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Articles 1 - 28 of 28
Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences
Collective Autonomy Restriction: A Theoretical Model And Empirical Investigations, Adrian Rivera-Rodriguez
Collective Autonomy Restriction: A Theoretical Model And Empirical Investigations, Adrian Rivera-Rodriguez
Doctoral Dissertations
Collective autonomy refers to a group’s freedom to define and practice their own cultural and social identity without interference from other groups. According to the “threat and defense” hypothesis of collective autonomy restriction, group members are motivated to defend their collective autonomy from outside restriction. However, the psychological processes that influence advantaged vs. disadvantaged group members perceptions of collective autonomy, as well as the specific strategies they use to protect collective autonomy, have yet to be articulated. This dissertation presents three manuscripts that examine the social conditions and psychological processes that shape advantaged and disadvantaged group members’ perceptions of collective …
"The Land That Feminism Forgot": Birthzillas, Madwives, And The Politics Of Chilbirth, Amber Vayo
"The Land That Feminism Forgot": Birthzillas, Madwives, And The Politics Of Chilbirth, Amber Vayo
Doctoral Dissertations
“The Land that Feminism Forgot” is an in-depth exploration of the politics of childbirth that draws together qualitative and quantitative evidence to theorize the connections between treatment in childbirth and maternal mortality. Situating the qualitative research in the larger national context, the second chapter offers a State Reproductive Autonomy Index that provides an overview of the reproductive policy landscape at the national level. The dissertation then explores the role of institutionalized childbirth, medical mistrust, and obstetric violence in the U.S.’s longstanding maternal mortality crisis and offers policy suggestions in key public health areas. Through 120 qualitative interviews with people who …
The Violence Of Nostalgia: Conspiracy Theorism, White Nationalism, And Restoring American Exceptionalism, Candice K. Travis
The Violence Of Nostalgia: Conspiracy Theorism, White Nationalism, And Restoring American Exceptionalism, Candice K. Travis
Doctoral Dissertations
This dissertation serves three interconnected ends: (1) highlight the connections between nationalism, nostalgia, mythology, and conspiracy, (2) research and articulate the deeper story behind the resurgence of conspiracy fueled white nationalism, and (3) analyze increasing popular support for racialized hatred across the United States as coalesced through the nostalgic desire to restore “our lost great America.” I adapt John Dewey’s pragmatism to interpret how publics take political action in response to evolving technologies and cultural shifts, and accordingly develop a typology of groups on the right wing of American politics. The Proud Boys are chauvinist white nationalists, Patriot Prayer are …
Why Does Equality Matter Anyway? How Indifference To Inequality Relates To U.S.-Born White, Latino, And Black Americans' Attitudes Toward Immigration Policy, Trisha A. Dehrone
Why Does Equality Matter Anyway? How Indifference To Inequality Relates To U.S.-Born White, Latino, And Black Americans' Attitudes Toward Immigration Policy, Trisha A. Dehrone
Masters Theses
Research on attitudes towards immigration policies typically considers the economic and cultural threats that compel many Americans to favor exclusionary policies that curb immigration. Less is understood about how indifference to inequality shapes Americans’ attitudes towards immigration policies—that is, how ‘not caring’ about the unequal conditions faced by immigrants likely has detrimental consequences for their safety and wellbeing. The present research examines indifference to inequality as a predictor for policies that impact opportunities for immigrants to come to the U.S., and who are otherwise undocumented and/or at great risk for exploitation. Using survey data from the American National Election Studies …
American Understandings Of U.S. Economic Inequality: Redistribution And Resistance, Jacklyn Stein
American Understandings Of U.S. Economic Inequality: Redistribution And Resistance, Jacklyn Stein
Doctoral Dissertations
