Browsing by Author "Goss, Kristin Anne"

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Open Access
A Study of Plea Bargaining, Political Power, and Case Outcomes in Local Criminal Courts
(2023) Grodensky, Catherine Aspden
In this dissertation, I seek to understand the power of legal actors in determining punitiveness in plea bargaining in criminal courts. Using a unique combination of administrative court data and qualitative interviews, I evaluate the influence of the chief elected prosecutor, line prosecutors, and defense attorneys on plea bargaining practices and punitiveness in case outcomes across multiple local court systems. Chapter 2 presents an analysis of the association between the elected chief prosecutor and prosecution and active sentence rates in four types of criminal cases in nine districts in North Carolina. The study finds that chief prosecutors influenced punitiveness, but their influence was not aligned with their political party. Although Democratic and Republican chief prosecutors did not differ in levels of punitiveness, the one progressive prosecutor in the sample reduced punitiveness across most crime types to the lowest levels out of all nine study districts. Chapter 3 examines how line prosecutors working in one progressive prosecutor’s office reduced punitiveness in case outcomes, mainly by dismissing weak and low-priority cases even before they reached the plea bargaining stage. Finally, Chapter 4 explores the power of the defense attorney in plea bargaining, and shows how the legal actors and context of the plea bargaining interaction impacted defense attorneys’ leverage and negotiation strategies. These chapters provide insights into current movements to reform prosecution and reduce mass incarceration in the United States, and shed light on how punitiveness may be impacted through the complex process of plea bargaining.
Open Access
At Home or On Campus? How Duke Students Decide Where to Register to Vote
(2021-12) Callard, Lucy
Before they ever step into the voting booth, eligible Duke students must first decide whether to register at their permanent home address or their Duke address in North Carolina. 84 Duke students were surveyed to assess what factors play a role in the registration decision and whether the competitiveness of elections was among the most important factors. Four qualitative interviews were also conducted to collect quotes and anecdotes to highlight the trends found through the survey. Student who rated their home state as Not Competitive at All were the most likely to vote in North Carolina. No matter the competitiveness of their home state or major, survey respondents valued the competitiveness of elections as more important in their registration decision than the importance of registering where it is easiest. Students’ political engagement was positively correlated with a likelihood to register strategically, while lower levels of political engagement was associated with registering in their state where the process is easiest. Major and academic area of study were not found to significantly affect registration decisions and the factors that were most important.
Open Access
CBE and NCCCS: The Potential for Competency-Based Education in the North Carolina Community College System
(2014-04-17) Hettinger, Margaret
POLICY QUESTION: Should the North Carolina Community College System implement Competency-Based Education, and if so, how should the organization lay the groundwork for CBE implementation? BACKGROUND: Community colleges face the challenges of ever-increasing demands on their services and declines in public funding. They are also recognizing a need to provide more effective signaling to employers related to the specific skills and capabilities students can be expected to have when completing programs. Colleges are seeking inventive and “disruptive” policy options in order to face these significant challenges. Competency-based education (CBE) is an innovative educational delivery model in the higher education context that offers one way of hypothetically substantially reducing costs per student. CBE also offers a way of assessing and reporting specific competencies that students have actively and individually demonstrated. As with many community college systems, the North Carolina Community College System (NCCCS) strives to balance the priorities of increasing completion rates, maintaining open access to the wide array of potential students, and ensuring the quality of education at their institutions. The NCCCS office is considering the option of implementing a form of competency-based education in its community colleges. To inform its decision-making, NCCCS