Department of Political Science Bulletin
APRIL, 2004

Congratulations to: 

Donna Godwin who defended her Masters thesis, "The Impact of Gender on Domestic Human Rights Abuse".

John Ryan, who successfully defended his dissertation, "Judicial Enforcers? Exploring Lower Federal Court Compliance In Regulating the Obscene"

Nicolai Petrovsky who successfully defended his Masters thesis, ""Does Natural Resource Wealth Spoil and Corrupt Governments? A New Test of the Resource Curse Thesis"

Wenda Sheard, who successfully defended her dissertation, "Teachers Union Influence On Alternative Teacher Certification Policies: An Event History Diffusion Analysis".

Seong Woo Yi who successfully defended his dissertation, "Domestic Influences for Interstate Cooperation: Do Domestic Conditions Affect the Occurrence of Cooperative Events in Democratic Regimes?"

 Awards

The following undergraduate and graduate students have been honored by the Political Science Department:

Ralph Yarborough Award for Best Undergraduate Paper to Karl Boyd-Nafstad

 Fred Gantt Award for Outstanding Undergraduate Student to Phil Stauffer and to Francis Barczykowski

 Sam B. McAlister Award for Outstanding Graduate Student to Nacona Nix

 Pender Award for Best Graduate Paper to Nicholas Rost

 Buell Award for Best Comparative Politics Student to Robin Brand

Morrisson Award for the: best pre-law student to Jacqueline Nel and to Victoria White

 Best Student in International Studies to Geoff Dancy and Laura Dominguez

Nacona Nix also won the President's Award for Best Graduate Expository Paper.

University Awards

Julie Harrelson-Stephens won the Arts & Science’s Dean’s Dissertation Award for Research Achievement in the Arts, Humanities, or Social Sciences  

Karl Boyd-Nafstad won the Outstanding Undergraduate International Student.

Nacona Nix won the President’s Writing Award for Graduate Students.

Acceptances

Jim Battista's, "Strategic Political Support for Term Limits" accepted at the American Review of Politics.

Corey Ditslear's "The Elusive Quest for Neutral Reasoning: Canons of Construction in the Workplace Law Jurisprudence of the Supreme Court" has been accepted for publication in the Vanderbilt Law Review.

Michael Greig's, "Stepping into the Fray: When Do Mediators Mediate" was accepted for publication at the American Journal of Political Science.

Getting Ink

Dave Mason's new book from Rowan & Littlefield is now out, Caught in the Crossfire: Revolution, Repression and the Rational Peasant.

John Books authored, "Corruption in the Mediterranean titled Mediterranean Report: A Collection of Articles. My piece was titled "Approaching Corruption", for the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. It is due out in May at the OSCE web site.

Steve Forde's article, "Thucydides on Ripeness and Conflict Resolution" appears in the Spring issue of International Studies Quarterly.

James Meernik's "Proving and Punishing Genocide at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda"  appears in the latest issue of the International Criminal Law Review.

James Meernik and Seonjou Kang's "Determinants of Post Conflict Economic Assistance" appears in the latest issue of the Journal of Peace Research.

James Meernik and Kimi King's "The Determinants of ICTY Sentencing: An Empirical and Doctrinal Analysis" appears in the latest issue of the Leiden Journal of International Law. 

Steve Poe authored, "Does Region Matter in Provision of the Human Right to Personal Integrity? An Empirical Examination," which appears in David P. Forsythe and Patrice C. McMahon (Eds.) Human Rights and Diversity: Area Studies Revisited (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2004.

Grants

Dave Mason was awarded a $180,000 grant for "A Program on Peace, Democracy, and Global Development", by the U.S. Department of Education, Undergraduate Undergraduate Studies and Foreign Language Program.

Moot Court Team

The University of North Texas' Moot Court Squad received the first four team awards and six of the 10 top speaker awards from the Texas Undergraduate Moot Court Association at its year-end awards ceremony, making UNT the most highly ranked squad in the state.  

Ryan Rollo, a senior sociology/political science major from Fort Worth, and Jacqueline Coley, a senior y/political science major from Fort Worth, and Jacqueline Coley, a senior international studies/French major from Corpus Christi, were named the best Moot Court team in Texas by the association. The association ranked fellow UNT students Jennifer Poole, a junior political science major from Denton, and Joe Rivera, a senior accounting control systems major from Bowie, second in the state. Guy Sereff, a senior economics major from Flower Mound and Phil Stauffer, a senior political science major from Richardson, were ranked third, and junior political science major Victoria White from Fort Worth and junior history major Andy Lang from Richardson were ranked fourth.

Coley was named the best individual Moot Court speaker for the year by TUMCA, while Sereff was ranked second. Rivera and White tied for fourth-place speaker, while Rollo was ranked sixth and Poole ranked seventh.

Professor King and the UNT Moot Court Team

Alumni News:

Curtis Copeland (1980 UNT Ph.D) was honored at the spring UNT Alumni Banquet and at a reception in the political science department on April 16 as our alum of the year. Curtis has worked for the General Accounting Office and is currently working at the Congressional Research Service within the US Library of Congress.

Jennifer Martin (BA PSCI, 2003 ) received the Hatton Sumner Award, a full fellowship to attend Southern Methodist University Law School.

Events

The Annual Pi Sigma Alpha Banquet for graduating political science seniors held, Friday, April 23rd at Fremaux's Metropolitan Catering was attended by approximately 125 people, easily the biggest spring banquet yet.  In addition to recognizing all the graduating seniors and graduate students, award winners, Moot Court team, Peace Science students and faculty mentors, the silent auction also raised almost one thousand dollars for the Frank Feigert Scholarship fund.  This amount is more than enough to endow the scholarship.

