The USDA defines a food desert as any census tract where at least 20% of the residents earn below the poverty line and at least 33% of the residents live more than one mile (urban locations) or ten miles (rural locations) from a supermarket selling fresh groceries. The presence of a food desert has been correlated with negative health outcomes in obesity, diabetes, and heart disease. The Healthy Food Financing Initiative launched in 2010 hoped to eliminate food deserts by 2016, but this result has yet to be seen in communities across America. However, since 2010 the geographical location and density of food deserts has shifted. It is unknown whether this shift is due to government intervention or demographic changes. Likewise, the census tracts where food deserts have appeared or disappeared have yet to be characterized. This study utilized data from the USDA, US census, and American Community Survey to identify how demographic changes and government spending is related to food desert movement between 2010 and 2015. This data was also used to characterize individual census tracts for poverty, SNAP enrollment, and other factors that may explain food desert movement. A regression analysis produced a more complete explanation of this phenomenon through an empirical and quantitative examination of the relationship between these metrics. Ultimately, this geographical and statistical study will serve as both a policy and a demographic analysis that explains trends in recent food desert movement. Researchers and policymakers can expand upon the conclusions of this study to create more targeted, effective, and efficient programming that improves food access across the United States.

This study compares water chemistry data during different seasons in Possession Sound at a location near Mukilteo. Possession Sound is part of the larger Puget Sound. Entering the Possession Sound is the Snohomish River which creates an estuary, providing critical habitat for numerous species that undergo a wide variety of changing water quality parameters. Studying this area can assist in determining the ecological health of the local marine environment. Water chemistry data were collected by the students of the Ocean Research College Academy (ORCA) program. Long-term data are collected at this location as part of an archival set, however, the authors contributed data in the fall of 2016 through spring 2017. Using multi-parameter water chemistry probes (YSI 650 and EXO2 Sonde), at the top three meters of the water column, pH, dissolved oxygen, and temperature were recorded monthly. It was predicted that pH levels at the surface would decrease and dissolved oxygen would increase during the winter months. This can be expected because temperature and dissolved oxygen have an inverse relationship, so as the surface water temperature decreased, dissolved oxygen amounts increased. By studying these seasonal changes, the correlating alterations to the ecological health of the Possession Sound can be determined.

The Syrian crisis has become the defining humanitarian concern of the early 21st century. With over 400,000 dead and millions displaced, regional and international actors have been overwhelmed by the logistical and political strains of supporting Syrians. Because women and children comprise eighty percent of all refugees and Internally Displaced Persons across Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq and Turkey, this Task Force elected to focus on the specific needs of this vulnerable population. Our report employs an inter-sectoral approach to identify both short and long-term gaps in women and children's rights and representation, economic opportunities, and their access to healthcare and education in Syria and the four major refugee-hosting countries. Data was collected through a a wide array of sources ranging from government reports to academic articles, the diversity of which enabled the report to look beyond the symptomatic issues facing women and children towards some of the more systemic cultural, political and historical factors which have influenced the conflict and the place of women and children within it. Our report concludes with policy recommendations for short-term relief, as well as the eventual reconstruction of Syria. This report was prepared for the Jackson School's capstone course, and has been evaluated by Ryan Crocker, former U.S Ambassador to Syria, Kuwait, Lebanon, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq.

The Westphalian state system—i.e., the global division of power in to roughly 195 sovereign nation-states—is proving inadequate in the face of rapid globalization. As our world becomes increasingly integrated, the political tools of the past, which uphold division and absolute autonomy, cannot offer a viable vision for the future. This is particularly salient in the case of global climate change: our commitment to statehood and international competition is preventing us from seeing the ways in which we are deeply interconnected, effectively imperiling current and future generations. Indeed, how should we respond to the 200-250 million climate refugees that will be displaced in the next 50-70 years due to climate change? What duties of justice are they owed? In this project, I assess the social contract tradition in political theory which offers the main philosophical grounds for the contemporary state system. I argue that, for a number of different reasons, social contract theory fails to offer a desirable framework for the new global political order necessitated by globalization. A theoretical framework that recognizes the ways in which humans are fundamentally in nature, and thus widens the scope of justice, offers a more promising alternative for regulating global cooperation. Indeed, if we, the human race, see ourselves as a unified group playing a small part in the larger play that is the global ecosystem, then our vision will clear and we will begin to see the appropriate duties of justice that we owe to each other, nonhuman animals, and nature.

