Department of Social Sciences & Historical Studies
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Item The Alternative for Germany (AFD) as populist issue entrepreneur: Explaining the party and its voters in the 2021 German federal election(Taylor & Francis, 2022) Hansen, Michael A.; Olsen, JonathanThis article analyses the vote for the Alternative for Germany (AfD) in the 2021German Federal Election. Using the German Longitudinal Election Study (GLES),we confirm some findings from previous studies, above all that attitudinal variables–including anti-immigrant ideology–are much stronger predictors of the AfD vote than socio-demographic variables. Moreover, we uncover three new findings in relation to vote choice for the AfD. First, anti-EU attitudes had a positive, statistically significant impact on AfD vote choice in2021. Second, negative attitudes towards political elites increased the probability of voting for the AfD. Third, and perhaps most important, dissatisfaction with the government’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic was positively related to voting for the AfD. Given these results, we argue here that the AfD has become something of a populist 'issue entrepreneur' which, while exploiting existing niches in the electoral marketplace (the EU and migration), is finding new issues to tap and exploit.Item Are older people really happier than younger people?(Georgia Sociological Association, 2021) Yang, Philip Q.; Leone, EricaIn recent years, many media reports have claimed that older people are happier than younger people. We question the total validity of this claim. Analyzing data from General Social Surveys 1972-2016, this study reveals that the happiness of older adults depends on their health status and economic status, and it also detects a significant J-shaped relationship between age and happiness over a lifetime. Additionally, we find significant differences in happiness across generations and over time. Our findings challenge the popular claim in the media reports and the U-shaped and inverted U-shaped patterns detected in the academic literature and provide a more complete picture of the relationship between age and happiness.Item Assessing the enemy: James Longstreet and John Pope at Second Bull Run(Emerging Civil War, 2020-08-29) Zander, Cecily NelsonUnion general John Pope’s decision-making during the campaign of Second Bull Run has been justly scrutinized by historians and armchair generals alike. In large part this scrutiny has stemmed from Pope’s bombast upon his arrival in Virginia and his failure to back up his “headquarters in the saddle,” “only seen the backs of our enemies,” proclamation with a substantial battlefield result. Pope’s contemporaries gleefully took part in lambasting the Illinois-born, West Point graduate—among them Edward Porter Alexander, who called Pope a “blatherskite” in his personal memoirs. The index to Alexander’s Fighting For the Confederacy (UNC Press, 1989) includes the entry “Pope, John; EPA makes fun of” as if to underscore the degree to which Pope was a common subject of ridicule after the summer of 1862.Item The “Becoming White Thesis” revisited(Georgia Sociological Association, 2016) Yang, Philip Q.; Koshy, KavithaThe claim that some non-Anglo-Saxon European immigrant groups such as the Irish, Italians, and Jews became white in historical America has largely been taken for granted these days, but we see a need for a qualified rectification of this thesis. Did these non-Anglo-Saxon European immigrant groups really become white? We argue that the answer to this question depends on how “becoming white” is defined. We have found no evidence to support the “becoming white thesis” in terms of change in the official racial classification of these groups in the record of social institutions such as U.S. censuses, naturalization laws, and court cases. Changes in the meaning of race in U.S. racial and ethnic lexicon explain why there is a discourse on how these non-Anglo-Saxon European groups changed their “races” to white. If “becoming white” did happen to these groups, its real meaning was a change in their social status from a minority group to part of the majority group rather than in racial classification. Evidence lends credence to this argument. Our findings help settle a debate about if some non-Anglo-Saxon European immigrant groups became white and have implications for race relations today and its pedagogy.Item Braxton Bragg’s beach vacation – Pensacola in the early months of the Civil War(Emerging Civil War, 2021-06-29) Zander, Cecily NelsonEven the most casual of Civil War buffs knows that the war began in Charleston, South Carolina – when Confederate batteries opened fire on the Union-occupied Fort Sumter and its 85 defenders. Many may also know that war had an equally likely chance of beginning in the Gulf of Mexico, at Fort Pickens in Pensacola, Florida where Braxton Bragg, rather than P. G. T. Beauregard, might have made a name for himself as the first military hero of the fledging Confederate nation. As it happened, however, Sumter fell to the Confederacy and Pickens remained a Union bastion throughout the war, preventing the harbor town of Pensacola from ever falling into Confederate hands. A sampling of Braxton Bragg’s correspondence while in command in Pensacola, however, reveals several interesting themes that would come to define the Confederate war effort—and which are worth briefly surveying.Item Changes in American attitudes toward immigrant-native job competition(Madridge, 2017) Yang, Philip Q.It is often perceived that the American public has been concerned about immigrantnative job competition for at least the last two to three decades. Less is known about the changing attitudes of Americans in this regard. This paper examines changes in American attitudes toward competition of immigrants with the native-born and changes in the determinants of such attitudes, using data from General Social Surveys 1996, 2004, and 2014. It is found that the percentage of Americans who rejected the statement that “Immigrants take jobs away from people who were born