Name: Alexandra Agostinelli
Section: American Politics
Professional Email: ajagosti@buffalo.edu
Professional Status: Graduate Student
Institution: University At Buffalo
Scheduling Preference: Saturday Morning
Proposal Type: Paper
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Paper Title:  Political Habits of Bronies: A Comparative Study on Non-Governmental Participation among Bronies
Abstract:
This study aims to examine the impact of popular culture on political beliefs. Specifically, it explores whether involvement and comfort expressing that involvement in the My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic fan community influences the adult fans’ feelings of political efficacy and their level of level of involvement in civic and non-electoral political participation compared to the general population of American adults, regardless of political identification. This research hypothesizes that as individuals become more connected to a culturally homogenous and identifiable community, the more that community will mold their political opinions and actions. In addition, when the cohesiveness that binds a community together is a media product, the explicit and implicit messages contained in that product will influence the opinions and behaviors of the individuals in the community. Greater involvement and connection to the community leads to higher civic and non-electoral participation. To collect data, in- person interviews of attendees at the BronyCon convention in Baltimore during early August 2014 were conducted. Surveys were also administered through a number of social network sites visited by fans of the franchise. This dual data collection technique promises to bring richness to the findings that emerge from the study, as the qualitative responses from the personal interviews can be used to elucidate the various mechanisms whereby membership in a fan community influences aspect of political behavior and belief construction. Counties with more than three respondents were used to compare respondent’s ideology and the general population. One interesting finding is, as as a whole, the Brony community leans politically left, however in the locations of respondents that allowed for further analysis, the Bronies leaned politically right.

Name: Diane Cypkin
Section: American Politics
Professional Email: dcypkin@pace.edu
Professional Status: Full Professor
Institution: Pace University
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Paper Title:  Marching for the Jews of Europe, Washington, DC, October 6, 1943, or the Consequences of the First Jewish Public Relations Campaign in America
Abstract:
On October 6, 1943, hundreds of “black-clad” Orthodox Rabbis “chanting from the book of Psalms,” marched on the nation’s Capitol. Their mission: To present the president with a petition and to deliver a holy message and appeal. Among other things, they called for the creation of a “special intergovernmental agency to save the remnant of Israel in Europe” from Nazi murder, even as they reminded the Judeo-Christian society of its responsibility one to another as fellow human beings. This essay will argue that the march--the unique and dramatic grand finale of the first Jewish public relations campaign in America, organized by the Emergency Committee to Save the Jewish People of Europe and led by Peter Bergson, a public relations man —was ultimately instrumental in creating the “climate” that led to the president’s creation of the War Refugee Board. To understand how this happened, the historical environment, a study of the organizers of the march, their innovative media campaign, an investigation of those who participated in the march, the march, and, the consequences of the march will be closely examined.

