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1
Roy, Jason. "How we vote: information heterogeneity, process and choice." Thesis, McGill University, 2009. http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=40748.
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Do more informed voters take account of a wider range of factors in formulating their vote choice? Do differences in the considerations employed in the vote calculus lead to different vote outcomes? Do political institutions and electoral complexity affect the relationship between information and the vote decision process and vote choice? Using survey data from the Australian, British, Canadian, New Zealand, and U.S. election studies (21 studies in total), this research tests how political information heterogeneity affects both the vote decision process and choice. In addition, this relationship is examined according to the complexity of the decision environment in which the decision is made. The primary proposition tested contends that information heterogeneity produces differences in the vote calculus that in turn lead to systematic and significant variation in vote choice. Secondly, this work tests the assumption that the magnitude of information effects will be a function of context complexity, with increased complexity resulting in greater information- based differences. The findings support the proposition that differences in political information lead to alternative decisions processes and vote outcomes. However, the difference in vote outcome across information cohorts does not increase with context complexity as expected. In fact, the opposite relationship is found. Under the most complex conditions vote choice differences between the most and least informed is nearly eliminated. This counter-intuitive finding is dissected using a series of simulations that compare actual vote choice to the choice individuals would have made had they all pursued the same decision calculus. The results reveal a significant divergence between high and low information vote choices given alternative decision processes that hold important implications for election outcomes.Est-ce que les électeurs informés prennent compte d'un plus grand nombre de facteurs quand vient le temps de voter? Est-ce que les variations quant aux choix des considérations prises en compte mènent à des choix électoraux différents? Est-ce que les institutions politiques et la complexité électorale ont une incidence sur les processus de décision des électeurs et le choix du vote? À l'aide de données recueillies en Australie, en Grande-Bretagne, au Canada, en Nouvelle-Zélande et aux États-Unis (21 enquêtes au total), cette recherche examine comment l'hétérogénéité dans le niveau d'information des électeurs influence le choix du vote ainsi que le processus qui y mène, le tout en tenant compte de la complexité de l'environnement de l'électeur.Nous testerons d'abord si l'hétérogénéité du niveau d'information des électeurs entraîne des différences dans le processus de décision du vote et si ces différences influencent de façon significative le choix du vote comme tel. Deuxièmement, nous verrons si l'effet du niveau d'information de l'électeur est fonction du contexte et si un environnement complexe entraîne de plus grandes différences entre électeurs.Les résultats tendent à démontrer que les variations dans le niveau d'information mènent à des différences dans le calcul du vote, et du choix du vote des électeurs. Par contre, contrairement à ce qui était attendu, le niveau de complexité de l'élection n'affecte pas davantage le choix du vote. C'est plutôt l'opposé qui est observé. En effet, c'est lors des situations les plus complexes que l'effet d'information est le moindre. Ce résultat est disséqué à l'aide d'une série de simulations où l'on compare le vote reporté des électeurs avec celui que l'on aurait observé si tous les électeurs avaient suivi le même processus décisionnel. Une différence significative est observée dans le choix du vote entre les électeurs très informés et peu informés da
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Steketee, Deborah Meadows. "Making connections environmental NGOs and cross-scale linkages in Ecuador's tropical forests policy process /." [Bloomington, Ind.] : Indiana University, 2006. http://gateway.proquest.com/openurl?url_ver=Z39.88-2004&rft_val_fmt=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:dissertation&res_dat=xri:pqdiss&rft_dat=xri:pqdiss:3219904.
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Thesis (Ph.D.)--Indiana University, Dept. of Political Science and the School of Public and Environmental Affairs, 2006.Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 67-06, Section: A, page: 2308. Adviser: Emilio F. Moran. "Title from dissertation home page (viewed June 21, 2007)."
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Hall, Andrew. "The Candidate Supply: How the Costs and Benefits of Running for Office Shape the Democratic Process." Thesis, Harvard University, 2015. http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:17467312.
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Dominant theories of U.S. elections focus on how candidates fluidly change positions based on the demands of voters. I argue instead that candidates' positions are more rigid. As a result, the supply of candidates, and not just the demands of voters, helps determine the ideological composition of the legislature. I describe a simple theory of the candidate supply, and I argue that when the costs of running for office are high, and/or the benefits of holding office are low, the supply of candidates will be more ideologically extreme.
I then ground this theoretical argument empirically. First, using estimates of candidate positions based on campaign contributions, I show that candidates rarely change positions over time, and that incumbents do not change positions even when challenged by primary candidates with contrasting ideologies. Next, I validate the two key predictions of the theory. To investigate the varying costs of running for office, I compare state legislators who must give up their seat in order to run for the House to those who do not have to do so. Moderate state legislators are sensitive to this cost, while more extreme ones are not. To explore the expected benefits of holding office, I show how the candidate supply in one party becomes more ideologically extreme when the other party ``as-if" randomly takes office in a district. Having validated the theory, I then show descriptive evidence that the costs of running for the House have gone up over time, and the benefits down, thus helping to explain why polarization has risen in recent decades.
Overall, the book points towards the importance of considering both the supply of candidates and the demands of voters, jointly, in order to understand the electoral process and the roots of polarization in our legislatures.Government
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González, Peña Andrea Del Pilar. "Exploring the impact of the disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration process on post-conflict peace." Thesis, University of Essex, 2018. http://repository.essex.ac.uk/22364/.
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Disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration (DDR) is a milestone towards lasting peace, but not the solution for the roots of a conflict. It is considered a highly politicised process because DDR is a cost-increasing provision that not only contributes to the security, but also builds confidence among warring parties. The United Nations has highlighted that without DDR, and specifically demobilisation, civil wars cannot end. Thus, DDR is a crucial aspect of any peace settlement; its greatest challenge is to design a programme and a strategy that convinces both parties that they have guarantees for surrender and disbanding and that their vulnerability and limits will be respected. This study tries to explain why not all agreements include DDR provision during peace negotiation, what determines this, and whether the DDR can explain the resumption of war or the emergence of new types of violence in post-conflict societies. This study contributes to a broader understanding of how DDR provision is determined by specific characteristics of the rebel group, country and conflict; how various components of DDR can have different impacts on the failure of peace and the new type of violence. The findings suggest that including DDR within a peace agreement, especially a reintegration programme, has a significantly positive impact on peace and shows evidence of the importance of military reintegration in the process of peace consolidation.
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Unruh, Jon Darrel 1958. "Land tenure and the peace process in Mozambique: The role of land dispute resolution in "critical resource" areas." Diss., The University of Arizona, 1997. http://hdl.handle.net/10150/282497.
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The recent 16 year civil war in Mozambique dislocated approximately six million people (primarily small-scale agriculturalists) from land resources to which they are now returning and re-claiming; comprising the largest return and re-integration of refugees and displaced persons in the history of Africa. The UN expects to continue its resettlement activities in Mozambique until the year 2000. However re-access to land resources is problematic due to overlapping land claims stemming from the reforming state land tenure system, including a reformulating land law. Land concessions are being granted from different ministries at the national, provincial, and district level with no coordination, enforcement, or mechanisms to resolve competing claims between smallholders and concessionaires. Disputes over land resources between participants in a national versus customary tenure system, and the inability of the two to connect in terms of how such disputes are resolved in ways that are viewed as secure and legitimate (and therefore respected) by participants in both systems, can have especially serious repercussions in periods of recovery from armed conflict. The intersection of land tenure system (including formal and customary "laws") and identity is crucial in this regard. This dissertation examines the role "critical resource" tenure following Mozambique's war, and how the conflict between reformulating customary and state land tenure systems aggravates the 'disconnect' between state and customary identities, and works against the peace process underway in the country. In the wake of the Somalia debacle, the UN and the international community are compelled to examine new operational modalities that specifically address the issues that can jeopardize a peace process. This dissertation makes the argument that land tenure in critical resource areas following armed conflict is such a problematic issue, and that attention to this issue needs to become an integral part of the peace process in societies where agriculture is fundamental to recovery.
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Escobar-Lemmon, Maria Cecilia. "The causes and process of decentralization in Latin America." Diss., The University of Arizona, 2000. http://hdl.handle.net/10150/289193.
