Debating Myself

My second senior thesis is finished. This paper, written in German, was much more of a challenge in some ways than the Politics and Government thesis. Having chosen specifically to write two senior theses instead of simply writing one larger thesis on a topic that overlaps both subjects, I had a hard time finding my way to a topic of interest to me involving Germany.

My main problem was finding available resources in German to conduct strong academic research from. In the end I chose as similar road as my POLS thesis–namely reanalyzing an existing case-study.

I am interested in theories of federalism, generally, and the European Union as a sort of interesting new experiment in multi-level governance. However, looking specifically at environmental policy within Germany and the EU is ironic, because it is perhaps the type of politics that interests me the least. Luckily I was able to focus my paper on the theoretical implications of the division of power between Germany, the EU and the German Länder in the realm of environmental policy, and avoid tedious discussions of allowable levels of pollutants in rivers and streams.

Mainly, it is just really hard to write a substantial research paper in a foreign language you have studied for only four years–and I am probably most proud of my thesis not for its clear and original analysis (of which it has much less than my POLS thesis) but for my use of the German language. Since coming back to Germany I think my mastery of written German has probably increased significantly due to the outstanding support of my German professor (Professor Lorely French) and the insane amount of papers I had to write in German this year.

Oddly, I wrote more pages/papers in German this academic year than in English. Crazy.

For comparison’s sake, here are the vital stats on my German thesis:

• Pages: 43
• Words: 10,773
• Footnotes: 30
• Words (with footnotes): 11, 476
• Sources Cited: ??
• Sources Consulted: 83
• Appendixes: 0

And, I’m done. If anyone out there is fluent in German and interested, please feel free to read the attached PDF below. For those of you not fluent in German here is an English description of the theme of the paper:

The Federal Republic of Germany is a founding member of the European integration project and a strong supporter of the European Union. Yet the rapidly increasing centralization of European policy in the form of mandates from the EU is particularly complicated for Germany due to its federal structure. The sixteen German states, or Länder, have become increasingly active in the politics of integration in the last twenty years in an attempt to protect their traditional constitutional sovereignty. The Länder have been particularly active, sometimes against the wishes of the federal German government. The struggle against European environmental standards exemplifies how integration can be burdensome and costly for the Länder to implement. This study analyzes the different strategies employed by the Länder in defending their sovereignty.

“Purely Administrative Entities”? The Role of the German Länder in the European Union (PDF)

Today I turned in the fruits of over a year of my labor–my senior thesis in Politics and Government at Pacific University. It is a good feeling and I am actually very proud of the finished product. It is not quite a publishable paper, largely due to a lack of data, but it is a good paper calling for further avenues of research in rural education policy. You can read the abstract below to find out what the paper is all about, but I thought it would be fun to take a statistical look at my thesis:

Vital Stats:

• Pages: 41
• Words: 11,857
• Footnotes: 42
• Words (with footnotes): 13, 337
• Sources Cited: 38
• Sources Consulted: 74
• Appendixes: 1

For those of you interested, here is a summary of the thesis and what it entails:

Rural education policy research has traditionally focused on the sociological aspects of rural areas and often failed to take into account analyses of politics and power. Utilizing a more formal political analysis, this study describes the political universe within which educational policy in rural areas is formed. Using two case studies of the implementation of a national grant program, the Reading First grant, this study seeks to explore the different intergovernmental relationships that rural and urban school districts experience, and the institutional features of No Child Left Behind that place rural areas at a disadvantage when implementing national educational policy. The study concludes by suggesting ways that policy makers and school districts alike can craft future policies to accommodate the unique advantages and disadvantages of both urban and rural school districts.

If that sounds interesting I invite you to download the PDF and take a glance. It is a bit dry, so if you want to be spared the details you can skip to the conclusion and find the most salient points summarized nicely there.

The Myth of the Oak Tree (PDF)

The important thing is that it is done, and that I am proud of the finished product.