Why has economic inequality in the U.S. continued to grow despite widespread and strong public opinion in favor of reducing it? In this dissertation, I argue that Americans are upset by current levels of economic inequality and support downward redistribution as a means to reduce it. At the same time, many have hesitations about or resistance to the mechanisms through which such redistribution might be carried out. This resistance, I found, varied across respondents’ class and race (and, to some extent, gender). Across groups, respondents’ desires for change were stymied by a social and political context of differential visibility that …
Latino Race Cards: Negative Racial Appeals In Contemporary Campaigns And The Bounds Of Racial Priming Theory, Rebecca Lisi
Latino Race Cards: Negative Racial Appeals In Contemporary Campaigns And The Bounds Of Racial Priming Theory, Rebecca Lisi
Doctoral Dissertations
The Implicit Explicit (IE) model of racial priming (Mendelberg 2001) continues to be the dominant theoretical model for understanding the impact of negative racial campaign appeals on white voter mobilization despite significant demographic change in the United States. The theoretical underpinnings of the IE model rest upon a norm of racial equality which emerged in the wake of the Civil Rights Movement. Given the specific racial and historical context in which this racial norm developed it is unclear whether the IE model can account for the impact of non-Black racial appeals on white voter mobilization. I apply the concept of …
Cyclones, Spectacles, And Citizenship: The Politicization Of Natural Disasters In The Us And Oman, Tyler Schuenemann
Cyclones, Spectacles, And Citizenship: The Politicization Of Natural Disasters In The Us And Oman, Tyler Schuenemann
Doctoral Dissertations
In the face of such complex, urgent threats of fires, floods, and increasingly powerful storms, many scholars warn that climate change puts us on the path to a technocratic, “rule of experts” for the sake of survival. Others warn that climate change will actually undermine the authority of governments, as they become increasingly unable to meet the basic needs of their citizens. In this dissertation, I draw from interviews, archival research, and ethnographic observations in the US and Oman to examine how power and historical context shape the way that these societies politicize natural disasters. These two countries have fundamental …
Responsiveness, Representation, And Democracy: A Critical Conceptual Analysis And Its Implications For Political Science, Joshua Beck
Masters Theses
Over forty years ago, Hanna Pitkin expressed concern that social scientists were failing to give concepts the attention which they needed (Pitkin 1972, 277). This thesis takes up the same theme, asking how the concept of responsiveness is treated by political scientists. The goal to reveal confusion that surrounds widely used concepts such as responsiveness. The analysis offered in this thesis has significance for the discipline of political science in three ways. First, it highlights confusion surrounding the concept of responsiveness itself. Responsiveness is a widely utilized concept employed throughout the social sciences; however, as this thesis shows, there is …
Designing Surveys On Youth Immigration Reform: Lessons From The 2016 Cces Anomaly, Saige Calkins
Designing Surveys On Youth Immigration Reform: Lessons From The 2016 Cces Anomaly, Saige Calkins
Masters Theses
Even with clear advantages to using internet based survey research, there are still some uncertainties to which survey methods are most conducive to an online platform. Most survey method literature, whether focusing on online, telephone, or in-person formats, tend to observe little to no differences between using various survey modes and survey results. Despite this, there is little research focused on the interaction effect between survey formatting, in terms of design and framing, and public opinion on social issues, specifically child immigration policies - a recent topic of popular debate. This paper examines an anomalous result found within the 2016 …
Kofifi/Covfefe: How The Costumes Of "Sophiatown" Bring 1950s South Africa To Western Massachusetts In 2020, Emma Hollows
Kofifi/Covfefe: How The Costumes Of "Sophiatown" Bring 1950s South Africa To Western Massachusetts In 2020, Emma Hollows
Masters Theses
This thesis paper reflects upon the costume design process taken by Emma Hollows to produce a realist production of the Junction Avenue Theatre Company’s musical Sophiatown at the Augusta Savage Gallery at the University of Massachusetts in May 2020. Sophiatown follows a household forcibly removed from their homes by the Native Resettlement Act of 1954 amid apartheid in South Africa. The paper discusses her attempts as a costume designer to strike a balance between replicating history and making artistic changes for theatre, while always striving to create believable characters.
