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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The systematic impact of intraparty factions in the U.S. House of Representatives
(2021-08-05)In the modern U.S. Congress, plagued by partisan polarization, scholars stand to learn much from turning inward and examining the dynamics and priorities within the two parties. This dissertation identifies eight intraparty ... -
Intervention, war expansion, and the international sources of civil war
(2021-07-22)Why do some civil wars become interstate wars while others do not? In this dissertation I develop a theory of rebellion, rebel-sided intervention, and interstate retaliation that connects civil and interstate war. I argue ... -
The national membership politics of external voting
(2021-08-02)External voting allows people who do not live in their country of citizenship – non-resident citizens – to vote in its national elections. By decoupling the boundaries of democracy from those of state territory, it reshapes ... -
The classical teaching on tyranny
(2020-12-03)Understanding tyranny is essential to political life. Yet, recent attempts to analyze the phenomenon have overlooked the importance of understanding the tyrant as an individual—they neglect to study the psychology of ... -
Civility in digital discourse : an experimental approach to the contagion of thoughtful and hurtful responses
(2021-05-07)Civility is a concept still not well understood or systematically defined by scholars of communication and political science. As such, many in the public sphere have echoed that certain linguistic behaviors characterized ... -
Judicial federalism : a comparative study of its origin, operation, and significance
(2020-05-20)This comparative study of judicial federalism analyzes the origin, operation, and significance of the judicial systems found among past and present federations. Federal countries vary in the arrangement of their judiciaries. ... -
Essays on local political institutions in China
(2021-04-09)In this dissertation, I examine why authoritarian ruling parties strengthen political control and evaluate political consequences of strong ruling party control. I argue that authoritarian ruling parties have incentives ... -
The consequences of political persuasion in Greater China
(2021-05-04)When and how does political persuasion employed by authoritarian regimes influence the attitudes and behavior of domestic and foreign audiences? Focusing on China, this dissertation comprises three essays in which the ... -
Making history safe for democracy : understanding Alexis de Tocqueville's "profoundly ambiguous" theory of history
(2020-08-18)This dissertation examines the problem of historical determinism in the political thought of Alexis de Tocqueville. In Volume 2 of Democracy in America, Tocqueville criticizes historians in democratic centuries for undermining ... -
Corporations and global regulation : challenges and opportunities for state regulatory powers
(2020-03-26)Scholars and the public alike have long shared concerns about corporate influence on sovereign states' regulatory powers. However, despite the documentation of some well-known cases of corporate interference with government ... -
Power to the partner : organizational coalitions and minority representation in federal rulemaking
How do advocates for minorities gain influence in bureaucratic policymaking? In this dissertation, I argue that organizations representing minorities strategically form coalitions to compensate for the costly nature of ... -
Information Wars : party elites, think tanks and polarization in Congress
(2020-05-15)For much of modern history, U.S. political parties adopted a consensus non-partisan knowledge regime, consisting of experts at universities, non-partisan think tanks and government agencies, to inform policymaking decisions. ... -
One way to live : Orde Wingate and the adoption of ‘special forces’ tactics and strategies (1903-1944)
(2020-10-15)Winston Churchill declared Major-General Orde Wingate ‘a man of genius’ for developing what he considered low-cost, high-risk, and high-leverage operations in three theaters of the Second World War. One Way to Live: Orde ... -
Demagoguery and American constitutionalism
(2020-05-07)Despite a renaissance in the study of demagoguery and related concepts like populism, scholars have said relatively little about the range of meanings that demagoguery can have when deployed in different ways, by different ... -
Charisma lives on : a study of Peronism and Chavismo
Conventional wisdom suggests that political movements founded by charismatic leaders must undergo “routinization” to survive beyond the death or disappearance of the founder. Yet charismatic movements have persisted or ... -
The causes and consequences of valence attacks in European multi-party systems
(2020-12-03)What are the causes and consequences of valence attacks in multi-party elections? The strategic electoral behavior of political parties in multi-party systems has so far predominantly been studied in the spatial framework, ... -
Affiliation among political violence groups : signaling commitment
(2020-12-09)Why 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 ... -
The source of self-restraint? How domestic politics and international markets shape natural resource policy in the developing world
(2020-10-14)Suppose a country discovers oil or copper in its subsoil and decides to sell these resources in international markets. What should it do with the unexpected profits? It can use a portion of this money to invest in human ... -
Reading Rousseau’s First Discourse through the Polemics
(2020-12-05)This report analyzes Rousseau’s Discourse on the Sciences and Arts and the polemics Rousseau wrote in defense of that work, paying special attention to his rhetoric. In supplementing an interpretation of the First Discourse ... -
Moderating the aims of wise legislation : on the purpose of Dorian politics in Book III of Plato's Laws
(2020-12-11)This report analyzes Plato’s treatment of Dorian politics in Book III of his Laws. That treatment tests and finds insufficient a premise stated in Book I, that virtue is the necessary and sufficient condition for political ...
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