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Progress or Decline: International Political Economy and Basic Human Rights
This dissertation is a cross-national, empirical study of human rights conditions in a dynamic international political economy. The scope of the examination covers 176 developed and developing countries from 1980 through 1993. Through evaluating the numerous theoretical aspects of human rights conceptualization, I draw upon Shue's framework and consider whether there are indeed "basic rights" and which rights should fit into this category. Further, I address the debate between those who claim that these rights are truly universal (applying to all nations and individuals) and those who argue that the validity of a moral right is relative to indigenous cultures. In a similar vein, I empirically investigate whether various human rights are interdependent and indivisible, as some scholars argue, or whether there are inherent trade-offs between various rights provisions. In going beyond the fixation on a single aspect of human rights, I broadly investigate subsistence rights, security rights and political and economic freedom. While these have previously been addressed separately, there are virtually no studies that consider them together and the subsequent linkages between them. Ultimately, a pooled time-series cross-section model is developed that moves beyond the traditional concentration on security rights (also know as integrity of the person rights) and focuses on the more controversial subsistence rights (also known as basic human needs). By addressing both subsistence and security rights, I consider whether certain aspects of the changing international political economy affect these two groups of rights in different ways. A further delineation is made between OECD and non-OECD countries. The primary international focus is on the effects of global integration and the end of the Cold War. Domestic explanations that are connected with globalization include economic freedom, income inequality and democratization. These variables are subjected to bivariate and multivariate hypothesis testing including bivariate correlations, analysis of variance, and …
Fractional Integration and Political Modeling
This dissertation investigates the consequences of fractional dynamics for political modeling. Using Monte Carlo analyses, Chapters II and III investigate the threats to statistical inference posed by including fractionally integrated variables in bivariate and multivariate regressions. Fractional differencing is the most appropriate tool to guard against spurious regressions and other threats to inference. Using fractional differencing, multivariate models of British politics are developed in Chapter IV to compare competing theories regarding which subjective measure of economic evaluations best predicts support levels for the governing party; egocentric measures outperform sociotropic measures. The concept of fractional cointegration is discussed and the value of fractionally integrated error correction mechanisms are both discussed and demonstrated in models of Conservative party support. In Chapter V models of presidential approval in the United States are reconfigured in light of the possibilities of fractionally integrated variables. In both the British and American case accounting for the fractional character of all variables allows the development of more accurate multivariate models.
The Law and Human Rights: Is the Law a Mere Parchment Barrier to Human Rights Abuse?
This study is the first systematic global analysis of the impact of law on human rights, analyzing the impact of twenty-three constitution provisions and an international covenant on three measures of human rights behavior, over the period of 1976-1996. Three sets of constitutional provisions are analyzed, including 1) ten provisions for individual freedoms and due process rights, 2) nine provisions for elements of judicial independence and 3) four provisions that outline procedures for states of emergency. Additionally, the impact of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights on actual human rights behavior is analyzed. Each of these areas of law are evaluated individually, in multiple models in which different elements vary. For example, some models control for democracy with different measures, others divide the data into the Cold War and post-Cold War eras, and some test constitutional indices. Finally, all provisions are simultaneously analyzed in integrated models. Provisions for fair and public trials are consistently shown to decrease the probability of abuse. An index of four freedoms (speech, religion, association, and assembly) decreases the probability of abuse somewhat consistently. Three of the provisions for judicial independence are most consistent in reducing the probability of abuse: the provisions for exclusive judicial authority, for the finality of judges' decisions, and banning exceptional courts. Two of four states of emergency provisions decrease abuse as international lawyers have argued: the provisions for legislative declaration of the emergency and the ban against dissolving the legislature during an emergency. However, two of the provisions are shown to hurt human rights practices: the duration and the derogation provisions. The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights does not demonstrate a statistically significant impact. While the performance of the constitutional provisions is less than legal scholars would hope, their combined impact over time are shown to be …
Korean Electoral Behavior: The 1992 and 1997 Presidential Elections
This is a study of Korean presidential elections. Its purpose is to determine how Koreans voted in the 1992 and 1997 presidential elections and to examine the factors that contributed to winners. In addition, the study compares the two elections by developing three models: candidate choice, voter turnout and political interest models. Using post election data from the Korean Social Science Data Center a multinomial logit regression was used in the candidate choice model. It shows that Korean voters selected their candidates mainly in terms of interest in the elections, age, orientation toward the governing or opposition parties, the regional effects of the Southwest (Honam) and the Southeast (Youngnam), and the evaluation of merged parties in 1992 or a united candidacy of parties in 1997. A Monte Carlo simulation was also employed to test the traditional assumption of candidate strength. It indicates that Kim Young-Sam had a more cohesive support from his older supporters in the 1992 election while Kim Dae-Jung had a greater cohesive support from his older supporters in the 1997 election. Both Kim Young-Sam's and Kim Dae-Jung's loyalists were crucial to the winning candidates in the 1992 and 1997 elections respectively. How did people vote? To address this question a logit analysis of voter turnout was employed. Comparing the 1997 election to that of 1992 the findings suggest that low-probability voters in 1997 had: low efficacy, a negative evaluation of the Central Election Management Commission, claimed to be independent, young, and lived in areas other than Youngnam and Honam. Their lower turnout was a significant factor in the opposition candidate, Kim Dae-Jung's election. Finally, since political interest is closely related to political participation, an ordered logit model of political interest was developed. The results showed that the media and popularity of major candidates significantly contributed to Korean …
The United States Supreme Court's Volitional Agendas, 1801-1993: Historical Claims versus Empirical Findings
