Department of Government
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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Information and risk : how investor-state disputes affect global policy diffusion
(2017-12-04)I propose an informational mechanism to explain how multinational corporations (MNCs) use Investor-State disputes to slow down the global spread of costly regulations to their businesses. I rely on a multi-methods strategy ... -
Keeping your friends close : how the House Freedom Caucus organized for survival
(2017-11-01)Polarization of the two parties in the U.S. House is clear, but the intraparty homogeneity required for different theories of party government has faded. Party leaders have responded to this new factional insurgence with ... -
A moral psychological primary source analysis of Brown v. Board of Education
(2017-12-06)This 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 ... -
The young American voter in the new millennium
(2017-08-09)A puzzling age gap in vote choice appeared between young and older Americans between the 2004 and the 2012 presidential elections in the United States. This dissertation seeks to explain the emergence and persistence of ... -
Vote choice in the presence of targeted benefit transfers : unpacking the voter’s decision-making process
(2017-08-08)In many developing democracies, political campaigns distribute cash and other goods to voters prior to elections in order to mobilize support. This study examines how receiving targeted benefits from political campaigns ... -
Squaring the circle : security, accountability and Congress
(2017-05-08)This analysis considers the security-accountability paradox: in a democracy, how can the People consent to what they cannot see? Congress is the branch of government most concerned with democratic representation and is ... -
International law and resource extraction : the reconstruction of indigenous identity in Cajamarca, Peru
(2017-05-03)Why has there been a sudden upsurge in the politicization of indigenous identities in Latin America? Drawing upon constructivist assumptions of ethnic identity, I find that ILO 169 and the rights contained in the United ... -
Leadership decapitation : volume and intensity of terrorist attacks
(2017-05-03)What is the effect of leadership decapitation—the targeted killing or capture of a leader—on the violence levels of terrorist groups? Strong evidence has yet to emerge, as existing literature examines its effect on group ... -
The division of labor in congressional campaigns
(2017-08-10)This dissertation explains how candidates, parties, and independent groups have adjusted to the post-Citizens United campaign environment by dividing the labor of campaign communications. Using an original dataset of ... -
Between the homeland and host states : Turkey’s diaspora policies and immigrant political participation in France and Germany
(2016-08)This dissertation analyzes why sending states develop specific diaspora outreach policies and how those policies affect the political participation of immigrant organization leaders in host countries. I theorize and ... -
How they fight : accountability, ideology, organization and rebel strategy
(2017-05)Why do rebel strategies vary? In this master’s report, I provide evidence that strategy as a whole—rather than individual aspects of insurgent behavior such as military doctrine, negotiating behavior, and civilian ... -
Policies, politics, and protests : explaining student mobilization in Latin America
(2017-05)Latin American college student protesters have been historically a force to reckon with. Scholars have argued, however, that the introduction of neoliberal policies in the late twentieth century would discourage mobilization. ... -
You better find something to do : lawmaking and agenda setting in a centralized Congress
(2017-05)The U.S. Congress has significantly curtailed its lawmaking activities in recent years, and many commentators, scholars, and legislators themselves point to a decline in the institution’s output. Two trends blur this focus. ... -
Deciding where to invest in the developing world : determinants of FDI flows
(2017-05)The relationship between the type of political regime and foreign direct investments has been widely studied. The large number of studies have explored different elements of the FDI and regime type link, but little consensus ... -
The politics of sovereignty : federalism in American political development
(2016-12)The development of American federalism is a story of contested sovereignty, and those contests are fundamentally shaped by the evolving structures, relationships, and understandings of the constitutional order. This ... -
Issue cross-pressures and campaign effects : connecting the right voters with the right message
(2016-08)The overwhelming majority of partisans share common ground with the opposing party on at least some policy issues. It has long been proffered that presidential campaigns can persuade out-partisans by highlighting their ... -
From competition to monopoly : establishing party dominance in post-communist Russia
(2014-12)What explains dominant party emergence and strength and opposition party weakness in Russia? Important structural underpinnings of party dominance, namely a weak party system, were present in Russia even in the 1990s, but ... -
Courts, campaigns, and corruption : an empirical evaluation of the “appearance of corruption” rationale for campaign finance regulation
(2016-05)In Buckley v. Valeo, arguably their most important campaign finance decision, the United States Supreme Court argued that the appearance of political corruption alone might be sufficient to undermine the health of a ... -
Explaining resilience in clientelist voting
(2016-12)The central argument of this dissertation is relatively counterintuitive: increases in income do not necessarily cause decreases in clientelist voting. A decline in clientelist voting—voting based on individualized, ... -
No taxation with information on representation : a survey experiment on tax morale in China
(2016-12)Extant studies on tax morale emphasize the influence of reciprocal motivations on tax compliance behavior. This strand of literature views tax payments as a tax contract between governments and citizens, arguing that ...
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