be expanded to encompass criminal liability for unlawful use of AI, this paper comes to the conclusion that fully autonomous weapons could be indeed of positive consequences.

The responsibility of the European Court of Human Rights [ECtHR] is to supervise the enforcement of the European Convention on Human Rights. The European Convention on Human Rights is an international convention to protect human rights and political freedoms in Europe. Among the cases that the ECtHR decides are legal framings of women’s rights as human rights. Although the literature on women’s rights in a human rights context is of abundance in the academy, there is a gap in understanding what an international judicial body like the ECtHR does for women’s rights. The purpose of this study is to fill this academic chasm by analyzing if, how, and why decisions made on cases involving violence against women either expand or narrow women’s rights on a global scale. I hypothesize that when the ECtHR decides cases on violence against women, there is a positive relationship between the actions of the ECtHR and the narrowing of women’s rights. To do this, I employ an original data set of compiled case law on violence against women rulings from the ECtHR from 1997-2019. Preliminary findings suggest a dominant understanding that there is a positive relationship between rulings on violence against women and the narrowing of women’s rights. These findings introduce the question of whether the ECtHR exercises a gendered legal consciousness, bringing us to a more robust understanding of how human rights law might overlook violations that disparately impact women.

In this project, I seek to examine the relationship between economic development and Russian influence in the post-Soviet states of Romania and Bulgaria. While scholars have studied the individual paths that these recently formed states have taken since the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, there has been little inspection of how these nations regard the now Russian Federation. My work studies this relationship at a closer level. Specifically, I examine data on economic development at the district level (standardized by NUTS 3) in these countries and vote share for pro-Russian parties. I run a multivariate regression to examine the effect that level of development has on citizens’ willingness to accept Russian influence in their country, controlling for other relevant factors. I hypothesize that as the amount of development increases, the level of vote share for pro-Russian parties will consequently decrease. This hypothesis is grounded in the well documented positive effect that development has on democracy. In this case, a nation such as Russia, who touts anti-democratic ideals, would be looked upon less favorably by a district that is relatively more developed. Thus, I expect to see an inverse relationship between my variables. This analysis will inform research on the interactions between nations in Eastern Europe and Western Asia, areas of growing importance in this world, and allow us to examine the path forward for other post-Soviet states.

This project seeks to explore the effect of spending on state-level ballot initiative campaigns on voter turnout. Past research into the area of voter turnout has revealed evidence of relationships between campaign spending, voter turnout, and vote outcomes. Differentials in spending by competing campaigns has been demonstrated to have clear effects on vote outcomes in a variety of electoral contexts, and aggregate spending has been shown to affect levels of voter turnout as well. However, no work has in the past sought to look exclusively at the role of spending allocated to ballot initiatives in its ability to affect turnout. I anticipate higher levels of spending by pro and opposition groups correlating to higher overall voter turnout. In addition, I expect spending by opposition groups to have the greatest impact, as these groups are able to allocate funds mainly to media ads which seek to influence voter behavior through psychological aspects like fear. Using publicly disclosed data on ballot initiative spending tied to election year, the relationship between spending and voter turnout for the previous six biannual elections in four states with active ballot measure processes is investigated. Types of election, changes in voter partisanship, voter registration, and quantities and policy areas of ballot measures considered are controlled for to establish a baseline for voter turnout. The influence of campaign spending on turnout is sought after to help bridge-the-gap in relationships between spending and vote outcome, and turnout and vote outcome.

Today, over 50% of the world's population live in cities or urban areas. While cities only count for roughly 2% of global landmass, they contribute over 70% of CO2 emissions globally. With a significant environmental footprint, cities have the opportunity to be integral in climate change action. While many cities globally have begun to implement climate politics and targets, there is still a wide spectrum of engagement. Therefore, it's important to assess when and how cities tend to implement climate policy and why they engage in climate action. Through the Center of Environmental Politics, we are researching what factors lead small to medium sized cities in the state of Washington to implement these climate change policies. Random cities are selected, and data is being gathered largely by looking through the cities website's and surveying for statements of climate change and the resulting policies and goals. Currently, we are in the process of analyzing the data so no set results and conclusions can be resolved yet. However, the results of this research can help us determine the hurdles when bringing climate change rhetoric and action into the political sphere and potentially highlight the political atmosphere around climate change in Washington cities.