will need to understand key aspects of CBE and the factors that could most influence its own readiness for adopting CBE. Competency-based education places its focus on directly assessing student learning to determine a student’s ability to advance through an academic program, as opposed to student’s “seat time,” which focuses on a certain number of credit hours earned. It exists in a variety of forms throughout the U.S.; this report focuses primarily on online, self-paced CBE programs that use direct assessments to evaluate student performance and determine advancement. RESEARCH: In order to provide broad background information for NCCCS, I conducted extensive document review of policy reports from research and advocacy organizations, media coverage, and publications from institutions with CBE in place. Several common themes emerged. CBE has the potential to reduce costs and increase flexibility for students and institutions. It measures learning instead of time and ensures individual student mastery. Some critics raise concerns related to quality of learning and integrity of credentials with CBE, while proponents suggest these concerns are misguided. A number of institutions and policymakers at the local, state, and national level are currently excited about the potential for CBE. Some advocates suggest that community colleges and CBE are a natural fit, as CBE works well with adult learners and vocational programs, among other reasons. I then selected four higher education institutions and prepared mini-case studies on their CBE programs. The mini-case studies include the following programs: Southern New Hampshire University’s College for America, the Western Governors University and Broward College partnership, Northern Arizona University’s Personalized Learning program, and the University of Wisconsin System’s Flexible Option. I conducted in-depth interviews with leaders involved with CBE programs at these four institutions, including administrators and faculty members. The mini-case studies (found in Appendix C) focus on institutions’ decision making, planning, and implementation processes related to CBE. FINDINGS: The Analysis Section provides a synthesis of the motivations, reactions, and lessons learned from the four institutions. This first provides context on institutions’ reasons for adopting CBE. Leaders then shared their take on the advantages of CBE as well as any initial concerns they might have had related to the model. Respondents also discussed strategies that worked in their favor, as well as the biggest challenges that they faced in the planning and implementation phases of CBE. I then include a section with advice from CBE institutions related to the planning and implementation phases. Highlights include: • Create your CBE program apart from existing departments. • Target certain student populations and course subject areas, at least initially. • Hire a capable project manager, designate a creative team, and give them autonomy. • Campus leaders must take initiative and support CBE. • Faculty members’ involvement, feedback, and support are key. • CBE start-up costs are substantial; CBE should not be undertaken lightly. • Federal financial aid eligibility and accreditation can significantly affect timelines; plan accordingly. • Community colleges may require a special touch in CBE program design. RECOMMENDATIONS: • NCCCS should consider allowing 12-18 months to pass before taking major action in planning or implementation. If existing programs are reporting positive outcomes at that point, NCCCS should begin to plan a CBE program for its schools. • NCCCS schools planning for the model should focus on small-scale implementation in a field that involves licensure in an area identified as in high-demand by employers. • NCCCS should develop proposals for CBE models and allow interested schools within the system to come forward. From there, NCCCS efforts could focus on “back of the house” operations methods, to be shared with all participating schools. • Designate a full-time project manager to oversee and drive the planning and implementation phases. • NCCCS school administrators should engage faculty members early in the process, once decisions have been reached and the project framework has been established. • NCCCS schools should include substantial pre-screening efforts to ensure that students enrolling are best suited to benefit from the CBE model. • Coordinate with the University of North Carolina system to ensure that CBE credits will transfer. • To the extent possible, create a separate, more autonomous CBE program within a school. If feasible, hire faculty specifically to be engaged in the CBE program.
