Name: Holly Alexander
Section: Identity Politics
Professional Email: holly.alexander@gmail.com
Professional Status: Undergraduate Student
Institution: Wagner College
Scheduling Preference: No Preference
Proposal Type: Paper
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Paper Title: The Cost of Becoming One's Self: A Closer Look at the Factors of Transitioning in a World That Does Not Like Change
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Abstract Transgender rights is increasingly becoming a mainstream political issue in the United States. However, there is still not enough of an understanding about some of the major challenges transsexual and transgender people face. This paper will examine specific areas of experiences of transgender people in 21st Century US society. The aim is to reject the misconception that fully transitioned persons are fully accepted, provided necessary attention and health services, and that transitioning is easily accessible and affordable. The focus areas of inquiry will be the social acceptance of transgender people in partnerships and families, the medical transition process and how mental health is addressed, and the factors of cost associated with transitioning. There are disparities that lie in these areas for male-to-female and female-to-male transgender persons; these will be discussed where necessary. Humans being social creatures, one area of concern might be the kind of social environment provided by the family, romantic and platonic relationships, and all other companions. The physical transition for a person would also be an extremely pivotal experience. Medical – physical and mental – provisions, or lack thereof, is unavoidable as this can determine how an individual transitioning perceives and acclimatizes to his or her new life. Finally, this paper explores the factor of cost in transitioning. Inescapable, medical costs for a person transitioning, even by recommendation from professionals, play a huge role. This is a gray area because it is not often discussed what allows someone to qualify for financial assistance for transitioning hormones and procedures, the costs covered by insurance and the costs that remain considered cosmetic, nor the effect of not being able to afford as little as a consultation about one’s condition. To further understand these specific issues, testimonials from transsexual and transgender persons were read, real scenarios of patients were cited: provided by professionals who replaced the patients’ real names with letters or numbers, and quantitative data highlighting certain demographics was analyzed to aid in conclusions. The findings presented in this paper indicate that support is necessary but not always available, there is a wide variable for the medical needs of trans* persons that needs to be met, and cost likely works as a deterrent for people to make the transition.

Name: Tatjana Calimpong-Burke
Section: Undergraduate Research
Professional Email: tc54683p@pace.edu
Professional Status: Undergraduate Student
Institution: Pace University
Scheduling Preference: No Preference
Proposal Type: Paper
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Paper Title: Indigenous Peoples of Hawaii and the Supersession of Sovereignty 
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In this paper, I analyze and criticize Jeremy Waldron's perspective on the “supersession of sovereignty,” using the U.S. Supreme Court Case Rice v. Cayetano as the focal point of my discussion. I ask: is it ok to “discriminate based on race” in the case of indigenous peoples, more specifically the native Hawaiians? Can distinctions between indigenous Hawaiians and residents of Hawaii be permissible because they should be recognized as continuing to hold sovereignty? If so, has such sovereignty been “superseded”? In 1996, Harold 'Freddy' Rice attempted to vote in an Office of Hawaiian Affairs election even though he did not meet the racial qualifications to be considered a part of the constituency served by the Office. The Supreme Court in Rice v. Cayetano ruled in favor of Rice, holding he was wrongly denied the right to vote based on race in violation of the 15th amendment. In contrast, the dissent argued that ancestry differed from race and that indigenous Hawaiians retained a status similar to that of Native Americans, who retain some sovereignty. I explore how the Court’s decision has language similar to Waldron’s philosophical arguments on the “supersession of sovereignty.” I largely side with the dissenters, but examine how Waldron’s perspective could challenge their arguments. Waldron argues that even if indigenous peoples were wrongly deprived of sovereignty, changing circumstances could make it unjust to revert sovereignty to them now. Waldron is well-known for his supersession thesis, but this is usually discussed in the context of property rights, not sovereignty. I argue that it is particularly illuminating to explore whether and how his argument would work if applied to the Hawaiian context and whether sovereignty has been superseded in this case. I argue that there is merit to the claim that sovereignty cannot be fully restored to the same form it existed in before historic injustices in the Hawaiian context. However, Waldron does briefly talk about how there could be a partial supersession of sovereignty. I develop this idea of “partial supersession” further in the Hawaiian context and analyze what it would mean. This sovereignty is based on historic title to self-rule; it is diminished because of changed circumstances, but has not vanished. This would involve recognizing that indigenous Hawaiians have more than so-called “special rights.” I ask, however, how far does any residual right of sovereignty extend? Does it allow and amount to discriminating based on race? I argue that my analysis of Waldron’s supersession argument can cast new light on the arguments in Rice v. Cayento. I largely side with the position of the dissent, but I argue that the concept of “partial supersession” provides new arguments not available to the dissent. I not only draw on Waldron's views, but I challenge it using the arguments of Will Kymlicka and other philosophers.

