Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Citizen Confidence In The Public Service: An Examination Of Established And Emerging Democracies In North America And Eurasia, Nurgul Ryskulovna Aitalieva

Doctoral Dissertations

How do levels of confidence in the public service differ across countries? Are these attitudes about the public service determined by similar individual-level attributes across countries? Do country-level correlates explain variation between countries in citizen attitudes toward the public service? Data from the 2005-2009 World Values Survey for 21 North American and Eurasian countries, in addition to aggregate-level measures of national context, are analyzed using multilevel binary logistic regression.

The study shows that there is a significant amount of variation in the confidence attitudes not only within each country but also across countries. Citizens of Switzerland, Sweden, Norway, and Finland …

International Trade And Third Parties' Conflict-Joining Propensities: The Political Economy Of Conflict Expansion, Amanda Gale Sanford

Doctoral Dissertations

In recent years, a renewed interest in the differences between dyadic conflicts and complex, multiparty disputes has developed within international relations (Vasquez and Valeriano 2010; Valeriano and Vasquez 2010). The conflict expansion literature focuses heavily on how traditional realist variables – such as alliances, shared borders, and rivalries – facilitate the spread of conflict, but these studies largely ignore other incentives to join disputes, such as the protection of an economic relationship. Absent a few notable exceptions (Polachek 1980; Aydin 2008), questions concerning the role that economic interdependence plays in conflict expansion have remained generally unanswered.

This dissertation seeks to …

Challenging The State: Evaluating The Effects Of Uneven Distribution Of Public Goods, Economic Globalization And Political Openness On Domestic Terrorism, Sambuddha Ghatak

Doctoral Dissertations

The end of Cold-War ushered in an era of global economic integration and political openness in terms of emerging democracies; the world celebrated the triumph of free market capitalism as the East European ex-communist countries and Third World countries of Asia and Africa placed market forces at the center of their policy. There seems to have been a breakthrough for the idea of the Manchester School, in terms of using economics as a means of international peace. On the other hand, however, the world is not at peace. The collapse of the “Soviet Empire” was followed by the emergence, or …

Friendly Fire: Amicus Curiae Participation And Impact At The Roberts Court, David Hooper Scott

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation explores the nature and extent of amicus curiae participation and impact at the Roberts Court. While previous literature has addressed amicus activity and influence in prior eras of the Court, in specific issue areas, and in specific cases, none has focused in a systematic way on the Roberts Court. Compiling data from the 2007-08 through 2011-12 terms of the Roberts Court, this study first examines the levels and categories of amicus participation during this time period. Amicus activity at the Roberts Court is ubiquitous, and exhibits an “arms race” phenomenon, being relatively ideologically balanced.

Second, this study analyzes …

Gender And Party Stereotypes In The Evaluation Of U.S. Senate Candidates, Rebecca Madelyn Shafer

Doctoral Dissertations

In the United States, there has been a gradual increase of women elected to office, yet women are still drastically underrepresented at every level. One potential obstacle to the electoral success of women is the propensity of voters to stereotype candidates based on their gender. However, voters also stereotype political candidates based on their party affiliation. Therefore, it is important to understand how stereotypes regarding the Republican and Democratic Parties may interact with stereotypes concerning men and women.

While experimental research has been utilized extensively to test the effect of gender stereotypes on candidate evaluations; almost all of this research …

Service Satisfaction, Competence And Caring: Examining The Influence Of Experience With The Public Bureaucracy On Citizen Attitudes Of Trust In Government, Lauren Kriston Harding

Doctoral Dissertations

Examining the relationship among government performance, service satisfaction and trust in government advocated by the New Public Management, this research contributes to a better understanding of the performance-trust hypothesis and its assumptions. This study evaluates the satisfaction link of the performance-trust hypothesis, investigating influences on service satisfaction and how these translate into trust. In particular, two implicit assumptions of the performance-trust hypothesis are explored. First, citizen experience with public services is examined as a measure of specific support for government. Second, the role of citizen interactions with the bureaucracy is assessed, specifically identifying the influence of citizen attitudes toward public …

Religion And Conflict: What Explains The Puzzling Case Of “Islamic Violence” And Islamist Party Moderation?, Suveyda Karakaya

Doctoral Dissertations

Despite considerable interest in the relationship between Islam and political violence, there is little systematic empirical research that explores the intra-state conflict proneness of Muslim majority states. Existing studies either offer inconclusive evidence of a relationship or suffer from methodological flaws. If we analyze the proportion of countries with large Muslim populations that experience domestic armed conflicts, Muslim-majority states do in fact stand out. What explains the prevalence of political violence in the Muslim world and to what extent does religion play a role in promoting violence? Under which conditions ethno-political organizations opt for violent strategies to achieve their political …

How Left A Turn? Legacies Of The Neoliberal State In Latin America, Aaron Thomas Rowland