Over recent decades, scholars have noted declining trends in perceptions of legitimacy in high-income, democratic countries. Many theories offer competing explanations for this decline, including immigration, polarization, and neoliberalism, but scholars have yet to connect declining perceptions of legitimacy to stagnant wages. I argue that within the Group of 7 (G7) countries, wage stagnation triggers a crisis of legitimacy because ordinary citizens’ living standards worsen as wages remain low and the cost of living rises, resulting in the belief that their governments are unresponsive and illegitimate. I hypothesize that wage stagnation plays into a legitimacy crisis in domestic democratic institutions, because stagnant wages increase economic inequality and generate perceptions of an illegitimate government. To test this claim, I create a legitimacy index to compare trends in perceptions of legitimacy cross-nationally. I also run a multivariate regression test to assess the strength of the relationship between stagnant wages and government legitimacy, controlling for other relevant factors. This project may reveal that if a productive economy fails to benefit its people, there is the possibility of democratic decline.

After Saudi Arabia announced its VISION2030 plan to reduce its oil dependence through economic diversification, a wide-scale crackdown on corruption was carried out. Following that was the imposition of the first tax policy in the Kingdom, a 5% value-added tax. These reforms strike a delicate balance; to develop infrastructure and new industries, particularly for an oil-dependent economy (ODE), the country must sustain high levels of foreign direct investment (FDI) among other sources of funding. Nonetheless, attracting FDI requires transparent and resilient fiscal institutions, and the presence of corruption negatively impacts FDI by conveying uncertainty and increasing costs of conducting business. ODEs may also seek to enhance non-resource taxation, providing another stable revenue stream. FDI enlarges the non-resource tax base by including new firms and increasing employment opportunities. By relying on FDI as an indicator of institutional quality, this paper tests the interaction of corruption and FDI and its impact on levels of non-oil tax revenue. I employ regression models to conduct a cross-national study of 17 ODEs, controlling for population, GDP per capita, government expenditure, oil sector ownership and oil price. I expect to find that higher levels of corruption lead to lower levels of FDI, which in turn decreases non-oil tax revenue collection. Additionally, I will use a Fiscal Reliance Measure (Haber and Menaldo, 2011) to test the same interaction’s effect on the ratio of hydrocarbon and oil revenue to total government revenue as a second proxy for economic diversification. This research contributes to the growing field of oil-dependence and economic diversification in two ways: it rejects the presence of a “resource curse” and examines the relationship between corruption and non-resource tax revenue by studying institutional state structures, and it explores the causal mechanism running from FDI to tax revenue, whereas previous literature has tested the inverse relationship.

Ethnic democracies exist as a paradoxical form of government: democratic institutions are present, but they are challenged by a dominant ethnic majority, often with little voice for ethnic minorities. This research examines this paradox through a case study of judicial politics in Israel. Since Israel's 1948 establishment as a democratic and Jewish state, the fundamental question of what exactly constitutes an Israeli identity has been a constant source of debate within this ethnic democracy, one even the Israeli Supreme Court struggles to answer. Israeli Arabs are 1/5 of the country's population yet they continue to experience discrimination in state institutions. Due to the Court's reputation as a defender of constitutional rights, minority activist groups have utilized the Court to advance minority rights protections. This paper examines the question of what role the Court takes in protecting and developing Israeli Arab equality rights. When and how does the Court rule in cases where the Israeli government infringes on Arab rights? Drawing from the law and courts scholarship, I hypothesize that given the Court's expansive review powers, it will not hesitate to expand and uphold minority rights protections in the face of state discrimination, but will not do so in cases that directly challenge government authority as a Jewish state. To answer these questions, I created a dataset of the Court's case law regarding Arab minority rights protections and coded the cases for the rights invoked, the type of claims, and the outcome of decisions to examine how the Court balanced Israeli state interests and Arab minority rights. The broader implications of this research problematize how minority rights are protected within the confinements of a dominant state ethnic identity and provide further understanding of the paradoxical elements of ethnic democracies. 