In this study, I examined the Supreme Court's agenda from 1801 to 1993 to determine the composition and dynamics of the issues that have dominated the business of the Court. Specifically, I set out to test empirically Robert G. McCloskey's (now standard) characterization of the Supreme Court's history, which sees it as dominated by nationalism/federalism issues before the Civil War, by economic issues just after the War through the 1930s, and by civil rights and liberties since the 1930s. The question that drove my investigation was "Is McCloskey's interpretation, which appears to be based on the great cases of Supreme Court history, an accurate description of the agenda represented in the Supreme Court's total body of reported decisions?" To test McCloskey's historical theses I employed concepts adapted from Richard Pacelle's (1991) important work on the agenda of post-Roosevelt Court and used the methods of classical historical analysis and of interrupted time-series analysis. Data for my research came from existing datasets and from my own collection (I coded the manifest content of thousands of Supreme Court's decisions from 1887 back to 1801). The most important finding from my analyses is that McCloskey not withstanding, the pre-Civil War Supreme Court's agenda was clearly dominated by economic issues of various sorts, not by nationalism/federalism as previously believed. Another key finding is that partisanship had a pronounced impact on the Court's attention to this category of issueseven in the periods when the Supreme Court had very little control of its docket. These results suggest that Supreme Court scholars should reassess or rethink their previous notion of the Court's pre-Civil War agendathe now well-established view that nation-state issues dominated the business of the Court in its formative yearsand the idea (often expressed implicitly) that the Court's mandatory jurisdiction suppressed attitudinal factors on the Court in …
Exogenous Influences and Paths To Activism
The focus of this research was to ascertain the indirect effects upon activism of intervening variables and recognized exogenous influences upon activism. In addition, this research also focused upon the differences and similarities of a recruited activist model and spontaneous activist model. Regression and path analysis were used to measure the direct and indirect effects of the exogenous and intervening variables. This research found that when the intervening variables, political interest, political awareness, exposure to media, altruism, and self-interest were introduced to both the recruited and spontaneous models, the direct effects of the variables were enhanced.
Economic Development, Social Dislocation and Political Turmoil in Sub-Saharan Africa: A Pooled Time-Series Analysis and a Test of Causality
This study focuses on economic development and political turmoil in post-independence Sub-Saharan Africa. There has been a resurgence of interest in the region following the end of the Cold War. In 1997 U.S. president Bill Clinton took a 12-day tour of the region. In 1999 the U.S. Congress (106th Congress) passed the Growth and Opportunity Act and the Hope for Africa Act, designed to encourage political stability and economic development in the region. Although most Sub-Saharan African countries attained independence from colonial rule in the 1960s, more than 30 years of self-government have brought little economic development and political stability to the region. This study attempts to analyze, theoretically and empirically, the relationship among economic development, social dislocation and political turmoil. Social dislocation, as defined in this study, means "urbanization," and it is used as an exogenous variable to model and test the hypothesized causal relationship between economic development and political turmoil. This study employs pooled cross-sectional time-series and seemingly unrelated regression analyses, as well as Granger-causality, to examine the hypothesized relationships and causality in 24 Sub-Saharan African countries from 1971 to 1995. The results confirm the classical economic development theory's argument that an increase in economic development leads to a decrease in political turmoil. The result of the pooled analysis is confirmed by a SUR analysis on the strength of the relationship at the individual country level in 21 of the 24 countries. However, an indirect positive relationship exist between economic development and political turmoil through social dislocation. At lag periods 1 and 2, I found a causal ordering leading from economic development to political turmoil, indicating a causal relationship from economic development to social dislocation and from social dislocation to political turmoil.
Unexpected Unexpected Utilities: A Comparative Case-Study Analysis of Women and Revolutions
Women have been part of modern revolutions since the American Revolution against Great Britain. Most descriptions and analyses of revolution relegate women to a supporting role, or make no mention of women's involvement at all. This work differs from prior efforts in that it will explore one possible explanation for the successes of three revolutions based upon the levels of women's support for those revolutions. An analysis of the three cases (Ireland, Russia, and Nicaragua) suggests a series of hypotheses about women's participation in revolution and its importance to revolutions' success.
Language Policy, Protest and Rebellion
The hypothesis that language discrimination contributes to protest and/or rebellion is tested. Constitutional language policy regarding administrative/judicial, educational and other matters is measured on three separate scales developed for this study; the status of each minority group's language under its country's policy is measured by another set of scales. Protest and rebellion variables are taken from Gurr's Minorities at Risk study. Findings include an indication that group language status contributes positively to protest and rebellion until a language attains moderate recognition by the government, at which point status develops a negative relationship with protest and rebellion, and an indication that countries with wider internal variations in their treatment of language groups experience higher levels of protest and rebellion on the part of minority groups.
Revisiting Eric Nordlinger: The Dynamics of Russian Civil- Military Relations in the Twentieth Century
This paper examines the role that military has played in the political development of the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and the modern Russian Federation. By utilizing the theoretical tenets of Eric Nordlinger, this paper endeavors to update and hopefully revise his classic work in civil-military relations, Soldiers in Politics. Chapter one of this paper introduces many of the main theoretical concepts utilized in this analysis. Chapter two considers the Stalinist totalitarian penetration model that set the standard for communist governments around the world. Chapter three follows up by addressing the middle years of Khrushchev and Brezhnev. Both reformed the military in its relation to the party and state and made the armed forces a more corporate and professional institution. Chapter four pinpoints the drastic changes in both the state and armed forces during Gorbachev's perestroika and glasnost. The military briefly ventured to a point it never gone before by launching a short coup against the last Soviet president. Chapter five focuses on the last ten years in the Russian Federation. While still a professional organization typical of the liberal model of civil-military relations, the armed forces face great uncertainty, as economic and social problems demand more of their time and resources. Chapter six concludes by speculating on the future of Russian civilmilitary relations and reconsiders the importance of Nordlinger's elegant yet parsimonious work.
