The Senior Program

Senior majors in government complete a senior thesis and a research paper, working closely with a faculty member in the department. In the Senior Program, students draw on their accumulated skills and knowledge to produce focused, high-level scholarship on a specific topic or problem.

Recent senior projects in government include:

Honors Theses

• Breaking the Safety Net: Understanding Negative Policy Feedback to Welfare in the U.S.
• How Do Senate Leaders Utilize Social Media to Accomplish Their Goals?
• Imperial Legacies: Policing in the Philippines
• Moral Responsibility, Political Obligation, and Legitimacy: A Defense of Michael Walzer’s Just War Theory
• The Effect of Political Polarization on National Party Conventions
• The Political Power of Indigeneity: A Hawaiian Case Study

World Politics Honors Theses:

• Atlanticism Vs. Autonomy: Testing Theories Of Integration To Analyze France And Germany’s Preferences For EU Defense Policy Cooperation
• Between Regions And Realities: Lessons From The Gulf Cooperation Council’s Stalled Trade Negotiations
• Lending For Leverage: Understanding China's Lending Behavior In Sub-Saharan Africa
• Pork, Positions, And Pressure: Legislative Bargaining Among Outsider Populists
• Reevaluating Foreign Aid In Nigeria And Botswana: Challenges With The World Bank’s Classification And Graduation Process
• Same-Sex Marriage And The Right In Latin America
• Shifting The “Refugee Burden:” UNHCR As A Surrogate State In Lebanon