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open access

The Effect of American Political Party on Electoral Behavior: an Application of the Voter Decision Rule to the 1952-1988 Presidential Elections

Description: The purpose of this study is to examine two major psychological determinants of the vote in presidential elections - candidate image and party orientation. The central thesis of this study is that candidate image, as measured here, has been a greater determinant of electoral choice in the majority of presidential elections since 1952 than has party orientation. One of the vices as well as virtues of a democratic society is that the people often get what they want. This is especially true in the… more
Date: August 1990
Creator: Lewis, Ted Adam
open access

Elections and Authoritarian Rule: Causes and Consequences of Adoption of Grassroots Elections in China

Description: This dissertation investigates the relationship between elections and authoritarian rule with a focus on the case of China's adoption of elections at the grassroots level. In this dissertation, I look at the incentives facing Chinese local governments in choosing between holding competitive elections or state-controlled elections, and how the selection of electoral rules shapes the public's preferences over political institutions and influences the citizens' political behaviors, especially voti… more
Date: August 2017
Creator: Tzeng, Wei Feng
open access

Electoral Behavior in Texas from 1944 Through 1972

Description: "This report concludes that the evidence from the analyses seems to support the following propositions in regard to Texas electoral behavior. (1) The 1956 election year was a critical election year in Texas. (2) A pattern indicative of an underlying economic liberalism-conservatism was present in Texas voting patterns from 1944 through 1956, but not after. (3) The Mexican-American and German counties experienced political realignment in 1956 which continued through 1972. (4) The counties afford… more
Date: August 1973
Creator: Dickenson, Martha Kay
open access

Electoral Rules, Political Parties, and Peace Duration in Post-conflict States

Description: This dissertation examines the following research question: Which types of electoral rules chosen in post-conflict states best promote peace? And are those effects conditional upon other factors? I argue that the effects are conditional upon the types of political parties that exist in the post-conflict environment. Although this explanation is contrary to scholars that speak of political parties as products of the electoral system, political parties often predate the choice of electoral system… more
Date: December 2014
Creator: Kisin, Tatyana Tuba Kelman
open access

Electoral System Effects On Anti-muslim Sentiments In Western Europe

Description: The purpose of this thesis is to answer the question, why is there a variation in anti-Muslim sentiments across Western Europe? There is existing literature on individual and country-level variable s to explain why prejudice exists, but this research examines the impact of political institutions on anti-Muslim sentiments. Based on new institutionalism theory, electoral systems can shape public attitudes by providing far-right parties a platform to put their concerns on the agenda, and these par… more
Date: December 2011
Creator: Saleemi, Asmara
open access

Elite Management Strategies under Dictatorships and Their Determinants

Description: This dissertation attempts to uncover systematic patterns regarding elite management in dictatorships. To do so, it describes how dictators manage their elites and what factors determine the outcomes of their decision. Although considerable literature has examined the various structural features of dictatorships and has identified different elite management strategies to explain the persistence of dictatorships, few, if any, have empirically tested any of the theoretical propositions generated … more
Date: May 2022
Creator: Kim, Taekbin
open access

An Empirical Study of the Causes of Military Coups and the Consequences of Military Rule in the Third World: 1960-1985

Description: This study analyzed the causes of military coups and the consequences of military rule in the Third World during the 1960-1985 period. Using a coup d" etat score, including both successful and unsuccessful coups, as a dependent variable and collecting data for 109 developing nations from the World Handbook of Political and Social Indicators, The New York Times Index, and public documents, sixteen hypotheses derived from the literature on the causes of military coups were tested by both simple a… more
Date: May 1988
Creator: Kanchanasuwon, Wichai, 1955-
open access

Endogenous Information and Inter-state War Expansion

Description: Scholars have long debated the causes of late third party state joining in ongoing inter-state wars. This research has generally concluding that peace-time conditions, measured in terms of: third party capabilities; proximity to warring states; and inter-state alliances, are determining factors in the decision to join. However, these studies utilize theories derived from static pre-war measures of capabilities and motivation to explain late joining; indeed, the same measures that fail to predi… more
Date: December 2012
Creator: Liebel, Steven R.
open access

The Enemy of My Enemy: International Alliances Against Transnational Terrorist Organizations

Description: A dearth of pre-existing research in the field prompted this thesis on whether traditional econometric analyses of war deterrent alliances are applicable to modern alliances for counter terror purposes. Apparent foundational and contextual differences between the two types of alliances and the costs and benefits member nations derive from each lead the author to theorize that factors contributing to the formation of each alliance are fundamentally similar. Multiple types of statistical models a… more
Date: December 2010
Creator: Berthume, Joshua Guy
open access

Energy Policy in the Republic of China and Japan, 1970-1985: A Comparative Examination of Energy Politics and Policies

Description: The impact of the energy crises in the 1970s hit all oil-importing countries much harder than it hit countries endowed with domestic supplies of energy. Energy politics and policies for the oil-importing countries have become vital issues that need to be examined. The purpose of this dissertation is to examine and compare the energy politics and policy processes in the Republic of China (ROC) and Japan during the period of 1970-1985. The study focuses on the politics of energy policies, using a… more
Date: August 1987
Creator: Wang, Han-Kuo
open access

Ethnic Groups and Institutions: Can Autonomy and Party Bans Reduce Ethnic Conflict?

