Jeremy Tyler Sujian Guo PLSI419-01 1 November 2011 Analytical Essay Topic Proposal Research Question: Is there an inverse

correlation in the quality of standard of living and the potential for manifestation of political violence? Thesis: The current standard of living in the United States is comfortable enough to prevent significant political violence, or revolution away from the capitalism that has helped produce the comfort. Why: The recent "Occupy Wallstreet" demonstration has highlighted certain Liberal practices of business and government that have allowed increasing wealth disparity. But nothing has manifested into anything significantly violent, even though radical solutions have been voiced by some of demonstrators. Moreover, the vast majority of U.S. residents still enjoy a historically high standard of living in terms of food, shelter, and sanitary security. If these standards can be maintained, is the capitalist political economic system safe from change? Method of solution: I will review the unnatural deaths that significantly threaten the standard of living (famine, infectious disease, murder, work-place deaths, and deaths from severe climate) over the last 100 years in the United States, and compare them to significant manifestations of political violence during the same period. But I will use average life-expectancy as a proxy to the amount of unnatural deaths occuring. If the severity of political violence has declined with the death rates from the listed threats (measured in a increasing life-expectancy), then there could be some correlation and evidence for my thesis. I will also examine political violence in other countries throughout time to make sure the the unnatural deaths I've listed weren't present before significant political violence. Sources: Prezorski, Adam et. al. Political Regimes and Economic Growth. Democracy and Development: Political Institutions and Well-Being in the World, 1950-1990. (New York: Cambridge University Press, 200), pp. 142-74. Skocpol, Theda. France, Russia, China: A structural Analysis of Social Revolutions. Comparative Studies in Society and History, 18, no. 2 (April 1976), pp. 175-203. Crenshaw, Martha. The Causes of Terrorism. Comparative Politics, 13, no. 4 (July 1981), pp. 379-99.

Margalit, Avishai and Buruma, Ian. Occidentalism. The New York Review of Books, January 17, 2002. Rotberg, Robert I. The New Nature of Nation-State Failure. The Washington Quarterly, 25, no. 3 (Summer 2002), pp. 85-96. Stohl, Michael. War and Domestic Political Violence: The Case of the United States 1890-1970. The Journal of Conflict Resolution, Vol. 19, No. 3 (Sep. 1975), pp. 379-416. "Deaths in the United States 2009". Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. NCHS Data Brief No. 64. July, 2011. Lipset, Seymour Martin. Economic Development and Democracy Political Man (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1960), pp. 31-35.