Is the Road to Hell Paved with Good Intentions? The Effect of U.S. Foreign Assistance and Economic Policy on Human Rights
Theories in the international political economy literature, economic liberalism and dependency, are explored in order to test the effect of U.S. aid, trade, and investment on human rights conditions in recipient states. Two measures of human rights conditions serve as dependent variables: security rights and subsistence rights. The data cover approximately 140 countries from 1976-1996. Pooled cross-sectional time series analysis, utilizing ordinary least squares (OLS) with panel corrected standard errors, is employed due to the temporal and spatial characteristics of the data. The results indicate that foreign assistance and economic policy may not be the best approaches to altering poor human rights practices in the area of security rights. Economic and military aid is negatively associated with levels of security rights, supporting the traditional dependency perspective. While the results from trade and investment are generally in the positive direction, the lack of consistent statistical evidence suggests that increased trade and investment relationships do not dramatically improve security rights. We can conclude, however, that trade and investment fail to have the negative effect on security rights in less developed countries which critics of globalization suggest. Economic aid has a statistically significant negative effect on subsistence rights, while military aid seems to benefit the human condition in recipient states. However, extreme negative effects on security rights accompany any benefit realized in the area of subsistence rights from military aid. Trade and investment have a positive and statistically significant effect on basic human needs providing support for the liberal perspective. It appears that American businesses and politicians can forge ahead with seemingly self-interested motivations and economic policies as American economic gain ironically serves to benefit the well being of citizens in other states. However, in spite of political rhetoric and even sincere intentions regarding foreign assistance policy, it appears that the road to …
Strategic Versus Sincere Behavior: The Impact of Issue Salience and Congress on the Supreme Court Docket
The theory proposed here is that the Supreme Court behaves in a strategic manner at the agenda-setting stage in order to vote sincerely on the merits. To test this, I measure the impact issue salience and ideological distance between Congress and the Supreme Court has on the agenda. The results indicate that whether the Supreme Court behaves either sincerely or strategically depends on the policy area. The strategic nature of the Supreme Court at the agenda-setting phase may be in large part why some research shows that the Court behaves sincerely when voting on the merits. By behaving strategically at the agenda-setting phase, the Court is free to vote sincerely in later parts of the judicial process.
The impact of US-China relations on Taiwan's military spending (1966-1992).
Previous research has shown that Taiwan's military spending is affected either by China's military buildup or the US's military pipeline. This study investigates whether it is also true an ongoing US-China relationship has dynamic effects. Three major findings are obtained from the statistical analyses. First and foremost, the level of US-China conflict has a contemporaneous positive effect on Taiwan's military spending. Second, the analyses also indicate that the volatility of US-China relations has negative effects on Taiwan's military spending. This finding suggests that instability in US-China relations will prompt Taiwan to decrease its military spending due to a higher amount of perceived security on the one hand, and Taiwan wants to avoid further provoking China on the other. Third, analyses indicate that an error correction model fares better than a simple budgetary incremental model in explaining the re-equilibrating effects of GNP growth on Taiwan's military spending. Overall, the results demonstrate the interplay of domestic and international constraints and may help to predict what will be the expected military spending when Taiwan's economy changes. I suggest that Taiwan's military spending is likely to be influenced by US-China relations as well as by foreign investment and domestic economic constraints as long as the United States policy toward the Taiwan problem remains unchanged.
Suicide Terrorism: A Future Trend?
This thesis reviews the literature on “new terrorism,” to be differentiated from the “old terrorism.” The study tests two hypotheses. First, has an increase in religiously inspired terrorist groups led to an increase in terrorism's lethality? Second, does suicide bombing as a tactic explain the increased lethality of “new terrorism”? The study demonstrates three findings. First, it was found that religiously inspired terrorist groups are more lethal, though not more indiscriminate. Second, that suicide bombing has had a significant effect on the number of terrorist related fatalities. And, third, that non-religious suicide bombing is more lethal than its religious counterpart. To test these hypotheses I used Ordinary Least Squares Regression and data provided by The International Policy Institute for Counter-Terrorism.
Changing Ideological Boots: Adaptive Legislator Behavior in Changing Districts
Congressional roll-call votes are often used to investigate legislative voting behavior. To depict adaptive roll-call behavior in response to demographic changes that occur during redistricting, I use issue specific interest group scores from the ADA, NFU, and COPE. This exploits the bias in the selection of the issues that interest groups utilize to rate U.S. representatives, by using them to reflect changes in response to significant demographic fluctuations in the constituency population. The findings indicate that while party is the most significant factor in whether legislators adapt their voting in favor of certain groups, they do notice group composition changes within district and adapt their voting accordingly. This illustrates the impact of redistricting on policy and legislators' adaptation to changes in district composition.
Beyond GNP: Economic Freedom as a Determinant of Basic Human Needs.
Research concerning ‘basic needs' in the Human Rights literature has consistently found a positive and significant relationship between measures of wealth and basic needs provision. This study utilizes a relatively new measure of economic freedom to test hypotheses regarding general macro-economic policy decisions and basic needs outcomes. A pooled dataset of 138 countries over four years is examined using OLS panel regression controlling for both' year' and ‘country,' in a standard basic needs model. Consistent and systematic differences between economic freedom effects in OECD nations and non-OECD nations are revealed. The Economic Freedom Index has both theoretical and empirical advantages over previous measures of wealth and economic freedom, allowing human rights scholars to test specific economic policy decisions as they affect basic needs outcomes.
Partisanship and Judicial Decision Making in U.S. Courts of Appeal
Partisanship is found in voter and Congressional behavior. Members of the federal judiciary should behave similarly. I utilize cases involving the Republican and Democratic parties from 1966 to 1997 and examine the voting behavior of federal Courts of Appeal judges. I utilize both cross tabulations and a Logit regression model to determine the likelihood appellate judges will vote for their own party and against the opposition.