Open Access
Changing How America Eats: Transforming Individuals & Communities
(2012-04-20) Klimczak, Kate
Policy question: What are the challenges and promises of current efforts to promote healthier eating, and what can AGree do to help advance practical and successful strategies in the future? The importance of a healthy diet cannot be overstated. Research now links poor diet to a number of deadly—and expensive—health outcomes including obesity, chronic disease, and even some forms of cancer. Despite the well-documented risk associated with an unhealthy diet, millions of Americans fail to meet basic nutrition standards. Instead of consuming reasonable amounts of fruits, vegetables, and whole grains, many Americans over consume sugary drinks and processed foods loaded with added fat and salt. The results have been disastrous. Obesity rates, premature deaths, and health care costs are rising. While personal responsibility over one’s diet is a key factor in eating well, there are also four key obstacles that often prevent or hinder individual and community efforts to improve nutrition. These obstacles include: • Availability – Many Americans live in communities where fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and low-fat milk are not available. • Affordability – Healthier foods can be more expensive than many energy-dense foods with added sugars, salt, and saturated fats. • Cultural and Familial Preferences – Cultural and familial preferences often negatively affect food choices. • Education – Individuals do not have clear information and easy-to-follow instructions to help make informed nutrition and meal choices. These challenges are further compounded by the reality that unhealthy foods often taste better, and are more convenient to prepare or pick-up. Successful interventions to encourage healthy eating will require creative problem solving and significant support from stakeholders across the public, private and nonprofit sectors. Efforts to encourage Americans and their families to maintain a healthy diet can be broadly categorized into two distinct missions: creating opportunities for change and implementing theories of change. There are many public, private, and nonprofit actors and organizations working to create opportunities to implement healthy eating inventions, and then also following through on those opportunities to deliver a range of services and programs that help individuals and communities at the local level overcome barriers to healthy eating. AGree is in a unique position to help advance these goals. Specifically, AGree should: Support research evaluating the effectiveness of comprehensive community-based interventions to help policymakers and nonprofits advocate for and implement the most effective policies and interventions to promote healthy eating. Work with relevant stakeholders to develop a comprehensive healthy eating policy platform that represents the interests of stakeholders and reflects current knowledge of the best policies and practices to encourage healthy eating among all Americans. Influencing individual behavior to increase the consumption of healthier foods is a complex endeavor. As the approaches discussed in this analysis will demonstrate, creating long-lasting change in the American diet will require a variety of strategies, leaders, funding sources, and partnerships at every level—federal, state, and local—working to change the default behavior of both individuals and their larger communities through advocacy and action. Through advocacy efforts, many stakeholders are working to establish or protect funding streams, regulations, or legislatively mandated policy goals. These organizations are using coalition building, legislative advocacy, and grassroots lobbying to achieve these goals. On the ground, policymakers are utilizing two basic theories of change to address poor nutrition: targeted intervention and community transformation. Targeted interventions identify a specific barrier that prevents or hampers an individual’s ability or motivation to maintain a healthy diet. A community transformation approach focuses on addressing multiple barriers within a community, and transforming that community to make it easier to maintain a well-balanced diet. This report contains an analysis of current efforts to both create opportunities for change and take advantage of those opportunities. Different stakeholders bring a variety of resources and perspectives to the effort. These same stakeholders also face unique constraints that affect their ability in both the programmatic and advocacy arenas. This report’s analysis will explore how different stakeholders are working with policymakers to advance smart nutrition policies and implement promising healthy eating interventions on the ground. The goal is to provide AGree with a deeper understanding of the current political, fiscal, and policy environment, and offer recommendations on how the organization can best use its talents and resources to have a long-lasting impact on nutrition and food policy in the United States.
Open Access
Condoms and Consent: Exploring the Relationship Between Sexual Health and Sexual Violence on College Campuses
(2017-04-29) Weisman, Ilana
College campuses are ripe for investigation about sexual health and sexual violence: students know very little about sexual health and routinely engage in risky sexual behaviors, and one in four women will experience sexual violence while a student. However, if better sexual health leads to increased women’s agency and self-determination, and if sexual violence stems from socialized power dynamics that diminish self-determination, then it follows that increased sexual health should at least correlate with, if not cause, reduced levels of sexual violence. Fittingly, this thesis questions if increased sexual health associates with reduced sexual violence on college campuses. To investigate this connection, I analyze 59 members of the American Association of Universities by compiling data about their sexual health promotion, sexual violence prevention, and medical resources, as well as their Clery Act Compliant reported rates of sexual violence. I use a statistical approach to draw correlations and posit relationships between indicators of a campus’s sexual health and its reported rates of sexual violence, which I discuss alongside the phenomenon of underreporting sexual violence. This thesis will culminate by providing policy recommendations to universities on how to better their sexual health promotion and sexual violence prevention efforts, as well as to the federal government on how to reform the Clery Act sex crime reporting process to make Clery reports a stronger gauge of campus sexual violence.