John Locke's 17th century Classical Liberal work, the Two Treatises of Government sets out to create a theory of just government, grounded in property rights and individual liberty. Locke's writings greatly influenced the founding fathers of the U.S. Constitutional system. Chapter V of the Second Treatise of Government argues for the justifications for land theft of the Indigenous tribes of North America, in order for European settlers to establish colonial rule. The fundamental Indigenous concept that inhibited the spread of Liberal society was "ownership" of land in common. In this way, Liberal ideology sets out to justify individual property ownership, while undermining the Indigenous way of life. The focus of this study is the epistemological struggle between Liberal individualism and Indigenous community, which continues in America to the present. The intent of this study is to conduct a literary analysis of critical Indigenous and Classical Liberal scholarship in order to analyze how Classical Liberalism's epistemology of individualism subverts the Indigenous epistemology of community. Additionally, the study seeks to uncover the current practical implications of this subversion on the Indigenous peoples of North America. Specifically, how does this subversion impact current land and water struggles between the U.S. Government, their corporate allies and the Indigenous peoples? The findings of this study aim to expand the Indigenous critique of Liberal individualism. 

This study analyzes the correlation of speeches by members of Congress who were supported by the Tea Party political movement with changes in mainstream conservative political discourse. The rhetoric of these politicians after the Tea Party’s ascendance in the 2010 congressional elections was compared to the rhetoric used by John McCain, the Republican nominee in 2008, and Donald Trump, the Republican nominee in 2016 and current President, to understand the correlation with other changes in conservative discourse. This discourse shift was studied using speech analysis to code for instances of negative discourse and establish a comparison between these election years while also noting rhetorical shifts evident among mainstream conservative politicians. The sources were five speeches delivered by John McCain during his 2008 campaign along with five speeches delivered by Donald Trump during his 2016 campaign with these five speeches being the campaign announcement speech, a speech on immigration, a speech on foreign policy, a speech to the American-Israeli Public Affairs Committee Conference, and the speech after claiming the Republican nomination, along with two speeches by Sarah Palin between 2008 and 2010 and five speeches from Tea Partiers (Michele Bachmann, Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, Mike Lee, and Rand Paul) to test for a correlation between the Tea Party's ascendance in 2010 and increasing normalization of harmful discourse. Rhetorical strategies coded as harmful discourse were fear-inducing language, political myths, dog-whistle rhetoric, conspiratorial accusations, and personal insults.

When open-air drug markets, the geographic clustering of street-level purchasing and selling of drugs illegally, are introduced into urban environments with high levels of poverty, low levels of education, and gang networks, they act as a tipping point for lethal violence. Drug markets create economic incentives to utilize spatial and interpersonal relationships among gangs for generating income, increasing intense competition between and within gangs. Seattle is an optimal city to examine due to the availability of data and low overall homicide rate, making homicide hotspots even more curious. I evaluate my hypothesis systematically by conducting a bivariate and trivariate regression analysis, utilizing homicide, gang territory, and drug market data. I found that open-air drug markets are positively associated with homicide clusters. Further multivariate regressions will be completed that control for multiple factors where homicides are likely to occur, including poverty, education attainment, population density, neighborhood residence stability, gender, age, and race. This project is important for both scholars and policymakers, as a causal explanation for concentrated violence, or hotspots, will contribute to literatures on urban politics, crime, criminology and help identify ways to decrease the national homicide rate.

Previous research on campus sexual assault has found higher rates of sexual assault committed against members of sororities as opposed to non-affiliated women. Despite this finding, there has been limited research on this topic. This thesis observes the relationship between honor codes that prohibit drinking within the Greek Community on campus and rates of sexual assault. I seek to fill a gap in scholarship by conducting a study of honor codes within the University of Washington Greek Community in order to determine if gender based honor codes increase student vulnerability to sexual assault. I hypothesize that honor codes that restrict drinking are not meeting their intended purpose of preventing students from drinking but rather that they force students to do so outside of their home, which places students in more vulnerable situations. Additionally, I hypothesize that gender based honor codes increase student vulnerability to sexual assault. In order to test these hypotheses, I utilize a combination of qualitative and quantitative data collected from surveys and interviews with students at the University of Washington. I also employ feminist theory and previous research on sexual violence within Greek Communitites. My findings indicate that gender differentiated restrictions on drinking within sorority honor codes reinforce gender structures that have been fonud to perpetuate sexual assault and make sorority women drink in spaces where they may be at a higher risk of sexual assault. 