in America” had actually increased from 28.4% in 1996 to 34.6% in 2004 and to 42.8% in 2014. Results of multiple regression reveal that nativity, education, race, and region were consistent predictors of attitudes toward immigrant-native job competition across the three points in time, but subjective class standing and political party affiliation were significant predictors only in 2004 but not in the other years. The implications of findings are discussed.Item Civil War Savannah: The view from two parapets(Emerging Civil War, 2021-06-11) Zander, Cecily NelsonOn June 1 I defended my dissertation in History at Penn State. One week later, I turned my trusty Subaru Crosstrek south from State College and set my GPS for Savannah. What better way to celebrate six years of intensely studying the Civil War era than taking a vacation to see some Civil War sites? Savannah’s rich Civil War history offers a great deal for historians and buffs to enjoy–it was, after all, probably one of the best Christmas gifts Abraham Lincoln could have dreamed of receiving.Item Civil War summer reading - A Texas tall tale(Emerging Civil War, 2022-07-19) Zander, Cecily NelsonDown here in Dallas, Texas we have forgotten what double digits temperatures feel like. Owing to the fact that the forecast has been and will continue to be in excess of 100 degrees for the foreseeable future, my border collie Moe and I have been spending our time indoors — watching golf, playing Zelda, and revisiting some old favorite books — including John W. Thomason, Jr.’s Lone Star Preacher. Originally published in 1941 by Charles Scribner’s Sons, Lone Star Preacher compiles several short stories about the Methodist preacher and sometime Confederate Soldier Praxiteles Swan, captain of the 5th Texas Regiment, Confederate States Provisional Army.Item Civil War surprises: Dropping in on General Grant(Emerging Civil War, 2023-04) Zander, Cecily NelsonI have recently been reading through the manuscript of sculptor James E. Kelly’s memoirs, which have never been published in their entirety. [1] They contain more than a few surprises, though one came to mind immediately when ECW’s Sarah Kay Bierle asked if I could contribute a story to this series.Item Civil War weather: The Regular Army and the weather(Emerging Civil War, 2023-02) Zander, Cecily NelsonOn February 9, 1870, President Ulysses S. Grant signed a bill into law establishing a meteorological division with the United States Army’s Signal Service (specifically, the Division of Telegrams and Reports for the Benefit of Commerce). Though not a direct result of the American Civil War, this new bureau joined myriad other post-war initiatives that sought to invigorate the professional army of the United States as it adjusted to the postbellum world. The first three army officers to oversee the new initiative were Albert J. Myer, William B. Hazen, and Adolphus Greely– all Civil War veterans with an interest in technology, exploration, and science.Item Civilians under siege: A Confederate woman’s diary of the war in the Trans-Mississippi(Emerging Civil War, 2021-09-16) Zander, CecilyI first encountered Brokenburn: The Journal of Kate Stone, 1861–1868 in an undergraduate course on the topic of great Civil War writers. Looking at the syllabus at the start of the term, I circled the diary as a text I was not particularly excited about. To me, the story of a woman living far from the war’s Virginia epicenter held little interest. What I quickly discovered, however, is that Kate Stone’s wartime record featured an intensely relatable story of civilians living in a place ravaged by war—as well as being the tale of a young woman who was only twenty years old in 1861, and who was just as concerned with skin blemishes and the latest fashions as she was with news from the front. The diary is an indispensable record of the war in the Trans-Mississippi West as lived by civilians.Item Developing Library Services for Incarcerated Students | Student Resources(2023) Sosa, AmberItem Dude, where’s my candidate?: Lincoln, the ballot, and the election of 1860(Emerging Civil War, 2023-12) Zander, Cecily NelsonGrowing up in Colorado, I became accustomed to my home state being largely irrelevant to the national news cycle. This pattern has begun to change in recent years, however, as the Centennial State has asserted itself as a critical player in national politics. On Tuesday, December 19, 2023, Colorado’s Supreme Court affirmed its willingness to make political waves with a ruling declaring that Donald J. Trump, the 45th President of the United States, is disqualified from holding federal office because he engaged in “insurrection” against the United States in the lead up to the events of January 6, 2021. As a result, as of this writing, Trump will not be eligible to appear on the ballot for Colorado’s Republican Primary in March.Item ECW Weekender: Andrew Johnson National Historic Site(Emerging Civil War, 2023-01) Zander, Cecily NelsonGreeneville, Tennessee nestles neatly into the northeastern corner of the Volunteer State — just southwest of Bristol, the famed Birthplace of Country Music on the Virginia/Tennessee border. It is a beautiful part of the country, where the town named for Revolutionary War hero Nathaniel Greene rests in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains. During the American Civil War, Greeneville (like much of East Tennessee) was home to a committed community of Unionists, who rejected the Confederate war for slavery.Item Explaining immigrant health service utilization: A theoretical framework(Sage Open, 2016-05-16) Yang, Philip Q.; Hwang, Shann HwaAlthough there is no paucity of theoretical frameworks for explaining people’s health service utilization (HSU), theoretical frameworks designed to account for variations in immigrants’ HSU remain underdeveloped. Building on influential theories or models for explaining HSU and especially Andersen’s widely used health behavior model, this article proposes a theoretical framework for explaining disparities in immigrant HSU. The proposed framework explains disparities in immigrant HSU by the health