Digital Commons Network^™

Why Democracies And Autocracies Go To War: Comparing The Cases Of Iraq And Ukraine, Ketevan Chincharadze

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

History shows that both democratic and nondemocratic countries wage wars to advance their strategic interests. This study has comparatively analyzed two conflicts – the 2003-2011 U.S. invasion of Iraq and Russia’s ongoing war in Ukraine – to identify the trends that motivate both democratic and autocratic leaders to behave similarly by launching an invasion. The interpretive research of various memoirs, books, interviews, academic articles, news reports, and speeches, has uncovered that personal biases, particularly confirmation biases, play a significant role in motivating leaders to start a war. Leaders’ confirmation biases are often shaped by three prominent factors – historical memory, …

A New Direction For Public Understanding Of Science: Toward A Participant-Centered Model Of Science Engagement., Christopher Rickels

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Engaging the public with science is not an easy task. When presented, scientific findings, public health recommendations, and other scientific information filter through the personal values, beliefs, and biases of members of the public. Science communicators must contend with these differences in order to be effective in cultivating a public understanding of science. Given the importance of scientific understanding for living well in a complex world, increasing science understanding through science engagement is imperative. The field of public engagement with science is dichotomized by a public information deficit approach and a contextualist approach. The deficit approach prizes the factual content …

Designing For Democracy: How Democratizing States Design International Organizations, Marissa Wyant

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Building on work by Paul Poast and Johannes Urpelainen that suggests that democratizing states are more likely to form new international governmental organizations rather than join existing ones, I ask the question: how do these states design the organizations they form, and how do those design choices compare to the choices made by consolidated democracies and by nondemocracies? I focus on three design choices made by states regarding membership constraints, voting procedures, and dispute resolution processes. By comparing and analyzing founding charters, I find that democratizing states were more likely to constrain access to membership into these organizations to regional …

U.S. Democratization In Post-Cold War Russia: A Critique, Franklin T. Hughes

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

States are path dependent entities that deviate solely in the face of catastrophic failures in the pursuit of axiomatic ends by conventional means. The inertia of bureaucratic institutions, a foreign policy consensus within a self-reproducing elite of experts, the self-interest of political elites and a sense of “national self” or identity lead states to understand themselves in light of a history and a relative level of status on the world stage. Since the end World War II, the U.S. has a certain path that places the spread of democracy and laissez-faire capitalism extremely important if not vital foreign policy goals. …

Defections And Democracy: Explaining Military Loyalty Shifts And Their Impacts On Post-Protest Political Change, Kara Leigh Kingma Neu

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Why do militaries shift their loyalty from authoritarian regimes in some instances of anti-regime protests and not others, and why do these shifts sometimes lead to democratic change? These questions are crucial for understanding the role of the military in democratization, given competing expectations in the literatures on civil-military relations, pacted transitions, and civil resistance. They are also important for understanding the outcomes of protests and other nonviolent campaigns for regime change, a topic of increased attention in recent years. To answer them, I propose an argument rooted in the bases of military authority. Militaries are delegated authority by regimes …

From Dissent To Democracy? The Promise And Perils Of Civil Resistance Transitions, Jonathan C. Pinckney

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Under what conditions will successful nonviolent revolutions be followed by democratization? While the scholarly literature has shown that nonviolent resistance has a positive effect on a country's level of democracy, little research to date has disaggregated this population to explain which cases of successful nonviolent resistance lead to democracy and which do not. In this study I present a theory of democratization in civil resistance transitions in which I argue that political actors' behavior in three strategic challenges: mobilization, maximalism, and holdovers policy, systematically affect the likelihood of democratization. I test this theory using a nested research design that begins …

Citizen Security And Democratization In Latin America: Implications Of Law Enforcement Reforms And Demilitarization, Fernanda Andrea Gutierrez Merino

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Latin American region has transitioned to democracy in the last forty-thirty years and along with many policy reforms, citizen security has not been left behind. As these changes evolve, the relationship between internal security and the development of a stable democracy has acquired a great importance in terms of the factors that contribute to a free world. The purpose of this research is to look at how security policy and policing in Argentina, Chile, el Salvador, and Mexico have contributed to the democratization process in regards to how the recent reforms in law enforcement in the region have created favorable …

To Continued Success: Reforming Internal Tunisian Security Policy, Thomas Eli Banghart V

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Tunisia's reputation as the success story from the Arab Spring rests on the integration of a stable democratic regime. Domestic as well as regional threats continue to push the boundaries of this fledgling democracy. Development measures, and reform of the Tunisian Internal Security Forces are paramount for the state's survival. This work presents measures for Security Sector Reform within Tunisia, then proceeds to create a map a developmental intervention aimed at securing stability through several drivers. Understanding that development is a security threat for Tunisia will help allies, other regional actors, NGO's, and other organizations furthers the unique situation where …

Winning Well: Civil Resistance Mechanisms Of Success, Democracy, And Civil Peace, Jonathan C. Pinckney

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Several recent studies indicate that revolutions of non-violent civil resistance lead to more democratic and peaceful political transitions than either violent revolutions or elite-led political transitions. However, this general trend has not been disaggregated to explain the many prominent cases where nonviolent revolutions are followed by authoritarianism or civil war. Understanding these divergent cases is critical, particularly in light of the problematic transitions following the "Arab Spring" revolutions of 2011. In this paper I explain why nonviolent revolutions sometimes lead to these negative outcomes. I show, through quantitative analysis of a dataset of all successful non-violent revolutions from 1900-2006 and …

