Department of Government
Permanent URI for this communityhttps://hdl.handle.net/2152/14200
As one of the liberal arts, Government - also called political science - teaches students how to think and communicate about politics. A Government major can dissect and evaluate actual or proposed courses of political action by analyzing the evidence for and against them, setting them in historical and comparative perspective, and relating them to ends that are prized or feared.
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Item A just peace : Grover Cleveland, William McKinley, and the moral basis of American foreign policy(2018-05-07) Ofek, Hillel; Pangle, Thomas L.; Trubowitz, Peter; Gholz, Eugene; Stauffer, Devin; Suri, Jeremi; Tulis, JeffreyThis dissertation attempts to demonstrate the relevance and significance of American presidents' moral arguments to their foreign policy decisions. An interpretive approach that treats as important what presidents say is important to them suggests that so-called “normative” questions about rightful intervention may represent earnest and provocative moral foreign policy imperatives that are the reasons for their actions. These inherently significant imperatives deserve empirical inquiry in the field of international relations, which tends to vacate moral opinions of any agency in order to fit them into generic, deterministic mechanisms. As a contrast to this tendency, this study analyzes the pivotal decade of the 1890s, and in particular the major foreign-policy controversies of Grover Cleveland and William McKinley. What emerges from this exploration is that, even in the frenzy of his situation, each president deliberately sought, and argued for, a policy consistent with his understanding of international justice.Item A moral psychological primary source analysis of Brown v. Board of Education(2017-12-06) Hardee, Benjamin Dawson; Jacobsohn, Gary J., 1946-; Powe, Lucas; Perry, HW; Gawronski, BertramThis work applies the social intuitionist psychological model of moral judgment to explain the U.S. Supreme Court’s Brown v. Board of Education (1954) decision-making process. Based on an examination of the available Brown primary source material–––conference notes, interchamber and private memoranda, missives to private individuals, written brainstorms, and clerk recollections–––this work argues that most of the justices’ decision-making in Brown is captured by the model and associated psychological phenomena. The analysis clarifies Brown’s constitutional holding and the nature of the constitutional violation and harm the justices intended to proscribe. The work concludes that Brown has a consequentialist, not a deontological or colorblind, provenance and purpose.Item A multi-modal approach to understanding Asian American political participation(2023-04-20) Lawrence, Cornelia Elizabeth; Shaw, Daron R., 1966-; Philpot, Tasha; Jessee, Stephen; Wong, JanelleThis project aims to enhance our understanding of political participation within the United States by more carefully and systematically examining political participation within the Asian American community. Previously, prominent theories of political participation have been created with Anglo-Americans in mind, resulting in incomplete or unsatisfactory applications to racial and ethnic minority groups. By updating our understanding of what participation looks like and by formulating a racially aware theory, I seek to improve upon these previous explanations of the participatory habits of voters. I first expand upon the Resource model offered by Verba, Schlozman, and Brady (1995), both by updating the conceptualization of the dependent variable, political participation, to reflect recent technological advances, and including key variables I believe that are missing from the original. My first empirical chapter compares the original Resource model to the updated model, I name the Unified Resource Model, via an Asian American survey sample. There I find strong support for my suggested changes, before speaking with members of the Asian American community via focus groups in my second empirical chapter. Finally, in my third empirical chapter, I retest the Unified Resource Model in a hybrid quantitative-qualitative online community. Throughout this study, generational status and nativity status are significant predictors of the numbers of acts one is likely to participate in politically, and while organizational involvement behaved similarly in 2016, qualitative research suggests that this may no longer be true. All three empirical chapters support the expanded conceptualization of political participation to include social media usage.Item Accommodating Copts in Mubarak's Egypt : research design and historical review(2012-05) Mishrikey, Joshua Fred; Barany, Zoltan D.; Pedahzur, AmiSeveral scholars have examined how Middle East states preserve their autocratic character. Some focus on competitive multi-party elections, which either “ease important forms of distributional conflict” (Blaydes 2011) or are pre-designed to favor incumbents (Levitsky and Way 2002; 2010). Others posit the existence of political parties, which regulate conflict and prevent elite defection (Brownlee 2007). Given the overthrow of a slew of governments during the Arab