Decision-Making at the Court of Appeals Level Involving Religious Liberty Cases
Many studies have been completed on factors affecting judicial decisions. Studies have focused on civil rights cases, economic cases, criminal cases, sexual discrimination and obscenity cases, but no work has specifically looked at religious liberty cases. This work examines the factors affecting United States Courts of Appeals judges' decision-making in religious liberty cases. I hypothesize that gender, race, religious background, prior judicial experience, circuit, region and litigant status will all influence the way judges vote in religious liberty cases. The explanatory power of this study is relatively low, but the results indicate that judges follow the law when making decisions in religious liberty cases.
Does Cultural Heterogeneity Lead to Lower Levels of Regime Respect for Basic Human Rights?
This dissertation is a cross-national investigation of the relationship between cultural heterogeneity and regimes' respect for basic human rights. The quantitative human rights literature has not yet addressed the question of whether high levels of cultural diversity are beneficial or harmful. My research addresses this gap. I address the debate between those who argue that diversity is negatively related to basic human rights protection and those who argue it is likely to improve respect for these rights. Ultimately, I propose that regimes in diverse countries will be less likely to provide an adequate level of subsistence (otherwise known as basic human needs) and security rights (also known as integrity of the person rights) to their citizens than regimes in more homogeneous countries. Using a data set of 106 non-OECD countries for the years 1983 and 1993, I employ bivariate, linear multivariate regression, and causal modeling techniques to test whether higher levels of ethnolinguistic and religious diversity are associated with less regime respect for subsistence and security rights. The analysis reveals that higher levels of cultural diversity do appear to lead to lower respect for subsistence rights. However, counter to the hypothesized relationship, high levels of diversity appear to be compatible with high levels of respect for security rights.
Wisdom and Law: Political Thought in Shakespeare's Comedies
In this study of A Midsummer Night's Dream, The Merchant of Venice, and Measure for Measure I argue that the surface plots of these comedies point us to a philosophic understanding seldom discussed in either contemporary public discourse or in Shakespearean scholarship. The comedies usually involve questions arising from the conflict between the enforcement of law (whether just or not) and the private longings (whether noble or base) of citizens whose yearnings for happiness tend to be sub- or even supra-political. No regime, it appears, is able to respond to the whole variety of circumstances that it may be called upon to judge. Even the best written laws meet with occasional exceptions and these ulterior instances must be judged by something other than a legal code. When these extra-legal instances do arise, political communities become aware of their reliance on a kind of political judgment that is usually unnoticed in the day-to-day affairs of public life. Further, it is evident that the characters who are able to exercise this political judgment, are the very characters whose presence averts a potentially tragic situation and makes a comedy possible. By presenting examples of how moral and political problems are dealt with by the prudent use of wisdom, Shakespeare is pointing the reader to a standard of judgment that transcends any particular (or actual) political arrangement. Once we see the importance of the prudent use of such a standard, we are in a position to judge what this philosophic wisdom consists of and where it is to be acquired. It is just such an education with which Shakespeare intends to aid his readers.
The use of democratic institutions as a strategy to legitimize authoritarian rule.
Numerous authoritarian states use institutions usually associated with democratic regimes like a constitution, elections, and a legislature. This seems to be counterintuitive. Authoritarian regimes should rather shrink away from democratic institutions. Elections can be won by the opposition and legislatures can make decisions against the interests of the ruler. So, why do autocratic regimes install institutions which limit their power and threaten their survival in office? Assuming actors behave rationally, one should expect authoritarian rulers only to introduce procedures working in their favor. This study looks at the effect of institutions in authoritarian regimes. The findings suggest that legislatures significantly lower the chances of regime breakdown in the long run. However, particularly in election years, authoritarian regimes are facing a higher likelihood of failure.
Who Benefits? The Effects of Foreign Aid and Foreign Direct Investment on Human Rights
The global emphasis on human rights has generated a surge of studies into what causes regimes to abuse the basic rights of their citizens. Causes of abuse can be internal or external in nature, based on economics, politics or cultures. This study examines the effects of foreign aid and foreign direct investment on three types of human rights: personal integrity, civil and political, and subsistence. I perform ordinary least squares regression analyses with panel-corrected standard errors on a pooled cross-sectional time series design incorporating 127 countries from 1976 to 1996. While my results are not significant, it is important to observe that there is a tendency toward negative relationships for the majority of the analyses.
Politics and the American clergy: Sincere shepherds or strategic saints?
Scholars have evaluated the causes of clergy political preferences and behavior for decades. As with party ID in the study of mass behavior, personal ideological preferences have been the relevant clergy literature's dominant behavioral predictor. Yet to the extent that clergy operate in bounded and specialized institutions, it is possible that much of the clergy political puzzle can be more effectively solved by recognizing these elites as institutionally-situated actors, with their preferences and behaviors influenced by the institutional groups with which they interact. I argue that institutional reference groups help to determine clergy political preferences and behavior. Drawing on three theories derived from neo-institutionalism, I assess reference group influence on clergy in two mainline Protestant denominations-the Presbyterian Church (USA) and the Episcopal Church, USA. In addition to their wider and more traditional socializing influence, reference groups in close proximity to clergy induce them to behave strategically-in ways that are contrary to their sincerely held political preferences. These proximate reference groups comprise mainly parishioners, suggesting that clergy political behavior, which is often believed to affect laity political engagement, may be predicated on clergy anticipation of potentially unfavorable reactions from their followers. The results show a set of political elites (the clergy) to be highly responsive to strategic pressure from below. This turns the traditional relationship between elites and masses on its head, and suggests that further examination of institutional reference group influence on clergy, and other political elites, is warranted.
