Honors Projects for Political Science

Permanent URI for this collection

Browse

Recent Submissions

Now showing 1 - 10 of 15
  • Item
    From World Titles to Legal Titles: Re-Imagining Gender Discrimination Policy in Women’s Sports
    (University of Hawaii at Manoa, 2022) Goring, Jazelle Tylani ; Halbert, Debora ; Political Science
  • Item
    What Does It Mean to Decarcerate Wāhine?: Centering Returning Wāhine and Indigenizing Reentry Solutions
    (University of Hawaii at Manoa, 2022) Akiona, Kylie ; Osorio, Jamaica Heolimeleikalani ; Political Science
  • Item
    Placemaking and the Gentrification of Kakaʻako: Exploring Alternative Pathways for Sustainable Futures
    (University of Hawaii at Manoa, 2020) Menina, Justin ; Wiebe, Sarah Marie ; Political Science
    This thesis critically examines how narratives of neighborhood identity and boundaries become manufactured, reinterpreted, and commodified by corporate-led urban development in Kakaʻako by engaging in critical discourse analysis, narrative research, and phenomenology by examining discursive literature and conducting interviews with community stakeholders. In critically examining the production of space, this project addresses how such processes are tied to a broader structure of inequality and shape how neighborhood identities and boundaries change or remain. The prevalent anxieties within the public discourse of Hawaiʻi is that Honolulu is increasingly experiencing gentrification and becoming “a playground for the rich.” Such notions reflect David Harvey’s argument that, within the predominant neoliberal economic structure of capitalist economies, capital is allowed to shape cities and the urban landscape as a whole through the process of “accumulation by dispossession” (Ley, 1994). Consequently, such processes superimpose settler-colonial geographies upon the landscape, thereby rendering Indigenous geographies disenfranchised. While gentrification is a predominately economic process, its development is reinforced by consumption-oriented patterns toward urban space, which, within the intermodal process of consumption-oriented gentrification, reflects David Ley’s (1994) observation that socio-cultural characteristics and motives are vital toward understanding the gentrification of the post-industrial city. In recognizing gentrification’s inherently violent processes of dispossession and erasure as a result of the uneven production and consumption of space, this project aims to critically examine the neoliberal structuring of cities, which facilitates the commodification and consumption of space in Hawaiʻi, using the district of Kakaʻako as a site of inquiry.
  • Item
    Portrayal of Domestic Abuse in South Asian Cinema
    (University of Hawaii at Manoa, 2021) Basim, Elizeh ; Ferguson, Kathy ; Political Science
  • Item
    Big-Money Interests in Small-State Politics: Demystifying the connection between Super PAC activity and Hawaiʻi’s election outcomes
    (University of Hawaii at Manoa, 2020) Leval, Micah ; Moore, Colin ; Political Science
    Since the Supreme Court’s landmark ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Elections Commission (2010), there has been much public discussion and scholarly research regarding the effects of Super PACs on American elections. However, much of this research falls short of characterizing the effects of Super PACs at the state and local levels. In addition, because of Hawaiʻi’s unique history and political landscape, I argue that past Super PAC research is not entirely applicable to Hawaiʻi politics. Therefore, the present study characterizes the effects of Super PACs specifically on recent Hawaiʻi elections. With a focus on both quantitative and qualitative data collection, this exploratory study puts the results of my elite survey methodology in conversation with what is already known about Super PACs locally and nationally. As a result of this investigation, I have generally concluded that (1) Super PAC activity have indeed greatly influenced recent Hawaiʻi election outcomes, (2) Super PACs have influenced Hawaiʻi elections in at least two specific ways, (3) perceptions and attitudes toward Super PAC activity in Hawaiʻi can vary greatly depending on who is asked, and (4) despite this variance, there is some agreement regarding what changes should be made to current campaign finance laws. The findings of this research help to demystify the understudied connection between Super PAC activity and Hawaiʻi politics. With these research as a conversation starter, I also encourage additional, more robust quantitative (i.e., statistical) investigations into the effects of Super PACs on Hawaiʻi politics.
  • Item
    Democracy, Islam and Compatibility: Arguably Compatible, with a Question that Deserves Re-Examining
    (University of Hawai'i at Manoa, 2019) Ouansafi, Daniel ; Falgout, David ; Grove, Nicole ; Political Science