Name: Jasmine Cui
Section: Undergraduate Research
Professional Email: jasmine.cui@emory.ed
Professional Status: Undergraduate Student
Institution: Emory University
Scheduling Preference: Friday Afternoon
Proposal Type: Paper
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Co-author info: Sarah Qadir; sarah.qadir@emory.edu, Emory University Meredith McKelvey; meredith.mckelvey@emory.edu, Emory University Faculty Advisor: Elisha Cohen; elisha.ann.cohen@emory.edu, Emory University
Co-presenter info: Sarah Qadir; sarah.qadir@emory.edu, Emory University Meredith McKelvey; meredith.mckelvey@emory.edu, Emory University
Paper Title:  From Online to Office: Social Media and Electoral Outcomes (Updated/Final Version)
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Building on previous scholarship on voter mobilization, political communications, and digital culture, I propose a theory of social media followership and its role in determining electoral outcomes. By instrumenting for the effects of followership on a candidate’s vote share using the date of the candidate’s Twitter account creation, we isolate the effects of having an engaged Twitter followership and estimate the amount of electoral support that can be ascribed to a politician having a robust online presence. While previous literature has made the assumption that a politician’s online clout causes their in-district popularity and, consequently, facilitates electoral victories, little quantitative research has been done to ascertain whether or not a large social media following is truly as powerful and, most importantly, causal as it is believed. Furthermore, I observe it is often the case that incumbents, with pre-existing in-district popularity are subsequently popular on Twitter, achieving large followerships, indicating that the direction of causation which is assumed might be faulty. This article contributes to the existing literature by ascertaining the true nature of the relationship — if there is one — between social media following and electoral outcomes. In our preliminary findings, we observe a significant effect, leading us to believe that there may, indeed, be a positive relationship between social media followership and electoral outcomes. Furthermore, we observe that followership advantages political aspirants in three, distinct ways. First, social media followership is often monetized in a way which contributes to a candidates war chest. Followership also endows politicians with an information advantage and, additionally, appears to inform both entry and exit strategies. Lastly, and most importantly, followership increases the recognizability of the candidate by lowering the costs of message transmission. We discuss these three channels of causation the qualitative portion of our study.

Name: Gabriel Henrique de Paula Alves
Section: Undergraduate Research
Professional Email: gabriel.henrique98@gmail.com
Professional Status: Undergraduate Student
Institution: University of Lisbon - Institute of Social and Political Sciences (ISCSP).
Scheduling Preference: Saturday Afternoon
Proposal Type: Paper
Panel Title:  Proxy wars and Superterrorism: A new challenge for the international intelligence in the Middle East
Panel Description: An presentation regarding the theme of  “Proxy wars and Superterrorism: A new challenge for the international intelligence in the Middle East”.
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Paper Title:  Proxy wars and Superterrorism: A new challenge for the international intelligence in the Middle East
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“Proxy wars and Superterrorism: A new challenge for the international intelligence in the Middle East”. Author: Gabriel Henrique de Paula Alves ; Mentor: Professor Teresa de Almeida e Silva. ABSTRACT The article has the purpose to analyze the new demands of the security agenda with the post-Cold War, mainly what it concerns to the new shape of war: Proxy Wars. Therefore, the proxy warfare is the main aspect to be investigated, with the aim to understand which are the consequences of these proxy wars for the international system. With this in might, the article makes a parallel between Proxy Wars and superterrorism, related to Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear (CBRN) weapons. This assumption is based in the idea of States seeking for maximize their power; in the other hand, insurgent groups could use superterrorism as a brand-new key power to achieve their claims. Hence, this essay has a starting question which: is the proxy wars a negative externality that could raise the superterrorism in the Middle East, assuming a new shape of onslaught for counterterrorism strategy for the international intelligence? The perspective of proxy wars is evaluated by an analysis of historical facts regarding proxy warfare such was between Turkey and Russia to support Kurd region and the crisis in Syria. The second stage will submit the debate of superterrorism and how it diverges from the conception of terrorism itself, in view of the damages and future consequences, as it happened in Hiroshima, Nagasaki and in the Vietnam War. From this standpoint, the utilization of CBNR by insurgent groups was introduced within reports in 1999 of production of this kind of weapons by Al-Qaeda with the “Project Yogurt”. In summary, this essay will investigate how all this factors configures as contemporary challenges for the strategic studies, national security and above all, how international intelligence, such as INTERPOL, CIA, NATO, FATF and others, will produce efficiency solutions to reduce these struggles. Finally, the theoretical background of this project starts with a passage from the perspective of war hearkening Thucydides and Clausewitz to Buzan and Mary Kaldor (era post-Clausewitz) with the idea of “new wars” and the international security agenda after the Cold War to introduce proxy wars. Third, the realism classic, the offensive realism and neorealism has the purpose to read the discussion between power and imposition of interest by the State actor and non-State actors, assuming a different shape for security studies, not only based in a military aspect. To show the security dilemma as a conglomerate of factors and the importance of “soft power” instead of “hard power” to reduce futures struggles and safeguard the peace in the international society. Keywords: Proxy Wars; Superterrorism, International Intelligence; Neorealism; Middle East.

