ASU Electronic Theses and Dissertations
This collection includes most of the ASU Theses and Dissertations from 2011 to present. ASU Theses and Dissertations are available in downloadable PDF format; however, a small percentage of items are under embargo. Information about the dissertations/theses includes degree information, committee members, an abstract, supporting data or media.
In addition to the electronic theses found in the ASU Digital Repository, ASU Theses and Dissertations can be found in the ASU Library Catalog.
Dissertations and Theses granted by Arizona State University are archived and made available through a joint effort of the ASU Graduate College and the ASU Libraries. For more information or questions about this collection contact or visit the Digital Repository ETD Library Guide or contact the ASU Graduate College at gradformat@asu.edu.
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- All Subjects: Political Science
- All Subjects: philosophy
- Language: English
Description
Virtue was a concept of paramount importance in the American founders' republican thought. Without virtue, there could be no liberty, no order, no devotion to the common good, and no republican government. This dissertation examines the concept of virtue at the American founding, particularly virtue in the political thought of Mercy Otis Warren (1728-1814). The most important female intellectual of the Revolutionary generation, Warren wrote passionately about liberty and the beauty of republican ideals. Most important to this study, she consistently advocated the central place of virtue in a free and well-ordered republic. I argue that Warren incorporates three distinct philosophical threads - classical, bourgeois-marketplace, and Christian ideals - in her conception of virtue. I first analyze how Warren uses each of these three threads of virtue throughout her writings. I then examine how she synthesizes these individual threads into a single, cohesive conception of virtue. I argue that Warren consistently merges these ideals into a conception of virtue that she employs to address three pressing political problems of her day: How to motivate reluctant colonists to seek independence; how to check various forms of corruption spreading among the people; and how to counter corruption arising from commercial growth in the new nation. Modern political theorists often argue that these three threads, especially the classical republican and Christian ideals of virtue, are irreconcilable. My analysis shows that to divorce virtue from Christianity in Warren's conception is to rob it of its corrective vigor within republican government. I argue that what Machiavelli and Rousseau wrote out of republican virtue Warren writes back in. In Warren's political thought, virtue serves as the foundation for a stable enduring political system, provides the necessary informal ordering principle for the emerging republic, and offers the means by which the new nation could achieve its millennial destiny.
ContributorsMunsil, Tracy F (Author) / Ball, Terence (Thesis advisor) / Dagger, Richard (Thesis advisor) / Crittenden, William J. (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011
Description
Historians often characterize first ladies in the Progressive Era as representatives of the last vestiges of Victorian womanhood in an increasingly modern society. This dissertation argues that first ladies negotiated an image of themselves that fulfilled both traditional and modern notions of womanhood. In crafting these images, first ladies constructed images of their celebrity selves that were uniquely modern. Thus, images of first ladies in the Progressive Era show them as modest and feminine but also autonomous, intelligent, and capable. Using the historian Charles Ponce de Leon's research on modern human-interest journalism, I contend that first ladies in the Progressive Era worked with the modern press in a symbiotic relationship. This relationship allowed the press exclusive access to what was, ostensibly, the first lady's private, and therefore authentic, self. By purporting to reveal parts of their private lives in the press, first ladies showed themselves as down-to-earth despite their success and fulfilled by their domestic pursuits despite their compelling public lives. By offering the press exclusive access to their lives, first ladies secured the opportunity to shape specific images of themselves to appeal, as broadly as possible, to their husbands and parties' constituents and the American public. First ladies in the Progressive Era thus acted as political figures by using both public and private, or what historian Catherine Allgor terms, "unofficial spaces" to support and reflect their husbands and parties' political agendas. In examining representations of first ladies in popular magazines and newspapers from 1901 to 1921 in tandem with letters, memoirs, and other personal papers from these women, a clear pattern emerges. Despite personal differences, first ladies in the Progressive Era represented themselves according to a specific formula in the modern press. The images, constructed by first ladies in this time period, reflect shifts in economic, social, and political life in Progressive Era America, which called for women to be independent and intelligent yet still maintain their femininity and domesticity.
ContributorsHorohoe, Jill (Author) / Gullett, Gayle (Thesis advisor) / Longley, Rodney K (Committee member) / Warren-Findley, Jannelle (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011
Description
The following dissertation provides perspectives on the social, political, economic, and academic influences on language use, and particularly heritage language use, within the Filipino American community. What is the nature of language in this community? In what ways does language exist or co-exist? The hypothesis that autochthonous Filipino languages in the United States cease to be spoken in favor of English by Filipino Americans was tested through mixed methods of research. Literature and databases were reviewed which provided information concerning statistics, issues, and policies relating to language in Filipino America. Field research and interviews were conducted in which language use was of key interest. Results varied individually and contextually. Language seems to exist within the Filipino American community on a dynamic continuum. Immigrant Filipino Americans appear to be bilingual and multilingual. Second generation Filipino Americans tend to be English dominant with a range of bilingualism. The California Department of Education (CDOE) appears to foster bilingualism / multilingualism through its World Languages Departments (secondary education level), by offering language courses, such as Tagalog-based Filipino. Efforts to maintain non-English, Filipino languages in Arizona are less conspicuous, but they do exist primarily in familial and entrepreneurial ways.