Footing The Bill: An Empirical Look At The Correlation Between Campaign Contributions And Councilor Votes On Split Tax Rates In Massachusetts, Tristan Laliberte
Footing The Bill: An Empirical Look At The Correlation Between Campaign Contributions And Councilor Votes On Split Tax Rates In Massachusetts, Tristan Laliberte
Masters Theses
The current literature regarding the relationship between campaign contributions and roll call voting by elected officials has primarily focused on the congressional level. This study begins to fill the holes in this topic by utilizing city councilor contributions from likely business owners and their stance on tax classification in their respective communities. In this study, I examine contribution data from municipal officials in fourteen communities in Massachusetts as well as the expressed opinions made by city councilors in the 2018 tax classification hearings in order to test the theories that (1) there is a correlation between the actions of political …
Partisan Policymaking: Research And Advocacy In An Era Of Polarization, Zachary Albert
Partisan Policymaking: Research And Advocacy In An Era Of Polarization, Zachary Albert
Doctoral Dissertations
In recent decades, partisan polarization has not only grown but also extended to a wide variety of political processes. Despite this fact, we lack a strong understanding of the policy process under conditions of relatively extreme polarization. The roles of interest groups and think tanks in this environment are particularly understudied. How have research producing institutions changed in response to partisan polarization? And which types of organizations are most influential under the current system? Existing theories often lack an appreciation of the role of partisanship and assume relatively unstructured pluralistic competition in the development and debate of public policy. To …
"The Whole Nation Will Move": Grassroots Organizing In Harlem And The Advent Of The Long, Hot Summers, Peter Blackmer
"The Whole Nation Will Move": Grassroots Organizing In Harlem And The Advent Of The Long, Hot Summers, Peter Blackmer
Doctoral Dissertations
“The Whole Nation Will Move” provides a narrative history of grassroots struggles for African American equality and empowerment in Harlem in the decade immediately preceding the era of widespread urban rebellions in the United States. Through a street-level examination of the political education and activism of grassroots organizers, the dissertation analyzes how local people developed a collective radical consciousness and organized to confront and dismantle institutional racism in New York City from 1954-1964. This work also explores how the interests and activities of poor and working-class Black and Puerto Rican residents of Harlem fueled the escalation of protest activity and …
The Paradox Of A Town Meeting: The Influence Of Forms Of Local Government On Citizen Representation, Wouter Marc Van Erve
The Paradox Of A Town Meeting: The Influence Of Forms Of Local Government On Citizen Representation, Wouter Marc Van Erve
Doctoral Dissertations
When the federal government fails to provide guidance, or takes positions citizens disagree with, the importance of having strong, responsive local political institutions increases. As a result of either longstanding tradition or political reforms, a number of subnational political institutions now include elements of participatory and direct democracy in an effort to cure perceived democratic deficits. In my research, which uses a comparison of traditional, New England (representative) town meetings to city councils, I address the question of how the choice between using large, participation-oriented representative institutions and smaller legislative assemblies affects citizen participation and representation in local politics. My …
Why Education Matters: Political Participation And Interpretive Experiences At High School, Samuel V. Stoddard
Why Education Matters: Political Participation And Interpretive Experiences At High School, Samuel V. Stoddard
Doctoral Dissertations
Political scientists have long recognized educational attainment as a strong predictor of voter turnout, but the mechanisms through which educational experiences lead voters to the polls remain under-explored. This research begins the process of opening the proverbial black box of education to understand the specific types of scholastic experiences that encourage voting. Grounded in previous findings by scholars of policy feedback and political socialization, I use a mix of qualitative and quantitative data analyses to reveal that nonacademic high school experiences can have powerful and lasting interpretive effects. Results show that participants in performance and service-based extracurricular activities are commonly …
Communication Is A Two Way Street: Race, Gender, And Elite Responsiveness In U.S. Politics, Mia Costa
Communication Is A Two Way Street: Race, Gender, And Elite Responsiveness In U.S. Politics, Mia Costa
Doctoral Dissertations
At the heart of a representative democracy is the need for open lines of communication between citizens and their representatives. This dissertation is comprised of three stand-alone chapters which examine how responsive American public officials are to constituent communications, Americans' attitudes about elite responsiveness, and how race and gender condition this relationship. In the first chapter, I conduct the first meta-analysis of all experiments that examine how responsive public officials are to constituent communication. I demonstrate at a higher level of precision than any single study the degree to which legislators are biased against racial and ethnic minorities, and find …
