Senior Theses

As part of our major students write a senior thesis under the supervision of a department member within a senior seminar. Here are the titles of the theses written this year:

Public Law (Supervisor: Professor Bill Haltom)

Kristen Arquette, "Divorcing Moviegoers from Reality: How Movies Systematically Misinform Americans about Divorce Law"

Ned Culhane, "Balancing Politics of Populism and Rights: Defending the Civil Rights of Same-Sex Couples in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts"

T’wina Franklin, "Who’s Your Mama … Now? How Movies Are Wrong About Child Custody Biological Mothers Do Not Always Win"

Kristine Lynch, "Regulating the Environment: An Examination of the Failure of Regulatory Agencies to Implement Lasting Environmental Policy, A Case Study of the EPA"

Daniel Mitchell, "Searching For Patterns in Tort Reform over the Last 20 Years"

Kyle Robinson, "The Invisible Hand of Employment Discrimination Law: How Lawyers Inadvertently Shape the Legal System for the Better"

Whitney Roulstone, "Confused Voters Vote NO: Why Initiative Voters Do Not Know All the Facts"

International Relations (Supervisor: Professor Lisa Ferrari)

Amanda Bennett, "Good Intentions, Growing Pains and the Growth of Soft
Power: The Impact of Hard and Soft Power Tensions on Perceptions of the
United States"

Kjirsten Brevik, "Humanitarian Intervention: The Influence of Domestic
Pressures on U.S. Foreign Policy"

Nick Brown, "Development, Inc.: Misaligned Motives and Microfinance's
Emerging Inability to Help the Poor"

Kate Demers, "The International Criminal Court: Will it Succeed as an
Effective Court without the United States?"

Treana Graham Hickey, "Australia and Indonesia: An East, West Friendship"

Morgan O'Neal, "Sacrificing Sovereignty: The Tradeoff between Participation
in the International Criminal Court and State Sovereignty"

Katheryn Pettie, "Uncertainty in the International System: How Rhetoric,
the Trans-Atlantic GMO Trade War, and International Pressure Impede the
Self-Determination of Developing Countries"

Jennifer Tharp, "Chinese-Japanese and Japanese-South Korean Relations"

Jon West, "Pride and Primacy: The Chinese Threat to American Economic
Dominance"

Colleen Woodrow, "Urbi et Orbi: One City for the World; The Catholic
Church's Duality as a Mediator in Political Conflict"

American Politics (Supervisor: Professor David Sousa)

Megan Buscho, “The Attack of the Pajama People: Bloggers and the Challenge to the Mainstream Media”

Bradley Forbes, “Welfare and Poverty: An Analysis of TANF in its Infancy”

Jonathan Ledbetter, “Christian Crusaders in the States: The Christian Right in Oregon and Kansas, 1986-2006”

Clare Magee, “Politicized Intelligence: A Comparative Study of Productive and Destructive Presidential Politicization of the CIA”

Dana Ron, “Seeking Shelter: Success and Failure of Homelessness Policy in San Francisco and Portland”

Comparative Politics (Supervisor: Professor Don Share)

Bill Bockman, "Cross-National Responses to the Decline of the Keynesian
Accommodation"

Jessica Box, "Healthcare in Comparative Perspective: The United Kingdom and
Canada"

Kari Manlove, "How Islamists are Democratizing: The Emergence of Hamas and the
Muslim Brotherhood in Elections and Civil Society."

Matthew Perry, "Cash and Campaigns: Campaign and Party Finance in a Cross-National
Perspective."

Julia Tallmadge, "A Comparative Study of Human Rights in Iran Before and After 1979."