Political Science Theses

The Role of Resources in Regime Evolution

Ekaterina Boyko — Fri, 05 Apr 2013 08:41:03 PDT

The evolution of political regimes of resource-rich countries is a highly relevant topic as the debates continue about the likelihood of those countries to democratize. Conventional wisdom dictates that large oil endowment impedes democratic development. However, recent studies found that oil and gas can both contribute to and undermine democracy. At the same time, the subject of how and why a democratic resource-rich country backslides to authoritarianism has not been researched in-depth. This thesis argues that the effect of oil and gas endowment depends on who controls the resources: whether the state controls the industry's operations or the industry is run independently from the state. The theory is tested on two cases, Russia and Venezuela, which experienced both democratization and authoritarian backsliding. With two models (independent and state control of hydrocarbon resources) for each case, we found the dynamic of hydrocarbon industry control impacts regime evolution.

Are Democracies More or Less Likely to Abrogate Alliances?

Eric Harrison — Fri, 05 Apr 2013 08:41:02 PDT

This thesis examines the impact of democracy on alliance abrogation. It serves as an extension of the current literature that examines democratic commitments and merges that with alliance studies. The data used consists of alliances from 1816-1991 and has been composed using EUGene from Leeds and Anac (2005), Correlates of War, and Polity IV. Using a standard probit model, this thesis examines the relationship between democracy and alliance commitments in a systematic approach and finds little evidence to support existing theoretical justifications on how democracies behave in an alliance.

Patterns of Support of Ethnic Violent Groups by Co-Ethnic Groups

Deniz Gumustekin — Thu, 28 Feb 2013 10:15:55 PST

Most studies examine how homeland policies influence the host state and what role the homeland plays for diaspora. In this paper, I will examine the reasons and conditions for why ethnic groups do or do not support violent ethnic groups. This study tests how external threats impact the level of support within the same ethnic groups. I will examine the causal relationship between external pressure and non-cooperation through a structured, comparative study of Kurdish ethnic groups.

Mobile Phones and Gender Inequality: Can We Hear Her Now?

Kari An Mackey — Thu, 28 Feb 2013 10:15:52 PST

Are mobile phones the best vehicle for reducing gender inequality in the developing world? ICT experts champion the use of mobile phones to improve women’s lives, and various stakeholders have invested millions of dollars to launch mobile phone programs for women. Yet, given high female illiteracy rates, patriarchal societies, and other structural and cultural barriers in developing countries, many scholars contend that limited access to ICTs can perpetuate gender inequality. Rooted in the theory that women’s empowerment and equality are inseparable and necessary components for the realization of sustainable economic and social development, this paper aims to determine if stakeholders are jumping on the mobile phone bandwagon too soon by using a multivariate regression of cross national data to demonstrate whether or not mobile phones fall short of advancing women at the same rate that men develop.

How Campaign's Change Voters' Policy Positions: An Analysis of Shifting Attitudes towards the Redistribution of Wealth

Junyan Zhu — Thu, 28 Feb 2013 10:15:50 PST

During campaigns, voters often learn that their party's candidate advocates policy positions that conflict with their own attitudes. These cross-pressured voters can either adjust their policy positions to be consonant with their party's candidate or voting for others. I use monthly NES Panel Data from 2008-2009 to examine how voters' beliefs change about a specific policy: the redistribution of wealth through progressive taxation during a presidential campaign. I test this by creating a Random Effects Ordered Probit Panel regression model of ten monthly waves of survey data before the 2008 presidential election. The study shows that over the campaign, voters' policy positions evolve on redistributive taxation policy; voters adjust their prior policy cognitive dissonance to be in agreement with their candidate. The results indicate that in the 2008 Presidential election, the electorate more often moved their policy beliefs to be in agreement with their candidate, rather than switch votes.

State-building, Systemic Shocks and Family Law in the Middle East and North Africa

Camille L. Wolpe — Wed, 28 Nov 2012 12:10:52 PST

Family law regulates the formation of marriage, divorce, marital property rights, child custody, inheritance, and spousal duties. This study aims to demonstrate how family law formation in the Middle East and North Africa reflects the struggle among social and political forces to capture the state and assert authority. The balance of power between competing social forces impacts both the timing (short-term versus long-term struggle) and type (progressive or regressive) of family law after independence. The ability of one of two competing forces, broadly categorized as traditionalist versus modernist, to capture the state is necessary for codification and is predictive of family law content. Case studies reveal that systemic shocks (e.g. revolution, social unrest, or foreign intervention) tip the balance of power in favor of traditional or modernizing forces in the post-independence state-building process and facilitate the successful consolidation of power and the codification of family law.

The Politicization of Climate Change

Devian K. Harris — Wed, 28 Nov 2012 12:10:51 PST

For decades, rhetoric has been utilized by both politicians and those in the scientific community to convey either support for or denial of the existence of climate change. This study combined two forms of rhetoric in the forms of both framing and politicization to determine which form of rhetoric is most powerful in influencing a person’s attitudes and behavioral intentions. Pro climate change frames are expected to increase support for climate change action, while anti climate change politicization is expected to decrease support for climate change action. The results of this study show that select frames have the intended effect of influence on increasing support for climate change measures. Surprisingly, the results also show that politicization that questions the science of climate change has the power to both increase and decrease support for attitudinal measures with regard to climate change.

