Undergraduate Research

Undergraduate students interested in conducting original research should consider the political science honors program. During their senior year students in the honors program write a thesis on a topic of their choosing while being supervised by a political science faculty member.

2017-2018 Thesis Projects

Thesis Title Author (Student) Faculty Advisor
The Violence of Religious Difference: A Study of Civil War Onset Ljubica Basica Alyssa Prorok
The Effect of Party Turnover on Government Corruption Thomas Bishop Matthew Winters
Economic Interdependence and Probability of Conflict: Territorial Disputes as a Moderating Factor Chase Bloch John Vasquez
Investing in Science: Professionalization Effects on the Provision of Constituent Service Thomas Dowling Jake Bowers
Hierarchical Capture: Bridging the Gap in Analyses of the Bureaucracy Stephen Duginger Gisela Sin
The Impact of the Syrian Refugee Crisis on Immigration Reema Ghabra Avital Livny
Cooperation with International Environmental Agreements -- The Role of Regional Forms of Government Gina Gonnella Robert Pahre
Ideological Drift and the Personal Lives of Supreme Court Justices Granger Gridley Alicia Uribe-McGuire
Media Influence on Public Opinion: Civil Liberties vs. National Security Cordelia Grob Thomas Rudolph
When More Knowledge is Not Sufficient: Political Sophistication, Motivation & Ideological Constraint Shawn Kim Aleksander Ksiazkiewicz
Ethnic and Religious Discrimination: Is there a Difference Autumn Langdon Carol Leff
Going Viral: Characteristics of Newsworthy Tweets Julia Nusgart Scott Althaus
Racial Bias in Sentencing and Courts Kanishk Patel Alicia Uribe-McGuire
Revisiting the Effect of Presidential Approval: Observing the President Leveraging His Popularity Christoper Piper Gisela Sin
Personality's Role within the World's Greatest Deliberative Body: How the "Big Five" Factors Drive the Rise of United States Senators to Legislative Success Matthew Rice Jeffery Mondak
Who Would Have Won: Electing the President Through the Direct Vote, 1980-2016 Jeff Talley Brian Gaines
An Examination of NASA Funding: Causal Factors, Funding Trends, and the Implications of These Findings Kevin Wenzel Nicholas Grossman

Matthew Rice was selected as the winner of Best Poster and Best Thesis for his project titled "Personality's Role within the World's Greatest Deliberative Body: How the "Big Five" Factors Drive the Rise of United States Senators to Legislative Success?"