Browsing Department of Government Theses and Dissertations by Title
Now showing items 14-33 of 213
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Bargaining and fighting in the moonlight
(2011-08)"Audience costs" models of international relations suggest a purely informational role for domestic politics in conflict settings. Here, domestic politics serve as a rich signal of belligerents' true intentions, allowing ... -
Better than they knew: the constitution's implicit moral design
(2005)This study seeks to describe and evaluate the Constitution’s implicit normative structure. The first part of the argument distinguishes the Constitution’s intention from the subjective intentions of the framers and teases ... -
Between success and survival : devolution and concentration in Latin America
(2002-05)Several recent administrations in Latin America have implemented significant reforms that alter the relative balance of power between central and subnational governments. Some have devolved power to subnational governments, ... -
Beyond partisanship? : federal courts, state commissions, and redistricting
(2007)My dissertation examines the influence of partisanship in decision making on redistricting in state commissions and judicial rulings. My central questions are twofold. First, do Republican- and Democratic-appointed federal ... -
Beyond the balance sheet : performance, participation, and regime support in Latin America
(2016-05)Most studies on regime support focus on performance, or policy outputs, as the principal causal variable. This study challenges this conventional wisdom by focusing on two countries where performance and support do not ... -
Beyond the horse race : the content and consequence of issue news in American elections
(2006)While the tendency of journalists to focus on the “horse race” aspects of political campaigns is well documented, less is known about the media’s coverage of issues in American elections. I argue that issue news is more ... -
The brave new world : the social and participatory behaviors of the modern suburban African American
(2011-08)Have steady increases in socioeconomic status (SES) and occupational prestige along with changes in residential context and subsequently social networks necessitated a shift in our understanding of Black political participation ... -
Breaking with the party: preferences, procedures, and party position shifts in Congress
(2007)While I do not dispute the pivotal role played by party leaders in setting and shifting a party position, I argue that the impetus for party shifts sometimes comes from the "bottom-up"--that is, from party members themselves. ... -
Bringing policy back into the policy making process
(2011-05)My research project is a break from the current trend in the literature that focuses on the conflict associated with roll call voting—party polarization and institutional friction. I am interested in determining how policy ... -
Bureaucratic access points
(2012-05)This paper studies how organizational mission influences policy implementation. Interagency conflicts and bureaucratic challenges affecting implementation are largely due to different missions and different assessment ... -
Buying discretion in Mexico's new democracy : patronage in bureaucratic-legislative relations
(2010-05)The dissertation analyzes why legislators fail to use their oversight powers over bureaucracy in democratic Mexico. While dominant institutional theories assume a unidirectional flow of authority from politicians to ... -
Buying support without brokers : conditional cash transfers in Turkey and Argentina
(2015-05)This master’s report examines how the implementation of conditional cash transfer (CCT) programs, which allocate benefits according to objective poverty criteria, affect entrenched patterns of clientelism, that is, the ... -
Campaign advertising and its effects : the case of Mexico
(2014-05)This dissertation explains how and under what conditions voters are affected by campaign advertising, taking particular account of the conditioning role played by political knowledge and ad tone. It builds on psychological ... -
Campaign clientelism in Peru : an informational theory
(2013-05)While clientelism has been intensively studied in comparative politics from very different theoretical perspectives and angles, scholars typically emphasize the importance of organized networks and long-term relations for ... -
Campaigning for the economic vote : the political impact of economic rhetoric
(2013-05)Economic voting--the effect of national economic circumstances on vote preferences--is often seen as the closest thing to a law that exists in the social sciences. Why, then, do incumbents frequently win amidst economic ... -
Candidates, parties, and campaign effects in congressional elections, 1992-2002
(2005)Political campaigns are vital to democracy in the United States. Campaigns educate and mobilize voters, thus making it possible for citizens (though elections) to select government leaders and indirectly to control public ... -
Careful crackdowns : human rights and campaigning on public security in Latin America
(2012-05)Crime and violence are regularly seen as being ripe for politicians to turn into campaign issues and win votes. This study argues, in contrast, that success on public security is not so automatic: human rights values ... -
Choosing coalition partners: the politics of central bank independence in Korea and Taiwan
(2006)This study is to explain why Taiwan’s elites delegate the independent authority of financial and monetary management to central bankers which resulted in survival of the Asian crisis, while Korean political leadership ... -
Cicero's critique of popular philosophy in De Finibus
(2010-05)This paper considers Cicero’s dialogues concerning Epicurean and Stoic philosophy in De Finibus. In it, I consider Cicero’s portrayal both of the deep appeal of the promise of perfect wisdom and invulnerability to chance ... -
Citizen disenchantment in new democracies : the case of Mexico
(2009-05)In July, 2000, Mexico ended seven decades of single-party rule with the election of Vicente Fox as president, culminating its gran fiesta democrática of the 1990's. Less than a decade later, though, the party's over. Citizen ...
