Department of Political Science
Browse by
Recent Submissions
-
Diplomatic immunity : the history and enduring significance.
(2022-03-25)Is diplomatic immunity a transitory or permanent feature of international life? This dissertation will answer this question by exploring the theory, history, and contemporary understanding of diplomatic immunity. A case ... -
Seeing the good : moral perception in Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics.
(2022-04-06)This dissertation argues that Aristotle in his Nicomachean Ethics and Politics offers a unified conception of a human activity of and capacity for perceiving the justice, nobility or goodness of moral actions and agents. ... -
Combatant moral equality in historical and practical context.
(2022-03-16)Enemy soldiers in war are permitted to kill one another without moral blame. This permission, though, is limited by rules specifically constructed for war. These rules apply symmetrically to both sides of war and independently ... -
Memory as the political art in Plato's Statesman.
(2021-12-03)The nature and purpose of memory is central to Plato’s Statesman. Explicitly a pursuit of the political art, the dialogue has substantial epistemological and ontological concerns, suggesting the order of the whole and the ... -
Judgment on the sword : the US Supreme Court’s jurisprudence on presidential war powers.
(2021-08-02)This dissertation examines the US Supreme Court’s jurisprudence on presidential war powers from the early republic to the present. It argues that the Court’s jurisprudence has generally defended both a broad presidential ... -
Aldo Leopold's political thought : particularizing American environmental dialogue.
(2021-05-27)In this dissertation, I examine the writings of the twentieth-century conservationist Aldo Leopold as examples of American environmental political thought. I argue that studying Leopold’s work can help Americans with ... -
Raymond Aron and his dialogues in an age of ideologies.
(2020-01-10)This dissertation examines the thought and rhetoric of scholar and editorialist Raymond Aron by exploring his conversations on politics during the Cold War with several of his more well-known interlocutors, including ... -
The nature of global contest : will-to-power and Nietzsche's international politics.
(2020-01-13)Though known for its sweeping and encompassing character, Nietzsche’s thought has had little influence in the field of international politics. This is striking given the frequency with which Nietzsche writes not only of ... -
The blind guide : the principle of individual autonomy.
(2020-02-06)In this dissertation I examine jurisprudence that applies the principle of individual autonomy in the areas of law that connect to the human life cycle: birth, marriage, child-rearing, and death. I focus on the human life ... -
Aristotle's liberality.
(2020-04-29)My dissertation argues that Aristotle intends his account of unnatural economic arts in Book I of the Politics to emphasize the moral danger posed by the pursuit of wealth and reveal the importance of the household—and the ... -
The role of the myth in Plato's Statesman.
(2019-08-16)Plato’s Statesman attempts to find the eidos of the political art “separated and removed…from everything else” (Plato 1984: 258c). Perhaps unsurprisingly, this proves to be a rather difficult task. The conversation is led ... -
Philosophical foundations for political change : Aristotle's inquiry into beginnings in the Nicomachean ethics.
(2019-08-09)This dissertation is an attempt to articulate an Aristotelian alternative to the two prominent contemporary ways of understanding human freedom and dependence on the past, and their implications for political action and ... -
No mere creature of the state : American jurisprudence on the right of parents to direct their children’s education.
(2019-07-09)This dissertation examines the American judiciary’s many attempts to adjudicate disputes between parents and the state concerning the education of children. I argue that by following the common-law tradition courts have ... -
Jonathan Swift's response to the challenge of modernity : a reading of Gulliver's Travels.
(2019-04-08)In Gulliver’s Travels Swift does obliquely what he does in his sermons and non-satirical writings more directly: he defends a settled social order, which was held together morally by a common Christian religion and led ... -
The common law of nations : the ius gentium in the political thought of Francisco Suárez, S.J.
(2019-03-26)Francisco Suárez preserved and refined the classical notion of ius gentium for modernity. According to Suárez, the law of nations consisted in mutually recognized norms that govern international conduct in war and peace, ... -
Hamiltonianism : Alexander Hamilton on American foreign policy.
(2019-03-01)American foreign policy-making often involves a choice between various “traditions.” Hamiltonianism is one such tradition that has informed decision making throughout American history. However, Hamiltonianism has not been ... -
The isolated presidency : the institutional logic of constitutional presidential power.
(2019-01-16)This dissertation argues that the presidency as created by the Constitution possesses an institutional logic which grants the president a unique perspective and provides the president with considerable power and agency in ... -
The wars of peoples : science, democracy, and international politics in the thought of Winston Churchill.
(2018-10-18)This dissertation investigates Churchill’s understanding of international relations, primarily by reading and analyzing several of his war histories. The first chapter explains Churchill’s historical philosophy, and reviews ... -
A study of Plato's Laches.
(2017-12-06)In Plato’s Laches, we find Socrates speaking to two generals, Laches and Nicias, during the Peloponnesian War. The philosopher finds himself in a position where he might possibly direct statesmen during a crucial political ... -
Religious institutions and associational freedom in U.S. Supreme Court jurisprudence.
(2017-08-14)My dissertation explores the nature, source and scope of the rights of religious institutions in the American legal tradition. I analyze the Supreme Court’s treatment not only of houses of worship, but of religious ...
RSS 1.0