The Troubles: Northern Irish Political Contention from Sunningdale to the Good Friday Agreement

This paper looks to answer the question: Can the contentious politics thesis of Doug McAdam, Sidney Tarrow, and Charles Tilly explain why the Good Friday Agreement (1998) (GFA) successfully produced a lasting peace in Northern Ireland, when the Sunningdale (1973) and the Anglo-Irish (1985) agreements failed to do so? I set out to study the buildup and aftermath of each agreement and subsequently examine each through the lens of the contentious politics thesis, searching for causal mechanisms and processes that explain the success of the GFA. The purpose of the contentious politics thesis is not to examine various forms of contention (i.e. coups, civil wars, revolutions) one by one and make broad generalizations for each of them. Quite the opposite; the goal is to “identify parallels in the ways that apparently disparate forms of contention work, and show how their differences result from varying combinations and sequences of mechanisms in contrasting regime environments” (Tilly & Tarrow, 2007). In place of the “static, single-actor models (including their own) that have prevailed in the field of contentious politics,” McAdam, Tarrrow, and Tilly identify causal mechanisms and processes that recur across a wide-range of contentious politics and “shift the focus of analysis to dynamic interaction.” The main method I used for this work was researching books and articles written on the subject. This includes primary source documents, in particular the memoirs of people participating in the events discussed and newspaper articles published at the time. The books and articles generally fell into two categories: the historical record and material related to the contentious politics thesis. McAdam, Tilly, and Tarrow’s Dynamics of Contention and Tilly and Tarrow’s Contentious Politics were essential for the identification of the causal mechanisms and processes. Paul Dixon’s Northern Ireland: The Politics of War and Peace provided me with a highly accessible and detailed history of the “Troubles.” With the large amount of information available on Northern Ireland, combined with the works of McAdam, Tilly, and Tarrow, research was the best and most appropriate method for completing my Capstone Project. I argue that the contentious politics thesis furthers our understanding of the triumphs and failures of each agreement and helps explain why it took three decades to broker a lasting peace. As I demonstrate, recognizing the causal mechanisms and processes improves our comprehension of how each agreement came into existence and why the GFA was the only one to experience long-term success. The object shift by the nationalist community, the co-optation of Sinn Féin into the peace talks, and the identity shift by the Republic of Ireland are some examples of the causal mechanisms and processes that distinguished the GFA from Sunningdale and the Anglo-Irish Agreement. I also apply the thesis to the Bosnian War (1992-95) to exemplify how it allows us to identify causal mechanisms and processes in both Bosnia and Northern Ireland and subsequently critically compare the two dissimilar conflicts

Measuring Ejecta Velocity Improves Type Ia Supernova Distances

We use a sample of 121 spectroscopically normal Type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia) to show that their intrinsic color is correlated with their ejecta velocity, as measured from the blueshift of the Si II 6355 feature near maximum brightness, v_Si. The SN Ia sample was originally used by Wang et al. (2009) to show that the relationship between color excess and peak magnitude, which in the absence of intrinsic color differences describes a reddening law, was different for two subsamples split by v_Si (defined as "Normal" and "High-Velocity"). We verify this result, but find that the two subsamples have the same reddening law when extremely reddened events (E(B-V) > 0.35 mag) are excluded. We also show that (1) the High-Velocity subsample is offset by ~0.06 mag to the red from the Normal subsample in the (B_max - V_max) - M_V plane, (2) the B_max - V_max cumulative distribution functions of the two subsamples have nearly identical shapes, but the High-Velocity subsample is offset by ~0.07 mag to the red in B_max - V_max, and (3) the bluest High-Velocity SNe Ia are ~0.10 mag redder than the bluest Normal SNe Ia. Together, this evidence indicates a difference in intrinsic color for the subsamples. Accounting for this intrinsic color difference reduces the scatter in Hubble residuals from 0.190 mag to 0.130 mag for SNe Ia with A_V < 0.7 mag. The scatter can be further reduced to 0.109 mag by exclusively using SNe Ia from the Normal subsample. Additionally, this result can at least partially explain the anomalously low values of R_V found in large SN Ia samples. We explain the correlation between ejecta velocity and color as increased line blanketing in the High-Velocity SNe Ia, causing them to become redder. We discuss some implications of this result, and stress the importance of spectroscopy for future SN Ia cosmology surveys, with particular focus on the design of WFIRST.Comment: 9 pages, 8 figures, submitted to Ap

Constitutional Convention

Billings Gazette special issue about the Montana Constitutional Convention and government information articles pertaining to the subject. Included is a list of 1972 delegates.https://digitalcommons.mtech.edu/crucible_materials/1007/thumbnail.jp

Accuracy of Voice-Announcement Pedometers for Youth with Visual Impairment

Thirty-five youth with visual impairments (13.5 plus or minus 2.1 yrs, 13 girls and 22 boys) walked four 100-meter distances while wearing two units (right and left placement) of three brands of voice-announcement (VA) pedometers (Centrios[TM] Talking Pedometer, TALKiNG Pedometer, and Sportline Talking Calorie Pedometer 343) and a reference pedometer (NL2000). Registered pedometer steps for each trial were recorded, compared to actual steps assessed via digital video. Inter-unit agreement between right and left VA pedometer placement was low (ICC range 0.37 to 0.76). A systematic error was observed for the VA pedometers on the left placement (error range 5.6% to 12.2%), while right placement VA pedometers were at or below plus or minus 3% from actual steps (range 2.1% to 3.3%). The reference pedometer was unaffected by placement (ICC 0.98, error approximately 1.4%). Overall, VA pedometers demonstrated acceptable accuracy for the right placement, suggesting this position is necessary for youth with visual impairments. (Contains 3 tables and 2 figures.

SubmilliJansky Transients in Archival Radio Observations

[ABRIDGED] We report the results of a 944-epoch survey for transient sources with archival data from the Very Large Array spanning 22 years with a typical epoch separation of 7 days. Observations were obtained at 5 or 8.4 GHz for a single field of view with a full-width at half-maximum of 8.6' and 5.1', respectively, and achieved a typical point-source detection threshold at the beam center of ~300 microJy per epoch. Ten transient sources were detected with a significance threshold such that only one false positive would be expected. Of these transients, eight were detected in only a single epoch. Two transients were too faint to be detected in individual epochs but were detected in two-month averages. None of the ten transients was detected in longer-term averages or associated with persistent emission in the deep image produced from the combination of all epochs. The cumulative rate for the short timescale radio transients above 370 microJy at 5 and 8.4 GHz is 0.07 < R < 40 deg^-2 yr^-1, where the uncertainty is due to the unknown duration of the transients, 20 min < t_char < 7 days. A two-epoch survey for transients will detect 1.5 +/- 0.4 transient per square degrees above a flux density of 370 microJy. Two transients are associated with galaxies at z=0.040 and z=0.249. These may be similar to the peculiar Type Ib/c radio supernova SN 1998bw associated with GRB 980428. Six transients have no counterparts in the optical or infrared (R=27, Ks=18). The hosts and progenitors of these transients are unknown.Comment: Accepted for ApJ; full quality figures available at http://astro.berkeley.edu/~gbower/ps/rt.pd