Punitive Warfare: Measuring The Effects of a Punitive Disposition On Public Support For War

Paul I. Thomas Mr. — Wed, 28 Nov 2012 12:10:49 PST

Recent research has posited that retributiveness is an individual level disposition that can help us understand foreign policy preferences (e.g. Liberman 2006, Liberman 2007, Liberman in press, Stein n.d.). However, previous research is limited in two related respects. First, previous research relies on correlational data, blunting our ability to make clear causal inferences. Also, retributiveness is not made theoretically distinct from general hawkishness. In this paper, I present results from two experiments to refine our understanding of how retributiveness can affect support for use of the military. In the first experiment, I examine how retributiveness affects support for greater military commitment across a number of potential missions. In the second experiment, I examine how retributiveness interacts with different rhetorical justifications for military endeavors (e.g. punishing transgressors versus eliminating a foreign policy threat).

Southern Lag Voting Trends in Florida U.S. Senate and Gubernatorial Elections

Marie Frederickson — Wed, 28 Nov 2012 12:10:47 PST

For the past several decades the South has moved toward one-party Republican control, and yet the mega-southern state of Florida has not kept pace with the greater Southern Republican realignment for candidates running for statewide office. Instead, Florida has exhibited a Southern lag, where rural counties maintain higher Democratic registration than voting levels in supporting Democratic candidates for governor and U.S. Senate in the same general election year. There has been a gradual regional dealignment occurring in rural counties that are closer to the Deep Southern states of Alabama and Georgia. Using a range of aggregate Florida county election and registration data, research found the percentage of white voters and percentage of registered Democrats that comprise counties effect the Democratic deviation. These results have implications for campaign strategy and can be used in campaign targeting efforts.

Defeating Authoritarian State Structures in Semi-Democratic Countries: Lessons from Turkey's Justice and Development Party

Gulcan Saglam — Wed, 28 Nov 2012 12:05:51 PST

Political success in semi-democratic countries has two aspects: shifting the balance of power in one’s favor and maintaining it. This thesis seeks to examine how the AKP has succeeded in shifting the balance of power in its favor while its predecessor the Welfare Party did not. Focusing on electoral success, existing research primarily lists center-periphery conflict, moderation, class struggle, party organization, and failures of others as the main determinants. Yet the significance of reining in the power of the Kemalist state structure has been mostly disregarded. Therefore, with a comparison of the AKP (2002-2007) and the Welfare Party (1996-1997) governments, this study tests one assertion using most-similar systems research design that in semi-democratic political settings with strong authoritarian actors, political parties that build broad coalitions via group specific policy promises will be more likely to shift the balance of power in favor of themselves than actors that lack such connections.

Beyond Libertarianism: Interpretations of Mill's Harm Principle and the Economic Implications Therein

Matthew A. Towery — Mon, 26 Nov 2012 08:30:50 PST

The thesis will examine the harm principle, as originally described by John Stuart Mill. In doing so, it will defend that, though unintended, the harm principle may justify several principles of distributive justice. To augment this analysis, the paper will examine several secondary authors’ interpretations of the harm principle, including potential critiques of the thesis itself.

Democratic Deepening and the Provision of Public Goods: A Study on Decentralization and Agricultural Development in 30 Countries in Sub-Saharan Africa

Yaye M. Ba — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 10:23:35 PDT

Slow agrarian development has often been blamed on the absence of civil society mobilization. This paper quantitatively analyzes the effect of political and fiscal decentralization on agricultural development in 30 democratizing African States. Hence two hypotheses are tested: H₁) New democracies that combine elected sub-national governments with fiscal decentralization will be more likely to spend more in agriculture. H₂) In such system we should observe better agricultural outputs, other things equal. Results reveal that counter-intuitively simultaneous democratic and fiscal decentralization have a negative impact on public investment in agriculture. On the other hand, as expected fiscal decentralization does not have any significant impact in the absence of democratic decentralization. Most importantly democratic decentralization is found to have a highly positive impact on the provision of agricultural related public goods when fiscal decentralization is low. The test also reveals that fiscal and political decentralization positively influence agricultural production.

The Other Side of the Coin: The Role of Militia in Counterinsurgency

Andrew T. Nidiffer — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 10:10:48 PDT

Can the success of the Sunni Awakening in Iraq be applied to other counter-insurgency conflicts, or is it an exemplary case? Using case studies including Iraq and Afghanistan, it will be examined whether or not militias can be can be used to fight counterinsurgency campaigns in Afghanistan and generally to other conflicts. It may not work in Afghanistan, and certainly presents a Catch-22 situation, but it may be applicable in certain situations in other conflicts under certain conditions.

