Today more than 41 percent of the Jordanian population is comprised of Palestinian refugees. Some argue that Jordan has become the new Palestinian state in place of their former land pre-1948. This paper presents the complications of this claim by focusing on the Jordanian government’s constitutional provisions on refugee citizenship, Palestinian support programs and the role the...
This paper analyzes three conflicting agreements made by the Allied powers between 1915 and 1917: the Husayn-McMahon correspondence, the Sykes-Picot arrangements, and the Balfour Declaration. It reveals the agreements as demonstrative of deeper patterns of political power and strategy in the Middle East that persist today. This paper moreover compares the Middle East with the...
This paper explores the deterioration of institutionalized mental health care by conducting a case study on the reasons why moral treatment methods declined in the Utica Lunatic Asylum, later renamed Utica State Hospital. The Utica State Hospital serves as a concrete example of how the general causes of decline in the United States varied among individual asylums. In the late...
In Wilkie Collins’s The Woman in White, Walter Hartright begins the narrative by stating that, because “the Law is still … the pre-engaged servant of the long purse,” he has arranged the novel to reveal the truth (5). The author, then, puts the law on trial by engaging the interplay between legal questions of witness credibility and testimonial evidence and their impact on social...
In the three decades following the Islamic Revolution in Iran, rates of female enrollment in higher education increased despite a return to traditional and conservative gender roles. This paper will provide an in-depth analysis of the role the Islamic Revolution played in the changing roles of women in society, particularly as it pertains to education. It will argue a complex...
The validity of microfinance institutions as poverty alleviation instruments is drawn into question by the structure and practices of the industry, which hinder the efficiency and depth of aid. This paper aims to outline the history and popularity of microfinance, followed by the difficulties of its implementation. Then, it will explain the status of research in the field...
This paper addresses the impact of executive order issuance on the separation of powers among the executive and legislative branches—particularly in the realm of foreign affairs. It concludes that judicial vagueness and avoidance regarding presidential directives has resulted in increased Executive authority. The aggrandizement of presidential powers in foreign affairs is...
Dante’s use of the word innocent—referring to infants who died soon after birth—presents a unique perspective on the spiritual hierarchy of The Divine Comedy. Though labeled as innocent, Dante’s infants are nonetheless excluded from Paradise. Concurrent mentions of innocence and original sin raise the question of the meaning of Dante’s innocence and its implications on the...
This paper examines the state of women’s rights in Afghanistan, recommending economic empowerment as the most effective and culturally sensitive tool in achieving gender equality. Women’s rights in Afghanistan came to the forefront of the international community’s attention following the entry of the United States armed forces in 2001. Media outlets highlighted the Taliban’s...
This dissertation aims to analyze the effort against the HIV/AIDS epidemic Botswana, Swaziland, and South Africa: the three sub-Saharan nations most heavily afflicted by the virus. As seen in the past few decades, many international governmental organizations and nongovernmental organizations have played significant and vital roles to the AIDS efforts in hopes of mitigating the...
This paper analyzes why the UN’s efforts against the sex trafficking of smuggled migrants, specifically regarding the Palermo and Smuggling Protocols, have been inadequate in preventing migrant smuggling. It concludes that the crime-based focus on prosecution overshadows prevention of the crime and protection of the victims, and that a human rights approach addressing the...
This paper strives to explain the remarkable efficacy of brash rhetoric, specifically analyzed through the lens of Donald Trump’s sustained popularity in the 2016 Presidential Election. Examining Trump’s rhetorically generated relationships with the media, immigrants, politicians, and women, this paper explores the increasing importance of sophistic rhetoric and rhetorical ethos...
The purpose of this research is to reexamine the legacy of federally-maintained boarding schools for American Indian children, particularly in regards to its strong connections to the emergence of Pan-Indian identity during the latter half of the twentieth century. The schools have long retained a reputation of one of the most poignant examples of cultural imperialism in history...
In Wilkie Collins’s The Woman in White, Walter Hartright begins the narrative by stating that, because “the Law is still … the pre-engaged servant of the long purse,” he has arranged the novel to reveal the truth (5). The author, then, puts the law on trial by engaging the interplay between legal questions of witness credibility and testimonial evidence and their impact on social...
In Meditation III, Rene Descartes’ main argument for the existence of God hinges on our perception of infinity. All ideas or beings must have as much formal reality, according to Descartes, as those that they in turn create or produce. Because we as human beings can perceive of infinity, yet we do not observe anything that is actually infinite, this perception must come from a...
This paper seeks to investigate the current shift from the non-intervention norm towards the “Responsibility to Protect,” commonly abbreviated as “RtoP,” which actually mandates intervention in cases of humanitarian intervention disasters. I will look at the May 2011 application of the R2P doctrine to the humanitarian crisis in Libya and assess whether it was a success or a...
It has been almost four years since Syria descended into a vicious civil war. Still, Bashar Al-Assad remains in power despite predictions from Western powers. My paper analyses three distinct events that contribute to the continued rule of Bashar Al-Assad. It concludes with two policy options that the United States could enact to weaken Assad's position in Syria.
Man exists upon a continuum of existence and nonexistence. Throughout the works of C.S. Lewis, one unearths the notion that God beckons man higher into a greater reality, one in which man is both more independent and more united with God; meanwhile, Satan attempts to drag man downward into increased nonexistence. Man is called into a higher existence, but God is not calling us to...
When one chooses to tolerate suffering, waiting calmly without reacting emotively or physically, he is demonstrating the virtue of patience. Process theology claims that the patience of God is more or less identical to the experience of human patience. That is, when we sin and rebel against God, He refrains from smiting us, that we might repent and return to Him. In other words...
This paper analyzes why the UN’s efforts against human trafficking, specifically regarding the Palermo Protocol, have been ineffective in preventing the spread of, and reducing, the human sex trafficking network. It concludes that the broad wording of the Palermo Protocol and the UN’s lack of ability to enforce its legislation, along with statistical irregularities due to self...
Today, one quarter of Nepal’s population of 27 million lives on a daily income of less than two dollars (Sharma 8). Villages are deprived of an ample water supply, and some areas still lie in ruins from the aftermath of the Maoist insurgency. This paper will seek to understand the role of poverty in the historically and presently unfolding political environment of Nepal. Several...
In George Eliot’s Middlemarch, Rosamond Vincy in many ways represents the conventional Victorian woman and takes on the limited roles that are permitted for women in her society. However, none of these proves sufficient to bestow upon Rosamond any sense of fulfillment or power, both of which she persistently desires and pursues throughout the novel. This essay explores these...
This essay will explore the different theories of civilization for two major Asian political philosophers Fukuzawa Yukichi, and Sun Yat-sen. Both men wrote during the late 19th and early 20th century just as their respective countries, Japan and China, were facing immense pressure to subordinate themselves to the West which threatened the collapse of their historical structures...
In Meditation III, Rene Descartes’ main argument for the existence of God hinges on our perception of infinity. All ideas or beings must have as much formal reality, according to Descartes, as those that they in turn create or produce. Because we as human beings can perceive of infinity, yet we do not observe anything that is actually infinite, this perception must come from a...