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This dissertation examines the causes and the process of decentralization in Latin America. Decentralization, the transfer of functions from higher levels of government to lower ones, has both political and fiscal forms. The current literature suggests ten possible explanations for both political and fiscal decentralization. Using data from 18 Latin American countries between 1985 and 1995, I tested these different explanations. Political decentralization (measured as the election rather than the appointment of governors) resulted from federalism, legitimacy, presidential power, democracy, economic conditions, level of development and ethnic diversity. Economic and social factors including structural adjustment, level of development, urbanization, and social and religious diversity, in addition to presidential decree authority, played a strong role in predicting the election of mayors. Federalism, presidential power, structural adjustment, level of development, and social and religious diversity were all predictors of the level of subnational expenditures (a measure of fiscal decentralization). As a companion to the region-wide statistical analysis conducted above, I also studied the process of decentralization in Colombia, Costa Rica, and Venezuela. These case studies allowed me to observe the broader variables studies above "in action." In each of the case studies I traced the path decentralization has taken and I considered the major actors in the process of decentralization. I found that decentralization in both Colombia and Venezuela is relatively advanced. In contrast, decentralization in Costa Rica is not nearly as advanced. Among the most important causes of these differences is the absence, in Costa Rica, of strong local actors demanding decentralization and the fact that while presidents have supported decentralization, they are weak relative to the congress. In Colombia and Venezuela, the opposite is true, in part explaining the higher levels of decentralization.
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Ozer-Afsar, Kivanc. "A Normative and An Empirical Analysis on Conflicts Between Turkey and European Union During The Ongoing Process of Turkey's Membership To The Union." Thesis, Nova Southeastern University, 2013. http://pqdtopen.proquest.com/#viewpdf?dispub=3572388.
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Fletcher, S. M. G. "'It's not a protest, it's a process' : a critical analysis of state power, class struggle, and the Occupy movement." Thesis, Liverpool John Moores University, 2018. http://researchonline.ljmu.ac.uk/9695/.
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In September 2011, over 2000 people set up a protest camp in Zuccotti Park, New York, to contest the increasing inequality and social injustices, they argued to have been brought about by the few, at the expense of the many. This camp along with thousands of other camps worldwide, that would emerge thereafter, would come to be known as the Occupy movement. This thesis offers an examination of the Occupy movement by way of considering this phenomenon through a neo-Marxist framework, concerning, in particular the matter of class struggle. The research contained within, offers a series of elucidations regarding key theoretical and conceptual concerns, pertaining to matters of state power, in the context of the war of position in the advanced capitalist state and the neoliberal conjuncture. Presented within this specific depiction of the convoluted process that is class struggle, there is also a consideration of potential strategies for alliance. These strategies for alliance are by way of seeking to realise the making of a social class force of 'the people', on the terms of the exploited classes, that would bring with it, a material change within the state, and to that end, greater forms of equality and social justice.
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Emens, J. D. "A FUNCTIONAL APPROACH TO UNDERSTANDING PANEL DYNAMICS IN THE W.T.O. DISPUTE SETTLEMENT PROCESS." Miami University / OhioLINK, 2006. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=miami1140809808.
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Amo, Courtney. "Investigating the relationship between process use and use of evaluation findings in a government context." Thesis, University of Ottawa (Canada), 2009. http://hdl.handle.net/10393/28077.
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Despite support for the notion that evaluation utilization is facilitated by stakeholder engagement, evaluation practice in the Government of Canada may not be conducive to such engagement. This mixed-methods study explores the extent to which process use is manifest within government; the conditions, influences and factors that enhance process use; and the relationship between process use and findings use. The study supports the notion that process use and its consequences are important predictors of findings use in government. The level of stakeholder engagement present in this context appears to support the development of knowledge/skills, which may not be sufficient in enhancing findings use; changes in attitude/affect and in actions/behaviours may be of greater importance. This study highlights the importance of timely, higher-level engagement over frequent, surface-level engagement, as well as the importance of organizational learning capacity and conditions mediating evaluation use in setting the stage for process use to occur.
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Cirulli, Carlo Giuseppe. "La sinistra italiana e il processo d’integrazione europea: la transizione del Pci attraverso il suo discorso sull’Europa." Thesis, IMT Alti Studi Lucca, 2012. http://e-theses.imtlucca.it/91/1/Cirulli_phdthesis.pdf.
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La ricerca si è sviluppata intorno al tema del rapporto tra il Partito comunista italiano e il processo d’integrazione
europea. La scelta di indagare tale questione è nata
dall’esigenza di ricercare un punto di osservazione
originale che permettesse di studiare l’identità del partito
da una prospettiva ben precisa, quella della sua relazione
con il processo d’integrazione. L’analisi è stata condotta
focalizzandosi su tutti quegli elementi che hanno
contribuito alla formazione di un “discorso” sull’Europa da
parte del partito, prima in senso nettamente antieuropeo e
poi in una direzione pienamente europeista. Così, ampio
spazio è stato dato agli atti ufficiali del partito, ai discorsi e alla memorialistica dei leader e degli intellettuali d’area che nel corso degli anni si sono resi protagonisti delle varie tappe del processo. Attraverso tale analisi si è potuto verificare come l’Europa si presentasse, al tempo stesso, come un elemento di legittimazione, ma anche di “spersonalizzazione” per il partito stesso. La ricerca – condotta su fonti archivistiche e documenti del partito, sugli atti parlamentari, sulla stampa, oltre che sulla letteratura esistente, tanto in ambito storiografico, quanto in quello della scienza politica e della storia del pensiero politico – ha consentito di offrire una sistematizzazione in una prospettiva di longue durée del rapporto oggetto della
nostra analisi. Questo ha reso possibile individuare alcuni
spunti interpretativi, almeno in parte, originali. La “scoperta” dell’Europa, da parte del partito, ha permesso un’articolazione dei suoi fini, attraverso un processo di path shaping che però non è riuscito, giunti sul finire degli anni ’80, a “salvare” il partito, se non rendendolo “altro da esso”. Il Pci, che per anni aveva rivendicato con orgoglio la propria diversità, doveva, abbandonando ogni proposito di terza via, accettare di“omologarsi” ai cugini socialdemocratici e l’Europa sarebbe stata il luogo di tale incontro.
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Irons, Jennifer C. "From stalwart segregation to reluctant moderation: Racial boundary-work and the process of state response." Diss., The University of Arizona, 2003. http://hdl.handle.net/10150/280290.
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States maintain order through the production and maintenance of classification systems that divide groups of people through boundaries, intentionally or inadvertently. The successful continuation of this boundary-work depends on the maintenance of state domination and hegemony. However, hegemony is always susceptible to challenge, and domination is a costly way to maintain power in a democratic system. In a case study of the Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission, this research asks how the boundary-work of political elites, as a sense-making process meant to ensure order, was initiated, maintained, and altered during a crisis of racial hegemony. I examine how this organization, formed in 1956 by the Mississippi legislature to protect state sovereignty and segregation, transformed itself from an agency obsessed with the maintenance of a racial boundary to one committed to racial moderation. I also ask how the process through which the Commission responded to a crisis in racial hegemony informs our understanding of how elites accommodate change to stay in power. Files from the Sovereignty Commission regarding public relations and investigations are analyzed to understand the publicly visible and privately hidden strategies of the organization. Particular attention is paid to the discourse of these files, which provides insight into how cultural schemas are related to response. The analysis shows that a context of multiple audiences, and lack of full sovereignty, makes domination costly and the generation of consent complicated. White political elites lost the battle to maintain segregation, but ultimately retained power through the transformation of mutually constituting schemas and resources that composed the racial boundary between blacks and whites.
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Bhattacharya, Debasis. "Legislative-executive relations and U.S. foreign policy| Continuum of consensus and dissension in strategic political decision process from 1970 to 2010." Thesis, University of Oregon, 2014. http://pqdtopen.proquest.com/#viewpdf?dispub=3610246.