Free Market Authoritarianism And The Election Of Donald Trump, Sarah Tanzi
Free Market Authoritarianism And The Election Of Donald Trump, Sarah Tanzi
Doctoral Dissertations
The 2016 Presidential Election of Donald Trump was unexpected by most mainstream media, political, and academic analysts. In this dissertation, I use a combination of historical analysis of economic data, polling statistics, and discourse analysis to understand Donald Trump’s rise in its historical and political context. I argue that the election of Donald Trump did not indicate a dramatic sea change in political culture, but a continuation of a decades-long process. The path to Trump’s election was laid out in structural changes in our economic, political, and cultural landscape. I argue that the coalescence of right-wing factions that brought Trump …
Voter Turnout Overreports: Measurement, Modeling And Deception, Ivelisse Cuevas-Molina
Voter Turnout Overreports: Measurement, Modeling And Deception, Ivelisse Cuevas-Molina
Doctoral Dissertations
American politics scholarship has in great measure dedicated itself to the study of democratic participation in elections. Texts that are considered the cannon on electoral participation have extended our knowledge of the factors that increase/decrease turnout, however, this work has relied on self-reports of turnout in surveys. The use of selfreported turnout is problematic because a non-trivial proportion of survey respondents say they went out to vote when they actually did not, meaning they overreport turnout. Overreports of voter turnout are false reports of participation in elections by nonvoters when responding to political surveys. Appropriately, scholars of voting behavior have …
The Process To Political Mobilization In Five College Capitalism: Forms Of Antiracism, Personal Reflection And Community-Building, Caitlin B. Homrich
The Process To Political Mobilization In Five College Capitalism: Forms Of Antiracism, Personal Reflection And Community-Building, Caitlin B. Homrich
Masters Theses
The town of Amherst, Massachusetts is home to the flagship campus of the University of Massachusetts, Amherst College, and Hampshire College, institutions that have greatly influenced the town’s prolific history of political activism as well as the high educational attainment and economic status of the majority of its residents. Often hailed as a liberal utopia, research on the political mobilization occurring in this town provides insight into the process and limitations of ally politics: when most of the residents of Amherst are White, how do they engage in racial justice activism? When most of the residents are wealthy and/or highly …
Master's Tools And The Master's House: A Historical Analysis Exploring The Myth Of Educating For Democracy In The United States, Timothy Scott
Master's Tools And The Master's House: A Historical Analysis Exploring The Myth Of Educating For Democracy In The United States, Timothy Scott
Doctoral Dissertations
Over the past forty-years, neoliberal education reform policies in the U.S. have spurred significant resistance, often galvanized by claims that such policies undermine public education as a vital institution of U.S. democracy. Within this narrative, many activists call to “save our schools” and return them to a time when public schools served the common good. With these narratives in mind, I explore the foundational and persistent power structures that characterize the U.S. as a means to reveal the fundamental purpose of its public education system. The questions that guide my research include: (1) With an understanding that capitalism, white supremacy, …
American Authoritarianism In Black And White, Matthew C. Macwilliams
American Authoritarianism In Black And White, Matthew C. Macwilliams
Doctoral Dissertations
How can African Americans be described simultaneously by political scientists as one of the most liberal and the most authoritarian groups in the United States? This conundrum frames the puzzle at the core of this dissertation. I argue that the political behavior of many African Americans is caught in a tug of war between their racial identity and their predisposition to authoritarianism. When the issue at hand engages African Americans’ authoritarian predisposition, authoritarianism can trump racial identity, produce attitudes that defy conventional wisdom, and dash the common theoretical assumption that African American political behavior is homogeneous. Counter to some of …
Examining The Civil-Military Divide Through New (Institutional) Lenses: The Influence Of The Supreme Court, Allen Linken
Examining The Civil-Military Divide Through New (Institutional) Lenses: The Influence Of The Supreme Court, Allen Linken
Doctoral Dissertations
Civil-military relations have existed for as long as there has been a military, but only in the last sixty years has research in the field began to examine the relationships between civilian elites and the military. Who controls the military? What level of influence by the military is acceptable in a liberal society, such as the United States? What is the appropriate role of the military? Who serves in the military? What pattern of civil-military relations best ensures the effectiveness of the military instrument? The study of these questions began with examining relationships between the military and the President, and …
