Political parties

This item is part of the Political & Rights Issues & Social Movements (PRISM) digital collection, a collaborative initiative between Florida Atlantic University and University of Central Florida in the Publication of Archival, Library & Museum Materials (PALMM).

This item is part of the Political & Rights Issues & Social Movements (PRISM) digital collection, a collaborative initiative between Florida Atlantic University and University of Central Florida in the Publication of Archival, Library & Museum Materials (PALMM).

Unitarian preacher and Union Army officer Liberty Billings arrived in Florida in 1863 with the First South Carolina Volunteer Infantry. Billings settled in Fernandina and became active in Florida Reconstruction politics as a Radical Republican. Most ot the rhetoric regarding Billings focuses on his participation in the 1868 Florida Constitution Convention even though he went on to be State Senator and an influential citizen in Fernandina. This thesis examines the life of Liberty Billings focusing on events preceding and following the Convention. In doing so, it argues that Billings' participation in Reconstruction politics derived from his experiences prior to the Civil War as did his transition from emancipationist to reconciliationist. By examining the earlier years of Billings' life as well as the evidence of his campaigns during 1867, his term as State Senator and Supreme Court cases, it will be demonstrated that Billings abandoned racial equality for class supremacy.

Researchers sometimes classify religious organizations as rational actors, arguing that religious organizations attempt to minimize costs and maximize membership. Anthony Gill and Erik Lundsgaarde use the rational actor model to explain organized religion's diminished competitiveness and the correlated increase in secularity against governments with high social welfare programs. They conclude that government welfare programs contribute to increased secularity. Survey data indicates that Chile, Cuba, and Uruguay have significantly higher proportions of secularity relative to the rest of the region. This thesis tests the hypothesis that increased secularity in Chile, Cuba, and Uruguay is caused not only by Gill and Lundsgaarde's social welfare hypothesis, but also by the historical presence of far left parties in these nations. The ideologies of longstanding far left parties are often anti-religious and may contribute to increased secularity, suggesting that leftist parties may be a predictor of increased secularity in a country. Welfare, as times passes, becomes a stronger predictor of decreased religious behavior.

The media has a significant influence on any political process. In Venezuela, particularly, the media plays an important rold in defining the electorate's political opinion and attitude toward the political process. This thesis analyzed how the media's preference for conflict and individual personalities exacerbated overall societal tensions and polarization in Venezuela since 1999. I suggest a framework for a future content analysis of news coverage of the 2012 presidential election in order to quantify and qualify the evolution of bias and balance in Venezuela's mass media.