Spring, antecedent theories on authoritarian durability seem incomplete. Although prior explanations are not attenuated by recent state collapses, further research is required to explain the erstwhile success of Middle East authoritarianism. In particular, less attention is paid toward minority groups. This research design is an inductive theory-building project that seeks to explain how states manage minority groups. I investigate Coptic Church history over three presidencies: Gamal Abdel Nasser (1956-1970), Anwar Sadat (1970-1981), and Hosni Mubarak (1981-2011). Drawing from historical analyses, I argue that the Mubarak regime eased its relations with the Coptic Church as an accommodating bargain: if the church discouraged communal challenges against the state, the Mubarak regime would permit the Church to manage its cultural and religious affairs. The purpose of this research is to offer a guiding light on authoritarian regimes and minority groups.Item Accommodating disability : barriers and burdens of a movement toward equity in an equality-based justice system(2019-02-06) Bird, Christine Catherine; Sparrow, Bartholomew H., 1959-; Tulis, Jeffrey KSocial movements can choose between emphasizing a sameness-based equality narrative or alternatively, a difference-based equity narrative. The sameness narrative emphasizes how the marginalized group represented by the social movement is not different from mainstream society and deserves equal treatment. The difference narrative allows the movement to leverage its different attributes to seek accommodation within mainstream society by asserting principles of equity. This narrative, by contrast, emphasizes how the marginalized group represented by the social movement is deserving of inclusion in society, but nonetheless requires affirmative accommodation for their differences. The disability rights movement is an equity-based movement because it requires an affirmative accommodation provision. If a group requiring accommodation seeks only to be treated equally to their counterparts, the unique experiences and needs of the individuals requiring accommodation cannot be met. In order to demonstrate this point, I look to the difficulties of obtain reasonable accommodation under disability policy in the United States.Item Affiliation among political violence groups : signaling commitment(2020-12-09) Farrell, Megan Madelyn; Findley, Michael G., 1976-; Wolford, Michael S; McDonald, Patrick; Salehyan, IdeanWhy do existing political violence groups become affiliates of a parent organization? Previous literature regarding alliances in civil conflicts has often focused on these relationships horizontally, in which all groups are equal. Often importance is placed on only the number of factions involved overall. However, my research demonstrates the utilization of affiliation as a signal. Groups can utilize their relationship with a parent organization in order to bring in new resources. Parent organizations are often better known with an established “brand” which supporters follow. For example, al-Qaeda has cultivated a jihadist brand which attracts followers worldwide. When lesser-known groups affiliate with a parent organization, the audience of that parent organizations can divert valuable resources, such as fighters or additional financing, to affiliate groups because they know the group follows the same brand. Yet the costs of affiliation remain very high as affiliated groups increase the potential for counter-insurgency operations once they increase their profile by aligning with a well-known parent organization. I establish that affiliation can be used as a credible signal when costs of subsequent counterinsurgency are high enough to demonstrate a group’s loyalty to their parent’s goals. The audience is then willing to give resources to groups who prove their commitment by risking affiliation. Utilizing a formal model, a large-scale randomized survey experiment conducted in Pakistan and India (n ~ 1,000), and statistical analysis with a novel dataset I coded consisting of all South Asian political violence groups and their alliances (n = 367), I establish that affiliation can be used as a credible signal when costs of subsequent counterinsurgency are high enough to demonstrate a group’s loyalty to their parent’s goals. The audience is then willing to give resources to groups who prove their commitment by risking affiliation. This line of research expands on a new dynamic in the alliance literature. When forming alliances, groups can leverage the vertical nature of their relationship with a parent organization in order to bring resources from the brand’s audience to their own geostrategic conflicts.Item After the revolution : natural law and the antislavery constitutional tradition(2009-12) Dyer, Justin Buckley; Tulis, Jeffrey; Jacobsohn, Gary J., 1946-; Budziszewski, J.; Perry, H.W.; Ritter, Gretchen; Levinson, SanfordPublic actors associated with the tradition of American antislavery constitutionalism in the nineteenth-century insisted that the Constitution of 1787 contained certain inbuilt purposes or animating principles, which ought to have aided constitutional interpreters in construing specific provisions of the constitutional text that related, directly or indirectly, to the