Over the past century, most of the highly debated political issues evaluated through a religiously influenced moral lens, such as gay marriage and abortion, have gained legislative support and restrictions were ultimately ruled unconstitutional. With this rise in progressive politics, why has the United States continued to criminalize sex work, another moral topic where women’s bodies and sexuality are heavily regulated? Many Western countries similar to the United States, including Germany, have legalized prostitution in order to support labor rights for sex workers. This paper seeks to examine why sex work is not legal in the United States. Germany will be used as a case study to distinguish why the United States continues to criminalize prostitution. By evaluating American and German history, I conclude that past and present patriarchal laws and culture, molded by a lasting religious influence, have heavily shaped the lens through which Americans view sex and sex work, and therefore establish prostitution laws. In conjunction with a religious and patriarchal society, the creation of the nonprofit sector allowed religious congregations to further their ideals and use philanthropic work as a way to eradicate sex work. Men and women alike capitalized on this philanthropic movement to ensure that sex workers did not disrupt traditional family values and erode the morality of the nation. This fight against sex work has shaped the current goals of anti-prostitution organizations, where human trafficking is conflated with prostitution. This perspective that human trafficking and sex work are interdependent has convinced politicians that legalizing prostitution would lead to an increased demand for human trafficking. Powerful faith-based groups have brought this issue to their congregations and lead anti-sex trafficking organizations and lobbying efforts in the United States. Religious influence on the government has prompted the moral lens through which sex work is viewed and regulated.

We propose to perform an original composition for an unusual quartet of instruments that blend together very different performance traditions and practices. The piece is the result of a collaboration between musicians that normally do not work together because of a lack of common chamber music repertoire. Our composition explores the timbral and compositional possibilities of strings and both traditional and non-traditional percussion instruments. It consists of two contrasting ideas that are juxtaposed: a slow, mysterious, and lyrical idea featuring various metallic percussion and high string harmonics, and a fast mixed meter fugue. These ideas conflict and transform each other, eventually coalescing asymmetrically into a dramatic conclusion. Writing and rehearsing this piece allowed us to merge together the largely classically trained basis of string instrument performance practice with contemporary percussion performance practice, each helping inform the other and leading to unique musical ideas and results. Hopefully this piece and others like it will allow for more future collaboration between musicians from these different backgrounds and performance practices.

Led by students in the Jackson School of International Studies, this task force proposes a course of action that the United States, under the new presidential administration, should pursue to address the salient maritime security concerns in East Asia. The task force developed a comprehensive research report that not only analyzes the breadth and scope of East Asian maritime security concerns, but also recommends the appropriate course of action the United States should take to preserve both its own interests and the greater security of the region. This report makes direct policy recommendations within the framework of the prevailing issues that dominate both traditional and non-traditional concerns in East Asia, particularly security concerns including Sea Lanes of Communication (SLOCS), the increased militarization of the region, and the rise of conflicts in the South and East China Sea. In addition, competing interpretations of international law and claimant perspectives in the South China Sea are also assessed. The report also analyzes the nontraditional security concerns such as resource scarcity (i.e., hydrocarbons and fisheries), competition and depletion, climate change and environmentalism (and the lack of a comprehensive international policy thereof), as well as piracy and human trafficking. The report completes its analysis through exhaustive review of primary and secondary sources that include think-tank and Department of Defense reports, Congressional hearings, joint governmental statements, interviews with foreign policy experts, tribunal decisions on international law, news sources and periodicals, and academic journals. The report recommends that the United States develop a course of action that balances destabilizing forces in the region and encourages cooperation. To achieve that end, the report recommends ratifying the UN Convention on the Law of the Seas, developing a clear environmental policy towards the South China Sea, and strengthening multilateral ties with Japan, India, and ASEAN.