Nixon's War On Terrorism: The Fbi, Leftist Guerrillas, And The Origins Of Watergate, Daniel S. Chard
Nixon's War On Terrorism: The Fbi, Leftist Guerrillas, And The Origins Of Watergate, Daniel S. Chard
Doctoral Dissertations
In 1969, militant factions within both Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) and the Black Panther Party (BPP) began to form the United States’ first clandestine revolutionary urban guerrilla organizations: the Weather Underground and the Black Liberation Army (BLA). These groups carried out bombings, police ambushes, and other attacks throughout the country, prompting responses from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the administration of President Richard M. Nixon. Several historians have analyzed U.S. leftist guerrillas’ motives, and much has been written on FBI operations against the Black Power movement and New Left, including the Bureau’s covert counterintelligence programs (COINTELPROs) …
The Social Corporation: Firms, Networks, And Politics, Michael Kowal
The Social Corporation: Firms, Networks, And Politics, Michael Kowal
Doctoral Dissertations
Scholars have long looked at business as a source of political power, but have come to differing conclusions about how corporations behave in pursuit of interests. Building on organizational theory and conditional choice literature, I hypothesize that corporations react to the actions of those around them, leading to cooperation and coordination. While others point to the importance of social ties created through corporate board memberships, I locate an additional social tie that takes place through trade association memberships. In addition, I demonstrate that rather than fragmenting in recent years, business has in fact become more cohesive in their giving patterns. …
Assessing The Effects Of Heuristic Perceptions On Voter Turnout, Amanda Aziz
Assessing The Effects Of Heuristic Perceptions On Voter Turnout, Amanda Aziz
Masters Theses
Democracy in the United States operates under two contradictory norms: that it is a civic duty to vote, and that it is irresponsible to cast an uninformed vote. Do these contrasting norms suppress voter turnout? Why do some uninformed Americans turn out to vote while others do not? This study seeks to understand the information barriers that Americans perceive to be in the way of voting by studying how voters and nonvoters differ in their perceptions of the importance of various heuristics. By analyzing a 2012 Cooperative Congressional Election Study survey question that measures respondents’ prioritization of these information shortcuts, …
A Veteran Welfare State: Veterans' Benefits, Coalition Politics, And Social Policy Change, 1943-1973, Melinda R. Tarsi
A Veteran Welfare State: Veterans' Benefits, Coalition Politics, And Social Policy Change, 1943-1973, Melinda R. Tarsi
Doctoral Dissertations
America’s commitment to the reintegration of veterans via social policy is not a recent political development; since the end of World War II, federal and state government programs have been designed (and redesigned) to successfully transition former military personnel back into civilian life. Beginning with the 1944 Serviceman’s Readjustment Act (commonly known as the G.I. Bill), the federal government has taken the primary role in this reintegration initiative, investing billions of dollars into veterans’ benefit programs for education assistance, unemployment compensation, and job placement services. Even as the legislation has been renewed after military conflicts, veterans’ education benefits have remained …
Southie Versus Roxbury: Crime, Welfare, And The Racialized Gubernatorial Politics Of Massachusetts In The Post-Civil Rights Era, Daniel T. Kirsch
Southie Versus Roxbury: Crime, Welfare, And The Racialized Gubernatorial Politics Of Massachusetts In The Post-Civil Rights Era, Daniel T. Kirsch
Doctoral Dissertations
Racial and ethnic divisions at the national level and their effects on politics take on an abstract character when not discussing specific communities. To obtain a reliable, consistent, and potentially reliable measure of a relationship, demographic information and voting behaviors at the small community, submetropolitan level must be examined in high-turnout, same-office elections over a protracted period, ideally in a polity with a penchant for racial tolerance. The political language of Boston has been mired in racialization since at least the Civil Rights era, particularly since the Boston anti-segregation busing crisis of the 1970s. While previous research has focused on …
The People And Me: Michael Moore And The Politics Of Political Documentary, Jon Scott Oberacker
The People And Me: Michael Moore And The Politics Of Political Documentary, Jon Scott Oberacker
Open Access Dissertations
Perhaps no one has had more influence on the role of political documentary in the contemporary public sphere than filmmaker Michael Moore. His unique melding of committed political arguments with an ironic reflexive style have changed the very look and feel of documentary film, contributing significantly to the form's newfound popularity. Furthermore, his steadfast commitment to progressive politics has given the issue of socioeconomic "class" the kind of attention it rarely receives within the mainstream media. However, Moore's films have also been the recipient of viscous attacks from his political opponents, and subject to some of the most contentious public …