Vassar College Digital Library

Vassar Scholarship

Vassar Scholarship, the institutional repository formerly known as Digital Window, reflects the research and scholarly output of the Vassar College community.  It provides access to a variety of collections, including senior theses and projects across a wide range of disciplines.

Foreign aid and domestic politics: Voting in congress and the allocation of USAID contracts across congressional districts

Publication Date
1998-June-01
Document Type
Department or Program
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Abstract

This paper investigates the relationship between congressional support for foreign aid and the distribution of USAID contract spending across congressional districts within the United States. The extent to which such a relationship matters has become increasingly important in recent years...

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Gaming Across the Divide: Racial Dynamics in e-Sports and the Changing Landscape of East-West Relations

Publication Date
2013-January-01
Document Type
Authors
Department or Program
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Abstract

The racial dynamics of professional <em>StarCraft</em>, an online game subject to e-sports, or competitive video games, are placed in the context of globalization and the development of new media technologies.

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How do political changes influence U.S. bilateral aid allocations? Evidence from panel data

Publication Date
2005-June-30
Document Type
Department or Program
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Abstract

This paper examines the role of U.S. domestic politics in the allocation of foreign aid using panel data on aid to 119 countries from 1960 to 1997. Employing proxies for four aid allocation criteria (development concerns, strategic importance, commercial importance...

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Lighthouse principle for diffusion in social networks

Publication Date
2018-January-01
Document Type
Department or Program
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Abstract

The article investigates an influence relation between two sets of agents in a social network. It proposes a logical system that captures propositional properties of this relation valid in all threshold models of social networks with the same structure. The...

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Playin' tha game: the role identity plays in b-ball players' and gangsta rappers' public stances on black sociopolitical issues

Publication Date
2016-January-01
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Authors
Department or Program
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Abstract

"Playin' Tha Game" explores the connections between black gangsta rappers, black basketball stars, and the degree to which they are vocal about black sociopolitical issues. Specifically the 1992 Dream Team members and L.A. based gangsta rappers were studied. Through analysis...

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Reassessing the role of constituency in congressional voting

Publication Date
2000-August-01
Document Type
Department or Program
Document Type
Abstract

Poole and Rosenthal (1997) argue that most congressional voting can be understood in terms of a low-dimensional spatial model. This paper uses their model to assess the importance of the two mechanisms that could contribute to the vote-predicting power of...

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Theater and Social Change: How Small-town U.S. Theaters Reproduce and Resist Inequality

Publication Date
2014-January-01
Document Type
Authors
Department or Program
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Access Level
Abstract

This thesis interrogates the social function of small-town theater in the United States. Through a series of interviews with theater artists working at regional and local theaters in the northeast United States, I demonstrate theater's capacity to both reproduce and...

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World Bank independence: A model and statistical analysis of U.S. influence

Publication Date
2005-June-30
Document Type
Department or Program
Document Type
Abstract

This paper develops a model to test whether World Bank lending caters to U.S. interests. We use country-level panel data to examine the geographic distribution of World Bank lending to 110 countries from 1968 to 2002. After controlling for country...

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