Open Access
Direct Democracy and Online Mobilization: New Media Strategies to Galvanize Millennial Voters
(2012-04-25) Ritchie, Shannon
Policy Question What new media tactics should be employed to galvanize North Carolina Millennial voters in the run-up to the May 8, 2012 vote on Amendment One? Background and Policy Context The Coalition to Protect All NC Families was formed October 2011 in response to legislation passed by the NC General Assembly, Senate Bill 514, in support of a constitutional amendment that reads, “Marriage between one man and one woman is the only domestic legal union that shall be valid or recognized in this state.” Voters in NC will have the opportunity to vote “for” or “against” this amendment on May 8, 2012. The Coalition has been leading a campaign, on behalf of more than 100 member organizations, to educate voters on the harmful effects of this amendment and mobilize them to turnout and vote against it. Given the short timeline, this group is especially concerned with voter turnout. For this reason, they are particularly interested in Millennials as a target demographic for this research. As I later outline, this age group (18-31) is overwhelmingly in opposition to the proposed amendment, and is the generation most engaged online. The success of the campaign hinges on engaging this critical demographic. Data, Methods and Analysis My research strategy includes three steps: 1. Identify existing new media strategies used in previous ballot measure initiatives. 2. Research new media best practices, as they are employed in political campaigns. 3. Create a voter profile of Millennials in North Carolina. The Coalition leadership first requested that I look to other states to see what new media strategies have been implemented in similar social issue ballot measure initiatives. Then, I went a step further in deciding to research new media usage best practices, as it relates to political campaigns. I chose to exclusively focus on researching the Obama for America campaign, supplementing my findings with online research. Finally, I wanted to provide a complete and current profile of the North Carolina Millennial voter, so the Coalition could best understand this demographic – how were they politically engaged, where were they engaged (especially as it relates to online activity) and what strategies may be useful in activating them. A survey instrument would prove to be the best method of generating data for this profile. All three research methods served to inform my policy recommendations for the Coalition. Policy Recommendations New media tools prove to be a promising channel for the Coalition to Protect NC Families’ efforts to reach and galvanize Millennial voters. I outline two general new media tactics that the Coalition might benefit from incorporating into their overall new media communications strategy. These recommendations come towards the end of the campaign and only serve to reinforce existing new media efforts. 1. Increase visual content on existing SNS. a. With SNS posting, increase ratio of photos/videos to text, weighing even more heavily on photos. b. Create and share video content featuring people more recognizable and/or relatable to Millennial voters. c. Design infographics. 2. Continue to push early voting through SNS. With almost 40% of Millennial voters reporting that they aren’t currently registered to vote in their precinct, it’s critical that they engage in early voting or “one-stop” voting. North Carolina allows residents to register to vote and cast their ballot at the same time during the early voting period. In this election, the period is from April 19 to May 5, 2012.
Open Access
Female-focused Business Incubation in the Triangle
(2015-05-17) Jaffee, Valerie
This Duke University Master’s thesis was completed as a pro-bono research project for the Women’s Business Center of North Carolina (WBC of NC), a Durham-based nonprofit that helps women start and grow businesses throughout the state. To accelerate the growth of women-owned businesses in North Carolina, the WBC of NC is considering designing a female-focused business incubator in the Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill “Triangle” area. This report examines the current incubation landscape for women entrepreneurs in the Triangle, explores the need for a female-focused incubator, and provides guidance on designing an incubation program targeted at women.
Open Access
North Carolina Women of Color: Opinions and Concerns about the State Government
(2014-04-18) Johnson, Marion T
Opinion polling data and interviews with black and Latina women in North Carolina about the state government.