ContributorsAxel, Joseph (Author) / Mccarty, Teresa (Thesis advisor) / Wiley, Terrence (Committee member) / Faltis, Christian (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011
Description
Since the 1988 uprising, a transnational advocacy network has formed around the issue of democracy and human rights in Burma. Within this transnational advocacy network, personal narratives of trauma have been promulgated in both international and oppositional news media and human rights reports. My thesis critically analyzes the use of the trauma narrative for advocacy purposes by the transnational advocacy network that has emerged around Burma and reveals the degree to which these narratives adhere to a Western, individualistic meta-narrative focused on political and civil liberties. Examining the "boomerang" pattern and the concept of marketability of movements, I highlight the characteristics of the 1988 uprising and subsequent opposition movement that attracted international interest. Reflecting on the psychological aspects of constructing trauma narratives, I then review the scholarship which links trauma narratives to social and human rights movements. Using a Foucauldian approach to discourse analysis, I subsequently explain my methodology in analyzing the personal narratives I have chosen. Beyond a theoretical discussion of trauma narratives and transnational advocacy networks, I analyze the use of personal narratives of activists involved in the 1988 uprising and the emergence of Aung San Suu Kyi's life story as a compelling narrative for Western audiences. I then explore the structure of human rights reports which situate personal narratives of trauma within the framework of international human rights law. I note the differences in the construction of traumatic narratives of agency and those of victimization. Finally, using Cyclone Nargis as a case study, I uncover the discursive divide between human rights and humanitarian actors and their use of personal narratives to support different discursive constructions of the aid effort in the aftermath of the cyclone. I conclude with an appeal to a more reflexive approach to advocacy work reliant on trauma narratives and highlight feminist methodologies that have been successful in bringing marginalized narratives to the center of human rights discussions.
ContributorsBynum, Kate Elliott (Author) / Stancliff, Michael (Thesis advisor) / Friedrich, Patricia (Committee member) / Vaughan, Suzanne (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011
Description
Africa is misrepresented and mis-imaged in the western media. Because of this, notions and beliefs about atrocities that take place on the continent lack context, leaving people to think that Africa is a place of misery, darkness and despair; a monolithic land where evil resides. The image of Africa as the "heart of darkness" was conjured following the Joseph Conrad novel and the idea of Africa as the "Dark Continent" still pervades Western thought. This is an inadequate understanding of Africa, and lacks the context to comprehend why many of the atrocities in Africa occur. I will explore two atrocities in Africa, the 1994 Rwanda Genocide and child slavery on Lake Volta in Ghana. I believe that both these examples reflect how the label of evil is insufficient to describe the circumstances around each atrocity. In order to understand such events we must understand the part that colonialism and poverty play in the disruption of pan-African culture. The "evils" of these two phenomenon, are in many cases the result of the Western world's past involvement in Africa and are remnants and extensions of the disruption caused.
ContributorsBork, Paul (Author) / Simmons, William P (Thesis advisor) / Erfani, Julie (Committee member) / Anokye, Duku A (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011
Description
One in six children in the developing world is engaged in Child labor. Child labor is considered an issue that violates children's rights in many countries and Iraq is no exception. In 2004, Iraq had 1,300,000 children between the ages of eight and sixteen years engaged in work (UNICEF.com, 2004). This study identifies the major causes of child labor in Iraq and investigates the consequences of this issue. In this thesis I draw on the comparison of former regimes in Iraq and Egypt and how those regimes were mistreating their citizens by making them live under poverty and oppression while they were receiving support from the U.S. Poverty is the major cause behind Iraqi children engaging in work. I used the data I collected in Iraq, in the city of Nasiriyah, of 28 working children to explain the relationship between poverty, students drop out of school, family attitude towards education and the child engagement in work. At the end of the thesis I offer a list of recommendations to try to address the problem of child labor in Iraq. The recommendations and regulations are for Iraqi government and the NGOs to take into consideration in trying to resolve and regulate the issue of child labor to rescue the children in Iraq from more exploitation in the future.
