The COVID-19 pandemic has devastated millions of American lives; yet, despite the collective suffering experienced across the board, individual responses to the pandemic have been plagued by the extreme polarization that has defined the last few decades of American politics. This paper explores the origins and key drivers of this polarization. Specifically, I examine the relationship between elite messaging and how Americans perceive the coronavirus pandemic by comparing changes in public opinion data regarding concern about COVID-19 to the ways in which political elites have discussed the pandemic. To conduct this study, I create a categorical “Elite Concern Index” comparing the concern and sentiments expressed by political elites of both primary parties through eight personal Twitter accounts and the official statements of the Democratic and Republican parties. I conduct a multivariate regression analysis to determine the relationship between my Elite Concern Index and public opinion about COVID-19 in order to assess whether elite messaging may have an influence upon the public’s perception of COVID-19. I expect to find a positive relationship between the concern expressed by political elites and the concern expressed by the public, which would suggest that political elites emphasizing the threat of COVID-19 can increase public concern regarding the virus. Understanding what is causing the polarization around COVID-19 can help us learn how to fight back against it and rally Americans to take the threat seriously, as a unified response is the best way to both defeat the virus and minimize its human impact.

Sikhism is one of the largest religions in the world. The followers of the religion, Sikhs, have stretched beyond the borders of Punjab, India, and into countries like the United States. However, oftentimes they are greeted with bigotry and racism, especially in the workforce, largely due to the 'non-Anglo' physical characteristics of their religion. Since their migration, Sikhs have been fighting for equal employment protection under the law, sadly with little success in the U.S. courts. The purpose of this study is to understand how the U.S. Supreme Court has impeded the workplace rights of Sikh Americans. I examine the Court's judicial opinions on religion-based employment discrimination cases and scrutinize applicable legal journals to deduce how Title VII protections have been redefined and manipulated to corner Sikh Americans into abandoning the physical tenants of their religion or face the risk of losing their livelihoods. I also evaluate the rhetoric in these judicial opinions to hypothesize how the social and political environment at the time influenced the Court's ruling in an attempt to create solutions on how to fairly assist Sikh Americans and other religious minorities in legal cases.

An increase in televised police violence and the mass protests in response to George Floyd’s death have led to well-deserved critiques of our current police system. Calls to defund the police have been generally void of discussing viable alternatives. Using an equity and social justice lens, I examine the development of the policing system in the United States, calling into question the necessity of police. First, definitions of public safety and their changes over time are discussed. Parallels are drawn between the inception of policing and the overt police violence of today. From volunteer runaway-slave patrols toting guns and whips in the 1700s, to today's heavily funded and militarized forces across the nation, police have traditionally been based in aggression and violence as a means of keeping the public safe. In this literature review, I capture the conversation and public opinion on policing in addition to the media portrayal and how those have changed over time. Police kill around 1,000 people each year and Black individuals are twice as likely to become victims in those situations than white individuals. Because of this, it is clear our current system isn’t working to keep all people safe equally. Currently, police handle issues of mental health, homelessness, drug addiction, sexual assault, and domestic violence without standardized training to do so. Why is an organization rooted in violence and aggression the one to respond to these community crises without proper training? What if we were to examine the issues that are currently “solved” through policing and base a new system on compassion, empathy, and true public safety? For the majority of communities, police are not necessary to keep their public safe. This research concludes that investing in communities and solving the root causes of violence is more effective than the current policing structure.

The influence of traditional economic thinking and theory on the development of international commerce and trade policy informs many of the contemporary issues and challenges impacting the global economy today. My research paper addresses the economic and social ramifications of global free trade practices and analyzes an alternative paradigm designed to affect free trade market behavior known as fair trade. Whereas free trade is characterized by the importing and exporting of goods between countries without tariffs or restrictions, fair trade is identifiable based on practices and principles that promote empowerment and equity. My analysis posits fair trade as a policy prescription for some of the deleterious effects of free trade. To compare traditional market-driven approaches to global trade with the contemporary movement of fair trade, my analysis is guided by a series of prompts: What is fair trade’s role in the international political economy sphere and how does it differ from (and complement) free trade? How can the precepts and practices of fair trade counterbalance the inequities of free trade policies? Scholarly resources, including peer-reviewed academic journals, were utilized to develop perspectives and answer these questions. Fair trade practices offer a sustainable improvement for the human condition since they are driven by more meaningful indicators of welfare than just Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Fair trade policies identify and value the needs and well-being of growers, workers, and communities along with the priorities of the developing nation trading partner; free trade focuses mainly on aggregate components that promote efficiency and create market value for the global economy. Social and environmental improvements from fair trade may not be adequately quantified in GDP since they can occur outside of traditional, measurable market-based activity. Therefore, this deficiency could motivate the development of an alternative to GDP to more accurately measure the non-pecuniary welfare effects from global trade.

U.S. agriculture is impacted by and a contributor towards climate change, necessitating an investigation into the policies—or lack of— that govern its operations; I have decided to explore this topic by comparing the policies on adaptive and mitigative strategies in California versus Iowa, since they are both heavily involved in the U.S. agricultural system and experience vastly different consequences of climate change. There are several questions that I am looking at to guide my research, including, are there any significant state level policies in place, and if not, why? If there are policies in place, are they sufficient in effectively dealing with climate change? Do their responses or lack thereof reflect each state’s overall attitude towards climate change? What do the findings say about the political ability to foster adaptive agriculture in the U.S.? Should there be more federal policies if there is little action from the states? To evaluate these questions in my research, I look at the similarities and differences of these two states' policies through water management, soil management, and crop diversification. Due to the differing severity and tangibility of climate change effects on these two states, as well as contrasting levels of public support and ability to pass other climate change related policies, I predict that California will have more significant policy in place than Iowa. Since Iowa is representative of the agriculturally rich Midwest and California's large agricultural sector deals with severe impacts from climate change, my findings will help us understand whether or not U.S. states have implemented sufficient agricultural policies in relation to climate change.

Graffiti acts are aggressively criminalized in most American cities, with writers subject to hefty fines and jail time among an array of other punishments. Even the most progressive cities have implemented zero-tolerance approaches to graffiti. To justify their hardline positions, many cities employ rhetoric evocative of the Broken Windows Theory, citing graffiti’s threat to public safety and negative impact on property values. In this study, I assess the punitiveness of forty-three American cities’ graffiti laws. I theorize that municipalities are driven to adopt punitive anti-graffiti laws because of constituent concern about crime and deteriorating property values, purported outcomes of the Broken Windows Theory. To test my hypotheses, this study will employ multivariate regression models to test each hypothesis while controlling for other factors. I expect to find that cities with more punitive graffiti laws will have higher rates of crime perception among its residents and will face worsening property values to a greater extent than cities with less punitive graffiti laws. Ultimately, revealing the motivations driving municipal authorities to adopt punitive laws for non-violent crimes like graffiti helps illuminate what societal values they are invested in maintaining.