Rubber Stamps and Litmus Tests: The President, the Senate, and Judicial Voting Behavior in Abortion Cases in the U.S. Federal District Courts
This thesis focuses on how well indicators of judicial ideology and institutional constraints predict whether a judge will vote to increase abortion access. I develop a model that evaluates a judge's decision in an abortion case in light of ideological factors measured at the time of a judge's nomination to the bench and legal and institutional constraints at the time a judge decides a case. I analyze abortion cases from all of the U.S. Federal District Courts from 1973-2004. Unlike previous studies, which demonstrate that the president and the home state senators are the best predictors of judicial ideology, I find that the Senate Judiciary Committee at the time of the judge's nomination is the only statistically significant ideological indicator. Also, contrary to conventional wisdom, Supreme Court precedent (a legal constraint) is also a significant predictor of judicial voting behavior in abortion cases.
Solicitor Success: The Continuing Exploration of the Determinants of Governmental Success at the Supreme Court, 1986-2005
Studies of the Supreme Court consistently show that the Office of the Solicitor General enjoys remarkable success before the Supreme Court, both at the certiorari stage and at the merits stage. These studies offer a variety of explanations for Solicitor General success, but fail to portray accurately the Office of the Solicitor General and to account for variations in governmental success. This paper seeks to continue the exploration of governmental success. By looking at the Office of the Solicitor General as a series of individuals with distinct characteristics rather than as a single entity, and by accounting for various situational dynamics, I attempt to explain the variations in executive success.
Wealth and Regime Formation: Social and Economic Origins of the Change Toward Democracy
This study explores the relationship between economic development, social mobility, elites, and regime formation. I argue that the genesis of regime formation, in general, and of democratic regimes, in particular, is determined by the type of economic structure a society possesses, on the one hand, and on the degree the to which demands from disfranchised groups do or do not pose a substantial threat to the interests of elites who occupy the upper strata of the social and economic status hierarchy. Second I demonstrate that the dynamics of transition to wider political participation, as the core element of a democratic system of governance, and the survival of such change are different. In what follows I illustrate that some factors that have been found to dampen the chances for wider participation or have been found to be unrelated to onset of a democratic system of governance have considerable impacts on the durability of the democratic regimes. In a nutshell, the analysis points to the positive effects of mineral wealth and income inequality on the prospects of a democratic survival. Using a cross-national time series data set for all countries for the period between 1960 and 1999 I put the hypotheses to the test. I use binary logit, ordered logit, and ordinary least squares (OLS) to delineate the link between socioeconomic changes and the transition to wider participation. Survival analyses are employed to test for what factors account for the durability of a democratic regime.
The Commander's Sword & the Executive's Pen: Presidential Success in Congress and the Use of Force.
Post-force congressional rally effects are presented as a new incentive behind presidential decisions to use diversionary behavior. Using all key roll call votes in the House and Senate where the president has taken a position for the years 1948 to 1993, presidents are found to receive sharp decreases in both presidential support and success in Congress shortly after employing aggressive policies abroad. Evidence does suggest that presidents are able to capitalize on higher levels of congressional support for their policy preferences on votes pertaining to foreign or defense matters after uses of force abroad. But, despite these findings, diversionary behavior is found to hinder rather than facilitate troubled presidents' abilities to influence congressional voting behavior.
The Blessed and the Damned: Peacemakers, Warlords, and Post Civil War Democracy
This thesis seeks to explain how democracies emerge out of the ashes of civil wars. This paper envisions transitions to democracy after a civil war largely as a function of the peace process. Democracy is thought of as a medium through which solutions to the problems and issues over which the civil war was fought can be solved without violence. Transitions to democracy are more likely if there is a large bargaining space and the problems of credible commitments to democratization can be solved. Democratization is more likely if four conditions exist in a state after the civil war: a negotiated settlement, credible commitments via international enforcement, demobilization, and a cooperative international environment. The hypotheses derived are tested through an event history analysis for two different standards of democracy. The results suggest that factors indicative of all four theoretical concepts contribute to the likelihood of democratization after a civil war.
Financial Transfer and Its Impact on the Level of Democracy: A Pooled Cross-Sectional Time Series Model.
This dissertation is a pooled time series, cross-sectional, quantitative study of the impact of international financial transfer on the level of democracy. The study covers 174 developed and developing countries from 1976 through 1994. Through evaluating the democracy and democratization literature and other studies, the dissertation develops a theory and testable hypotheses about the impact of the international variables foreign aid and foreign direct investment on levels of democracy. This study sought to determine whether these two financial variables promote or nurture democracy and if so, how? A pooled time-series cross-sectional model is developed employing these two variables along with other relevant control variables. Control variables included the presence of the Cold War and existence of formal alliance with the United States, which account for the strategic dimension that might affect the financial transfer - level of democracy linkage. The model also includes an economic development variable (per capita Gross National Product) to account for the powerful impact for economic development on the level of democracy, as well as a control for each country's population size. By addressing and the inclusion of financial, economic, strategic, and population size effects, I consider whether change in these variables affect the level of democracy and in which direction. The dissertation tests this model by employing several techniques. The variables are subjected to bivariate and multivariate analysis including bivariate correlations, analysis of variance, and ordinary least square (OLS) multivariate regression with robust matrix and a lagged dependent variable. Panel corrected standard error (PCSE) was also employed to empirically test the pooled timeseries cross-sectional multivariate model. The dissertation analytical section concludes with path analysis testing which showed the impact of each of the independent variables on the dependent variable. The findings indicate less impact of international financial variables upon the level of democracy than hypothesized. …
The Czech Republic's Transition: The Environment and Human Rights
This exploratory case study considers the Czech Republic from 1993 thru 2002 by examining two links: first, between transition and the environment.; second, between the environment and human rights. The study examines data from the Czech Ministry of Environment, the European Union, the World Bank, and Freedom House. The purpose of this study is to better understand the Czech Republic and to generate hypotheses that might be used in future cross-national studies. Chapter III provides the underlying theory linking the environment and human rights. Chapters IV, V, and VI discuss the data and the two links and suggest hypotheses for future research. Chapter VII draws conclusions about states in transition, the environment, and human rights and encourages future integrative research.