Doctoral Dissertations

In the 1980s and 1990s, the Latin American region experienced a profound shift in development ideologies that resulted in the creation of a new type of state: the Latin American neoliberal state. This state emerged in three stages: the stabilization stage—focused on balance of payments and austerity; the structural adjustment stage—which was more broadly and deeply focused on changing the structure and culture of society; and the institutional turn—which was an acknowledgment that the neoliberal state had not effectively dealt with poverty, inequality, or the quality of institutions that integrated market, society, and polity. Beginning in the early 2000s, an …

Indigenous Women, The State, And Policy Change: Evidence From Bolivia, 1994-2012, Melissa Camille Buice

Doctoral Dissertations

In Bolivia, indigenous women have contributed to President Morales’ and MAS (Movement Toward Socialism) electoral victories and are exercising an emerging influence on the government’s decisions on policy. This contrasts with their experiences with failed policy efforts prior to the early 2000s, which presents an interesting puzzle for social movement theories. These theories argue that the language of repertoires and framing processes, resources of social movements, along with structural opportunities are important causes of social movement success. Research on social movement outcomes is needed to understand indigenous women’s changing relationship with society and the government. As indigenous women’s influence on …

Deciding To Divert: Domestic And International Sources Of Constraints On Leader Decision-Making, Norris Thomas Feeney

Doctoral Dissertations

Domestic unrest is a constant feature in the international system. Aside from the impact unrest has on domestic populations, political turmoil also has consequences for other states in the international system. A long-held belief, backed by anecdotal evidence, is that leaders use aggressive foreign policy to divert public attention in periods of declining domestic political fortunes. However, consistent evidence for this pattern of behavior has not emerged across large-N analyses in the extant diversionary literature. This dissertation advances the search for evidence of diversion by assessing the likelihood leaders of various regime types will divert, comparing not only non-democracies with …

Strategic Mediation: The Domestic Influences And Constraints On Diplomacy, James Preston Todhunter

Doctoral Dissertations

Mediation theory has developed separately from mainstream theories explaining foreign policy. Specifically, mediator motivations and constraints have often been overlooked. I extend an argument explaining mediator motivations, and thus mediation occurrence and strategy, in terms of domestic political institutions and leader performance. The notion that leaders use foreign policy in order to help further their domestic fortunes and those of their party is widely accepted in the international relations literature, as is the notion that political survival is pre-eminent in any leader’s decision-making calculus. Scholars have also shown that leaders shift their focus to foreign policy when institutional factors, such …

The Role Of The Party Record In Elections For The House Of Representatives, 1970-2008, Matthew Thomas Gross

Doctoral Dissertations

Much scholarly attention has been devoted to the role of political parties in Congress. One of the major theories of party legislative organization is cartel theory. Cartel theory assumes that each legislative party possesses a party record or reputation, which influences the election prospects for all members of the party. It provides an electoral incentive to encourage cooperation among party members in a single chamber of Congress.

Congressional scholars have paid little attention to the party record. In the following chapters, I bring together the desultory scholarly research on the party record and examine the impact of the party record …

Tied To Conflict: The Causes And Consequences Of Rivalry Linkage, Douglas Hamilton Spence

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation examines rivalry linkages—ties such as alliances or shared disputes which connect different international rivalries to one another. Drawing on steps-to-war theory, I argue that many rivalry linkages form as a result of the coercive, “power politics” strategies that rivals often employ in their dealings with one another. These strategies encourage states to attempt to gain advantages over their rivals by pursuing alliance partners or by inviting third parties to intervene in their disputes. Consequently, when rivalries employ these strategies, they tend to establish linkages between their rivalry and others. I also argue that the accumulation of rivalry linkages …

Form Follows Values. Explaining Embassy Architecture, Natasha Dimitrova Guenova

Doctoral Dissertations

What influences the embassy architecture as expression of political values? For a cross-section of fifteen countries, the author performs linear regression analysis for fifty one embassies from 15 countries in 30 host countries. The measurements for the political values, reflected in embassies, were derived from a specially designed and conducted survey, for which 138 respondents from 14 countries rated buildings on the four political values of tradition, innovation, wealth and security. As explanatory variables, the analysis takes into account the wealth of both countries owning and hosting the respective embassy, domestic politics of the owner country, culture and regionalism. This …

The Determinants Of Supreme Court Decision-Making: An Ideal Point Analysis, Colin Ross Glennon

Doctoral Dissertations

The relationships among governmental institutions are some of the most studied phenomena in political science. Yet these complex interactions remain largely unexplained due to the difficult task of developing accurate measures that lead to quantifiable tests that enhance explanation and prediction. This work centers on the interactions of United States Supreme Court justices with other political actors. The goal of this dissertation is to better understand the relationship between the Supreme Court and its institutional environment. In short, I ask: What factors affect Supreme Court justices’ voting decisions?