This paper aims to explain how both the Donald Trump campaign for President of the United States and the Leave campaign in support of Brexit achieved national electoral success. Both stunning political victories initially shocked global markets and people across the world alike. In this paper, I aim to understand their electoral successes within the broader context of growing populist, nativist, and isolationist sentiments in western democracies. I argue that both the Trump campaign and the Leave campaign mobilized broad feelings of resentment in white, economically stagnant, deindustrialized communities scattered across their respective countries to augment their bases, build their political coalitions, and achieve electoral success. I rely mostly on qualitative methods and some quantitative data to conduct rigorous case studies on different British and American communities with the presence of deindustrialization serving as the independent variable. I intend for these case studies to show that the combination of deindustrialization and lingering effects of the global recession in predominantly white communities led to increased susceptibility to populist appeals to feelings of economic resentment. Further, in economically dynamic but demographically comparable cases where deindustrialization is not present, the same populist appeals were substantially less successful. The key implication of my work is it demonstrates the saliency of populist, nativist, and isolationist political appeals to white voters in deindustrialized communities in western democracies, and the ability to build a successful political coalition based off feelings of resentment and economic anxiety.

Ireland generally does not come to mind when debating military doctrine or civil-military relations; nevertheless, the Irish military has seen battle both abroad and at home since the British relinquished their legal domain over the nation in the 1920’s. Despite this short history, the nature of Ireland’s civilian relationship with its Permanent Defence Forces, or Óglaigh na hÉireann, is worth inspection due to its professional respect for civilian authority and successful minimal force policy which can serve as a comparison to our own military in the United States. This research uses political scientist Samuel Huntington’s terms of formal authority and informal influence to assess the success of the Irish Permanent Defence Forces via the quality of its relationship to both the Irish Parliament and the general Irish civilian population. I measure the formal relationship by the level, unity, and scope of influence, whereas I measure the informal relationship by group affiliation, economic resources, post-military occupations, and level of prestige. Following analysis of these several factors, the paper concludes that the informal de-politicized and formal subordinate role of the Irish military serves the state as a successful instrument of defense. The Defence Forces hold fairly little informal influence in terms of prestige, post-military occupations, economic resources, and group affiliation, yet this may serve in the best interests of the state. It has little to no formal autonomy to manipulate political affairs, yet very structural, stable control over the breadth of its own military responsibilities with internal avenues for releasing tension or for incurring incremental, thoughtful administrative change as necessary. The Irish military is constantly reminded of its subordination to the civilian government while at the same time accorded a fair degree of autonomy over its own regions of authority. These factors combined have created a peaceful and efficient civil-military relationship within Ireland.

This project examines the relationship between government use of technology through mass surveillance and the individual's right to privacy. In what some have called the “Big Brother” age of democracy, states often use mass surveillance technologies such as drones, wiretapping phones, intercepting internet communications, and other forms of secret surveillance. States argue technology aids efforts to combat security threats to the state, keep the public safe, and prevent crime. Individuals and NGOs argue that these practices can violate their rights to privacy. In a global age marked by global terrorism threats and a broadening use of mass surveillance technologies, the right to privacy is often portrayed as the loser. International courts are beginning to change this dynamic. This projects analyzes the emerging field of mass surveillance case law of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) to understand the role of individuals, states and courts in shaping this area of law. Cases were selected directly from the ECtHR Factsheet titled "Mass Surveillance" and a specific emphasis is placed on cases with a significant domestic impact. The findings bring into question dominant understandings of state power, and reveal the court does not hesitate to uphold individual and group privacy rights in the face of state opposition. Yet the findings also warn that rights to privacy are not absolute in the global “war on terror” and in the new “Big Brother” era of mass surveillance. In a field that will only continue to grow with a surge of technology, this project has important implications for future relationships between privacy and state security.