The Domestic Politics of Entering International Communities: An Exploratory Analysis
In the last thirty years, there has been a significant increase in the globalization process, or as other refer to it, the internationalization, free trade, or liberalization. This trend was reflected in the increasing number of newly formed international organization (economic and security) as well as in the increased membership in the already existing ones. The evidence of this trend has been particularly visible since the end of the Cold War, when the race of the Eastern European countries to enter international organizations has been as competitive as ever. Nonetheless, a number of countries, upon careful evaluation and consideration of membership, has opted out of the opportunity to enter such international agreements. The question that this paper addresses is how do countries decided whether to enter or not international organizations? In other words, what elements, processes, and motives lie behind the decision of countries to commit to a new membership? Most of the studies that have addressed this topic have done so from an international perspective as they addressed the politics between countries, as well as the costs and benefits in terms of power, sovereignty, and national income once in the organizations. This paper, on the other hand, approaches the issue from a comparative perspective, both economic and political. It attempts to answer the research question by looking at the domestic sources of decision -making and how they influence this decision. Namely, a decision to become more open to trade has several implications for a country, depending on its size, and already established trade openness, among other factors. The impact of increased openness will most seriously affect the domestic players, both negatively and positively. Thus, in considering the impact that the policy could have on their welfare, players align their interests in order to express their preferences on the issue …
The Political Economy of Organizational Expansion. Finding the Link Between Insider and Outsider in the European Union
Scholars often address the process of enlargement as one-sided argument. This work provides a general theory of organizational expansion by including strategies and actions of both, applicant states and members of international organizations. It is argued that dependent on the domestic characteristics of states an organization strategically implement a set of conditions to avoid the application and admission of states, which are either not able to conform with the rules or not willing to pay the costs of membership. This process incorporates two stages. I test this theory by utilizing a Heckman-Probit-Selection Model, which accounts for this two-stage procedure. The results confirm that conditions are important to avoid costs in the process of expansion.
Extreme Politics: An Analysis of the State Level Conditions Favoring Far Right Parties in the European Union
Three models are developed to analyze the state level conditions fostering the rise of far right parties in the European Union in the last two decades. The political background of these parties is examined. This study offers a definition for far right parties, which combines several previous attempts. The research has focused on the effects of the number of the parties, immigration, and unemployment on support for the far right in Europe. Empirical tests, using a random effects model of fifty elections in eight nations, suggest that there are political, social, and economic conditions that are conducive to electoral success. Specifically, increases in the number of "effective" parties favor the far right, while electoral thresholds serve to dampen support. Immigration proves to be a significant variable. Surprisingly, changes in crime and unemployment rates have a negative effect on support for the far right. Suggestions for future research are offered.
The value of human rights on the open market: Liberal economic policies and the achievement of personal integrity rights.
At the end of World War II, the United States emerged as a world leader, putting into place international institutions based on its own liberal economic philosophy. Since then, the world has witnessed an increasing interconnectedness among states, with economic relationships continually blurring the distinction between domestic and international, as well as between state and societal forces. Much of the world associates this increased interconnectedness with human suffering around the globe. This dissertation seeks to test the effects of economic globalization on personal integrity violations within a state, on the whole. Specifically, I examine three aspects associated with globalization, trade openness, investment and IMF funding within a state. Liberal economic theory suggests that economic relationships should foster positive gains. Particularly, economic relationships engender economic prosperity, diffusion of norms and idea, as well as the growth of a middle class which increasingly demands respect for its political and civil rights. Consistent with the liberal paradigm, I find that open trade and investment lead to improved personal integrity rights. In addition, investment which originates from the hegemon is especially likely to increase a state's respect for personal integrity rights. Conversely, IMF funding is likely to provoke protests from people in recipient countries, which often leads to increased repression by the state. To the extent that the IMF chooses to place importance on human rights, future attention should be paid to the practices of recipient countries. Overall, this dissertation suggests overall support for the liberal paradigm, that open economic policies are most likely to lead to improved levels of personal integrity rights.
The Impact of Middle Class Economic Strength on Civil Liberties Performance and Domestic and External Peace
Using data for 93 countries from 1972 through 2001 in cross-national analysis, this study compares the relative economic strength of a country's middle-class with its civil liberties performance and its history of domestic and external conflict. For purposes of this analysis, the relative strength of a country's middle-class is determined by multiplying the square root of a country's gross domestic product per capita by the percentage of income distributed to the middle 60 % of the population (middle class income share). Comparisons between this measure of per capita income distributed (PCID) and several other indicators show the strength of the relationship between PCID and civil liberties performance and domestic and external conflict. In the same manner, comparisons are made for the middle class income share (MCIS) alone. The countries are also divided by level of PCID into 3 world classes of 31 countries each for additional comparisons. In tests using bivariate correlations, the relationships between PCID and MCIS are statistically significant with better civil liberties performance and fewer internal conflicts. With multivariate regression the relationship between PCID and civil liberties performance is statistically significant but not for PCID and internal conflict. As expected, in both correlations and regression between PCID and external conflict, variables related to power dominate. However, when the countries are divided into world classes by level of PCID, the eleven countries with the highest level of PCID have had no internal or external conflict since 1972. Moreover, there is no within group conflict for countries in either the upper or middle classes of countries based on their level of PCID. The between group conflict does include democracies.
The Impact of Gender on Domestic Human Rights Abuse
This study develops three models of human rights determinants with the inclusion an untested variable, women in parliaments. The research is conducted on pooled cross-sectional time-series data from 130 countries between 1978 and 1996. For the purpose of analysis the Prais-Winsten Regression method with Panel Corrected Standard Errors was used. The women in power variable is hypothesized to be significantly, positively correlated with a state's propensity toward respect for human rights and is operationalized as percentage of women in parliaments. Three models incorporating as control variables previously identified correlates of human rights abuse were utilized to asses the impact of percentages of women in parliaments on two individual subsets of human rights: personal integrity rights and socio-economic rights. Two models were designed to measure the subset of rights categorized as personal integrity rights using two separate measures: State Department Scores and Amnesty International Scores. Model number three utilized the Physical Quality of Life Index to measure levels of socio-economic rights. Statistical significance was demonstrated by the women in parliament variable in all three models.