ContributorsAl-Taee, Hawraa F (Author) / Elenes, C (Thesis advisor) / Erfani, Julie M (Committee member) / Ali, Souad (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011
Description
ABSTRACT The goal of this study is to use neoclassical realist methodology to add to the growing body of literature explaining why America is failing so horribly in its media war with militant Islamists. The general argument being conveyed is that inconsistencies in America's ostensibly liberal diplomacy strategy leaves it open to criticism and deprives it of the credibility necessary to muster an adequate rebuttal. To accomplish its aim, the analysis begins with an investigation into the origins of America's current liberal rhetorical approach. It is believed that with this sort look beneath the surface of the idealistic romanticism U.S. citizens have been continually conditioned to embrace, it becomes apparent that the grandiose pronouncements made by America's national political elite are actually based on rather dubious foundations. The evaluation then turns to a more focused rhetorical examination, which spans from the start of the so-called Arab Spring uprisings on December 18, 2010 to the delivery of President Obama's highly publicized State Department address regarding these demonstrations on May 19, 2011, in order to go behind the White House's official statements and uncover what truly motivated its policy decision making. The belief here is that a close review of the administration's abysmal performance during this historic period assists in making the inadequacy of America's current rhetorical narrative all the more evident. Finally, once the contradictory nature of contemporary American liberalism has been fully demonstrated, the last section concludes with an effort to explain why replacing America's liberal strategy with a straightforward realist stance is best for both American's relations with the Muslim world and America's overall security.
ContributorsThomas, John H., III (Author) / Mean, Lindsey (Thesis advisor) / Ramsey, Ramsey E (Committee member) / Nadesan, Majia (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011
Description
Libertarians affirm the right to liberty, i.e., the right to do what one wants free from interference. Libertarians also affirm the right to private property. One objection to libertarianism is that private property relations restrict liberty. This objection appears to have the consequence that libertarianism is an incoherent position. I examine Jan Narveson's version of the libertarian view and his defense of its coherence. Narveson understands the right to liberty as a prohibition on the initiation of force. I argue that if that is what the right to liberty is, then the enforcement of property rights violates it. I also examine Narveson's attempt to support private property with his distinction between interference with and mere prevention of activity and argue that this distinction does not do the work that he needs it to do. My conclusion is that libertarianism is, in a sense, impossible because conceptually unsound.
ContributorsSchimke, Christopher (Author) / de Marneffe, Peter (Thesis advisor) / McGregor, Joan (Committee member) / Blackson, Thomas (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011
Description
This thesis seeks to build upon the empirical use of the Copenhagen School of security studies by evaluating and investigating speech-acts in recent Guatemalan newspaper media as they relate to drug trafficking within the geopolitical borders of Guatemala, particularly induced by Los Zetas, a Mexican drug cartel. The study attempts to engage a critical theoretical framework to study securitization within the country and thereby build upon the theory by conducting real-life analysis. Using a research program that is made up of content and text analysis of national press and presidential speeches, I test several hypotheses that pertain to the processes of Guatemala's current drug trade and drug trafficking securitization. By coding securitizing speech-acts and discursive frames in the national print media, I identify the national elite, the power relations between the national elite and citizenship, and attempts to dramatize the issue of drug trade. Upon analyzing the findings of such securitization, I propose several hypotheses as to why the national elite seeks high politicization of drug trade and the implications that rest on such drastic measures. This thesis itself, then, has important implications: it uses empirical tools to help further the theoretical foundations of the Copenhagen School, it examines the process of securitization study from a real world context outside the developed world, and it presents important information on the possible consequences of securitizing drug trade.
ContributorsBrinkmoeller, Matthew (Author) / Doty, Roxanne (Thesis advisor) / Gortzak, Yoav (Committee member) / Jones, Ruth (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011
Description
From its founding, the United States has always claimed to be a nation of immigrants, yet in the past century the issue of immigration has become an even more contentious political issue surrounded by heated rhetoric filled with passion, but devoid of information. This thesis hopes to interrupt this rhetoric with a thorough analysis of immigration politics in Arizona through a legal lens, a theoretical lens and an empirical lens. While this thesis by no means looks at all facets of immigration politics, it informs in a manner that adds depth by providing information on the history behind, and legal arguments surrounding, the most contentious piece of immigration legislation in the United States at the moment. It then provides a theoretical analysis of how immigration legislation has created carceral networks and a panoptic gaze in Arizona specifically. It ends with a recommendation for further empirical research to partner with both the legal and theoretical frameworks. This thesis concludes that, fortified with over a century of case law, the plenary power doctrine is unwavering, and it makes federal immigration legislation an overly powerful tool in our political system from which the courts can offer little if any protection. Congress walks a fine line between preempting immigration regulation and devolving immigration regulation. SB 1070 and the 287(g) program are two contested areas of immigration regulation, which both exhibit and alter the power relationships of immigration politics in Arizona. Additionally, the application of the theories of Michel Foucault illuminates the power relationships at play in Arizona - from the power relationships among nation states in the broader political arena of geopolitics and colonialism to the face-to-face power relationship between a police officer and a stopped/detained/arrested person in a Foucauldian carceral network. This thesis ends with a call for empirical research that would yield an opportunity to analyze these relationships. This thesis discusses the importance of empirical study. It situates the study within the genre of surveillance studies and its theorists. It analyzes similar studies, and identifies the variables the most illuminating for this analysis. This thesis is written in the hope that a researcher will pick up where this thesis has left off.
ContributorsBycura, Marquette (Author) / Schweitzer, Nick (Thesis advisor) / Vargas, Perla (Committee member) / Simmons, William (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011