Name: Morgan Johnson
Section: Identity Politics
Professional Email: mjoh296@lsu.edu
Professional Status: Undergraduate Student
Institution: Louisiana State University
Scheduling Preference: Saturday Afternoon
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Paper Title:  The Criminal Justice Systems and Psychological Disfranchisement
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The criminal justice system, has always been at odds with Black and poor people. Recently the criminal justice system in America has been criticized for its bias and disproportionate use against Black people. We have discussed extensively how this system of oppression has come about; who made it, why they made it, how it benefits them. We often discuss the literal effects of being incarcerated, and how it upholds our country’s current race based power structure. Throughout our extensive discussion of the criminal justice system and its effects on colored people, we have not discussed how it affects the political psyche of the affected populations. We often discuss the lack of political participation in terms of structural issues such as; discriminatory voting laws, lack of resources, inability to make it to polling stations, income, and educational variations. Though these laws and practices greatly contribute to people’s inability to vote, it does not account for everything. Despite all these obstacles, the average person could still reasonably exercise their right to vote. So then what is preventing people in this demographic, particularly Blacks, from voting? The prevailing consensus is that there is a widespread apathy epidemic among the Black community. However, I would argue that years of oppression, particularly criminal-justice based oppression, has damaged the Black political consciousness in such a way that low-income Blacks no longer believe in the political system or the power of their vote. This research will attempt to begin exploring the criminal justice system’s effects on Black attitudes towards government, and subsequently Black political participation. This work will discuss the body of literature used as a foundation for this work, followed by a discussion of my research method, findings, and an analysis. This work is intended to begin the discussion about other potential consequences of the criminal justice system, and other causes for Black’s failure to participate politically.

Name: Jack Leighton
Section: Undergraduate Research
Professional Email: jack.leighton@wagner.edu
Professional Status: Undergraduate Student
Institution: Wagner College
Scheduling Preference: No Preference
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Paper Title: Cases of Chinese Human Rights abuses and the International Response
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In the post-World War II global community, the atrocities carried out by Nazi Germany demanded a global concensus for the treatment of all human beings. As the global forefront of peacekeeping efforts, the United Nations took on this responsibility and drafted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948. This was signed by the original United Nations Security Council, which included the Chinese government. This establishes that China has indeed recognized the universality in the concept of Human Rights and what they entail.The Universal Human Rights Declaration, as outlined by the United Nations details thirty articles of Human Rights that are inalienable to human life. These include rights to movement within one’s country, freedom from arbitrary interference in one’s life, right to determine one’s own education, freedom of peaceful assembly and expression, rights to religion, and the right to equal dignity. These rights are internationally determined to be the most fundamental and the most important rights a state must give to its people.By examining three cases of the Chinese government abusing the rights of citizens living in Autonomous Zones(Tibet, Xinjiang, and Hong Kong), the patterns of abuse begin to emerge. The accounts of Human Rights abuses conducted by the Chinese government are a nearly constant stream in outlying regions, especially those discussed, since the CPC took power in 1949. The common tales of forced abortions and sterilization of women, torture, suppression of religious freedom, arbitrary arrests and other Human Rights abuses seem to pose that the Chinese government gives little to no concern to Human Rights when it conflicts with their goals of a Han Chinese hegemony. While the international community places pressure of words, they are in a strong position to refuse to change. International law gives them the territorial integrity that allows them to barr journalists or the United Nations entry into their country. This is the biggest asset in their ability to conduct themselves as they please. Other countries are unable to assess these situations for themselves, and are forced to look to second hand accounts. These second hand accounts directly conflict with the accounts given by the Chinese government, and countries are forced into submission so as not to provoke massive aggressions from China. Risking a war with a nuclear capable superpower is not something that is taken lightly by any country, even large militaries like the United States. China has the second largest economy in the world, so smaller countries are unable to challenge their economic might in order to combat their Human Rights abuses.