I approach this question from several different angles while making use of …

Hawks Versus Doves: The Influence Of Political Ideology On The Foreign Policy Behavior Of Democratic States, Costel Calin

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation examines the influence of executive ideological orientation on state foreign policy behavior. I advance an analytical model which asserts that foreign policy decisionmakers act in a manner consistent with the ideological principles presented in their political platforms, party manifestos, and their voters' expectations. Thus, I assert that within developed democracies, the further right a government is, the higher the propensity to behave more aggressively. Oppositely, the further left a government is, the more likely it is to behave more cooperatively.

I empirically analyze this theoretical argument by developing three models where the foreign policy behavior is measured uniquely …

The Tennessee Death Penalty: Prosecutors, Juries And The Impact Of Race, Kristin Amber Wagers

Doctoral Dissertations

The impact of race within the American criminal justice system has seen long-term debate and has been studied by numerous social scientists. This dissertation examines the criminal justice system by analyzing data created by the Tennessee courts to determine whether race impacts the administration of Tennessee’s death penalty. This dissertation examines whether race impacts the overall administration of Tennessee’s death penalty, a Tennessee prosecutor’s decision to seek death, and a Tennessee jury’s decision to impose death. The impact of race at each stage is analyzed by logistic regression to isolate the defendant’s race, the victim’s race, and the racial interaction …

The Effects Of Female Cabinet Ministers On Female-Friendly Social Policy, Amy Atchison

Doctoral Dissertations

A growing literature indicates that the representation of women in legislatures is positively associated with the passage of female-friendly social policy. However, there is little corresponding research concerning the effect of women in cabinet on female-friendly social policy. Yet, almost all advanced industrial democracies are parliamentary democracies, where policies typically originate within the cabinet and governments typically enjoy substantial control over the legislative process. Thus, to the extent that women promote female-friendly policy, women in cabinet positions should be ideally placed to do so, and indeed, possibly be more influential than women in legislatures. The purpose of this study is …

Why Foreign Counterinsurgency Campaigns Fail, Donald Frederick Butler

Doctoral Dissertations

Why have foreign counterinsurgency operations had such low success rates since 1945? While operations of this type succeeded at the rate of 85.71% during the period of 1816-1945, they declined by 56.30 percentage points to just 29.49% during period of 1945-1997 (Sarkees, 2000: 123-144). This occurred even though foreign powers were often fighting in the same territories where they had previously been overwhelmingly victorious.

I argue that military defeats suffered by European states during the Second World War convinced the peoples of the developing world that colonial control could be successfully challenged. As guerrilla struggles emerged in post-war Asia and …

The Sword, The Purse And The Gavel: Institutional Influences On The Behavior Of Supreme Court Justices, Hemant Sharma

Doctoral Dissertations

An inherent contradiction exists between two fundamental principles embedded in American political philosophy: the notion of "checks and balances" and the idea of an "independent judiciary." After all, a truly "independent" branch of government would be immune to the influences, or "checks," of external institutions. This dissertation addresses that juxtaposition through a two part analysis of Supreme Court decision-making.

The first part uses multivariate regression to illustrate that justices confirmed under conditions of divided government are more moderate in their voting behavior than justices confirmed under conditions of unified government. Ancillary findings also reveal that justices who receive more votes …

Service Delivery Consolidation, Governance And The Enhancement Of Local Government Capacity: Creating A Service Consolidation Model, Charles Richard Abernathy

Doctoral Dissertations

This research project addresses the issue of service consolidation by units of local government. Service consolidation between units of local government is a frequent occurrence and references the partial merger of local government departments. The research defines the topic and suggests a distinct placement in the academic literature. Service consolidation is a similar but different topic from local government cooperation, collaboration, functional consolidation or comprehensive merger. To assist, a survey of county managers in North Carolina is conducted to determine the frequency of service merger activity, the attitudes of manager‟s regarding the practice and to determine the types of services …

The Use Of Force Against Hegemonic Malcontents, John R. Dreyer

Doctoral Dissertations

Malcontents within international relations are small states that signal the decline of the hegemonic state. While not the direct cause of a hegemonic state‘s downfall, the malcontent is a sign that the hegemon is becoming weaker and the more malcontents is a symbol of the dwindling power of a hegemon. This work takes combines hegemonic theory and international relations theory to form a typology of malcontents. In addition this work introduces a futures analysis methodology that helps to quantify the impact that malcontents have on the hegemonic future of the United States. This typology divides malcontents into three specific categories, …

Online Social Networks: An Exploratory Study Of Community And Civic Engagement, Brandon Cordell Waite