Name: Brianna Durkee-Pabon
Section: American Politics
Professional Email: bredurkee@gmail.com
Professional Status: Undergraduate Student
Institution: Marist College
Scheduling Preference: Saturday Morning
Proposal Type: Paper
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Paper Title:  My Body, Their Choice: The Privilege of Bodily Autonomy in the United States
Abstract:
This research seeks to establish a link between privilege and bodily autonomy rights in the United States. The concept of bodily autonomy; my body, my choice, is seen as a human right. Yet, individual bodily decision making powers vary for some classes on a situational basis. This research explores how limitations on bodily decision making disproportionately impacts individuals across various classes in relation to privilege. When laws have more control over individuals’ bodies than individuals have themselves the equal protections given by the fourteenth amendment are jeopardized. Individuals reproductive autonomy is coming under attack by state and federal government; with two Supreme Court seats being filled by conservative judges, decisions like Roe v. Wade are at risk of being overturned and could result in more restrictive autonomy rights for various classes individuals. Understanding which individuals are protected under the current law and what protections are given under the law is the first step in addressing this fundamental problem. This paper will analyze different examples of bodily and reproductive autonomy such as; male circumcision, organ donation, piercings, eugenics, abortion and other related subtopics. To answer my research question, I plan to analyzed both federal and state policies, as well as court cases and rulings to examine the protections for different classes of individuals in relation to bodily autonomy. Data on different classes of individuals such as; gender, race, sexuality, age and social class were collected to examine the influence of privilege on bodily autonomy rights, as well as, the disproportionate variance in protections under the law. Despite fourteenth amendment protections; that are in place to ensure individuals the right to make their own bodily decisions, laboratories of democracy still allow for fragmentation in state laws and limitations to exist and prevent select groups of individuals from having full bodily decision making powers. A case study on reproductive autonomy and denial of bodily autonomy in cases pertaining to reproductive rights will further reinforce that under certain laws individuals do not have full control over their bodies. I predict that women and trans-individuals, racial minorities, minors, low income and incarcerated individuals will have the least amount of bodily decision making power under the law. Whereas, individuals who possess male, white, age or social privilege will have more bodily decision making powers under the law. Through the analysis of fragmentation and limitations placed on bodily autonomy across state lines it was concluded that not all classes have equal decision making power under the law. Additionally, individuals in states with less limitations on bodily autonomy is correlated with individuals across different classes receiving more equal bodily decision making power. With these results, we can conclude that a Federal statute allowing all individuals full bodily autonomy would eliminate fragmentation in state laws and provide equal decision making rights for individuals.

Name: Tracy Goodwin
Section: American Politics
Professional Email: Tracy.Goodwin@stonybrook.edu
Professional Status: Graduate Student
Institution: Stony Brook University
Scheduling Preference: Saturday Afternoon
Proposal Type: Paper
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Co-author info: John Barry Ryan, Stony Brook University john.ryan@stonybrook.edu
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Paper Title:  Conflicting Motivations: Gender Stereotypes and Partisanship in Presidential Elections
Abstract:
According to social norms, men are expected to display greater agency consisting of assertiveness, competitiveness, and ambition; and women are expected to display greater communality consisting of warmth, empathy, and supportiveness (Prentice & Carranza, 2002; Vinkenburg et al., 2011). When women act contrary to their prescribed gender roles they face negative backlash (Rudman et al., 2012). In the 2016 Presidential election, the Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton violated this social prescription, which left Democrats who endorse gender stereotypes in a bind. Clinton’s disregard for agency stereotypes led those who endorse gender stereotypes to evaluate Clinton more negatively, but Democrats’ partisan identity motivated them to support their party’s candidate. Democrats who endorse gender stereotypes compensated for their lower evaluations of Clinton by downgrading their evaluations of Trump. This allowed them to support and vote for Clinton as the better candidate despite her agency violations.

Name: Adam Stone
Section: American Politics
Professional Email: astone@gsu.edu
Professional Status: Associate Professor
Institution: Georgia State University
Scheduling Preference: Friday Afternoon
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Paper Title: You can't control me, I'm a defector: Democrats Voting for Trump’s Circuit Court Judges 
Abstract:
This paper analyzes the final U.S. Senate confirmation votes on the 29 Trump nominees (and possibly more during the lame duck session) to the U.S. Court of Appeals during the 115th Congress, First Session. Trump has appointed more appellate court judges in his first two years in office than any other president in history and the Republican-controlled Senate is attempting confirm as many as possible to create a conservative judicial legacy no matter the electoral fate of Trump and the GOP. Some Democratic senators have provided support for this conservative judicial revolution. Who are these defectors? Analyzing these confirmation votes using OLS regression, we find that reelection concerns are important, in line with the literature on Congress pioneered by Mayhew. Incorporating Govtrack’s ideological scores to the regression analysis provides further prediction of defection based on moderate ideology and using Govtrack’s leadership score to derive a partisan hierarchy also adds a predictive element of this model. The conventional wisdom of Red-State Democratic senators up for re-election in 2018 supporting Trump’s judicial nominees for political survival is challenged by these empirical findings.