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During the last four decades, precisely from the early 1970s, U.S. foreign policy has played a dominant role in the U.S. political landscape. The current political discourse is predominantly marked by divided government, polarized politics and gridlock. Such a contentious political environment has proved to be detrimental for efficient and effective policy-making in foreign policy. There are significant factors that profoundly complicate the process of decision making and congressional-presidential relations. Partisan and ideological differences under the conditions of divided government are dominant in the current political process and in turn affect the prospects of legislative-executive consensus and dissension. Other factors such as media salience, public opinion, and electoral imperatives also complicate the dynamics of legislative-executive relations. In an era in which heightened political brinkmanship has enveloped Washington politics, continuum of consensus and dissension between Congress and the president on strategic foreign policy issues has virtually become a norm. This dissertation examines the dynamics of legislative-executive relations in two high politics U.S. foreign policy issue areas of treaty process and war powers. It appears that in contemporary U.S. foreign policymaking the trajectory of a continuum of legislative-executive consensus and dissension is a new normal and potentially irreversible, as Congress and the president try ardently to preserve their respective constitutional prerogatives.
Empirical investigation across these two issue areas demonstrates a new era of a resurgent Congress marked by its greater assertive role and acting as a consequential player in the foreign policy domain. The passage of the War Powers Resolution in 1973 by Congress, overriding a presidential veto, has profound implications in the modern political landscape. It was a pivotal moment that permanently transformed the future road map of congressional-presidential relations. Since then the U.S. political system has been relentlessly experiencing an institutional power struggle in the foreign policy domain. Findings suggest that when Congress determines to confront the president and exercise its constitutional responsibilities it becomes very difficult for the president to overcome such congressional resistance. Interbranch competition has virtually created a consistent trajectory of a continuum of legislative-executive consensus and dissension in the foreign policy decision-making process.
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Mlitwa, Nhlanhla Boyfriend Wilton. "Analysis of the policy and process of voter registration in South Africa in the 1999 general elections." Thesis, Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2000. http://hdl.handle.net/10019.1/51586.
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Thesis (M.Phil.)--Stellenbosch University, 2000.ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The democratic order is still in its early evolutionary stages in South Africa. Although the success of the 1994 democratic elections kindled hope for a promising future, democracy needs to be safeguarded if it is to develop in South Africa. Safeguarding a democracy requires a constant scrutiny of governing policies and procedures to ensure that they remain conducive to its positive development. Of fundamental importance to the transmission of democracy is an electoral system and its policies. Any electiongoverning policy that reduces public confidence in the electoral system is not conducive to the development of a democracy. This study analyses the policy of voter registration as it directly impacts on the format of an election. Since this policy is being applied for the first time in the short history legitimate democratic elections in South Africa, the study looks beyond the noble objectives as given by the policymakers. The lEC and the Government argue that the policy is aimed at improving the legitimacy of the electoral system by eliminating the ID related forms of electoral fraud. The significance of the study lies in its critical analysis of the actual policymaking process of this legislation, as well as its implementation. In order to assess the democratic legitimacy of the policymaking stage, the study takes a closer look at the roles of all the stakeholders in the policymaking process. Further, the study describes the constitutional controversies of the provisions of the policy, as well as its actual registration process. The understanding behind the latter description is that a policy is of no use if it cannot be implemented. In short, by describing, explaining and analysing the policy from its historical, legislative, and implementation phases, the study gives an insight into how this new policy relates to the development of the South African democracy. Although this study found no conclusive evidence of the negative impact of the policy on the outcome of the election, the nature of debates, the practical difficulties of implementation by the IEC, as well as the Court debates have all raised new questions that could require further analysis.
AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Die demokratiese bewind in Suid-Afrika is tans nog in die vroeë stadia van ontwikkeling. Hoewel die sukses van die demokratiese verkiesings in 1994 die vertroue in die moontlikheid van 'n belowende toekoms laat styg het, moet voortdurend gewaak word teen afbreek van die demokrasie in Suid-Afrika, en ruimte gemaak word vir die verdere ontwikkeling daarvan. Die beveiliging van 'n demokrasie verg aanhoudende noukeurige beskouing van die regering se beleid, en die uitvoer daarvan, om te verseker dat dit die positiewe ontwikkeling van die demokrasie bevorder. Die verkiesingstelsel en beleid is van fundamentele belang vir die vestiging van demokrasie. 'n Beleid wat die algemene vertroue in die verkiesingstelsel benadeel, sal nie die ontwikkeling van enige demokrasie bevorder nie. Hierdie studie ontleed die direkte invloed van die kieserregistrasie-beleid op die formaat van die 1999 verkiesing. Aangesien hierdie beleid vir die eerste keer in die kort geskiedenis van Suid-Afrikaanse verkiesings toegepas word, kyk die studie verder as die edele doel beoog deur die skeppers van die beleid. Die OVK en die Regering beweer dat die beleid gerig is daarop om die regverdigheid van die verkiesingstelsel te verbeter deur die uitskakeling van ID-verbonde verkiesingsbedrog. Die studie is veral belangrik in die kritiese ontleding van die skeppingsproses van die beleid self, sowel as die implementering daarvan. Om die demokratiese regverdigheid van die skeppingstadium van die beleid te kan beoordeel, val die soeklig veralop die rol van alle deelnemers aan hierdie proses. Die grondwetlike probleme met dele van die beleid sowel as die registrasieproses word beskryf. Hierdie beskrywing word gedoen vanuit die oogpunt dat 'n beleid geen doel kan dien tensy dit geïmplementeer kan word nie. Kortliks, deur die beleid te beskryf, te verduidelik en te ontleed in sy historiese, wetgewende en implementeringsfases, gee die studie 'n insig in die verhouding van hierdie nuwe beleid tot die ontwikkeling van die Suid-Afrikaanse demokrasie. Hoewel geen afdoende bewyse van 'n negatiewe invloed van die beleid op die uitkoms van die verkiesing deur hierdie studie bewys is nie, is sake wat verdere ontleding kan verg geopper in verband met die aard van die besprekings om die beleid, die praktiese moeilikhede van implementering deur die OVK, asook die besprekings in die hof.
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Miller, Mark Edwin. "Ambiguous tribalism: Unrecognized Indians and the federal acknowledgement process." Diss., The University of Arizona, 2001. http://hdl.handle.net/10150/279824.
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There are currently over two hundred Indian groups seeking recognition by Congress or the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA). Every month, articles appear detailing recently acknowledged tribes such as the Pequot opening high stakes gaming enterprises. This study examines several once unrecognized Indian communities and their efforts to gain federal sanction through the BIA's Branch of Acknowledgment and Research or Congress. By focusing on four Indian communities, the Pascua Yaquis, the Timbisha Shoshone, the Tiguas of Ysleta del Sur Pueblo, and the United Houma Nation, this work explores the strategies groups pursue to gain acknowledgment and the different outcomes that result. In its details, the work reveals ethnic identity in relation to the state bureaucracy while also demonstrating that groups must "play Indian" to both Indians and non-Indians to prove their racial and cultural identity. The case studies examine ethnic resurgence and cultural survival, the effects of the civil rights movement and Great Society social programs on these entities, and the historical impact of non-recognition on groups in several regions of the United States. This study also takes a broader look at federal acknowledgment policy. By analyzing the historical development of the policy and the administration of the BIA program, it ultimately concludes that the program has succeeded. While the new emphasis on recognizing tribes clearly represented a rejection of anti-tribal agendas of the past, its reliance upon written documentation and skepticism towards petitioners represents continuity in federal Indian affairs by maintaining the restrictive polices of earlier eras. Because it reflects the interest of many reservation tribes, the BIA process works as it was intended: in a slow and exacting manner, to limit the number of groups entering the federal circle. The recognition arena is thus a complicated amalgamation of modern Indian issues. Parties entering the process must maneuver complex terrain and deal with issues of scholarship and advocacy, concerns over gaming and motivations, and issues of racial and cultural authenticity. In the end, however, it is these complexities that make this study a multidimensional portrait of Indian policy, ethnic identity, and tribal politics in the post-termination era.
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Login, Emma Louise. "Set in stone? : war memorialisation as a long-term and continuing process in the UK, France and the USA." Thesis, University of Birmingham, 2015. http://etheses.bham.ac.uk//id/eprint/5640/.