#Democracy: The Internet And Support For Democracy In Central And Eastern Europe, Matthew Alan Placek

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Since 1989, the countries in central and eastern Europe have undergone a tremendous amount of societal and political change. While previous studies have noted the importance of citizen support for democracy in providing a base for regime stability in these new democracies, there is considerable debate in what influences these values. One possible mechanism of attitude change is mass media. Previous studies in political science have noted the importance of mass media in influencing citizen attitudes and behavior. Though this research has uncovered a plethora of effects that the media can have, the extant literature has mostly focused on this …

African Regional Organizations And Democracy, Stephanie Schoppert

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Instability and political repression are two reasons why many states in Africa are unable to develop. African regional organizations have the potential to encourage democracy, stability and development within their regions if they have the right tools. Using case studies of two major interventions by African regional organizations this thesis will determine what those tools may be. Both the intervention of ECOWAS into Liberia and the SADC into the DRC were rife with problems but they were able to bring some stability and even democracy to states in crisis. This thesis finds that African regional organizations can promote democracy and …

Just A Mutt: A Narrative Ethnography Of The Denver Dog Park Master Plan Process, Stephen M. Griffin

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This ethnographic study explores the phenomenon of citizen participation in the decision-making process of their local government. The researcher explored this topic by observing the Dog Park Master Plan process conducted by the Parks and Recreation Department of the City and County of Denver from June 2009 through April 2011.

The researcher attended and observed seven meetings of a citizens committee convened by the Denver Parks and Recreation Department to act as a mini-public to test the elements of the Dog Park Master Plan before presenting the Plan to the public, and the three public meetings held to allow the …

Paths To Democracy, The Post-Cold War And 21st Century New Standard Of Civilization, The New Wave Expansion Of International Society: China, South Korea And Iraq, Jaewon Lee

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In my dissertation, I examine two main research questions: 1. Can we regard democracy as the new standard of civilization and the new wave expansion of international society in the post-Cold War era and in the 21st century? and 2. Should we think that each path toward democracy is relatively different based on the characteristics of each international society and the internal and external variables of each state? In my dissertation, I use typology to demonstrate that each country has taken its own unique path toward democracy, and that democracy has become the post-Cold War and 21st century new standard …

Opportunity Structures And Post-Authoritarian Participation: Argentina And Chile Compared, Emily B. Carty

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This work seeks to address a paradox between the existing literature on political disaffection and participation in new democracies through a comparative study of Chile and Argentina. According to Torcal and Lago (2006), disaffection in new democracies is associated with less conventional and nonconventional forms of participation. While on an individual basis their conclusions hold true in Chile and Argentina, the comparisons on a national level do not fit this pattern - despite the higher levels of disaffection in Argentina, it has similar or higher levels of participation. This paper employs Sidney Tarrow's theoretical framework of opportunity structures (1994, 1995) …

Fostering Global Security: Nonviolent Resistance And Us Foreign Policy, Amentahru Wahlrab

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation comprehensively evaluates, for the first time, nonviolence and its relationship to International Relations (IR) theory and US foreign policy along the categories of principled, strategic, and regulative nonviolence. The current debate within nonviolence studies is between principled and strategic nonviolence as relevant categories for theorizing nonviolent resistance. Principled nonviolence, while retaining the primacy of ethics, is often not practical. Indeed, most nonviolent movements have not been principled, or solely principled. Strategic nonviolence is attractive because it does not require any individual or group to believe in a particular faith or ethical tradition. However, strategic nonviolence is problematic as …

Iraq: The Way Forward—A Political Strategy To Win & End The War In Iraq, Krikor P. Mosses Derhagopian

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The challenges to stability, unity, and democracy in Iraq are typically characterized as factional (sectarian and ethnic) or as struggle against the presence of foreign troops. However, this assumption remains largely erroneous. The problems and challenges in Iraq are actually and overwhelmingly the result of power struggles, and the competition for resources by political elites, and dominant political factions.

The political and electoral system emplaced in Iraq incentivizes elites and political entities to undertake factional identities; in doing so, it promotes identity politics. The current system also fails to filter the contests for power through the electoral system. As such, …

Comparative Study Of Transition To Democracy In Portugal And Iran, Loosineh Markarian Senagani

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The thesis compares the period of transition to democracy in Portugal and Iran after the collapse of the authoritarian regimes through revolutions in 1974 in Portugal and 1979 in Iran. Despite the similarities the cases share, the outcome of the transition in Portugal was a political democracy while Iran faced the rise of authoritarianism. The research compares the similar and dissimilar variables between Portugal and Iran such as the form of the break with authoritarianism and holding of initial elections, institutional design, involvement in wars, and popular mobilization. By keeping respecting factors as control variables, the thesis argues for the …

Investigating Economic Inequality And Voter Turnout In The Industrialized Democracies, Benjamin Freeman

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This paper investigates economic inequality and voter turnout in a sample of 21 industrialized democracies using a pooled time series model of elections from 1970 to 1999. The findings demonstrate a connection between inequality and voter turnout wherein increases in inequality lead to reductions in voter turnout. The ramifications for democratic accountability and representative democracy are discussed.