ottonomy.net » political science

Causes of War paper

ottonomy — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 12:08:50 +0000

The class I wrote this paper for was called “Causes of War,” and it was highly theoretical. In this paper, I analyzed and rejected realist explanations for the outbreak of World War I in favor of an understanding that individuals who desired war acted to bring it about.

Causes of War Final Paper-Elite-led violence and WWI [DOCX, Word 2007 Format]

I recall that I got an A on this paper.

Applying Theories of Nationalism to Ethnic Violence

ottonomy — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 12:00:03 +0000

In my International Relations class, Spring 2006, I wrote a paper on “Applying Theories of Nationalism to Ethnic Violence: Can we explain, predict and stop Ethnic violence before it starts?”

Theories of Ethnic Violence [.DOC]

Constitutional Law paper on Gitmo detainee

ottonomy — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 11:54:30 +0000

My Winter 2006 ConLaw class was fascinating, particularly because of the focus on contemporary Supreme Court cases. Our final assignment was to propose a ruling on a “War on Terror” detainee case pending before the court, Mahdi v. Rumsfeld.

Ahmad Mahdi (For some reason our teacher called him that instead of “Ahmad Hamdan”) is currently an inmate in Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba. He was captured by Afghani forces during the invasion of Afghanistan two months after September 11, 2001, and the Afghanis transferred custody to the United States military in December of 2001. He has been declared an enemy combatant, and is alleged to be one of Osama bin Laden’s personal bodyguards. In July, 2003, President Bush determined that “there is reason to believe that Mahdi was a member of al Qaeda or was otherwise involved in terrorism directed against the United States.” Mahdi has remained in custody at Guantanamo ever since under the authority of the President’s executive order of November 13, 2001 establishing procedures for detaining enemy combatants. Mahdi filed a writ of habeas corpus in April 2004; at roughly the same time, the US government formally charged him with conspiracy to commit attacks on civilians and civilian objects, murder and destruction of property, and terrorism. He was slated to be tried before a military tribunal, but requested review of his situation in light of the Supreme Court’s ruling in Hamdi v. Rumsfeld in the summer of 2004. The hearing determined that he was an enemy combatant subject to further detention.
You now must rule on Mahdi’s habeas writ. The questions before you may include the following:
• Do you have jurisdiction to rule on the writ of habeas corpus?
• Were the military commissions (Mahdi’s only current recourse to the legal process) properly authorized?
• Do the 1949 Geneva Convention’s rules impose a bar to Mahdi’s trial by military tribunal?
Your answers to these questions will determine whether or not you grant habeas relief to Ahmad Mahdi.

As it turned out, the court decided the case a couple months later very similarly to my proposed ruling, against the military tribunals.

ConLaw-Proposed ruling on detainee tribunal

Policy Analysis: Offshoring the Economy

ottonomy — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 11:32:23 +0000

In the beginning of my third year, I took a political economy course and wrote an analysis of the problem of American companies outsourcing labor to lower-cost foreign workers. I felt that the domestic economy had to meet to this pressure by developing skilled workers who could move the state-of-the-art ahead, because of the weaknesses of protective measures. This entails more money and effort spent on higher education at home.

Political Economy-Policy Analysis-Offshoring

Moral Environmentalism

ottonomy — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 11:22:50 +0000

In a tedious class on environmental politics, I wrote this paper exploring what the present generation’s moral responsibility to posterity requires it to do about energy use. This paper is interesting to me now, looking back on it, because I hadn’t yet taken John Davidson’s class on Intergenerational Politics, so my ideas about the moral responsibilities I talk about here have grew from here. Also, I didn’t incorporate cited information very well into this paper… Looking back on it, I can’t really tell the separation point between the cited authors’ positions and my own. This seems like a common undergrad error that I’ve improved on much since 2005.

Environmental Politics – Moral Environmentalism

Metaphors of Bush’s 2004 reelection paper

ottonomy — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 11:09:29 +0000

In one of my first honors college “colloquium” classes, taught by Mark Johnson, I was introduced to his and George Lakoff’s theory of cognitive metaphor. This paper explores a metaphor of moral strength to evaluate its role in President Bush’s 2004 reelection victory, which was often publicly attributed to high turnout of “values voters.” Since I wrote this paper, the Democrats have still constantly failed to present a cohesive moral framework that justifies their positions (or is it that they still haven’t come up with a cohesive position?)

Metaphor Final Paper – Moral Strength and 2004 Election

Papers from my first undergraduate PS class

ottonomy — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 10:58:16 +0000

A blast from the past! My first political science papers from my second year at the UO. The class was comparative politics. The final project is interesting to read back on now, as my understanding of these issues has grown in ways I didn’t predict then.

The assignment:

You will design a developing country in 8-10 pages. Your country has middle-low income levels, has recently seen the end of a dictatorial regime, and has a chance for democratic institutions. It suffers from a 60%/40% ethnic divide between two groups. Your two-part assignment is 1) Define basic political institutions and the balance of power between them, justifying your choices with reference to real examples from other countries, and 2) Describe broadly how to set up the political economy, with reference to real examples.

I see that I was developing a critique of the US national election system, because I proposed Instant Runoff Voting so that people would not be “penalized” for voting for their ideal minor candidate at top priority instead of a mainstream one. The division of the bicameral legislature is by foreign/domestic affairs. Parallel high courts separated in a similar way as well. I’m posting this because even though I probably wouldn’t come up with this exact structure if I were doing it again, I am still concerned with future-of-democracy issues, and I want to explore normative questions about democracy like this in my graduate studies.

Anyway, check it out if you are interested.
Comparative Politics – Final Paper