Judicial Enforcers? Exploring Lower Federal Court Compliance in Regulating the Obscene
Although federal circuit and district court judges are placed within a federal hierarchy, and receive legal and judicial training that emphasizes the importance of the judicial framework and its structure, such judges are also subjected to other pressures such as the types of litigants within the courtrooms as well as their local political environment. Furthermore, such judges are apt to form their own views about politics and legal policy and are often appointed by presidents who approve of their ideological leanings. Thus, federal courts are caught between competing goals such as their willingness to maximize their preferred legal policy, and their place within the judicial hierarchy. This dissertation applies hierarchy and impact theory to assess the importance of the judicial framework and its socialization, by analyzing both the judicial opinions and votes of federal circuit and district court judges in obscenity cases during a four-decade period (1957-1998). The research presented here finds the influence of higher court precedent to correspond in part with the conception of a judicial hierarchy. An analysis of citations of Supreme Court precedent (Roth v. United States (1957) and Miller v. California (1973)) in lower court majority opinions suggests low levels of compliance: lower courts at the circuit and district court level do not signal to the Supreme Court their acceptance of High Court doctrine; thus, except for 'factual' cases, most circuit and district court decisions do not comply formally with higher court precedent. An analysis of judicial votes, however, suggests that a Supreme Court doctrinal shift (to Miller v. California) influences lower court decisions only at the circuit court level. Further investigation suggests that Supreme Court precedent has a greater influence in circuit courts than in district courts: not only is the magnitude greater for circuit (versus district) court decisions, such results occur when controlling …
Towards European Integration: Do the European Union and Its Members Abide by the Same Principles?
In the last few decades the European Union (EU) and its members have emphasized the importance of human rights and the need to improve human rights conditions in Third World countries. In this research project, I attempted to find out whether the European Union and its members practice what they preach by giving precedence to countries that respect human rights through their Official Development Assistance (ODA) program. Furthermore, I tried to analyze whether European integration occurs at the foreign policy level through aid allocation. Based on the literatures on political conditionality and on the relationship between human rights and foreign aid allocation, I expected that all EU members promote principles of good governance by rewarding countries that protect the human rights of their citizens. I conducted a cross-sectional time-series selection model over all recipients of ODA for each of the twelve members for which I have data, the European Commission, and the aggregate EU disbursements from 1979 to 1998.
Does Natural Resource Wealth Spoil and Corrupt Governments? A New Test of the Resource Curse Thesis
Countries with rich natural resource endowments suffer from lower economic growth and various other ills. This work tests whether the resource curse also extends to the quality of regulation and the level of corruption. A theoretical framework is developed that informs the specification of interactive random effects models. A cross-national panel data set is used to estimate these models. Due to multicollinearity, only an effect of metals and ores exports on corruption can be discerned. Marginal effects computations show that whether nature corrupts or not crucially depends on a country's institutions. A broad tax base and high levels of education appear to serve as inoculations for countries against the side-effects of mineral wealth.
Domestic Influences for Interstate Cooperation: Do Domestic Conditions Affect the Occurrence of Cooperative Events in Democratic Regimes?
This research addressed two main issues that have become evident in studies of interstate cooperation. The first issue has to do with the relationship between cooperation and conflict. Can they be represented on a single, uni-dimensional continuum, or are they better represented by two theoretically and empirically separable dimensions? Granger causality tests were able to clarify the nature of cooperative events. The second issue is related to factors that might facilitate or discourage cooperation with other countries as a foreign policy tool. Factors used to explain cooperation and conflict include domestic variables, which have not been fully accounted for in previous empirical analyses. It is hypothesized that economic variables, such as inflation rates, GDP, and manufacturing production indices affect the likelihood of cooperative event occurrences. The effect of political dynamics, such as electoral cycles, support rates and national capability status, can also affect the possibility of cooperative foreign policies. The domestic factors in panel data was tested with Feasible Generalized Least Square (FGLS) in order to take care of heteroscedasticity and autocorrelations in residuals. The individual case analysis used linear time series analysis.
Teachers union influence on alternative teacher certification policies: An event history diffusion analysis.
I examine the passage of alternative teacher certification policies in the states between 1975 and 2000 using event history analysis and supplementing the event history analysis with an ordinary least squares regression analysis of the strength of the alternative teacher certification policies. In order to test both teachers unions political strength external to state legislatures and teachers unions political strength internal to state legislatures, I use two variables to measure teachers union political strength. One variable measures the percentage of teachers in a state who work under union-negotiated contracts. The other variable measures the percentage of legislators in a state who list their non-legislative occupation as K-12 education. Control variables include teacher shortages, per pupil spending, legislative professionalism, divided government, democratic governor, percentage of minority students, change in percentage of minority students, an electoral threat index, and a time counter. Although the event history model results were inconclusive with respect to the teachers union political strength variables, the policy strength model results reveal that states with large percentages of teachers who work under union-negotiated contracts are more likely than other states to pass weak alternative teacher certification policies. This result supports the notion that teachers unions operate in the education policy-making arena.
The Destruction of a Society: A Qualitative Examination of the Use of Rape as a Military Tool
This thesis explores the conditions under which mass rapes are more likely to be incorporated into the strategy of military or paramilitary groups during periods of conflict. I examine three societies, Rwanda , the former Yugoslavia , and Cambodia in a comparative analysis. To determine what characteristics make societies more likely to engage in rape as a military tool, I look at the status of women in the society, the religious cultures, the degree of female integration into the military institutions, the cause of the conflicts, the history of the conflict, and finally, the status of minority ethnic groups in each of these societies.