Open Access
Organizing Women as Women: Hybridity and Grassroots Collective Action in the 21st Century
(Perspectives on Politics, 2010-03) Goss, Kristin Anne; Heaney, MT
The Million Mom March (favoring gun control) and Code Pink: Women for Peace (focusing on foreign policy, especially the War in Iraq) are organizations that have mobilized women as women in an era when other women’s groups struggled to maintain critical mass and turned away from non-gender-specific public issues. This article addresses how these organizations fostered collective consciousness among women, a large and diverse group, while confronting the echoes of backlash against previous mobilization efforts by women. We argue that the March and Code Pink achieved mobilization success by creating hybrid organizations that blended elements of three major collective action frames: maternalism, egalitarianism, and feminine expression. These innovative organizations invented hybrid forms that cut across movements, constituencies, and political institutions. Using surveys, interviews, and content analysis of organizational documents, this article explains how the March and Code Pink met the contemporary challenges facing women’s collective action in similar yet distinct ways. It highlights the role of feminine expression and concerns about the intersectional marginalization of women in resolving the historic tensions between maternalism and egalitarianism. It demonstrates hybridity as a useful analytical lens to understand gendered organizing and other forms of grassroots collective action.
Open Access
Philanthropy as Redistribution: A Geographic Analysis of Domestic Foundation Giving
(2018-01-17) Englar, Brian
Private foundations, and philanthropy more broadly, have long been critical players in the American civic sector. By seeking out and funding projects otherwise left behind by the public and private sectors, these grantmakers hold significant power to influence societal outcomes and sometimes even policy. As a result of the most recent election – with both the Clinton Foundation and Donald J. Trump Foundation receiving heated criticism – American foundations have begun to receive a much more critical spotlight. This newfound criticism of private philanthropy represents a prime opportunity to reexamine the private foundation’s effects on American communities. In this study, I employ an original dataset for a sample of fifty US counties as I examine two crucial aspects of foundation operations: the private foundation’s often-assumed redistributive function and the private foundation’s role in providing funds to rural nonprofits. First, I find little in the way of redistributive trends in grants made to my sample counties. My sample dataset lacks evidence for a significant relationship between community need and private foundation grant receipts in the direction redistributive theory would predict. Second, I find no significant difference between the population-adjusted size of the nonprofit sectors in my rural and urban counties and a difference in per-capita grant receipts between the two county types that approaches significance at the five percent level. Combined, these findings suggest private foundations are failing to target their grants to the communities most in need and to proportionately fund projects in rural communities.
Open Access
Strategies to Promote the Implementation of a Statewide Data Collection Tool for North Carolina's Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault Agencies: A Project for the Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation
(2011-04-21) Wexler, Emily
Executive Summary As a longtime supporter of domestic violence and sexual assault service providers in North Carolina, the Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation (ZSR) has worked to strengthen the field’s provision of services, its operational capacity, its identification of sustainable funding sources, its articulation of policy priorities, and the development of outcomes assessment tools. With regard to the latter, ZSR has devoted specific attention to the development of data-driven strategies to reduce rates of domestic violence and sexual assault. This project analyzes the development of a new statewide data collection tool for victims of domestic violence and sexual assault in North Carolina. Given that the utilization of domestic violence and sexual assault services is growing annually, the development of a tool to effectively track service outcomes is timely and relevant. A data collection tool has both short-term and long-term benefits. In the short-term, it has the potential to dramatically ease the reporting process for agencies, while also synchronizing what gets reported. Better reporting mechanisms also increase opportunities for funding and strengthen an agency’s ability to advocate for more resources to support their services. ZSR’s particular focus is on the tool’s long-term benefit of providing North Carolina with a set of aggregate, statewide data that will facilitate the evaluation of what interventions and services have the greatest impact on reducing rates of violence. Because the successful implementation of a statewide, victim-level data collection tool is contingent upon full participation by the state’s victim service agencies, their voice and perspective is essential. Therefore, the majority of my data come from interviews conducted with 17 agencies throughout the state that offer domestic violence and/or sexual assault support services. My interviews attempt to gauge how agencies currently use data, their perception of the new data collection tool, and how funders can assist agencies with data collection. I have complemented my agency interview findings with interviews with additional key stakeholders and two