law and politics of slavery in the United States. The Constitution of 1787 recognized the existence of slavery in the several states, yet antislavery constitutionalists interpreted even the slavery-related clauses as aspiring toward a certain liberal constitutional vision that was not yet a reality. In this dissertation, I argue, first, that these nineteenth-century interpretations of the Constitution in antislavery terms were intricately bound up with theories of natural law, and, second, I suggest that this aspect of the antislavery constitutional tradition offers a strong interpretive challenge (both descriptive and normative) to various aspects of the current scholarly literature on constitutional development and constitutional theory.Item After the supreme word: the effect of U.S. Supreme Court decisions on public opinion(2007) Unger, Michael Andrew, 1977-; Shaw, Daron R., 1966-; Perry, H. W.This project explores the role that the United States Supreme Court plays in shaping public opinion. Previous scholars have successfully demonstrated that political elites influence public opinion, but those researching the Court's influence on attitude change have reached mixed findings. I build on previous work in three important ways. First, I employ a method of attributing attitude change to the Court that is a theoretical and empirical improvement over previous ways of identifying those who should be influenced by the justices, "reception" of cases. By "reception", I mean whether an individual understands the Court's decisions. Second, I place Court decisions within the broader information environment that includes the cues sent to the public by other political elites. These cues may reinforce or undermine the justices' decision, which could amplify or undercut the effect of receiving cases on attitude change. Third, I take advantage of recent work on the dynamics of attitude change by interacting reception with one's relevant pre-existing beliefs and personal characteristics. To test these assertions, I use a mixed method, multi-case design that combines existing survey research with original data collected from a quasi-experiment conducted in summer 2005. The results indicate that under certain conditions, receiving Court decisions is associated with attitude change on the issues involved in the cases. This project closes with several suggestions for future research including how to refine reception as a method of attributing attitude change to the Court.Item Aiding dependency : a cross-national analysis of foreign aid and tax compliance(2016-08) Marineau, Josiah Franklin; Findley, Michael G., 1976-; Chapman, Terrence; Hunter, Wendy; Weaver, Catherine; McDonald, PatrickThis dissertation investigates whether foreign aid helps or hinders the development of state capacity through its influence on tax compliance. The dissertation argues that tax compliance is the product of a bargaining process between the state and citizenry, which aid can disrupt by lowering the incentive for states to collect taxes and the incentive for people to pay them. To test this argument, a new dataset of sub-national foreign aid in Uganda is used to show that aid lowers tax compliance. These findings are supported with data gathered during fieldwork in Uganda in April and May 2015, and then the findings are generalized through a cross-national analysis of the relationship between aid and tax compliance.Item The aim of dialectics In Plato's Euthyphro(2015-12) Fallis, Lewis Bartlett; Pangle, Thomas L.; Stauffer, Devin; Pangle, Lorraine; Tulis, Jeffrey; Muirhead, RussellThis dissertation presents an analysis of Plato’s dialogue on piety, the Euthyphro. The aim of the dissertation is to understand the nature of piety and its connection with morality. Chapter One introduces the topic of the dissertation, discusses two aspects of its political relevance, and justifies the decision to turn to Plato, and specifically Plato’s Euthyphro, for guidance on the question. Two weaknesses of contemporary approaches to the investigation of piety are discussed here, in order to highlight by contrast the strengths of Plato’s approach. Chapters Two and Three present an analysis of Plato’s Euthyphro, with special attention to what the dialogue can reveal about the connection between piety and morality. Chapter Four is a conclusion discussing the limitations of the study, the understanding of piety conveyed by Plato’s Euthyphro, and the aim of Socratic dialectics, understood as a means of testing whether moral opinions might be a condition of pious experiences.Item American military presence abroad: trends and analsysis(2015-12-04) Stravers, Andrew Joel; McDonald, Patrick J., 1973-; Findley, MichaelThis paper examines one basic question: what explains trends in American military deployments abroad? In other words, why does the U.S. military establish a non- combat presence in particular countries and at particular times? Scholars have posited two main answers to this question. First, many authors consider basing a purely strategic consideration rooted in Great Power rivalries, weapons technology, and polarity. Second, research since the Cold War has mainly considered basing within the context of the regime structure of the host country, with some regime types (democracies) better