Description: Can institutions successfully reduce ethnic conflict? Institutions such as autonomy and federalism are often advocated as a means to prevent ethnic conflict, however empirical evidence is largely mixed with regards to their effectiveness. In a similar manner, political parties have begun to receive more scholarly attention in determining their relationship with ethnic conflict, but their evidence is also mixed. In this research I examine autonomy, federalism, and the banning of political partie… more
Date: August 2020
Creator: Holloway, Troy

Ethnic Parties: Their Emergence, Survival, and Impact

Description: This dissertation examines the emergence of ethnic parties, their survival in the political system, and their impact on the governance practices. While scholars have long debated the impact of ethnic parties on state-building and democratization process, few works have empirically examined their behavior in the political system. Empirical research on ethnic parties is limited to single countries or regions -- Latin America, Eastern Europe, or a few countries including India. Firstly, this disse… more
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Date: August 2022
Creator: Basnet, Post Bahadur
open access

Ethnic Politics in New States: Russian and Serbian Minorities After Secession

Description: New states are often born in a volatile environment, in which the survival of the new country is uncertain. While analysis of the nationalizing new governments exists, research focuses mainly on domestic politics. I argue that the treatment of minority that remains in the new states is a function of the interaction of the dual threat posed by the minority itself domestically on one hand and the international threat coming from the mother state to protect its kin abroad on the other hand. Specif… more
Date: May 2013
Creator: Batta, Anna
open access

Ethnic Similarity and Rivalry Relations

Description: Research on ethnicity and conflict treats the concept of ethnicity as defining the actors in these conflicts, whereas research on the construction and maintenance of ethnic identity explores why ethnicity unifies individuals into a single social group. What happens when this unifying concept is divided between two enemy countries? How does this situation influence peace settlements over territorial issues, armed conflict, and economic relations between these countries? To answer these questions… more
Date: December 2014
Creator: McCallister, Gerald L. Jr.
open access

Europeanization and the Rise of Extremist Parties

Description: The research question addressed by this study is: what is the relationship between Europeanization and the rise of extremist parties? In particular I examine the impact of Europeanization on the rise of extreme right parties in Europe from 1984 to 2006. Europeanization in this paper is defined as a process whereby the transformation of governance at the European level and European integration as a whole has caused distinctive changes in domestic politics. This process of Europeanization is one … more
Date: December 2011
Creator: Dague, Jennifer Lee
open access

Examining the Effect of Security Environment on U.S. Unilateral Military Intervention in Civil Conflicts

Description: This study focuses on how perceived security environment affect U.S. unilateral, military intervention in civil conflicts, using the concept of Bayesian learning to illustrate how threat perceptions are formed, how they change, and how they affect the U.S. decision to intervene militarily in civil conflicts. I assess the validity of two primary hypotheses: (1) the U.S. is more likely to intervene in civil conflicts with connections to a threatening actor or ideology; and (2) the U.S. is more li… more
Date: August 2011
Creator: Aubone, Amber

Exogenous Influences and Paths To Activism

Description: 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, p… more
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Date: May 2000
Creator: Ray, Grady Dale
open access

Explanation for the Variation of Women’s Rights Among Moderate Muslim Countries

Description: Due to the actions of radicals and extremists, many in the West have come to view Islam as a religion of gender inequality that perpetuates the severe oppression of women. However, there is actually great variation in women’s rights across Muslim countries. This thesis presents a theoretical framework seeking to explain this variation, by examining differences in family law. The theory supposes that variation can be explained by the strategic actions of political leaders. From this theory, I hy… more
Date: May 2012
Creator: Sortor, Angela E.
open access

An Exploratory Analysis of Judicial Activism in the United States Supreme Court's Nullification of Congressional Statutes

Description: This study analyzes activist behavior of Supreme Court justices in 132 decisions which struck down congressional statutes as unconstitutional in 1789-1990. Analysis of the justices' activist rates and liberalism scores demonstrate that these votes are ideologically based. Integrated models containing personal attribute and case factor variables are constructed to explore the votes as activist behavior. The same models are also tested with a new dependent variable constructed to measure the null… more
Date: August 1994
Creator: Keith, Linda Camp
open access

External Inputs and North Korea's Confrontation Policy: A Case Study of Linkage Politics

Description: In an inquiry into national behavior, students of international relations treat national data as independent variables. Students of comparative politics treat them as dependent variables in an attempt to compute foreign policy outputs. There is reason to believe that international and comparative studies can be incorporated into a system of linkage politics. This study employs the framework of "linkage politics" of James N. Rosenau in an attempt to investigate the North Korean confrontation pol… more
Date: May 1973
Creator: Kim, Yu-Nam, 1939-
open access

Extreme Politics: An Analysis of the State Level Conditions Favoring Far Right Parties in the European Union

Description: 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 e… more
Date: May 2003
Creator: Smith, Jason Matthew
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