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This thesis examines the development war memorialisation from 1860 until 2014 in the UK, France and the USA. It represents the first holistic and longitudinal study of war memorialisation as a continuing process. Previous approaches to memorialisation are critically reviewed and a unique new methodology is proposed. This approach challenges assumptions that memorials are only important to the generation responsible for their creation. Moving beyond an understanding that is based wholly on the socio-political circumstances surrounding their construction, it conceptualises memorials within a framework of three parallel time scales; the point of development within the war memorial tradition, the time that has passed from the conflict being commemorated and the time that has passed from the construction of the memorial. This methodology is used to demonstrate that these objects continue to have meanings for many years after the conflict they commemorate. This illustrates the many ways in which individuals continue to engage with war memorials, appropriating and re-appropriating them and transforming their meanings. Furthermore, this approach demonstrates that themes can be defined within the memorialisation process, and that these themes are not bounded by geographical context or period of time.
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Scott, Kevin Matthew. "Double Agents: An Exploration of the Motivations of Court of Appeals Judges." The Ohio State University, 2002. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1039026661.
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Hinkle, Rachael K. "Does Advocacy Matter? Examining the Impact of Attorney Expertise in Federal Courts." Connect to Online Resource-OhioLINK, 2007. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc%5Fnum=toledo1196706788.
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Thesis (M.A.)--University of Toledo, 2007.Typescript. "Submitted as partial fulfillment of the requirements for The Master of Arts in Political Science." "A thesis entitled"--at head of title. Bibliography: leaves 50-55.
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Curry, Brett W. "The courts, congress, and the politics of federal jurisdiction." Connect to resource, 2005. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc%5Fnum=osu1124055554.
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Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ohio State University, 2005.Title from first page of PDF file. Document formatted into pages; contains xiv, 421 p.; also includes graphics. Includes bibliographical references (p. 390-412). Available online via OhioLINK's ETD Center
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Miller, Banks P. "State Success in State Supreme Courts: Judges, Litigants and State Solicitors." Columbus, Ohio : Ohio State University, 2009. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc%5Fnum=osu1243004656.
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Rhodes, Christopher. "Political Christianity: Internal Organization, Preferences and Church Political Activity." Thesis, Harvard University, 2014. http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:14226091.
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This dissertation examines the role of internal structure of religious organizations
in influencing these organizations’ interactions with incumbent governments and ultimately determining the political activities of religious groups. This dissertation fits within a body of literature known as the political economy of religion. I expand upon this literature by examining religious groups in terms of internal organization, focusing on Christian churches in Africa, with Kenya as my primary case country.
The central argument of this dissertation is that churches (national-level denominations) with certain organizational features – centralized leadership, authoritarian decision-making procedures, and lack of internal accountability mechanisms – are more likely to have friendlier interactions with governments and therefore tend to adopt more pro-government political stances compared to churches that lack these features. This relationship operates through two mechanisms. First, centralized churches possess negotiation advantages over decentralized churches. Second, centralized, authoritarian churches can more easily be co-opted by incumbent governments. The dissertation also expand upon existing literature by offering a fuller and more nuanced understanding of the preferences of governments and churches vis-à-vis one another, proposing that churches seek to maximize number of church members, member faithfulness, and resources, while governments seek ideological support, citizen mobilization, and social service provision from churches.
These arguments are examined by historical comparative case studies of five of the largest Christian denominations in Kenya over the course of the country’s first three post-independence presidents. Through qualitative historical analysis, combined with information gathered through fieldwork in Kenya, the dissertation demonstrates how the preferences of these churches and governments, mediated through the internal organizations of the churches, influenced church-state relations and ultimately determined the churches’ political stances. The impact of internal organization is greater than factors such as ethnicity or theological conservatism/liberalism.
The dissertation tests these arguments through a quantitative analysis of church political orientation using national-level data on Christian churches and countries across Africa from independence through 2010. The results of the statistical analyses show significant effects of organizational features such as centralization, consistent with the arguments made concerning Kenya. The dissertation then gives brief qualitative analysis of church-state relations for several of the African churches included in the quantitative dataset.
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Bartels, Brandon L. "Heterogeneity in Supreme Court decision making how situational factors shape preference-based behavior /." Columbus, Ohio : Ohio State University, 2006. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc%5Fnum=osu1148557321.
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Hart, Douglass F. "Predicting political revolution." Thesis, The University of North Dakota, 2013. http://pqdtopen.proquest.com/#viewpdf?dispub=1541640.
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My thesis study examines the economic and sociological factors associated with political revolutions in order to create a predictive model. I do this by using statistical methods with nation level panel data collected from public domain sources. I anticipate being able to create a predictive model that provides a probability forecast of a country undergoing political revolution within a two year time-frame.
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Bogiaris-Thibault, Guillaume. "Machiavelli's political virtue." Thesis, McGill University, 2011. http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=104843.
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This thesis aims at clarifying Machiavelli's notion of political virtue by having recourse to Machiavelli's opinion of the empirical value of historical data. Thus, it takes the Florentine Histories as a work that can be used as a tool in support of any interpretation of Machiavelli's virtue when it comes to its ethical substance. I contend that this virtue most closely resemble a moderately deontological system of ethics where necessity acts as the threshold-setter. In chapter two I compare the qualities and attributes of the best princes and republics in order to make the point that political virtue is the virtue of the ruler, regardless of whether said ruler is a single person or a government system. Finally, in chapter three I examine how my interpretation of Machiavelli's political virtue can be used to offer a new perspective on the "problem of dirty hands" in politics.Cette thèse vise à clarifier le concept de vertu politique chez Machiavel en se basant principalement sur l'opinion que celui-ci avance quant à la valeur empirique de l'information fournie par l'histoire. Ce travail se base donc sur l'idée que les Histoires Florentines est un ouvrage dont le contenu peut être utilisé comme un outil ayant la capacité de vérifier toute conclusion ayant trait à la vertu politique de Machiavel en tant que concept éthique. L'idée principale de cette thèse est que la vertu politique de Machiavel correspond précisément à un système éthique de 'déontologie modérée,' dans lequel le concept de nécessité sers à identifier le 'moment seuil' où la valeur morale d'une action peut changer dans l'absolu. Ensuite, le chapitre deux examine les qualités communes des princes et des républiques les plus illustres et propose l'idée que la vertu politique doit donc être la vertu du dirigeant, qu'il soit un seul homme ou un gouvernement. Finalement, le chapitre trois explore comment cette interprétation de la vertu politique de Machiavel offre une nouvelle perspective sur le « problèmes des mains sales » en politique.
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Fonseca, Galvis Angela M. "Essays on Political Economy." Thesis, Harvard University, 2015. http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:17465326.
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This dissertation consists of three essays on political economy.
The first essay studies the effect of competition on media bias in the context of U.S. newspapers in the period 1870-1910. We measure bias as the intensity with which different newspapers cover scandals. We collected data on 121 scandals and 157 newspapers. We also collected data on the partisanship, frequency of publication, and circulation of the newspapers in our sample, as well as of the newspapers circulating in the same cities as those in our sample. Results indicate that partisan newspapers cover scandals involving the opposition party's politicians more intensely and cover scandals involving their own party's politicians more lightly. We find evidence that competition decreases the degree of media bias. The point estimates suggest that compared to a newspaper in a monopoly position, a newspaper facing two competitors will on average exhibits less than 50% as much overall bias in coverage intensity.
The second essay shows how voters make choices even in single-party authoritarian elections where the number of candidates equals the number of parliamentary seats. Cuban citizens signal approval of, candidates within the framework of the regime. Voters support candidates who have grassroots links and experience of local multi-candidate electoral contestation. Voters choose based not on clientelist incentives but on the limited political information available to them, namely, posted biographies and direct knowledge of local candidates, friends and neighbors, who run in their communities. Voters have chosen, however, without rejecting the Cuban Communist Party.
The third essay studies the unintended effects of the 2003 electoral reform in Colombia. In a context with fragmented and clientelistic parties and an electoral system that incentivizes intra-party competition instead of party discipline, scholars such as Shugart and Carey (1995) recommend the adoption of electoral reforms. A reform such as this was implemented in Colombia. What was unexpected was that the reform would promote a significant increase in the number of candidates running in each district. The effect of this was a lowering of the minimum threshold of the vote share required to obtain a seat, thereby maintaining clientelism as a viable campaigning strategy.Political Economy and Government
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Faller, Julie Kathleen. "Essays on Political Corruption." Thesis, Harvard University, 2015. http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:17467300.