Pictures from the Banquet

Cece Hannah, PSCI Administrative Assistant gets a special award.

Geoff Dancy receives a Peace Studies certificate from Professors Mason and Poe.

Professor Brandt and some of the many graduating seniors.

Graduating Seniors

Raya  Bajwa

Francis Barczykowski

Mary Heath Beach

Adam Ray Betz

Tiffany Renee Biggs

Carrie Anne Borge

Elizabeth Bradshaw

Robin Emily Brand

Jennifer Burley

LaKenna Sharell Clark

Jacqueline Coley

Colin Patrick Cummings

Michael Clarence Duer

Matthew Thomas Dunn

Devon Delane DuPuy

David  Alan Hale

Sarah Hammerstedt

Misti Latrice Jackson

Jacqueline James

Rashad Ramone Jenkins

Jodi Helene Jones

Stephen T. Kallas

Leslie Anne Kunze

Jonathan Michael Leech

Ann  Marie Messina

Janice Anne Moran

Tyrell Muse

Jacqueline Nel

Jonathan N. Okunbor

Constance Powell

James Deen Ragland

Anna Raka

Camaleisha Reece

Dianna Leigh Reid

Ryan E. Rollo

Aaron Rossiter

Dalia Saenz

Jared E. Sobotka

Phillip Austin Stauffer

Laquanda Steward

Zachary Taylor Stewart

Walter  Raymond Stock

Mara Ann Thompson

Jessica Lee Villarreal

Gabriela  Villarreal

Roy   Wasserman

Jason Kyle Whiddon

Jamiah Aaron Williams

Jonathan Winbush

Barbara Maylin Barrios

Karl Boyd-Nafstad

Geoffrey Thomas Dancy

Emily Josette Demars

Jamie Patricia Dickey

Richard G. A. Gilreath

Kayla Dawn Hahn

Elizabeth Hamblen

Christopher Henson

Matthew Lynn King

Christine Lampson

Lisa Marie McGarry

Nirav Sudhir Patel

Kanon Lee Rambo

Israel David Reyes

Amber Danielle Rinker

Michael Allan Robinson

Panagiotis  Roussos

Brandon Todd Spinks

Clara Than

VanessaVan Gilder

Eric  Vela

Appearances

At the recent International Studies Association Meetings in Montreal Canada, March 17-21, PSCI folks were everywhere:

Patrick Brandt presented, "Testing Democratic Peace Theory: A New Approach with Application to The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict" (with John Freeman).

James Meernik presented, "Justice and Peace? Evaluating the Impact of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia on Societal Peace in Bosnia".

Steven C. Poe, T. David Mason, Cynthia Colley, and Jason Quin presented, "Human Rights,  Democracy, and Sustaining the Peace After Civil War",

The Political Science Department was well represented at the recent Midwest Political Science Association meetings, April 14 - April 18 in Chicago, IL.

John Booth presented, "Democratic Legitimacy and Political Participation: Is There a Relationship?" (with Mitchell A. Seligson), and "Social Capital Formation in Central America: Context versus Intensity of Civil Society Involvement" (with Patricia Bayer Richard).

Patrick Brandt presented, "What's the Size? Does it Have Any Power? Questions about Hypothesis Tests in Selection Models" (with Christina J. Schneider, Konstanz).

Chelsea Brown presented, "Bond Prices and Political Events: An Emerging Look at a Developed Theory".

Brian Calfano presented, "Clergy Cues and Representative Decision: Culture and Abortion Politics in Six States".

Corey Ditslear presented, "Toward an Independent Measure of Supreme-Court Ideology (Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Survey)".

Michael Greig presented, "When Doves Fly: A Spatial Analysis of the Diffusion of Peace in the International System".

Marvin King presented, "Bush Brand Federalism".

Phil Paolino, with Dean Lacy, presented, "An Experimental Test of Proximity and Directional Voting" and "Policy Expectations: A Better Measure of Issue Voting."

Dasha Radin presented, "The Impact of the World Bank on Health Care Reform in Transitional Economies".

Wenda Sheard presented, "Alternative Teacher Certification Policies in the States: A Diffusion Study Finding Evidence of Bureaucratic Control and Teacher Union Control".

Shawn Williams presented, "Long Term U.S. Troop Deployments and Democratization".

At The Southwestern Social Science Association conference in March at Corpus Christi:

Mehmet Gurses presented "Foreign Powers, Civil War, and Rebel Victory".  

Nicolai Petrovsky presented, "Grappling over the Greenback: The Domestic Politics of Dollarization"

Don Smith presented "Modeling Corporate Policy Diffusion" 

Jong-Han Yoon presented "The Condition of Sustainable Peace after the Settlement of Civil War: Unofficial Forms of Intervention and Peace Building"

At the Western Political Science Association conference in March in Portland, Oregon, a number of faculty presented their research papers including:

Chelsea Brown presented, "Conditional Democracy? A Study of IMF Effects on Latin America.

Marvin King presented, "The Economy and Labor Union Density".

Emile Sahliyeh and Andres Diosdado presented, "The Status of Democracy and Human rights among the Muslim Countries".

Don Smith presented, "Domestic Partner Benefits in the Private Sector"

In other conference and presentation news:

John Books gave the Honors Program Convocation speech on April 15.  He proudly tells me, "no one fell asleep"!

Patrick Brandt presents, "Dynamics of Divided Government" and  "Event Count Time Series Models". at the Dept. of Political Science, University of Minnesota. April 30, 2004.

Milan Reban will give a talk on Russian president, Vladimir Putin at the University of Texas at Arlington on Friday, April 30.