Name: Maria Lore
Section: Undergraduate Research
Professional Email: lorema@lemoyne.edu
Professional Status: Undergraduate Student
Institution: Le Moyne College
Scheduling Preference: No Preference
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Paper Title:  President Calderón’s “Multi-Front War”: Combatting Drug Trafficking Organizations with the Use of Defective Institutions
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This paper reinterprets Mexico’s transition from a one-party to a multi-party system at the beginning of the twenty-first century. This change occurred when the seventy-one-year rule of the centrist Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) ended with the right-of-center National Action Party’s (PAN) electoral victory in the 2000 general elections. This paper scrutinizes this rise in political pluralism that coincided with an increase in drug transshipment activity in Mexico, and the economic and political factors that caused narcotics trafficking to expand. Most significantly, this paper addresses the “war on drugs” that Felipe Calderón, the PAN politician who served as president from 2006 until 2012, implemented throughout his term. It questions why President Calderón’s anti-drug efforts failed to entirely eradicate drug trafficking activity, and instead caused a plethora of human rights abuses to occur. In connecting this “war on drugs” to political transition, I argue that human rights abuses resulted from the failure of Mexico’s institutions to accommodate the shift in governing tactics that ensued as power was transferred from the PRI to the PAN. Before the PAN obtained federal authority, Mexico’s bureaucratic system was arranged in such a manner that military and judicial officials remained devoted to the PRI and its leadership to retain at least partial independence over the internal affairs of their respective departments. These institutions, and particularly the military, were therefore unable to effectively shift their operational style to adhere to the PAN’s agenda that restricted such autonomy. Alternatively, the PAN fell short of overturning critical aspects of the PRI’s decades-old clientelist order, and it is these changes that institutions under the PAN did not make to the PRI’s governing structure that also resulted in rights abuses and an unsuccessful “war on drugs.” This included the PAN’s decision not to train military personnel to fight as law enforcement officers, as well as the party’s choice to refrain from eliminating the bribery and “shyness” that continued to plague courts. Thus, when Calderón implemented his anti-drug initiatives, he was essentially compelling his administration to fight a “multi-front war,” both against institutional weaknesses inherited from the PRI and in opposition to armed drug trafficking organizations, or DTOs. I therefore conclude that Calderón’s “war” was unsuccessful because cartel activity could not be eliminated while the military and judiciary remained incapable of facilitating the policy changes that would result in effective DTO suppression. In approaching my research, I use primary sources that include Gibler’s eyewitness accounts compiled in To Die in Mexico: Dispatches from Inside the Drug War, as well as statistical documents published by Human Rights Watch, Congressional reports, and secondary sources.

Name: Blake Reed
Section: State and Local Politics
Professional Email: blake.reed001@albright.edu
Professional Status: Undergraduate Student
Institution: Albright College
Scheduling Preference: Saturday Morning
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Paper Title:  Pennsylvania Public Good Distribution in Rural and Urban Areas
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Pennsylvania is composed of vast amounts of rural land, as well as populous cities like Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. Like other states throughout the country, Pennsylvania provides public goods and services to its residents, and distributes them using state and federal level funding. Due to its complex makeup of rural and urban areas, state government has to ensure that the allocation of goods is provided in an effective manner, while ensuring that large areas and populations are not left out. In many cases, to ensure effective use of government money, it appears that urban areas are given more funding, as more constituents are affected, and the need for public goods might be higher in urban areas. This may, however, leave rural areas at a disadvantage, as funding and allocation of goods and services are not prioritized for these areas. This paper will look into the funding of public goods on a county level, and compare the funding received by rural and urban areas throughout the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania to determine if rural areas are being underfunded or overlooked in the distribution of public goods. Using data provided by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania’s Department of Transportation, this paper will look into the allocation of funding and public goods and services between urban and rural areas throughout the state. The data will be compared on a county-by-county basis, using definitions of “rural” and “urban” from the Center for Rural Pennsylvania, which states that an area is considered rural if it is under 284 persons per square mile—the state average—and urban if it is above. This resource has already categorized Pennsylvania counties as either urban or rural; the same categorizations are to be used by the authors. Using the data and definitions provided, a coding system for the data will be developed and explained, allowing for better analysis and fair treatment of the data. To this point, little research has been done regarding rural areas and the distribution of public goods in this capacity. There is, however, evidence to suggest that the people that reside in rural areas do not have the same levels of political efficacy as their urban counterparts. There is also evidence to suggest that those in rural areas feel that they have been neglected by the government, and that they have not been allocated the same funding, goods, or services that those in urban areas appear to receive. Due to this feeling of resentment among rural areas, as well as the politically competitive climate in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, determining the equity of funding and public goods is an important aspect in understanding the relationship between rural areas and the government, as well as rural areas and their urban counterparts.