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This dissertation presents three essays offering explanations for the persistence of corruption despite electoral competition.
The first essay, co-authored with Adam Glynn and Nahomi Ichino, asks what the effect of electoral systems is on corruption. Persson, Tabellini and Trebbi (2003) proposed that plurality electoral systems should lead to lower corruption compared to proportional representation (PR) systems because the former creates a direct link between voters and politicians whom voters can hold accountable for corruption. The empirical question re- mains unresolved, however, in part due to the endogeneity of the electoral institutions and difficulties in measuring corruption. Using nonparametric methods and new data to reduce sensitivity to these problems, we find no evidence for this hypothesis. Instead, we find some evidence in the opposite direction, that PR leads to less corruption.
The second essay makes a theoretical distinction between voters’ perceptions of the corruption of the political system and of individual politicians. Evidence from original interviews and focus group discussions, as well as public opinion data shows that many Ugandan citizens perceive their political system to be highly corrupt. In particular, they perceive corrupt acts to be widespread, do not expect perpetrators to be punished, and have difficulty distinguishing “honest” candidates. These characteristics cause voters who perceive the system to be highly corrupt to be less likely to punish overtly corrupt individuals by withdrawing electoral support. In some cases, they even prefer clearly corrupt candidates.
The third essay argues that to understand when voters hold politicians accountable for corruption, it is necessary to understand who they perceive to be corrupt. It presents evidence from a survey experiment showing that American voters perceive copartisan politicians to be less corrupt than those from the other political party or without a party label. This pattern is consistent with motivated reasoning in which voters expend extra cognitive resources to process information that contradicts their partisan leanings rather than from the use of party labels as heuristics to avoid cognitive burdens. Furthermore, I show that the ideological orientation of the media source reporting allegations of corruption affects whether they are viewed as credible. Counterstereotypical allegations – i.e., those that come from a media source that is ideologically similar to the politician – are taken more seriously by respondents. In fact, when partisans view counterstereotypical allegations, they exhibit less bias toward copartisans. In sum, this research demonstrates that in-group favoritism poses a challenge to democratic accountability, but that motivated reasoning is bounded by the evidence voters view, and thus that media sources with well-known ideological ori- entations may serve a particularly important role in encouraging democratic accountability among their bases.Government
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Luna, Joseph P. "Political Finance in Developing States." Thesis, Harvard University, 2016. http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:33493275.
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In developing countries, political activities are expensive. During campaigns, candidates and parties incur the costs of hiring staff, advertising, traveling and potentially buying votes. Between elections, citizens exert pressure to receive private benefits. Little is known, however, about how candidates and parties actually raise funds. These candidates often campaign on development platforms, promising citizens that they will deliver quality public goods. It is not clear, though, that the delivery of public goods is improving.
To examine these problems, I investigate the case of Ghana. Devoting one year to field research, I observed the actions of political actors in 11 districts. I interviewed over 200 local elites, including politicians, bureaucrats, private business owners and traditional chiefs. I administered surveys to bureaucrats and gathered data on local development projects.
Political financing and the quality of public-goods delivery are intertwined. Ghanaian politics is financed by an "iron square" of politicians, bureaucrats, construction contractors and party officials who covertly extract funds from public procurement. Their actions reduce the funds available to build development projects, hinder the ability of citizens to monitor project quality and drive honest contractors out of the market. This system of political financing is ultimately sustained by the kinship obligations that each player must satisfy.Government
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Trussler, Marc. "Consumer choice in political news." Thesis, McGill University, 2013. http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=119471.
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This thesis is concerned with the role that consumer demand for news plays in political behaviour. While a great deal of study has been done to examine media supply, very little has looked into the other side of the equation. If we are interested in the distortions media creates, than part of that equation must be a concern with what types of news individuals select -- particularly in the 21st century context of a "high-choice" media-environment. I examine this problem through a new experimental method designed to overcome shortcomings in the existing research. Previous studies have focused their methodologies primarily on achieving generalizability, while the method here seeks to find a better balance with internal validity. I use this method to tackle two different areas: demand for negative and strategic news (Experiment One); and demand for news that confirms test-subjects ideological and partisan biases (Experiment Two). Both studies produce significant results that bolster confidence in this new methodology.Ce mémoire traite du rôle des demandes des consommateurs au niveau des nouvelles et la relation avec le comportement politique. Alors que plusieurs études ont traité de l'offre médiatique, peu se sont intéressées à l'autre côté de la médaille. Si nous sommes intéressés aux distorsions créées par les médias, il faut évidemment étudier le type de nouvelles que les individus sélectionnent. Cela est d'autant plus justifié que nous vivons dans une ère où l'environnement médiatique offre plusieurs choix de nouvelles aux consommateurs. J'étudie cette problématique à travers les méthodes expérimentales afin de surmonter les failles méthodologiques des études existantes. Les recherches précédentes se sont concentrées sur le fait d'avoir des résultats généralisables, alors que la présente recherche tente de trouver un meilleur équilibre avec la validité interne. J'utilise cette méthode afin de préciser deux différents champs : la demande pour des nouvelles stratégiques et négatives (Expérience #1); et, la demande pour des nouvelles satisfaisant l'idéologie et l'identification partisane des sujets-tests (Expérience #2). Les deux expériences produisent des résultats significatifs qui renforcent la confiance à avoir en cette nouvelle méthode.
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Xena, Carla. "Old measures, new implications : the meaning of political efficacy across political contexts." Thesis, University of Essex, 2015. http://repository.essex.ac.uk/15492/.
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The main goal of this thesis is to comprehend some of the factors explaining cross- temporal and cross-national variations in citizens’ feelings of influence upon the political process, namely, political efficacy. For that purpose, this work is structured in three main parts which aim to explain how contextual factors can affect feelings of efficacy and, the sources of cross-national commonalities and differences. The first part, `Electoral Outcomes, Expectations and the (de)Mobilisation of Political Efficacy' contributes to the winner-loser gap literature by assessing the effect of elections, electoral outcomes and electoral expectations on political efficacy in the United Kingdom (UK) 2005 and 2010 general elections. This papers shows that not only electoral outcomes enhance or depress feelings of efficacy but also that electoral expectations have a major impact. The second part of this dissertation, `Does the Concept of Political Efficacy Travel across National Borders?', studies the cross-national comparability of a standard measure of political efficacy used in the European Social Survey (ESS). This paper employs Multigroup Confirmatory Factor Analysis (MGCFA) and shows that the meaning of political efficacy is not equivalent across the European continent but rather, among subsets of countries with a shared background. The third paper of this dissertation, `Valid Measures of Political Efficacy and their Correlates in the US and UK', uses the most recent advances in MGCFA applied to ordinal data to assess the cross-temporal and cross-national validity of a pilot battery of questions of political efficacy in the US and UK. The empirical results show that efficacy is equivalent across both countries only when significant differences in average levels of political efficacy are accounted for.
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Prado, Donoso Maximiliano. "Pluralism, political deliberation and religion : an analysis of the role of religious arguments in public political debate." Thesis, National Library of Canada = Bibliothèque nationale du Canada, 1998. http://www.collectionscanada.ca/obj/s4/f2/dsk1/tape11/PQDD_0024/MQ50960.pdf.
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Stewart, Brandon Michael. "Three Papers in Political Methodology." Thesis, Harvard University, 2015. http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:17467206.
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This collection of three papers develops two statistical techniques for addressing canonical problems in applied computational social science: unsupervised text analysis and regression with dependent data. In both cases I provide a flexible framework that allows the analyst to leverage known structure within the data to improve inference. The first paper introduces the Structural Topic Model (STM) which generalizes and extends a broad class of probabilistic topic models developed in computer science. Crucially for applied social science, STM provides a framework for estimating the factors which drive topical frequency and content within documents. The second paper explores the challenge that non-convex likelihoods pose for applied research with topic models. The paper presents a series of diagnostics and discusses the under-appreciated role of initialization methods. The third paper introduces Latent Factor Regressions (LFR), a new set of tools for regression modeling in the presence of unobserved heterogeneity or dependence between observations. The approach uses interactive latent effects to provide a unified framework for modeling different data structures, including network, time-series cross-sectional and spatial data.