Appellate Recruitment Patterns in the Higher British Judiciary: 1850 - 1990
This study seeks to advance the understanding of appellate promotion in the senior judiciary of Great Britain . It describes the population and attributes of judges who served in the British High Courts, Court of Appeal, and Appellate Committee of the House of Lords (i.e., Law Lords) from 1850 to 1990. It specifically builds upon the work of C. Neal Tate and tests his model of appellate recruitment on a larger and augmented database. The study determines that family status, previously asserted as having a large effect on recruitment to the appellate courts, is not as important as previously believed. It concludes that merit effects, professional norms, and institutional constraints offer equally satisfactory or better explanations of appellate recruitment patterns.
Religious Engagement and Social Capital in the Islamic Context
Social capital research has traditionally been conducted in western and Christian settings as a precursor of changes such as democratization and development. This paper focuses on Islamic religious engagement and its potential to foster social capital. The model presented here is designed to suggest whether the Islam's influence occurs through doctrinal channels, or through Islam's capacity to organize social structures. The analysis conducted is a linear regression model with measures of social capital as dependent variables and measures of religious engagement as independent variables. The analysis is conducted on data from the fourth wave of the World Values Survey. Results suggest that religious engagement and social capital have both belief and behavioral elements that should be treated as separate entities in quantitative research.
Institutions and Drug Markets
This thesis examines how drug policy and enforcement affect drug manufacturers. The approach taken is a comparative institutional analysis of cannabis and methamphetamine production. I focus on the effects of prohibition, privacy, and clandestine markets on producer behavior for these two drugs and the unintended consequences that result. I demonstrate that cannabis and methamphetamine producers both face substantial transaction costs and that producers alter their behavior to manage these transaction costs. I conclude that cannabis producers can adopt indoor, small-scale operations to hide their activity, which are capable of yielding continuous, high-potency crops. Methamphetamine producers also adopt small-scale, decentralized strategies, but commodity control increases their exposure and leads to greater overall transaction costs during the manufacturing process.
Weak states, human rights violations, and the outbreak of civil war.
In recent years, explanations for the occurrence of civil war have mainly emphasized state weakness as providing an opportunity for greed-based rebellions. Yet, this explanation leaves many questions open, as it cannot distinguish between weak states that do and those that do not experience civil war. In this paper, I argue that abuses of personal integrity rights, committed or sponsored by the government, provide this missing link. The theory is illustrated and formalized in a game-theoretic model and then tested empirically, building on earlier work by Fearon and Laitin (2003a) and Sambanis (2004). The results show that repression is highly significant in both statistical and substantive terms. According to one model, the probability of civil war onset increases by a factor of almost 16 in highly repressive countries compared to countries with no repression. Further robustness tests across alternative civil war lists largely confirm the importance of human rights abuses in explaining the occurrence of civil war.
A transaction costs explanation of inter-local government collaboration.
This study develops a model of collaboration choice among city governments. The theoretical model suggests that collaboration is a function of transaction costs that vary with different institutional arrangements utilized in cities, as well as the degree of competition between cities. This study argues that cities facing high transaction costs and high competition are less likely to participate in collaboration and to participate less deeply. Underlying these environmental factors are resource factors that create incentives for cities to collaborate for efficiency gains, which affect both the decision to collaboration and the depth of collaboration. Eleven hypotheses are presented to explain why cities choose to participate in collaboration in the first stage of the analysis and how deeply they collaborate in the second stage. Utilizing a Heckman model of this two-stage process, I find broad support for a number of variables that measure each of these theoretical constructs.
What Can the Collective Action Problem Tell Us about the Recurrence of Civil War and the Long-term Stability of a Country?
This study attempts to explain why some countries experience multiple civil wars while others who have experienced a civil war build long-term stability from the rubble of conflict. The explanation of why civil war recurs focuses on the collective action problem, centering on the rebel leaders' ability to solve the Rebel's Dilemma. I further argue that once the Rebel's Dilemma has been solved once it is much easier for rebel leaders to solve it again and again. The empirical finds suggest that the political situation resulting from the first war plays a strong role in the solutions to the collective action problem and thus the long-term stability following a civil war. Namely, the level of democracy, partition and third party enforcement of the peace all affect the ability of the rebel leaders to solve the collective action problem and the likelihood of another civil war.
Human Rights and the Strategic Use of US Foreign Food Aid
How does respect for human rights affect the disbursement of food aid by US foreign policymakers? Scholars analyzing foreign aid generally look at only total economic aid, military aid or a combination of both. However, for a more nuanced understanding of human rights as a determinant of foreign aid, the discrete foreign aid programs must be examined. By disentangling component-programs from total aid, this analysis demonstrates how human rights influence policymakers by allowing them to distribute food aid to human rights abusing countries. Consequently, policymakers can promote strategic objectives with food aid, while legally restricted from distributing other aid. The primary theoretical argument, which links increasing human rights abuse with increasing food aid, is supported by results from a Heckman model. This procedure models the two-stage decision-making process where foreign policymakers first, select countries for aid and then, distribute aid to those selected.
Determinants of International Terrorist Group Formation, 1968-1999
Terrorism has become a focus of much political thought over the past few years, and with good reason, yet most quantitative studies of terrorism investigate the likelihood of a terrorist incident while ignoring the precursors to terrorist group formation. I examine cases of new terrorist group formations between the years 1968 and 1999 as a function of domestic demographic, geographic, governmental and societal factors. This is done by Poisson regression analysis, which determines the significance of the independent variables on a count of new international terrorist group formations per country year. The results indicate that higher levels of material government capability, high levels of political freedom, the availability of low-cost refuge, and a cultural tradition of terrorism all have a positive impact on the number of new terrorist group formations, while a higher degree of governmental durability has a negative impact.
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