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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
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

The Dichotomy of Congressional Approval

Description: This thesis seeks to understand how political awareness affects what information one uses to indicate their approval or disapproval of Congress and its members. More concisely, do more and less aware individuals rely on the same pieces of political information to mold their opinions of Congress? The second question of concern is what role does media consumption play in informing survey respondents about Congress. Third, I consider how survey respondents use cues like the condition of the econom… more
Date: August 2010
Creator: Moti, Danish Saleem
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Protests in China: Why and Which Chinese People Go to the Street?

Description: This research seeks to answer why and which Chinese people go to the street to protest. I argue that different sectors of Chinese society differ from each other regarding their tendencies to participate in protest. In addition to their grievances, the incentives to participate in protest and their capacities to overcome the collective action problem all needed to be taken into account. Using individual level data along with ordinary binary logistic regression and multilevel logistic regression … more
Date: May 2017
Creator: Chen, Yen-Hsin
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

The Strategic Use of Religion in a Secular State: The Impact of Religious Organizations on Japanese Politics

Description: How do religions and nationalism interact in secular democracies? With its history of nationalism based on religious ideologies, and the subsequent forced separation of state and religion, Japan provides a valuable case to examine how religion and nationalism interact and affect the politics of a secular state. The purpose of this dissertation is to understand and synthesize the divide within the literature regarding the idea that Shinto is fundamentally nationalist in nature. Due to Shinto's h… more
Date: August 2021
Creator: Dewell Gentry, Hope Ashley
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

An Informational Theory of Midterm Elections: The Impact of Iraq War Deaths on the 2006 Election.

Description: There has been much scholarly attention directed at the Iraq war's role in determining voter choice. I attempt to extend that research into voter turnout to determine what role the Iraq war played in 2006 voter turnout. This paper argues that turnout at the state level could be explained by the number of US deaths each state had sustained from the Iraq occupation at the time of the election. A theory of voter activation based on information availability is put forth to explain the relationsh… more
Date: August 2009
Creator: Kahanek, Jared E.
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Saying Sorry: Conflict Atrocity and Political Apology

Description: This study proposes and tests a comprehensive theory detailing the motivations behind political apologies. A brief survey of the literature shows a field rich in case studies but lacking in rigorous scientific analysis. The theory presented proposes a three-level examination of political apology at the state, dyadic, and system levels and incorporates the effects of culture, conflict, and the nature of the international system into analysis. This study makes use of a new dataset recording th… more
Date: August 2009
Creator: Chalkley, Marie Leone
Partner: UNT Libraries
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
Partner: UNT Libraries
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
Partner: UNT Libraries
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.
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Federalism and Civil Conflict: the Missing Link?

Description: This thesis investigates federalism and civil conflict. Past work linking federalism and civil conflict has investigated the factors that pacify or aggravate conflict, but most such studies have examined the effect of decentralization on conflict onset, as opposed to the form federalism takes (such as congruent vs incongruent forms, for example). I collect data on civil conflict, the institutional characteristics of federalist states and fiscal decentralization. My theoretical expectations are … more
Date: August 2012
Creator: Lancaster, Ross
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Inside the Third Sector: a Gongo Level Analysis of Chinese Civil Society

Description: This thesis investigates a new variant of the relationship between society and the states: Government-Owned (or Organized) Non-Governmental Organizations (GONGOs). Past research has typically understood civil society as a means to explain the orientation of groups of citizens towards collective outcomes. For decades, NGOs have been a key component of this relationship between political actors but the systematic study of GONGOs has been widely neglected by research. I used an original dataset co… more
Date: August 2013
Creator: Kirby, John Brandon
Partner: UNT Libraries
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
Partner: UNT Libraries

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
This item is restricted from view until September 1, 2024.
Date: August 2022
Creator: Basnet, Post Bahadur
Partner: UNT Libraries

The Politics of Fiscal Federalism and Building the Foundations of the Putin Regime in Russia, 2007-2013

Description: Putin's military forces invaded Ukraine on February 24, 2022, sparking a renewed academic interest in Russia's current regime. Several scholars suggested that a critical period in the construction of the current regime occurred between 1999-2013 during Putin's first two presidencies followed by the Medvedev presidency. This is when the basic institutions of the current Russian political system were changed to recentralize state authority and prevent Russian Federation from looming disintegratio… more
This item is restricted from view until September 1, 2027.
Date: August 2022
Creator: Pechenina, Anna
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

The King Arrives: Chinese Government Inspections and Their Effects

Description: This dissertation studies a critical facet of Chinese politics, inspections by higher Chinese government to villages. Principally, it looks at how village economic development determines government inspection decisions and how inspections, once conducted, impact village politics. Specifically, I argue that villages perceived as destabilizing to the Chinese regime, villages with higher levels of economic inequality and villages located at the two extremes of economic development, should see more… more
Date: August 2017
Creator: Xi, Jinrui
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Shared Norms, Hierarchical Maintenance, and International Hierarchy

Description: The dissertation studies two aspects of international hierarchy. The world of international politics is not one of completely sovereign states competing in anarchy. Patterns of hierarchy, where a dominant state has legitimate control over some actions of a subordinate state, color the globe. First, I look at shared norms and hierarchy. Most studies concerning hierarchy focus on material maximization as an explanation for hierarchy--if hierarchy increases the wealth and security of two state… more
Date: August 2013
Creator: Kurz, Aaron
Partner: UNT Libraries
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