Name: Ellen Thome
Section: Undergraduate Research
Professional Email: ethome@fordham.edu
Professional Status: Undergraduate Student
Institution: Fordham University
Scheduling Preference: Friday Afternoon
Proposal Type: Paper
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Paper Title:  School and Sanctuary: How state-level sanctuary policies affect migrant K-12 students’ academic performance
Abstract:
Since 2010, use of deportation has increased and become more central to immigration policy in the United States and abroad, with deportation becoming a central aspect of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign platform during the 2016 presidential election. The threat of deportation has a profound effect on immigrant children living in the United States on all aspects of their lives. This paper seeks to examine how state compliance with ICE affects migrant K-12 students’ performance on state standardized tests. While previous literature on the subject has already demonstrated how sanctuary policies can improve public safety by increasing trust in law enforcement, as well as produce economic benefits in the districts where they are applied, there is a gap in the literature regarding sanctuary policies and education outcomes, particularly among immigrant K-12 students who are more likely to experience obstacles to education, including poor mental health, low preschool enrollment, and high rates of absenteeism. This paper examines two states with large populations that lie along the U.S.-Mexico border: California, which is a sanctuary state, and Texas, which is a non-sanctuary state. Using test score data from student performance on standardized tests from state departments of education (cde.ce.gov for California and tea.texas.gov for texas), this paper compares the mean test scores for students in their state’s Migrant Education Program (MEP) with their state’s statewide mean test scores to determine the size of the achievement gap between migrant students and their state’s mean score. This paper examines migrant student performance in both mathematics & language arts (the CAASPP for California and the STAAR for Texas) as well as English language proficiency (the CELDT for California and the TELPAS for Texas). The results indicate that state-level sanctuary policies have little effect on migrant K-12 students’ performance on tests, while other factors such as state-set academic standards and computer access may have a greater effect on the academic performance of migrant students. This brings with it the normative implications that lawmakers and educators should take students into consideration when drafting sanctuary bills by including proposals that explicitly address the needs of K-12 immigrant students, in addition to expanding mental health and academic support services aimed at immigrant students. As sanctuary and deportation will likely be key topics for candidates in the 2020 presidential election, a strong understanding of sanctuary status and its effects on different populations will be vital for voters across the United States.

Name: Rita Udeozo
Section: Undergraduate Research
Professional Email: mailrees410@yahoo.com
Professional Status: Practitioner
Institution: Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria
Scheduling Preference: No Preference
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Paper Title:  Corporate Social Responsibility and Sustainable Development in the Niger Delta Region of Nigeria: A Case Study of Shell Petroleum Development Company.
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There has been a debate as to whether or not business organisations should take any responsibility in their immediate environment of operation.In Nigeria, multinational oil companies have been criticised for the poverty and crisis in the Niger Delta, where they obtain over ninety percent of their total production of crude oil.Using this as a point of departure, this study investigates the effect of Corporate Social Responsibility CSR on the sustainable development in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria; with focus on the activities of Shell Petroleum Development Company SPDC.The objectives of the study were to determine: whether SPDC adopted mitigation and adaptation policy actions on environmental sustainability in the Niger Delta; whether SPDC provision of amenities affected the quality of lives of producing communities; and whether the pressure of environmental activists NGOs induced the propensity to oil extraction conflicts in the region.Using the Citizenship framework of analysis,this study adopted ex-port-facto research design.The study found that despite the good intentions of SPDC in its CSR approach remain amateurish and sketchy, calling for further implementation of Marshall plan of action on Niger Delta. Keywords: *Corporate Social Responsibility, *Sustainable Development, *Multinational Oil Companies, *Niger Delta Region,*Nigeria.