Doctoral Dissertations

The optimistic vision of the Internet as an “electronic agora” has been a common theme of discourse among scholars studying the impacts of computer technology on everyday life. In opposition to this view stand pessimistic scholars who insist that meaningful democratic discourse must be direct and claim that the Internet, like television, is reshaping our lives in decidedly antidemocratic and asocial ways. The present study contributes to this debate by examining online social networks to better understand their potential impact on society. Data were collected via a web-based survey using a convenience sample of 170 students from the University of …

Spokes, Pyramids, And Chiefs Of Staff: Howard H. Baker, Jr. And The Reagan Presidency, Michael Lee Haynes

Doctoral Dissertations

One of the most compelling areas of research when considering the modern presidency is the role of the White House chief of staff (COS) and the direct impact it has on the presidency. The office of the president’s chief of staff is often referred to as the power behind the throne. Chiefs of staff exercise great authority and control within the White House Office (WHO) functioning as a filter or gatekeeper strictly controlling the access of information and people reaching the president. The COS is also one of the president’s closest advisers. James Baker, former chief of staff for …

Governmental Fragmentation And Rural Sprawl: Case Studies Examining Governmental Structure And Limited Public Choice, Daniel C. Carter

Doctoral Dissertations

Marion County, Tennessee was formed in 1817 and currently all seven cities within its boundaries combined account for 34,202 (thousand) acres. Within a short period time, Marion County will experience over 40,000 (thousand) acres of traditional forestland being converted to private, rural residential development. These former forested tracts are all located in remote areas of the county with very few existing public services. The intent of this dissertation is to demonstrate how government structure and funding mechanisms result in a type of rural sprawl that is rapidly fragmenting thousands of acres throughout Tennessee and the United States as timber companies …

Elements Of Postfeminism: The Current Landscape Of American Politics?, Laura Delorenzo Denison

Doctoral Dissertations

The purpose of this dissertation is to establish the meaning and definition of postfeminism along with an assessment of whether it accurately represents the current era of thinking. It is an historical, descriptive, qualitative analysis of the feminist movement from its inception with the central focus on the newest strand of feminist thought, postfeminism. The progression toward these conclusions entails an outlining of the waves of feminism and the strands of thought within these eras as well as a discussion of third wave feminism, modern feminism and generational differences between the waves. The focus on postfeminism begins with an exploration …

A Theory Of Multi-Transitions And The Chinese Welfare State, Bo Li

Doctoral Dissertations

In this dissertation I introduce an institutional approach for the research of the Chinese welfare state and the measure of people’s welfare benefit. I demonstrate that multiple institutional transitions due to the economic reforms initiated in the early 1980s have since dramatically changed the Chinese welfare state and the way welfare benefits are distributed. Multiple institutional transitions discussed in this dissertation are structural changes associated with the state-owned enterprise (SOE) reforms, the rapid industrialization, ever-growing urbanization, and large-scale decentralization of the fiscal system. Through the exploration of the data from the 1988 and 1995 Chinese Household Income Project (CHIP), I …

The Origins Of A War Of Secession: A Comparison Of Namibia And Botswana, Eric D. Smith

Doctoral Dissertations

This work is an attempt to define a comprehensive contemporary model of the causes of wars of secession, state and illustrate its gaps, and develop new theories to accentuate and improve that model, and through comparative case studies perform some elementary tests of their validity. My theoretical paradigm is dependent on an assumption that the ultimate causes, as captured under the rubric of institutions and structures, of an event involving rational but free-willed human beings are inadequate to explaining the onset of radical, extraordinary politics in general and wars of secession in particular. On the contrary, proximate causes, in the …

Repealing State Legislative Term Limits: A Comparative Analysis, Troy Christopher Goodale

Doctoral Dissertations

The proposed research is a comparative case study of State governments that have attempted to repeal State legislative ‘term limits’ (N = 8). The study will examine the institutional processes and the behavior of political actors culminating in an institutional output in the form of legislative statutes and judicial decisions concerning the repeal of term limit legislation. The theoretical propositions explored in this research are derived from decision-making theories, democratic theories of representation, and the findings of the literature on State legislative term limits. The States selected are Florida, Idaho, Oregon, Utah, and Wyoming. All of the legislative and judicial …

A Qualitative Analysis Of Grutter V. Bollinger: Implications For Use In Professional Programs Conducted Under Geier V. Bredesen, Marva Lane Rudolph

Doctoral Dissertations

This study represents an analysis of the public policy mandated in Grutter v. Bollinger and the public policies and procedures administered through Geier v. Bredesen at professional schools in the State of Tennessee. To gather information and ensure objectivity, a multiple information-gathering approach was used, which included administering a written questionnaire, reviewing court documents, conducting elite interviews, and participating in various University of Tennessee-based committees. Both Grutter and Geier used affirmative action policies to help achieve student body diversity in public higher education institutions. Grutter used affirmative action as a voluntary means to support the argument that diversity is a …