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Full-Text Articles in American Politics

American Understandings Of U.S. Economic Inequality: Redistribution And Resistance, Jacklyn Stein Oct 2021

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 Oct 2021

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 Apr 2021

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 Apr 2021

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 …