Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

“I Never Shared My Opinion Again”: Political Communication Apprehension And Conservative College Students, Megan Elise Montgomery

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

Higher education faculty have long struggled with getting students to participate meaningfully in classroom and campus dialogues. Some students avoid participating due to fear or anxiety of communicating with others. Certain topics, such as politics, can cause higher degrees of apprehension. Political minority groups can experience greater apprehension when communicating with majority groups. One minority group in academia with the potential to self-censor is the conservative student.

This study used state-based communication apprehension (McCroskey, 1984) and political communication apprehension (PCA, Jones-Carmack, 2019) as theoretical backings to explore how conservative opinion expression and self-censorship in academic settings might change over time. …

Pursuing Procedural Justice In Sustainability Policy: Assessing The Linkage Between Political Culture And Municipal Efforts, Meng Yuan

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

How does the political culture of local governments influence the type and extent of procedural justice in sustainability policy processes? Answering this question is important because political culture is potentially a significant influence on local governments that could be better conceptualized and theorized and because public participation in sustainability policy processes is central to the demands of procedural justice in environmental justice (EJ) movements. This dissertation seeks to bring a new conception and new measures of political culture to the study of policy making by local governments as well as to contribute to developing the conceptualization and measurement of public …

Southern Electoral Strategy: The Strategic Integration Of Religious Values Into The Republican Party Platform, Levi Walker Rattliff

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

There has been substantial literature concerning the effect the Republican southern strategy had on the Southern voting realignment following the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. This literature has singularly focused on the role of race issues as a wedge disrupting the Southern Democratic majority. During the early stages of this process race did play an integral role, but closer to modernity, the emergence of religious issues serves as a better causal mechanism that has been largely overlooked. Meaning that as racial issues became less salient and palatable in nationwide presidential elections, the Republican Party strategically incorporated social issues …

Liberalism And The Problem Of Compassion In Rousseau, Smith, And Tocqueville, Lewis Hoss

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

Liberal democracy has historically owed its attractiveness to the promise of a more compassionate society structured around pluralistic and tolerant principles. Yet recent events in western democracies seem to indicate a lack of compassionate social bonds. Why has a politics of compassion failed to materialize and what must be done to make good on the original promise of liberal democracy? To answer these questions, I provide a historically and theoretically grounded account of compassion as a principle of liberalism, with special attention to the political thought of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Adam Smith, and Alexis de Tocqueville. In particular, I seek to …

Relative Deprivation And Xenophobia: Patterns Of Anti-Vietnamese Radicalism Among Cambodia's Opposition Parties From 1993 - Present, Ratanak Khun

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

Anti-Vietnamese sentiment has been the most highly displayed rhetoric by generations of Cambodian politicians. In contemporary Cambodia, the opposition parties have actively engaged in tirades aimed at the Vietnamese and the ruling CPP which came to power with Vietnamese military support in 1979. How are we to explain the hatred against the Vietnamese in Cambodia? From the examination of the activities of the BLDP, the royalist FUNCINPEC, and the CNRP, we conclude that relative deprivation of a role of power on the political stage emerges as a potential factor that explains why members of Cambodian opposition parties have taken a …

Why Some Authoritarian Regimes Do Not Just Win Elections But Win Big: Lessons From Cambodia And Malaysia, Limeng Ong

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

Electoral authoritarian regimes have risen in the post-Cold War era. Elections and other nominally democratic institutions such political parties and legislatures not only do not make authoritarian regimes democratize but also help them to resist democratization. However, even if authoritarian regimes adopt electoral institutions, such adoption does not mean that all authoritarian regimes can easily manipulate elections. Indeed, some regimes hang on to power barely with simple majority votes, while others easily receive supermajority electoral support. What account for variation in electoral strength of ruling parties in authoritarian regimes? I attempt to answer this question. There are four main factors …