Each of these methods is designed with a focus on applied work. Estimation algorithms are presented which are fast enough for applied work and software is either currently available (STM) or in development (LFR). The use of these techniques is illustrated with a range of applications from across political science.Government
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Kashin, Konstantin Daniel. "Essays on Political Methodology and Data Science." Thesis, Harvard University, 2015. http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:17464583.
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This collection of six essays makes novel methodological contributions to causal inference, time-series cross-sectional forecasting, and supervised text analysis. The first three essays start from the premise that while randomized experiments are the gold standard for causal claims, randomization is not feasible or ethical for many questions in the social sciences. Researchers have thus devised methods that approximate experiments using nonexperimental control units to estimate counterfactuals. However, control units may be costly to obtain, incomparable to the treated units, or completely unavailable when all units are treated. We challenge the commonplace intuition that control units are necessary for causal inference. We propose conditions under which one can use post-treatment variables to estimate causal effects. At its core, we show when one can obtain identification of causal effects by comparing treated units to other treated units, without recourse to control units.
The next two essays demonstrate that the U.S. Social Security Administration's (SSA) forecasting errors were approximately unbiased until about 2000, but then began to grow quickly, with increasingly overconfident uncertainty intervals. Moreover, the errors all turn out to be in the same potentially dangerous direction, each making the Social Security Trust Funds look healthier than they actually are. We also discover the cause of these findings with evidence from a large number of interviews we conducted with participants at every level of the forecasting and policy processes.
Finally, the last essay develops a new dataset for studying the influence of business on public policy decisions across the American states. Compiling and digitizing nearly 1,000 leaked legislative proposals made by a leading business lobbying group in the states, along with digitized versions of all state legislation introduced or enacted between 1995 and 2013, we use a two-stage supervised classifier to categorize state bills as either sharing the same underlying concepts or specific language as business-drafted model bills. We find these business-backed bills were more likely to be introduced and enacted by legislatures lacking policy resources, such as those without full-time members and with few staffers.Government
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Souza, Menezes Aline Maria. "Essays on empirical political economy." Thesis, University of Essex, 2016. http://repository.essex.ac.uk/20066/.
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This thesis studies three channels through which elections and, ultimately, public policy may be interrelated: new media, electoral systems and vote motivation. The media has the fundamental role of providing political information to voters. New media such as the Internet brought about an enormous shift in the availability of political information during elections. Exploiting the timing and geographic variation in the introduction of Internet in Brazil, in the first chapter, I show that municipalities with higher Internet penetration voted more often in candidates who faced legal restrictions for advertising in traditional media. Electoral systems, in turn, have specific features that, in theory, may allow voters to select better politicians by providing more information about candidates and other voters' preferences. In the second chapter, using the discontinuous allocation of single- and dual-ballot electoral rules across mayoral elections in Brazil, I compare the quality of politicians fielded and elected in these systems. In general, dual-ballot candidates from major parties are more politically experienced. This experience may be translated into unobserved political skills that are required to deal with the more competitive electoral process, that, by itself, punishes female candidates, to the extent to which women's participation in politics has been historically low. No differences in performance are observed, except in the attraction of discretionary resources by dual-ballot mayors eligible for reelection, but only in election years. Finally, in the third chapter, I use a quasi-naturally generated group of voters with differential political information and voting motivations to show that politicians extract more rents in municipalities where they know a number of voters is not directly interested in public goods and do not have readily access to local sources of information.
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Tucker, Luc. "Political interactions and voter responses." Thesis, University of Warwick, 2014. http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/63836/.
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This thesis investigates empirically the way in which agents in political bodies can influence their peers, as well as the ways in which voters respond to the behavior of legislators in their electoral choices. These relationships are fundamental in trying to comprehend the way in which political decisions are made. Economists should take particular interest in these topics, given their importance in understanding the incentives faced by legislators. Questions as to the possibility of peer effects between political agents are of huge importance in democratic governments. Political debates play a central role in many legislative bodies, where the assumption is implicitly made that opinions can be influenced by the other debate participants. This fundamental assumption is tested in Chapter 1, which is the first to measure the extent of peer influence regarding reported political opinions in an explicitly political environment. This has previously not been possible, given that discussions and debates in legislative chambers take place between participants with particular characteristics and political interests, making it hard to separate the role of peer effects in determining their preferences. This thesis makes use of experimental data, which offers a unique opportunity to distinguish these effects and quantify the degree to which peer effects can influence political preferences. In particular, Chapter 1 uses data from an experiment conducted in Australia in 2009 to consider whether participants showed evidence of having influenced one-another during political discussions. Each of the models used exploits the fact that table allocations were randomized in this experiment and controls for agents’ characteristics, which were also recorded. The key finding of this chapter is that when asked to assign weights to eleven criteria for an effective political system, agents who sat on the same table during the experiment reported preferences that were more similar than those who did not share a table. The effect is small at 4.8% of a standard deviation but is statistically significant and of larger magnitude than other pairing characteristics which could have been expected to influence the differences between weighting choices, such as whether the two players were of the same gender. One year after the Citizens’ Parliament, participants were asked to report their political positioning on the ‘left-right’ scale. It is not found to be the case that the table allocations influenced these reported positions. Having demonstrated that participants in legislative bodies can influence one-another’s reported political preferences, this thesis goes on to analyze the relationship between legislators and the constituents they represent, by considering the question of whether politicians who are more active in parliament are rewarded with a higher probability of being reelected. The particular parliamentary behavior analyzed is the asking of parliamentary questions. The UK House of Commons uses a ballot system to determine which members are selected to ask a question from those who expressed an interest in doing so. This chapter is the first in the literature to exploit this randomization to show that the asking of such questions increases a member’s chances of being reelected by their constituents. It is shown that while the ordering of parliamentary questions is determined at random, the practicalities of conducting debates introduce a potentially endogenous element to the determination of which questions receive oral answers (particularly the speed at which questions are answered). This chapter uses a matched sampling approach to cope with such non-random cases, but also includes alternative results, to show that the findings are not reliant on the use of this technique. Chapter 2 exploits a natural experiment to show that Members of Parliament who are selected to ask parliamentary questions are more likely to be reelected in forthcoming elections. It was necessary in this study, however, to drop certain observations as a result of the fact that the Speaker in the House of Commons, who chairs debates, has some influence over the number of questions reached in each debate, which could undermine the randomization in these cases. Chapter 3 of this thesis goes on to consider this process in more detail. This chapter shows that in fact questions posed by older and more experienced members, as well as those from opposition parties, are more likely to receive oral answers than should be expected under a true randomization. Chapter 3 offers the first opportunity to consider the Speaker’s role in parliamentary debates under the conditions of a ‘natural experiment’. Results presented here point to the role of the Speaker in controlling the speed at which debates progress as contributing significantly to the findings listed above, for example by acquiescing to pressure from more senior members by allowing them to ask their questions in debates where time constraints would otherwise prevent them from doing so. The finding is also an important consideration for future studies which aim to exploit such randomizations as natural experiments relating to parliamentary activity. Such a finding is potentially significant in the context of the UK political system, where the ballot system is in place precisely to ensure that all members of the House of Commons have an equal opportunity to ask questions, regardless of their levels of seniority. The final chapter of this thesis continues to examine the link between legislators and the citizens they represent. In particular, Chapter 4 makes use of the large Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) dataset from the USA. While this dataset has been extensively used to study health outcomes, this chapter represents the first attempt to use the dataset to study the link between political outcomes and the economic prosperity of constituents. This is achieved by matching survey respondents to their representatives in Congress and restricting attention to cases where members of the lower house seek election to the upper house. Members of the US Senate (the ‘upper house’ in Congress) are elected to serve a state as a whole, whereas members of the House of Representatives (the ‘lower house’) serve a district within one of those states. This chapter shows that members of the House of Representatives who seek election to the Senate (without necessarily being successful) tend to have previously served in districts with permanently higher incomes. Furthermore, incomes are found to be temporarily higher in districts where the representatives are successfully elected to the Senate than those where the representatives were unsuccessful in their attempt to be elected. This is interpreted as showing that in Senate elections, voters reward legislators who served districts where average incomes were seen to increase under their tenure. These chapters use a diverse range of datasets to consider the impacts of political behavior. It is shown that the behavior of agents in political environments not only influences their peers, but is also recognized and rewarded by the voters they represent. Voters are found to respond to political behavior by both reelecting legislators who are more active (by asking more parliamentary questions) and by electing those legislators who have previously served districts where average incomes increased under their tenure.