Despite the separation of church and state, religion and the religious beliefs of legislators have influenced the outcomes of elections since the founding of the United States. Measuring variation in the relative religiosity of congresses has not been possible because of the lack of available information. Nonetheless, religion has played a central role in campaigns. Political campaigns have claimed time and time again that they need to restore order in Washington D.C. and cite the religious beliefs of the candidate as evidence that they will be able to do that. This study examines whether or not that argument is persuasive to voters. To move beyond previous literature, this project has collected original data and has quantified the religiosity of congress by examining senatorial webpages and the rate with which they use religious terms on their webpages. This will be compared to survey data in the senator’s states. A multivariate regression has tested if there is a statistically meaningful association between voters’ concerns about public safety or economic conditions will lead to the election of senators that appear to be more religious. A relationship between public concerns about safety or economic concerns would indicate that voters are persuaded that a candidate’s religious beliefs make the candidate more qualified to restore order.

This abstract is no longer available. Please contact urp@uw.edu if you have any questions.

According to  research, polluted air causes the deaths of 5.5 million people every year, with inhalation of fine particles (PM2.5) being the leading cause. Some communities are privileged to have clean and healthy air. Others, especially those who are marginalized, are breathing in chemicals that are causing them to face serious health consequences. The Environmental Protection Agency, established the Clean Air Act in 1970 to set national standards for air pollutants that are harmful. In this research, I will focus on one of these pollutants, particulate matter (PM). PM2.5, are fine particles, 2.5 micrometers in diameter or less, and pose the most danger to the people’s health. They can get deep into your lungs and possibly your bloodstream and cause serious health problems in the future. The goal of this research is to understand if disadvantaged communities are exposed to higher levels of air pollution over time. I expect to see that counties with a low socioeconomic status (SES), and high concentrations of African Americans and Hispanics, will have the highest levels of air pollution. I used county level census data from 1980 and 2010, and looked at indicators including, education, income, and poverty levels as well as looking at differences across race/ethnic groups. Data on PM2.5 are measured based on EPA monitoring data which is then used to predict levels for each county in the US. I then mapped the air pollution levels in in a Geographic Information System known as ArcView, and looked at what communities are affected most, comparing higher SES counties to lower SES. Using my research, I hope to help influence policy decisions that will lead to healthier lives of marginalized communities.

What are the similarities and differences between mass political movements? In an important sense, all movements are unique. Yet movements as diverse as a series of protests that shut down one of the biggest cities in Bolivia over water utility privatization, an Arab ethnic-nationalist group in Sudan, and a peasant revolt against the Tsarist government in Georgia, also have important characteristics in common. This poster outlines the methods and process for identifying, understanding, and describing movements as part of the Mass Movements project. The Mass Movements project team is developing the first comprehensive, cross-national survey of the characteristics of mass movements with at least 1,000 participants from 1800 to 2012. Researchers have long studied questions about mass political movements by studying specific cases of mobilization; the data from the Mass Movements project will provide new analytical leverage for testing theories about where mass movements form, how they are organized, and their role in changing politics and policy. The project relies on extensive examination of secondary sources, and utilizes a consensus model for identifying movements and their characteristics requiring both in-depth independent fact-finding and close collaboration between researchers to determine how to describe movements. This method allows nuanced characterizations of and comparisons among diverse movements. The poster illustrates the process through the examples of the Cochabamba Water War in Bolivia, the Janjaweed militias in Sudan, and the Gurian peasant revolt in modern-day Georgia, three dramatically different movements that demonstrate the wide scope of the project and the ways in which researchers translate complex histories into reliable data.

On June 16th, 2015 business mogul Donald J. Trump delivered a presidential announcement speech, announcing his candidacy for president of the United States, launching his ascension to the White House. Through a rhetorical analysis of Donald Trump’s Presidential Announcement Speech utilizing Kenneth Burke’s framework of dramatism, Trump’s speech is shown to mimic the effective rhetorical strategy of the United States Christian theological prosperity gospel movement. The speech establishes a negative status quo, provides testimony on a successful break from the status quo, and concludes with a plan for redemption, showing listeners how they, too, can break from the status quo utilizing an exemplary model. Trump serves as the exemplary model, claiming to know a path toward greatness, articulated with his campaign’s slogan, “Make America Great Again”. However, Trump’s imperfections, including his relationships with the elite and break from expected niceties in rhetoric, required mortification and scapegoating for justification to legitimately be seen as the exemplary model. The implications of Trump’s rhetorical strategy may inform future political candidates’ rhetoric and provide insight into President Trump’s framing of policy issues.