Comparative Politics Commons^™

Democratic Opposition Parties And Democratic Outcomes In Hybrid Regimes, Jeremy M. Ladd

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Leading up to and following the end of the Cold War a new wave of democratisation commenced in Sub-Saharan Africa and around the world which, in both cases, has been characterized by “blocked transitions,” the “rise of competitive authoritarianism,” and the proliferation of hybrid regimes. This thesis is primarily concerned with “democratic” outcomes within these hybrid regimes. Excluding data from prior to the end of the Cold War in global investigations of democracy, this thesis utilizes a temporally truncated dataset to reanalyse dominant theories of democratisation both at the global and regional (Sub-Saharan Africa) level, finding that when contaminating effects …

An Institutional Explanation Of The Formation Of Intergovernmental Agreements In Federal Systems, Jeffrey T. Parker

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Intergovernmental agreements are a common and useful instrument in federal systems, serving a variety of purposes from establishing new social programs, regulating agricultural practices, and even changing a country's constitution. Despite their importance, there have only been limited attempts to understand agreements in a comparative context or to provide a theoretical framework for their study. This dissertation addresses both of these deficiencies by comparing the use of agreements in seven federations and considering why certain federations form more agreements than others.

In order to understand these differences in intergovernmental agreement formation, this thesis proposes an institutionalist approach with two components. …