The Balkans have played a pivotal role in the competition between the West and the East. Great Power competition during the 19th Century created the conditions for ethno-nationalism that led to turmoil during the 20th Century. Following World War II, Josip Broz Tito, the first president of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, attempted to construct a united multi-ethnic state by suppressing nationalist impulses. This effort began to collapse immediately after Tito's death in 1980 and culminated in the breakup of the Yugoslav state and a series of bloody ethnic and religious conflicts from 1991 to 2001. These wars challenged the capacity of the international community to arrest the conflicts, and then to rebuild the peace. The region continues to suffer the effects of these conflicts despite decades of international efforts supporting reconciliation and the development of civil institutions designed to overcome division. A vicious circle constituted by the lack of economic development and continued use of divisive ethnonationalist politics has developed. This study argues that external economic and political aid efforts have been insufficient and that internal cultural changes are necessary before reconciliation, and economic and political development may proceed. This project's driving question is, "What specific values shifts and domestic efforts are necessary for the people of the Balkans to reconcile with the past and construct a brighter social, economic, and political future?" To explore this question and to identify potential solutions, this study assesses contemporary scholarship on Balkans reconciliation and economic development and incorporates local language and ethnographic resources. It concludes with a discussion of the following policy steps - democratic governance and unbiased media and education focused on rebuilding relations between different communities - and assesses whether or not these steps can be generalized to other societies either entering or experiencing post-conflict status.

Both Germany and China are currently facing setbacks due to carbon emissions damaging the environment. These two nations are industrialized economies that depend on their productions of good for world economic power. One of the following goods each country predominantly creates is cars. Since transportation is a large proponent to the rise of carbon emissions globally, individuals are now looking at countries like Germany and China for solutions to the carbon problem. I investigated the similarity and dissimilarity in the responses these two nations took in their automobile industries towards climate change. More specifically, researching if a particular country incentivized a bigger need to steer away from carbon in their industrialized economy; such as more creation and implementation of electric vehicles, putting in place government policies to limit carbon emissions, and agreeing with their citizens' public opinion in response to issues and solutions. I have found that China has been more successful in limiting carbon emissions by vastly expanding their collection of electric vehicles and implementing strict climate policies. Germany had a later start to the electric vehicle industry and is rather making a smaller influence on their automobile industries. They have been hurt by these decisions, while China has come out very successful with its growing automobile industry. This research assists in understanding climate policy because it involves countries and industries that are at the forefront of the issue, and can hint at the repercussions of acting for and against a future of clean energy. 

The Green New Deal is an omnibus piece of legislation which proposes sweeping reforms to address climate change while also tackling poverty, discrimination, and other social ills. Although the Green New Deal has been the subject of great public attention, it remains unclear whether key elements of the Democratic party, such as unions, are interested in supporting the legislation in any meaningful sense. This research examines the reaction of labor to the Green New Deal and attempts to gauge both the quantity and intensity of labor union support of the Green New Deal. To accomplish this, I conducted a review of the websites of the top fifty labor unions in the United States, ranked by reported membership. For each labor union, I looked at two factors; whether or not the union had explicitly endorsed the Green New Deal, and the number of sub-pages I had to navigate in order to find a mention of the Green New Deal. I cataloged these results and also made note of any irregularities and emerging trends in the data. The results paint a picture of labor unions as largely reluctant to engage in discourse regarding the Green New Deal, even when the organizations have been vocal on the subject of climate change in the past. Mentions of the Green New Deal, if present, are buried in archives and multiple sub-pages. These results suggest a clear point of weakness for proponents of the Green New Deal, and an examination of the causes of this weakness may offer insight into the characteristics necessary to the creation of politically viable climate legislation.

Immigrant stereotyping has a long history in the U.S. that parallels patterns of mass immigration and native-born fear. Scholars have demonstrated that the production and reproduction of Hispanic criminal identities, constructed in news coverage of immigration law enforcement instances, poses challenges to their assimilation into US society and their opportunity for upward social mobility. The expansive scope of federal government power post-9/11 and the consequent convergence of immigration and criminal law created an apparatus of control that targets Central American and Mexican immigrants. Scholars have dedicated time to examining the effects of media narratives on immigrants in the US; however, efforts have not been made to discern or understand the effect of media narratives on immigrants at the border. To address this omission, this study empirically analyzes the impact of media narratives on the rate of petition denials for various asylum seekers. I hypothesize that refugees from Central America and Mexico will have higher rates of U.S. asylum petition denials as a result of negative presentation in U.S. media narratives, which frame the group as “undeserving” of refuge. To test this claim, I ran a multivariate analysis to quantitatively measure the effects of media narratives on petition denial rates for three regional nationality groups. I expect to find that negative media narratives, which portray immigrant criminality, have a significant negative impact on the outcome of asylum petitions, resulting in higher rates of petition denial for Central American immigrants who are criminalized in media narratives.