suited as basing partners than others. This paper examines time series cross-sectional statistical evidence for each, and it concludes that while each strain of thought provides valuable contributions to our understanding of basing trends, none fully explain American basing outcomes. I propose a theory in which the main driver of basing trends comes from within the United States. In other words, domestic political considerations within the American system of government best explain variations in American basing abroad. Presidential incentives, for instance, arise from a national constituency that judges him on how effectively he carries out the U.S. military’s missions. However, congressional incentives are such that individual representatives prefer to bring American forces back onto U.S. soil so that they may take advantage of the economic benefits that the troops provide to their home districts and to constrain the president’s power. As such, the long-term trend since 1950 is toward less overseas basing and more basing within the United States. Previous studies provided insights into the international determinants of American foreign basing. This study adds domestic American politics to the overall puzzle, leading to a more complete understanding of the intersection between foreign and domestic dynamics as regards the international deployment of American forces.Item American state supreme courts in the Jacksonian decade, 1828-1837 : an exploration of the role of early American court decisions in societal change(2002-08) Nelson, Ronald Lee; Perry, H. W.This dissertation concerns the relationship between the American state supreme courts and American society during the Jacksonian Era. Many scholars have emphasized a view of American courts during this period as institutions that were either pro-development instrumentalities or mirrors merely reflecting the changes of the times. I argue that the Jacksonian Era state high courts functioned as interactive players in the push-pull of events in a society undergoing the stress of pervasive change. These high courts operated in a dialectic with the societal forces around them. Through written decisions, the courts addressed the issues of the day and, through the resolution of routine disputes, affected American society. The courts’ decisions record the rationales for the results of these resolutions revealing some of the general premises accepted by the Jacksonian society. The decisions also explain factors considered by the courts in resolving the disputes before them. More specifically, my research demonstrates that the Jacksonian state high courts were significant participants in the early American state building process. Through their everyday decisions, the courts shaped the relationship between society and all levels government of the American state. These courts also addressed issues related to commercial and social changes. And despite scholarly opinion to the contrary, these courts did not decide cases in a manner that routinely offered favors to commercial or entrepreneurial interests. The decisions reveal consideration for the needs of society and certain social groups often at the expense of business concerns. Finally, my research shows that the Jacksonian courts were institutions imbedded within a society. The courts operated in an interactive relationship with society in which the institution of the courts was shaped by society but also, at the same time, helped shape society in return. I suggest that this view of the Jacksonian courts as interactive participants in the development of early American society has potential as a framework for understanding courts as societal institutions in general. This is a relationship that may extend beyond the Jacksonian period and be at work in the general relationship between courts and societies.Item An analysis of Plato's Meno(2015-10-16) Duggan, Nicholas James; Stauffer, Devin, 1970-; Pangle, Thomas LThis thesis offers an analysis of Plato’s Meno, in which the Greek philosopher addresses more directly than in any other dialogue the character of human virtue. Believing that Plato has considerable guidance to offer us in respect to the question of what virtue is, I attempt to approach his writing with considerable care and attention to the details and the structure of the argument. I argue that the dialogue ultimately presents a complicated teaching about virtue’s character, and the way that virtue comes to be present, which ultimately culminates in the claim that virtue is knowledge – and in the thoughtful consideration of the alternatives to, and the nuances of, that claim.Item Analytic bureaucracy and the policy process : evidence from three states(2023-04-17) Flatt, Henry Joel; Jones, Bryan D.; Epp, Derek A; Roberts, Brian E; Kogan, VladimirI argue that “analytic” bureaucratic agencies are essential actors in the modern policy process because of their essential role acting as information processing organizations and policy evaluation specialists. Analytic agencies can exert unique influence over lawmaking activities because legislators consider them expert information sources in a multitude of areas. Whereas previous policy process scholarship almost exclusively examines elected officials and federal agencies, I