surveys developed by the North Carolina Coalition Against Domestic Violence to assess organizational data collection capacity. My research shows that the use of electronic data collection is increasingly the norm among agencies. However, agencies had varied levels of satisfaction with their tools and frequently expressed a desire for the resources, training, and time to adopt a better system. Agencies consistently recognized the utility of data and frequently used the data they collected for activities other than reporting to funders. In particular, agencies use data to track trends, modify their services to better serve their client populations, and demonstrate the need for their services to the broader community. Agencies were generally aware of the new data collection tool, but knew little about it. Several agencies expressed excitement about the tool, but interviewees also raised several concerns about it. In particular, the most notable concerns about the new tool pertained to training costs, its level of technicality, its ability to meet agency needs, its overall affordability, and its long-term relevance. My report also includes three case studies from other states that have adopted some form of a statewide data collection tool for their domestic violence and sexual assault agencies: Oklahoma, Illinois, and Alaska. There are several salient lessons that emerge from these case studies. In particular, Illinois illustrates the importance of promoting agency buy-in and participation through the use of accessible technical assistance, agency data ownership, and trainings for agencies on how to use data collection for activities other than reporting. Additionally, all three states demonstrate how funders can convey the message that data is important through active involvement in tool development, but also by mandating that agencies use the tool or a tool with comparable capabilities in order to receive funding. These case studies also offer lessons learned and on-going challenges that North Carolina should take note of. In particular, strong investments in on-going technical support are critical. These investments should include the training or hiring of staff who are capable of working directly with the data collection software and can make any necessary modifications themselves. Further, agencies should have easy access to support should they run into a glitch with the system and have easy recourse to modifying the tool in order to maximize its utility. ZSR has consistently provided critical funding to the field of domestic violence and sexual assault services in North Carolina, as well as endeavored to advance the field by convening stakeholders, commissioning research, and challenging stakeholders to pursue strategies that have the greatest impact. Therefore, ZSR is uniquely poised to engage both other funders and victim service agencies on ways to ensure the effective implementation of this tool and encourage providers to move towards more evidence-based programming. This report concludes with the following recommendations: 1. Work with the North Carolina Coalition Against Domestic Violence, the North Carolina Coalition Against Sexual Assault, and public funders to increase marketing and communication about the data collection tool. 2. Convene funders to come to consensus on synchronizing funding requests and ensuring that current data requests yield meaningful output. 3. Provide financial assistance for a broad range of training. 4. Invest in technical assistance. In particular, hire regionally based, technical staff persons to assist agencies with the data collection process and act as a direct liaison with Osnium. 5. Hire an outside project manager to oversee the continued development and implementation of the data collection tool.
Open Access
The Effect of Gender Quotas on Women's Political Engagement: Cross-National Comparison and Case Study
(2011-04-27) Laurito, M Agustina
In this paper I look at the effect of gender quotas on women’s political engagement. In particular I ask whether the enactment of a gender quota encourages women to become more involved in politics by sending the signal that politics is not an activity reserved for men. The main source of data for the outcome variables is the World Values Survey (WVS) five wave dataset (1981-2008) that includes surveys conducted in 87 countries, the total number of respondents is 257,597. The first wave of the WVS was carried out in 1981, a second wave of the WVS took place in 1990, the third wave took place in 1995, the fourth wave took place in 1999-2000, and the last wave was carried out in 2005-2007. The final sample is reduced. I selected the countries that provided information of at least one point in the past before the enactment of the quota and one point after the enactment of the quota. The treatment group is composed of all those countries that established a quota at some point during the survey and the control group is composed of those countries that never established a gender quota. The resulting groups include 21 countries that have a quota with 88,749 respondents, and 23 countries without a quota and 76,587 respondents in this group. Countries that score a 3 on Freedom House’s Freedom in the World Index were also dropped from the dataset. Data on the independent variable existence of a gender quota was obtained from the Quota Project as well as secondary sources. Research Design In the first part of the analysis I compare differences in women’s political engagement for countries with a quota and for countries without a quota on five outcomes: discuss politics with friends, taken political action, signed a petition, participated in a demonstration and membership in a political party. In this section I assume that quotas would not have an effect