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Song, ByungKwon. "Three Essays on Political Economy of Media." Thesis, Harvard University, 2015. http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:17467529.
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This dissertation addresses the questions of what kind of political information is provided by media outlets and how media environments affect electoral politics.
In my first essay, I investigate the effect of the entry of television on U.S. presidential elections from 1944 to 1964. I first show that television increases the importance of the national economy. Second, I show that television weakens the relationship between the circulation of partisan newspapers and the party vote share. In addition, I show that the crowding out of political information by television does not drive these results. I find that television is not associated with a drop in newspaper circulation and people are just as likely to read about campaigns in newspapers when television becomes available. These findings suggest that television can be a valuable source of political information.
In the second essay, coauthored with Angela Fonseca Galvis and James Snyder, we study the effect of competition on media bias in the context of U.S. newspapers in the period 1870-1910. Our results indicate that partisan newspapers cover scandals involving the opposition party's politicians more intensely and cover scandals involving their own party's politicians more lightly. More importantly, we find evidence that competition decreases the degree of media bias. The point estimates suggest that compared to a newspaper in a monopoly position, a newspaper facing two competitors will on average exhibits less than 50% as much overall bias in coverage intensity.
In the third essay, I study whether newspaper coverage of scandals can help voters punish the party of politicians involved in a scandal. I focus on the US House of Representatives from 1982 to 2004. I use the congruence between newspaper markets and congressional districts as a measure of newspaper coverage of scandals. I show that newspapers write more stories about representatives involved in a scandal in districts that are more congruent. I find that the parties in scandals suffer moderately in elections. More importantly, my results suggest that the parties in scandal do worse in districts/counties with higher congruence: they get fewer votes and are less likely to win.Government
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Aoun, Madonna. "Political Structures and Political Violence in the Middle East." Ohio University / OhioLINK, 2007. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ohiou1195647167.
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Al-Tuwaijri, Hamad Ibrahim Abdul Rahman. "Political power and rule in Kuwait." Thesis, University of Glasgow, 1996. http://theses.gla.ac.uk/1687/.
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Kim, Eunseong. "Political and non-political bloggers in the 2004 United States presidential election motivations and activities /." [Bloomington, Ind.] : Indiana University, 2006. http://gateway.proquest.com/openurl?url_ver=Z39.88-2004&rft_val_fmt=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:dissertation&res_dat=xri:pqdiss&rft_dat=xri:pqdiss:3240031.
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Thesis (Ph.D.)--Indiana University, School of Journalism, 2006."Title from dissertation home page (viewed July 16, 2007)." Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 67-10, Section: A, page: 3639. Adviser: David H. Weaver.
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Nahm, Alison. "Measuring Political Preferences of the U.S. Voting Population." Thesis, Harvard University, 2015. http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:14398553.
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Political polarization is a common topic in the news and media, but not much has been done to understand the distribution of the preferences of the U.S. voting population. Political scientists have drawn different conclusions on the current state of political polarization within the U.S. voting population based on survey data and basic spatial voting models. In this work, I present a spatial voting model that analyzes voting data at a more fine-grained level in order to use Bayesian techniques to infer the underlying distribution of political preferences of the population. Further, I verify these results by comparing it to alternative public opinion measurements and measuring the accuracy in completing prediction tasks. This work adds a new perspective to the current discussion within the political science community of the recent trends of political polarization.
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Gallant, Suzanne. "Pluralism, immanence, affect: William Connolly's political philosophy." Thesis, University of Ottawa (Canada), 2007. http://hdl.handle.net/10393/27846.
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This thesis presents a synthetic and exegetical survey of William Connolly's writings over the past decade. The most important concepts in Connolly's political philosophy are explained in detail: identity formation through difference, resentment in late modernity, and the importance of affect for thought processes related to ethical and political judgment. Connolly's focus on the psychological and existential dimension of politics, and his serious engagement with the notion of difference, lead him to propose deep pluralism as a model for politics and ethics. This is based on his assessment of the positive dynamics at play in late modernity. Deep pluralism centres on the cultivation of an ethos of engagement, a distinctive sensibility which promotes the exercise of relational modesty, forbearance and generosity in our exchanges with others. Connolly's pioneering work on affect, immanence, culture, pluralism, fundamentalism and resentment show the value of his alternative framing of contemporary issues for political analysis.
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Van, Coppenolle Brenda. "Political dynasties and elections." Thesis, London School of Economics and Political Science (University of London), 2014. http://etheses.lse.ac.uk/883/.
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This dissertation studies political dynasties in democratic countries. Dynasties are common in all professions. However, for the profession of politics, in which succession depends no longer on dynastic succession but on running successful electoral campaigns, understanding how and why political power can be bequeathed is particularly important. Factors such as name recognition (the voter demand side) and political networks (the elite supply side) are potential explanations of the continued presence of dynasties in parliaments. This dissertation studies both the voter demand side and the elite supply side of the phenomenon. I first discuss the related literature on political dynasties, political selection, political quality, and the personal vote. Voting for dynasties can be rational, and the presence of dynastic legislators perfectly legitimate. Political dynasties may thrive in electoral systems that encourage personal voting, such as is used in Belgium. In a first paper, I show that in the Belgian 2010 General Election voters preferred dynastic candidates. Institutional changes may change such (dynastic) elite equilibria. In a second paper, we exploit the constituency-level variation in the franchise extension associated with the Second and Third Reform Acts in Britain. However, we find no effect of these reforms on the position of dynasties or the aristocracy in politics. Changes to the political career of legislators may also affect their chances of establishing or continuing a dynasty. The third paper studies dynasties in the UK House of Commons. I employ random variation in tenure length introduced by winning vs. losing a first re-election by a narrow margin. Surprisingly, I find no effect of tenure length on an MP’s chances of establishing a dynasty in the nineteenth century. However, selection into cabinet is more likely if the MP had a relative in the cabinet before.
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Wang, Chien-hsün. "Political economy of village governance in contemporary China." [Bloomington, Ind.] : Indiana University, 2006. http://gateway.proquest.com/openurl?url_ver=Z39.88-2004&res_dat=xri:pqdiss&rft_val_fmt=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:dissertation&rft_dat=xri:pqdiss:3210048.
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Thesis (Ph.D.)--Indiana University, Dept. of Political Science, 2006.Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 67-03, Section: A, page: 1080. Adviser: Elinor Ostrom. "Title from dissertation home page (viewed March 16, 2007)."
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De, Neve Jan-Emmanuel C. J. M. "Essays in political economy and voting behaviour." Thesis, London School of Economics and Political Science (University of London), 2011. http://etheses.lse.ac.uk/199/.
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This thesis explores how political preferences are shaped by institutions, economic conditions, and personality. Each chapter is a distinct contribution and provides a different perspective on the formation of political preferences and, ultimately, voting behaviour. These different approaches relate to the fields of comparative political economy, behavioural economics, and political psychology. Methodologically, this thesis is empirically applied and the results of these separate enquiries into political preferences are grounded in statistical analysis. A first substantive chapter introduces a median voter data set that provides insight into the ideological position of the electoral centre in over 50 democracies. A second chapter uses this new data and studies cross-national voting behaviour in 18 Western democracies over 1960-2003. It is found that electoral behaviour is closely related to the salience of the following economic institutions: labour organization, skill specificity, and public sector employment. This research shows that political preferences are endogenous to economic institutions and implies the existence of institutional advantages to partisan politics. A third substantive chapter focuses on ideological change in the United States and tests the proposition that voters advance a more liberal agenda in prosperous times and shift towards being more conservative in dire economic times. A reference-dependent utility model relates income growth to political preferences by way of the demand for public goods and the optimal tax rate. This work thus links voting behaviour to economic business cycles and shows that ideological change is endogenous to income growth rates. Finally, a fourth chapter presents the largest study to date of the influence of the big five personality traits on political ideology. In line with prior research in political psychology, it is found that openness to experience strongly predicts liberal ideology and that conscientiousness strongly predicts conservative ideology. A variety of childhood experiences are also studied that may have a differential effect on political ideology based on an individual's personality profile. The findings of this final chapter provide new evidence for the idea that differences in political preferences are deeply intertwined with variation in the nature and nurture of individual personalities. Generally, this thesis provides some new insights into the complex world of political preference formation and does so by exploring the influential role of institutions, economic conditions, and personality.