study analytic agencies in the three most populous states: California, Texas, and Florida, to test how, when, and where expert information is used in the legislative process. I utilize a mixed-methods approach that combines interviews with statistical analyses to show expert information is incorporated frequently and early in the lawmaking process and the internal governmental actors responsible for generating much of the expert content possess vastly different skills from standard street-level or civilian bureaucrats.Item Anarchy, uncertainty, and dispute settlement : an endogenous-war model(2002-05) Kim, Dong-won; Wagner, R. Harrison (Robert Harrison)Belligerents are usually bargainers–they negotiate to reach an agreement and they fight to affect the negotiations. In general, a government at war considers a compromise peace when it has become sufficiently skeptical of its ability to subdue the adversary on the battlefield at tolerable costs. Thus even disputants that have started a war due to the collapse of prewar bargaining may not have to fight to the finish. The dissertation examines how dispute outcomes vary because even at war disputants can negotiate for a compromise settlement, and how treating war as a simple matter of military strategy can be misleading about the causes of war. If diplomacy does not stop despite the initiation of hostilities, then a belligerent can employ its forces more efficiently for conflict resolution by improving its bargaining strategy whenever it gains new information about the true state of affairs, and by holding out for the adversary’s concession until its assessment of the future development on the battlefield becomes sufficiently pessimistic. Thus an ironical situation can arise with two antagonists acting strategically against each other: a disputant which would not go to war if it should fight to the finish can decide to risk a war and a disputant which is actually resolved to fight long enough to coerce its terms on the adversary may not be able to demonstrate its determination without fighting long indeed. As a result, a monotonic relationship hardly arises between disputants’ expected war costs, their relative military strength, the scope of the stake at issue, or the status quo distribution of that stake on one hand and the probability of war initiation or dispute settlement on the other. The dissertation uses deduction to derive the main arguments and induction to test their empirical relevance. For deduction, it develops and analyzes a gamble engaging horse races and a two-person asymmetric bargaining game that encompasses prewar bargaining and the process of negotiating while fighting on the assumption that the conflict terminates whenever the players reach an agreement. For induction, it statistically analyzes the battles fought at the initial stages of the First World War and the militarized interstate dispute data (1996) and the Correlates of War interstate war data (1992).Item Ancient and modern approaches to the question of punishment : Hobbes, Kant and Plato(2010-08) Shuster, Arthur; Pangle, Thomas L.; Hankinson, Robert; Muirhead, Russell; Pangle, Lorraine; Stauffer, Devin; Tulis, JeffreyThe modern criminal justice system is experiencing what may be called a moral crisis brought about by a fundamental disagreement regarding the just and humane treatment of criminals and the purpose of punishment. This crisis has been addressed by contemporary scholarship without much success. The most serious defect of these scholarly attempts has been a failure to grasp how the apparently clashing aims of punishment—deterrence, retribution, and rehabilitation—relate to the fundamental principles of modern politics. Without this knowledge, it is impossible to begin to understand how these different penal aims may today be compatible and how incompatible, or even to appreciate what is at stake in each of them. In order to gain a firmer grip on the problem, this dissertation returns to the original arguments for modern punishment by examining crucial moments in its theoretical development. In Hobbes, modern punishment theory attains its first and most consistent articulation. Hobbes shows that the principles of modern politics limit the scope of justice to the protection of private freedom and property, and thus necessitate that deterrence should be the dominant aim of punishment. In his reaction against Hobbes, Kant affirms the importance of human dignity and argues that a penal system of pure deterrence would threaten the humanity of the criminal. Kant presents retribution as a more noble aim of punishment and tries to defend it on modern grounds, although he ultimately fails in this task. In light of the aporetic conclusion of the examination of modern punishment theory, this dissertation turns to investigate the classical approach to the question of punishment as it is expressed in the proposal for humane penal reform in Plato’s 'Laws.' In the 'Laws,' the highest aim of punishment, as the city understands it, is shown to be moral rehabilitation, although retribution and deterrence are also incorporated into the city’s actual penal code as a concession to necessity and to the limitations of the thumotic civic outlook. The most humanizing feature of the penal reform proposal in the 