Achieving Genuine Moments from Ordinary Origins: Sheldon Wolin, Hannah Arendt, and Jacques Rancière on Democracy

Grant Yarbrough — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 08:53:15 PDT

This paper grapples with the differences between genuine and ordinary democracy within the political thought of Jacques Rancière, Sheldon Wolin, and Hannah Arendt. Each discusses the problems of ordinary democracy and offer solutions in terms of what I call genuine democracy. Ordinary democracy is the established norm of liberal democracy celebrated as the stable and a desired “end” of political action. It is what happens when politics as usual becomes the norm and shuts the people from the halls of power. Genuine politics exist within the structure ordinary democracy and seeks to achieve the continuous re-establishment of democratic processes while in the process speeding up and disrupting “politics as usual”.

Paradox Lost: Explaining Cross-National Variation in Case Volume at the European Court of Human Rights

Veronica S. Armendariz — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 07:30:56 PST

Existing research on states and human rights focuses primarily on international treaty ratification, post-treaty rating systems, and ad hoc reports on adherence in individual countries. Additionally, the literature is characterized by disproportionate attention to certain rights to the neglect of others, thereby painting an incomplete and potentially inaccurate picture of a state’s practice and implementation of human rights. Consequently, the extant literature too frequently disregards key domestic and international factors as determinants of cross-national variation in the implementation and protection of human rights, and it instead generates paradoxical claims about human rights and state behavior. With Europe as its empirical focus, this study tests one assertion that state strength relative to societal actors impacts the frequency of cases heard at the European Court of Human Rights. Findings suggest that state strength indeed plays a role in the overall number of cases from member states in the European human rights system.

Sleeping with the Enemy, or Putting the Enemy to Sleep? A Theory of Insurgency-State Interaction

Andres Rangel — Mon, 19 Sep 2011 08:37:56 PDT

This paper presents a theory of insurgency-state strategic interaction based on the insurgency’s mode of survival. The theory postulates that, ceteris paribus, illegal resources discourage the insurgents from desiring to control the state and the state from regaining control of the insurgent territory, whereas legal lootable resources “force” the insurgency to embrace the suboptimal strategy of trying to topple the government, while causing the state to desire full control of the insurgent territory. Intensity, the number of combatant deaths over time, will be used to test the theory. Civil conflicts involving insurgencies that rely on illegal resources for most of their revenue should be of low intensity. The opposite should hold true for civil wars in which the insurgency’s livelihood is a legal lootable resource.

The Priming Effects of Polling Location on Ballot Initiative Voting Decisions

Jeffrey M. Glas — Thu, 14 Jul 2011 11:23:05 PDT

Do the physical settings in which a voter casts their ballot affect their vote choices? Every state uses a variety of polling locations for the administration of election: churches, schools, libraries, fire stations, and etcetera. The literature on priming effects and voting is massive, but very little research examines the impact of the venue in which a ballot is cast has on voters’ decisions. In this study I argue that polling venues situated on church, school, or veteran’s association property influences the proportion of votes cast in favor of ballot measures related to each institution. I test these hypotheses using precinct level election results and population data from California’s 2008 general election and find results supporting, or suggesting, such a relationship.

Living in the "Age of Accountability": How Co-Decision Empowers the European Parliament in the Design of EU Agencies

Patrick C. Kenard — Thu, 28 Apr 2011 09:40:05 PDT

Bátora alleges that political accountability has been “almost entirely overlooked” (2010, 2) in studies of the European External Action Service. An examination of the subject that extends previous studies on agency design, the co-decision procedure, the “democratic deficit,” and European Union foreign policy would resolve the neglect. As a result, the study derives a hypothesis from an established theory of bureaucratic structure. Findings suggest that during the design of EU agencies co-decision power improves the ability of the European Parliament to institutionalize methods of accountability to it.

Social Transformation in Divided Societies: Willingness to Integrate Post-Power Sharing Agreement: The Northern Ireland Case

Elizabeth A. O'Callaghan — Thu, 02 Dec 2010 10:00:56 PST

This thesis examines the factors which impact societal willingness to integrate in a post conflict, post power sharing agreement environment. Utilizing the Northern Ireland case, this study analyzes variance in willingness to integrate between Protestant and Catholic groups. Analysis of the Northern Ireland Life and Times survey data illustrates the shifting relationship between political trust and ingroup/outgroup frustrations on levels of willingness to integrate since the Good Friday Agreement. Statistical analyses indicate confirmation of ingroup attachment and elite political trust hypotheses, and reduced impact of outgroup benefit perceptions on willingness to integrate since the Good Friday Agreement.

No Such Thing as Collective Goods: The Political Utility of Low Level Civil War in Northern Uganda

Alexandra Z.A. Wishart — Thu, 02 Dec 2010 09:58:58 PST

With the extant work on civil war duration as a starting point, this project uses the Ugandan case to identify and address theoretical aporias in our existing understanding of the determinants of duration. The vast majority of existing work begins with the assumption that the rebel force is the determining factor in the duration of conflict. Challenging this assumption, I argue that civil war duration should be understood as a function of the calculations made by both the rebel units and the established state, a dynamic that has implications for the way in which we think of the preferences of the state. Finally, that incentive structures exist, given the nature of post-colonial states that lower the utility of peace for elected leadership and reduce their willingness to provide peace as a collective good to the broader population as civil war can be used as one of Jeffrey Herbst’s buffer mechanisms.