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Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

Confronting Wartime Sexual Violence: Public Support For Survivors In Bosnia, Douglas D. Page, Samuel Whitt Aug 2019

Confronting Wartime Sexual Violence: Public Support For Survivors In Bosnia, Douglas D. Page, Samuel Whitt

Political Science Faculty Publications

Existing research on conflict-related sexual violence focuses on the motivations of perpetrators and effects on survivors. What remains less clear is how postconflict societies respond to the hardships survivors face. In survey experiments in Bosnia, we examine public support for financial aid, legal aid, and public recognition for survivors. First, we find a persistent ethnocentric view of sexual violence, where respondents are less supportive when the perpetrator is identified as co-ethnic and survivors are perceived as out-groups. Second, respondents are less supportive of male survivors than female survivors, which we attribute to social stigmas surrounding same-gender sexual activity. Consistent with …


When Do Opponents Of Gay Rights Mobilize? Explaining Political Participation In Times Of Backlash Against Liberalism, Phillip M. Ayoub, Douglas D. Page Jun 2019

When Do Opponents Of Gay Rights Mobilize? Explaining Political Participation In Times Of Backlash Against Liberalism, Phillip M. Ayoub, Douglas D. Page

Political Science Faculty Publications

Existing research suggests that supporters of gay rights have outmobilized their opponents, leading to policy changes in advanced industrialized democracies. At the same time, we observe the diffusion of state-sponsored homophobia in many parts of the world. The emergence of gay rights as a salient political issue in global politics leads us to ask, “Who is empowered to be politically active in various societies?” What current research misses is a comparison of levels of participation (voting and protesting) between states that make stronger and weaker appeals to homophobia. Voters face contrasting appeals from politicians in favor of and against gay …


Power Sharing And The Rule Of Law In The Aftermath Of Civil War, Caroline A. Hartzell, Matthew Hoddie May 2019

Power Sharing And The Rule Of Law In The Aftermath Of Civil War, Caroline A. Hartzell, Matthew Hoddie

Political Science Faculty Publications

What effect do power-sharing institutions agreed to as part of civil war settlements have on the development of the rule of law in post–civil war states? We contend that power-sharing measures facilitate the emergence of the rule of law in two ways. First, they establish a form of institutional constraint that promotes judicial autonomy and independence. Second, they foster a sense of security among judges and other political actors that bolsters commitment to the law. We demonstrate the plausibility of a positive relationship between power sharing and the rule of law through an analysis of post–civil war states between the …


Constructive Welfare: The Social Security Act, The Blind, And The Origins Of Political Identity Among People With Disabilities, 1935-1950, Jennifer L. Erkulwater Apr 2019

Constructive Welfare: The Social Security Act, The Blind, And The Origins Of Political Identity Among People With Disabilities, 1935-1950, Jennifer L. Erkulwater

Political Science Faculty Publications

In contemporary America, identifying as a person with a disability is one of the many ways in which people acknowledge, even celebrate, who they are. Yet several decades ago, few persons with disabilities saw their condition as an identity to be embraced, let alone to serve as the basis for affinity and collective mobilization. The transformation of disability from unmitigated tragedy to a collective and politicized identity emerged in national politics, not in the 1960s or 1970s, as is commonly thought, but in the 1940s. During those years, the National Federation of the Blind (NFB) set out to galvanize the …


Naming Names: The Impact Of Supreme Court Opinion Attribution On Citizen Assessment Of Policy Outcomes, Scott S. Boddery, Laura P. Moyer, Jeff Yates Mar 2019

Naming Names: The Impact Of Supreme Court Opinion Attribution On Citizen Assessment Of Policy Outcomes, Scott S. Boddery, Laura P. Moyer, Jeff Yates

Political Science Faculty Publications

The manner in which political institutions convey their policy outcomes can have important implications for how the public views institutions' policy decisions. This paper explores whether the way in which the U.S. Supreme Court communicates its policy decrees affects how favorably members of the public assess its decisions. Specifically, we investigate whether attributing a decision to the nation's High Court or to an individual justice influences the public's agreement with the Court's rulings. Using an experimental design, we find that when a Supreme Court outcome is ascribed to the institution as a whole, rather than to a particular justice, people …