    There are numerous debates and argumentations centered around Islam and its compatibility with democracy. It goes without saying, that there is rampant debate about democracy and Islam as to whether or not they are compatible, and a large portion of the research will attempt to establish that there is, within history, and religious text, a variety of evidence indicative of compatibility. But by the end, a different frame of thinking will be posed. The paper demonstrates that compatibility is more than possible, yet regardless, it is almost certain that the question will be raised when conflict erupts anew in the Middle East. If religion, by being thoroughly analyzed, is not the central reason for the lack of Middle Eastern democracy, then something else must be the cause. The culture that the media presents, of a violent Middle East soaked with human rights abuses, is a far cry from the culture that Islamic texts present about the early Islamic community. Perhaps then, after reading these arguments, future inquiry can use these findings to argue against even bringing religion into the inquiry as to why there is a lack of Middle Eastern democracy. The why, when it comes to a lack of democratic compatibility, might very well be culture and not religion.
  • Item
    Analyzing the Success of the Anti-Pesticide Movement in Hawaii
    (University of Hawaii at Manoa, 2018) Johnson, Riley ; Moore, Colin ; Political Science
    In July 2018, SB 3095 relating to environmental protection was signed into law by Hawaii Governor David Ige. This bill contains the ‘first in the nation’ ban on chlorpyrifos, mandates reporting of all restricted use pesticides (RUPs), establishes a mandat
  • Item
    The Phoenix Program: the Viet Cong, the CIA, and the Paradox of Success
    (University of Hawaii at Manoa, 2014) Brown, Stephan ; Fergusson, Kathy ; Political Science
    The Phoenix Program remains one of the more controversial and understudied aspects of the American involvement in Vietnam and CIA operations generally. As a program constructed to fight the Viet Cong, the CIA used an innovative approach which will be analyzed through a different perspective. Namely, it will be argued that the Viet Cong was primarily a political machine, with the function of establishing political control through acts of violence rather than the traditional guerilla role often given to it. The paradox of the Vietnam War, namely the political effectiveness of the Viet Cong and the weakening of its control through military operations, will be contrasted with the military success of the Phoenix Program through political and information-based means. Primary sources, from Communist Vietnamese and former CIA operatives, as well as secondary historical and think tank reports will be used to establish and reinforce the primary argument. As numbers are notoriously hard to come by in terms of accuracy, a broad analysis of changing tactics, particularly the Tet Offensive in 1968, will be used to establish the effect of the Phoenix Program on the operations and command structure of the Viet Cong. Finally, this paper will explain how the Viet Cong, after 1970, ceased to be either a guerilla organization or a serious threat to South Vietnam.
  • Item
    Fued on the Fire: The Case Against Arming Nonstate Actors in Intrastate Conflicts
    (University of Hawaii at Manoa, 2017-12) Hall, Thomas ; Stephenson, Carolyn ; Political Science
    The wave of nonviolent campaigns known as the Arab Spring had come to Syria in March of 2011. In spite of 50 years of violent government repression under the state of emergency law, protesters opposed to the government remained, by and large, peaceful in their pursuit of change for the first three months of opposition. In June 2011 groups of soldiers who refused to continue firing upon citizens began defecting to join the protesters, fleeing or taking up arms against the government. Small arms and light weapons were beginning to flow into Syria from abroad both through overt means and covert sponsorship by foreign governments. Defected soldiers and some protesters utilized these weapons to engage in hostilities against the Assad administration. Using at various times both covert and overt means, the United States was among the nations which supplied these militant opposition groups, providing the necessary means to perpetuate the civil war which has now lasted for, at the time of writing, six years and claimed no fewer than 400,000 lives by February of 2016.1 In July of 2017, headlines declared that the United States had announced that it would discontinue its program to train and arm Syrian rebels.2 Whether this discontinuation will end all US funding to Syrian rebels, or push them into covert program is questionable, since the similar announcements were made in 20133
  • Item
    Indigenous Societies In International Law: Analytical Focus On The Legitimacy Of Land Owndership Rights Of The Native Hawaiian People
    (University of Hawaii at Manoa, 2015-11-20) Matsumoto, Rachel Ann
    Slowly, it appears that the political wheels have been turning in attempts to acknowledge the plight of the many indigenous societies around the world who have been denied their economic, cultural, political, and personal well-being. International legal organizations and scholars are turning to pre-existing norms, precepts, and accepted customs of international law as the basis for their arguments which establish the legal rights entitled to the indigenous peoples. The fIrst step in examining the fundamental legitimacy of an indigenous society's basis for existence lies in fully understanding the concept of sovereignty. Sovereignty, as we know it today, has taken on a "double" aspect in that its relativity is inclusive of aspects pertaining to both internal powers as well as to certain external relations.