'Laws' is, however, its philosophical analysis of the nature of crime.Item Anger and the politics of compromise(2015-12) Blank, Joshua M.; Shaw, Daron R., 1966-; Albertson, Bethany; McDaniel, Eric; Roberts, Brian; Jessee, StephenIn recent years, the inability of the federal government to respond to public policy crises with a timely, commensurate solution has been a seemingly regular cause for alarm. These inactions have not been due to constitutional restraints nor, should we take them at their word, the desire of the citizenry, but have most often resulted -- and in some cases emanated -- from the inability or unwillingness of elected officials to regularly engage in compromise. Public opinion polls conducted during many of these crises have routinely found a citizenry more than willing to endorse the principles of compromise, but the officials that they have elected, and those that they continue to elect, appear increasingly emboldened to engage in behaviors that hinder the reaching of a commendable solution. This discontinuity, between public expectations and the actions of many prominent, elected officials, leaves one left to ponder if, in the current age, the representational link between citizen and legislator is broken? I will argue that this link is, in fact, not broken (at least on this particular point), and that anger at politicians and the political system makes citizens, and especially the most politically engaged among them, endorse behaviors by elected officials that hinder compromise without influencing citizens' belief in the normative good of compromise itself.Item Apathetic accountability(2020-03-26) Dye, Connor William; Wlezien, ChristopherConventional wisdom suggests that parties adjust their ideological positioning to gain vote share. However, recent findings indicate that voters only alter their perceptions of party policy positions based on information they find credible. I extend these findings by testing whether citizens change their opinions toward a political party in response to information produced during a campaign. Using data from two German Election Panel Studies covering 2002-2013, I demonstrate that partisans change their opinions toward their party based on information produced during the campaign. Moreover, I demonstrate that partisans are more likely to utilize information produced in campaigns than nonpartisans to form their perceptions of a party's ideological positioning. These findings have important implications for party election strategies and for political representationItem Aristotle and Plato on Law : the Nicomachean Ethics and the Minos(2011-08) Kushner, Jeremy Christopher; Pangle, Lorraine Smith; Stauffer, DevinIn this paper, I examine the treatments of law contained within Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics and Plato’s Minos. I find that both offer powerful and complementary critiques of law, while recognizing law’s power and promise in shaping the character and opinions of each citizen. The Minos, though, goes further than the Ethics in describing and examining the possibility of divine law that transcends the limitations of merely human laws.Item Attitudes in transition : Chechen refugees and the politics of violence(2011-12) Dennis, Michael Patrick; Moser, Robert G., 1966-; Barany, Zoltan; Pedahzur, Ami; Wagner, R. Harrison; Garza, ThomasWhat drives refugees displaced by war to hold attitudes supporting violence to achieve political ends? The conventional wisdom suggests that refugee communities are breeding grounds for the emergence of political violence, terrorism, and radicalism. Yet, the literature on refugees and political violence offers little empirical evidence of such a connection or systematic investigation of the root causes of attitudes toward political violence among refugees. My research addresses the following questions: 1) What are the sources of politically violent attitudes? 2) Can these sources be traced to specific aspects of the refugee communities themselves? 3) Can they be traced to certain experiential events or demographic factors? 4) Are attitudes towards political violence related to actors’ political goals? This analysis is based on nearly three years of fieldwork in Chechen refugee communities in The Republic of Georgia, Azerbaijan, Poland, and Belgium. Methodologically, this inductive study employed a mixed-methods approach, utilizing qualitative and ethnographic methods, such as direct participant-observer, to conduct 310 structured-interviews with a range of Chechen refugees. For independent variables I asked a battery of questions related to demographic profiles, grievances, political goals and preferences, and preferences for regime type. The dependent variable, attitudes towards political violence, was gleaned from structured-interviews which called on subjects to offer general assessments of their position on the acceptability of political violence as well as express their views on the legitimacy of four concrete events related to the conflict in Chechnya: the 2002 attack on Moscow’s Dubrovka Theater; the 2004 attack on School #1 in Beslan, North Ossetia; the 2004 attack on military and police personnel in Nazran, Ingushetia; and the 2005 attack on military and police personnel in Nalchik, Kabardino-Balkaria.