care need, resources, and predisposing factors of immigrants, and macrostructural/contextual conditions at both the general and immigrant-specific levels, as well as the mediating relationships among some of these factors. It is believed that this new framework can offer a fuller understanding of the determination process of immigrant HSU.Item Explaining personal and public pro-environmental behaviors(MDPI, 2023) Yang, Philip Q.; Wilson, Michaela LaNayA global crisis generated by human-made climate change has added urgency to the need to fully understand human pro-environmental behaviors (PEBs) that may help slow down the crisis. Factors influencing personal and public PEBs may or may not be the same. Only a few studies have empirically investigated the determinants of personal and public PEBs simultaneously, but they contain major limitations with mixed results. This study develops a conceptual model for explaining both personal and public PEBs that incorporate demographic, socioeconomic, political, and attitudinal variables, and their direct and indirect effects. Using the latest available data from the 2010 General Social Survey and structural equation modeling (SEM), we tested the determinants of both personal and public PEBs in the United States. The results reveal that environmental concerns, education, and political orientation demonstrate similar significant impacts on both personal and public PEBs, but income, gender, race, urban/rural residency, region, and party affiliation have differential effects on these behaviors. Age, cohort, and religion have no significant effect on both types of behaviors. Our results confirm some existing findings; however, they challenge the findings of much of the literature.Item Food label literacy and use among US adults diagnosed with cancer: Results from a national representative study(Springer, 2018-07) Amuta-Jimenez, Ann Oyare; Lo, Celia C.; Talwar, Divya; Khan, Nicole; Barry, AdamFor those diagnosed with cancer, lifestyle factors including diet can be more important than ever. However, lack of nutrition-related knowledge can pose a significant barrier to healthy eating. Food labels guide consumers in selecting appropriate portion sizes—that is, caloric content—and ensuring adequate intake of nutrients. Data from the 2013-2014 HINTS were used to examine (a) differences in food label use and food label literacy between respondents ever had a cancer diagnosis and those never had a diagnosis; (b) sociodemographic correlates and health-related correlates of food label use and literacy, in a context of cancer diagnosis; and (c) potential association between food label use/literacy and each of two dietary choices, eating vegetables and fruits and limiting intake of sugary drinks, again, in a context of cancer diagnosis. Data was analyzed via SPSS version 24.0, and cross tabulations using Pearson's Chi-square test and logistic regressions. Income, gender and non-participation in support groups were associated with food label literacy (p<.05). Confidence to take care of self was associated with food label use (p<.05). Relationships were observed between using food labels and curtailing soda intake (b = -.368, p<.05), eating relatively more fruits (b = .558, p<.05), and eating relatively more vegetables (b = .558, p<.05). The overall models predicting consumption of soda [x2 (2) = 13.70, p = .001, Nagelkerke R-square = .059], of fruits [x2 (2) = 33.87, p < .001, Nagelkerke R-square = .136], and of vegetables [x2 (2) = 36.08, p < .001, Nagelkerke R-square = .144] was statistically significant. Implications for research and practice can be found in results linking food label use to better quality diets. They include the usefulness of nutrition education interventions targeting lower-income men with cancer diagnoses; one lesson should be the use of food labels. **This article was published with the assistance of the Texas Woman's University Libraries Open Access Fund.Item Fort Abraham Lincoln - symbol of Civil War memory on the North Dakota prairie(Emerging Civil War, 2022-02-22) Zander, Cecily NelsonWhen Emerging Civil War asked us all to think about whether we might write something on this month’s theme of “Forts” my instinct was to write about Fort Union, New Mexico. In fact, I told our editorial maestro Sarah Kay Bierle that I was going to do just that. With my apologies to Sarah for fibbing, when I sat down and thought about which fort has meant the most to my life – and made the greatest impact on my work – I could not escape the pull to share a few words about a place I would wager even the most intrepid ECW explorers and readers have yet to visit: Fort Abraham Lincoln.Item Germany’s PDS: Between East and West(International Institute of Political Science, 2002) Olsen, JonathanAs with other communist successor parties, Germany's Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS) enjoyed a political comeback in the mid-1990s. The PDS's success can be explained by many eastern German voters' disenchantment with the social, cultural, and economic effects of reunification as well as by the distinctive regional and fragmented character of the German Political Party System that allows the PDS, as the self-proclaimed defender of "eastern interests," disproportionate political influence. The PDS is faced with a dilemma, however. In the long-term it will have to become a true all-German party of the left if it wishes to survive electorally. Yet in becoming an all-German party the PDS risks losing the distinctive eastern identity that has been so essential to its success hitherto.Item Gettysburg in Texas: The challenges and rewards of teaching military history beyond the battlefield(Center for Military War and Society Studies, 2022-08-18) Zander, CecilyWhen I began training to be a military historian my mentors repeatedly emphasized the value of bringing students to battlefields. There was no better way to teach about what happened, they explained, than to place students in the catbird seat of history—allowing them to see the places they were reading and learning about and to visualize history beyond the page.