Browsing by Subject "Party politics"

Now showing 1 - 5 of 5

Constituency cleavages and partisan outcomes in the American state legislatures
(2011-05) Myers, Adam Shalmone; Jones, Bryan D.; Trubowitz, Peter
I focus on three district-level demographic variables indicative of contemporary social cleavages, and construct measures of their influences on partisan representation in American state legislatures during the 1999-2000 years. Using these measures, I examine a series of questions concerning the relationship between social cleavages and state legislative outcomes. I find that district racial composition is the most important constituency-based factor influencing partisan representation and voting in legislatures, but that other constituency variables are also important under various circumstances. I also present OLS regression analyses demonstrating the independent effect of the overall representation of social cleavages on levels of legislative polarization.
Exit, voice, and Islamic activism : organizational fracture and the Egyptian Society of the Muslim Brothers
(2011-05) Brooke, Steven Thomas; Brownlee, Jason, 1974-; Moser, Robert G.
Under what conditions does the Egyptian Society of the Muslim Brothers (SMB) fracture? The 1996 formation of the Wasat party by a group of former Muslim Brothers has attracted significant scholarly attention, although most studies focus on the ideological differences between the groups. By neglecting the organizational angle these studies are unable to explain why some ideological differences lead to group fracture, and why in the case of the SMB this occurred in 1996 and not before. This paper will argue that the SMB splits when high levels of state repression combine with internal organizational conflict, specifically the lack of stable, consultative internal dispute-resolution mechanisms. Empirical tests charting levels of state repression and SMB internal politics throughout the period 1981-2010, covering variation on the dependent, as well as both independent variables, strengthen the theory.
From parliamentarianism to terrorism and back again
(2011-05) Martin, Nancy Susanne; Moser, Robert G., 1966-; Pedahzur, Ami; Barany, Zoltan; McDonald, Patrick; Weinberg, Leonard
What are the conditions under which terrorist groups turn to party politics? Under what conditions do political parties turn to terrorism? What types of political groups are more likely to turn to or from terrorism? Answers to these questions provide new insights into explanations for the formation of linkages between political parties and terrorist groups. While political parties and terrorist groups are often differentiated by the tactics they employ, empirical evidence shows that these political groups sometimes shift tactics, making use of violent and nonviolent tactics either concurrently or consecutively. Shifts between violent and nonviolent tactics occur when a political party supports, creates, or becomes a terrorist group and when a terrorist group supports, creates, or becomes a political party. Cases in which terrorist groups turn to party politics have been addressed in the literature, most often in the form of case studies. Less attention has been paid to the more numerous cases of political parties forming linkages with terrorist groups. Both types of tactical shifts are under-studied and under-theorized. This dissertation fills a gap in the largely separate literatures on political parties and terrorism through an analysis of international-, state-, and group-level factors associated with the formation of party-terror linkages and a discussion of the implications of these factors for the construction of a more general theory of political group adaptation.
The geographical foundations of state legislative conflict, 1993-2012
(2013-08) Myers, Adam Shalmone; Jones, Bryan D.; Trubowitz, Peter
Over the past twenty years, the geographical bases of state legislative parties have shifted substantially. In statehouses across the country, legislators from densely-populated districts with large racial minority populations have become a larger presence inside Democratic caucuses while legislators from exurban and sparsely-populated districts have become a larger presence inside Republican caucuses. These changes have had important consequences for roll-call voting and policy outcomes inside legislatures, as new coalitional configurations formed by the intersection of party and geography have replaced older ones. In this dissertation, I examine the causes and consequences of these changes in a new way, one that more closely approximates a legislator's relationship to her "geographical constituency" (to use Richard Fenno's famous term). Unlike traditional studies of the social origins of legislative conflict, which have focused on how the constituency bases of legislative parties can be distinguished by reference to a small set of district-level demographic variables examined independently of each other, my approach views district demographic variables as the empirical manifestations of a wide variety of distinct, if latent, geographical contexts. My efforts to model the geographical constituency are centered upon a technique called Latent Profile Analysis (LPA), which estimates a latent categorical variable (in this case, legislative district categories indicative of distinct socioeconomic contexts) that captures covariation among a set of observed continuous variables (in this case, district-level demographic and geographical variables). The LPA analysis, which incorporates over 3,500 districts from seventeen chambers in the 1990s and 2000s, yields a nine-fold district categorization scheme that serves as the basis for subsequent inquiries of the dissertation. These inquiries examine how demographic and electoral change have interacted to influence trends in partisan representation of the district categories, how party and district category come together to explain patterns of roll-call ideology among state legislators, and how social cleavages over public policy within state electorates are translated into particular voting alignments involving the district categories. The dissertation speaks to a large literature in political science on the constituency-legislator relationship, as well to current debates about geographical sorting, legislative polarization, and the role of policy content in shaping voting coalitions.
Political contradictions : discussions of virtue in American life
(2010-05) LaVally, Rebecca; Hart, Roderick P.; Jarvis, Sharon E.; McCombs, Maxwell; Sparrow, Bartholomew H.; Stroud, Natalie J.
This dissertation asserts that American political culture faces a crisis of virtue and explores the role of citizens, journalists and politicians in fostering it. The historic election of Barack Obama on a platform of hope and change in 2008 suggests that Americans yearn for an infusion of virtue into political life. I assert, however, that we have lacked a lexicon of political virtue, or any systematic understanding of which virtues we value and which matter most to us. Nor have we understood whether groups who constitute key elements of our democracy—citizens, journalists, politicians, men and women, Democrats and Republicans—value virtues in politics similarly or differently. Without a working knowledge of the anatomy of virtue in the body politic, what is to prevent us from having to change again? By charting the virtue systems of these key groups, I have made explicit what is implicit to reveal that political virtue is more valued—and more present—than Americans likely realize. This exploration, I believe, contributes to the scholarship of political communication by enabling a fuller and more useful understanding of American political culture—and of the contradictions, curiosities, and surprises that enrich it.