on men and I use them as the control group. In the second part of the study, I try to estimate the effect of quotas on women’s political engagement using regression analysis. The model includes country and time fixed effects and an interaction term (quota*female) to capture the effects of quotas on women’s political engagement. This model also includes clustered standard errors at the country level. Because gender quotas can be established by political parties or legislatures I include one specification that controls for whether a quota is legislated or not. As two further specifications I use a fixed effects model to estimate the effects of quotas only for women and for men. In the second section of the paper I conduct a case study focused on Argentina to try to illuminate the different mechanisms that can explain women’s increased levels of political engagement and the potential effects of gender quotas. In particular, I focus on three mechanisms: greater visibility of women politicians, importance of political and economic crises and ripple effects of gender quotas that can explain increased levels of political engagement for women. The analysis in this paper does provide conclusive results about the effect of gender quotas on women’s political engagement. Given the limitations of this study in terms of data and potential omitted factors in the analysis, the symbolic impact of quotas needs to be further explored. The case study points out that the enactment of a gender quota contributes to the visibility of women politicians; it is possible then that quotas have an indirect effect on women’s political engagement. Quotas also can start a debate about the role of women in politics and in other institutions that can also contribute to women’s mobilization and interest in politics. However, there are many other potential factors that can influence women’s political engagement after the enactment of a quota and that are not being taken into account in this study. If quotas were also debated along with other policies that benefit women this could explain increased levels of women’s political engagement. Further studies of this phenomenon need to take into account these contextual factors, as well as others related to the potential effect of political institutions such as the electoral system on the effect of quotas. Finally, as part of the policy feedbacks literature, this paper concludes with the idea that there should be further studies that explore the mechanisms that lead some laws and policies to have feedback effects.
Open Access
The First Lady of the United States: A Traditional Role in the Modern Era
(2017-04-17) Colton, Jennifer
Although first ladies themselves have long been a topic of interest for historians, analysis of the role of the first lady is a fairly new topic for scholars. This study focuses specifically on first ladies as issue advocates, and looks at how and why first ladies’ issue advocacy has developed since female suffrage. I posit that first ladies’ issue advocacy developed linearly from traditional to modern over time. I created a model to define traditional and modern advocacy based on the topic of issue and the method through which the first ladies championed their cause. Based on historical analysis of biographies, autobiographies, newspaper articles and other relevant analyses of first ladies, each woman was given a classification in the model. Results show that first ladies’ issue advocacy did not in fact progress linearly from traditional to modern over time. Rather, it followed a periodic pattern that suggests that times of women’s advancement allowed for modern advocacy.
Open Access
Three Essays on Domestic Violence Related Firearms Regulations in the United States
(2018) Smucker, Sierra
Firearms regulation rarely passes in the United States due to the strength of the gun rights lobby. However, in the past several years, policymakers in traditionally pro-gun states have passed laws that restrict domestic abusers’ access to firearms. The success of these policies suggests that domestic violence and firearms regulations may represent a rare opportunity for bipartisan agreement in this contentious policy area. This dissertation examines domestic violence related firearms regulations from three angles. The first chapter presents a qualitative comparative case study analysis of domestic violence and firearms legislation to understand how these policies overcame robust barriers to passage. The results demonstrate that the prominence of domestic violence prevention advocates and “strategic absence” of larger gun control groups in the policy process increased the probability of the legislation’s passage. The second chapter leverages an original survey experiment involving 1,000 participants in the Cooperative Congressional Election Survey (CCES) to test whether framing gun regulation as domestic violence prevention instead of gun control can increase support for the legislation. While I find that framing does not impact respondents’ support for a new law, women are more likely to support the policy than men. Importantly, this result remains significant after controlling for political party, suggesting that women’s collective action could bring about bipartisan cooperation on some gun regulations. The third and final chapter demonstrates the importance of preemptive gun regulations for reducing intimate partner homicide through an analysis of homicide data from the North Carolina Violent Death Reporting System. Together, this collection of studies sheds light on the politics and design of domestic violence and firearms regulation and creates a foundation for future research in this important policy area.

Browsing by Author "Goss, Kristin Anne"

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