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Nitz, Michael Earl 1967. "Schema theory: An application to political communication." Thesis, The University of Arizona, 1991. http://hdl.handle.net/10150/291606.
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Political schema research (Kinder, Peters, Abelson, & Fiske, 1980; Miller, Wattenberg, & Malanchuk, 1986) has centered on the schemas voters use to select presidents. Unfortunately, political researchers have all but neglected the state and local level. Consequently, this thesis focuses on the schemas voters use to select governors to determine if these schemas differ from schemas used to select presidents. This thesis also tests the relationship between political sophistication and the use of certain schemas to select a governor. Surveys were administered to 563 adults waiting for jury duty. Results indicate the schemas voters use to select governors differ from those used to select presidents. Political sophistication is positively related to usage of issues and performance schemas. Further research should explore political schemas at state and local levels.
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Conti, Erika. "Political rights and representation for women in Egypt." Thesis, IMT Alti Studi Lucca, 2008. http://e-theses.imtlucca.it/63/1/Conti_phdthesis.pdf.
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Since their independence, Arab countries have experienced several periods of political openness based firstly on the establishing and then the strengthening of democratic institutions: universal suffrage, elections, representative assemblies, the system of checks and balance to foster rule of law. By the Nineties, a wave of potentially deepreaching
political changes seemed to be underway in the Arab region
in general and the North Africa in particular In Egypt, Mubarak launched a new period of political liberalisation with even more vigour with the starting of the XXI century. The first multi-party presidential elections held after the approval of a constitutional amendment was the most optimistic sign of this shifting period. Probably triggered by international organization, Mubarak continued seeking for a public support of its political reform. The government officially claims higher participation of all citizens and promises concrete actions in favour of under-represented groups, such as women. A deeper analysis reveals
some discrepancies between government’s rhetorical discourse and actions. Restriction on political rights and freedom with the maintenance of the emergency law questioned seriously the reversal trend toward authoritarianism. Is the real government’s engagement towards the rule of law? Is it effectively involved in the construction of a more inclusive system where all fragments of the society are represented? The present research is intended to provide some answers by a twofold structure: some general tools for analysis and, afterwards, the case-study focused on the exercise of women’s political rights.
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Vaccari, Federico. "The political economy of strategic communication." Thesis, University of Essex, 2018. http://repository.essex.ac.uk/22362/.
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This thesis contains three chapters exploring the implications of strategically biased information on political outcomes. The first chapter studies how a politically motivated media outlet misreports information in order to endorse its preferred candidate during an election. The task of identifying the reporting strategy through which an interested outlet can influence the decision of voters is non-trivial as there are many ways in which this can be done. I show that there is only one plausible equilibrium, where the media outlet ``pools'' information in a way that sways the decision of the median voter -- and therefore of a majority of electors. The second chapter investigates how media bias skews electoral competition and produces distortions in the process of policy formation. I develop a model of communication with endogenous policy-making. Candidates running for office know that information passes through the lens of an interested media outlet before reaching the electorate. This generates tension between pandering to the voter with a populist policy, or pleasing the outlet with a biased policy. I show that the implications of media bias are not confined to distortions of the voters' choice at the ballot box, but they propagate back to the process of policy-making. In the third chapter, I study to what extent competing forces in the market for news are beneficial for voters. I explore a model where (i) media outlets compete for influence by providing alternative views of the same stories, and (ii) relevant information spreads quickly, and eventually voters listen to all viewpoints. In equilibrium, both media outlets reveal their private information with positive probability, and misreport otherwise. I find that even though competition triggers more news distortions, it always outperforms monopoly: ``diversity of opinion'' has a value independently of the additional media outlet's bias -- even if it is extremely biased.
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Araral, Eduardo K. "Decentralization puzzles a political economy analysis of irrigation reform in the Philippines /." [Bloomington, Ind.] : Indiana University, 2006. http://gateway.proquest.com/openurl?url_ver=Z39.88-2004&rft_val_fmt=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:dissertation&res_dat=xri:pqdiss&rft_dat=xri:pqdiss:3215225.
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Thesis (Ph.D.)--Indiana University, School of Public and Environmental Affairs and Dept. of Political Science, 2006.Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 67-04, Section: A, page: 1506. Adviser: Elinor S. Ostrom. "Title from dissertation home page (viewed June 19, 2007)."
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Grillos, Tara. "Participation, Power and Preferences in International Development." Thesis, Harvard University, 2015. http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:23845452.
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Participatory development is widely touted as the remedy for ineffective and disempowering top-down development models of the past. However, participation can take many different forms, so an important open question for effective delivery of development assistance is: Which forms of participation influence which development outcomes under which circumstances? In this dissertation, I identify six key areas of research related to participatory development: the initial adoption of a participatory institution, the decision by individuals to participate or not, the direct outcomes of the participatory process, the effects on participants themselves, changes in the process over time, and carefully selected comparisons across contexts. I then make specific contributions to three of these areas through empirical research.
The first essay, Popular Participation, Reciprocity Norms and Conservation Incentives in Bolivia, examines the decision to participate. In it, I compare the characteristics of participants and non-participants in a compensation program for environmental conservation in Bolivia, and I show that in addition to material incentives, social embeddedness plays a role in motivating participation. The second essay, Poverty Targeting and Elite Capture in Participatory Planning in Indonesia, addresses the direct outcomes of participation. In it, I examine the geographical distribution of the outcomes of a participatory planning process in Indonesia, and I show that the benefits are captured most by the least poor areas, but that this occurs in ways distinct from how capture is typically conceived. The third essay, Gender Inequality and the Multi-Dimensionality of Power in Northern Kenya, addresses the effects of participation on the empowerment of participants themselves. In it, I assess the impact on women’s empowerment of a program meant to enhance women’s political participation in northern Kenya, and I find that while the program largely fails to promote political participation, it has an impact on women’s empowerment within the household, very likely due to a component of the program which engaged directly with men.
Overarching themes that emerge across these studies include (1) the importance of increased conceptual clarity not only with respect to the various forms that participation can take and the various goals it can be invoked to seek, but also regarding various hypothesized effects of and motivations for participation, (2) the potential relevance of the implementing agency and its relationship with pre-existing, overlapping social institutions, and (3) the usefulness of engaging with literature on psychology and behavioral economics. Understudied areas for future research include the evolution over time of a particular participatory process and more systematic comparisons of participatory processes across settings.Public Policy
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Garcia, Ignacio Molina 1950. "Armed with a ballot: The rise of La Raza Unida Party in Texas." Thesis, The University of Arizona, 1990. http://hdl.handle.net/10150/291552.
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In 1970 a group of Mexican Americans in Crystal City, Texas came together to form El Partido de La Raza Unida (The Raza Unida Party) and challenged the Anglos that had governed there for years. From that beginning came a state-wide party that ran a candidate for governor in 1972 and in a short period took political control of two counties and numerous other elected positions throughout the state. This thesis looks at two aspects in the development of the Raza Unida Party. It reviews the years leading up to the founding of the Mexican American Youth organization, which was the precursor of the party, and it focuses on the strategies used by this group to organize Mexican Americans into a voting bloc. It is the premise of this thesis that La Raza Unida Party, more than any other Mexican American organization before it, was responsible for Mexican Americans becoming participants in the electoral process in larger numbers than ever before.
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Block, Elmer Ray Jr. "Racial cleavages in political interest." The Ohio State University, 2006. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1150289870.
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