Browsing by Subject "Political science"
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Item Assessing public support of government in democratic countries(2012-12) Shockley, William; Mayer, Lawrence C.; Patterson, Dennis; Murray, GreggA characteristic of democratic citizens is cynicism of their governments. “Critical Citizens” theory accredits this behavior to increased awareness of government performance, but holds that citizens have strong attachments toward democracy. “Critical Citizens” theory has largely unexplained the role of religion and news politics on public support for democracies. This work seeks to explain how religion and news politics affect public support of governments. In doing so I find that religious worship increases attachments toward authority and political leaders, implying that religion increases support of government. Additionally, I find that support of democracy increases the likelihood of news politics consumption, while support for political leaders decreases the likelihood one consumes news politics. These findings contribute to “Critical Citizens” theory by answering how religion and news politics affect public support of government.Item Genes, judgments, and evolution : the social and political consequences of distributional and differential conflict(2012-05) Meyer, John Michael; Pedahzur, Ami; McDonald, PatrickThe following argument offers a sharper micro-foundational lens for studying human political and social behavior by demonstrating how political science might better incorporate the theory of evolution into its behavioral models, and by showing that differential conflict occasionally prevails over the materialist conflicts depicted in much of the modern social science literature. I take evolutionary psychology's understanding of manifest behavior as a point of departure, and then analyze the manifest behavior in terms of judgments, which are binary measurements at a particular point of reference; in other words, a given manifest behavior either did or did not occur at a particular point in time. I then show that judgments can 1) transmit from one individual to the next, 2) vary according to predictable adaptive processes, and 3) are either extinguished or flourish dependent upon the process of natural selection; judgments, therefore, meet the three requirements of evolutionary theory. Judgments, rather than genes, better describe the process of human political and social evolution, which becomes especially clear when one assesses the consequences of what I term "differential" outcomes in judgments.Item International affairs/communication(2012-05) Eqbal, Shareena; Pelley, Patricia; Wilkinson, Kent; Barkdull, John L.This portfolio shows the integration of different disciplines (Political Science, Mass Communication, and History)towards my goal of achieving a better understanding in International Affairs/Communication.Item The political economy of remittances : emigration, social insurance provision, and political behavior in Mexico(2010-08) Germano, Roy; Weyland, Kurt Gerhard; Freeman, Gary P.; Greene, Kenneth F.; Sassen, Saskia; Galbraith, James K.Why do international migrants send money home? What are the implications of these monetary flows for developing countries? Long debated by economists and sociologists, these questions have received very little attention in the political science literature. This dissertation argues, however, that remittances—money sent home or “remitted” by international migrants—have significant implications for the study of politics. My main contention is that international migrants assume a more significant welfare burden when their home government’s commitment to social insurance provision is in decline. Remittances, in other words, flow to compensate non-emigrating citizens for state retrenchment and the absence of a robust welfare state. I argue that this “transnational safety net” makes remittance recipients (RRs) less vulnerable to economic instability than neighbors who do not receive this money. All else equal, RRs should be more contented with their economic circumstances and have fewer economic grievances with which to politicize. The income-stabilizing and insurance effect of remittances, then, should reduce public pressure on the state, leaving RRs less motivated to mobilize against and punish incumbents for a poor economy when public safety nets are weak. Evidence comes from an original survey of 768 Mexican households, field interviews, and time-series data published by the Bank of Mexico. Statistical tests reveal that Mexicans abroad remit more to families that do not receive social benefits and send roughly $2.5 million more home for every $10 million reduction in spending on social programs by the Mexican government. Analyses furthermore reveal that despite being very poor on average, RRs tend to enjoy higher levels of income stability, are less likely to identify an economic matter as “the most important problem facing Mexico,” and make more positive and optimistic assessments of the national economy and their own financial circumstances. In the 2006 Mexican presidential election, I find that RRs were up to 15 percent more likely to stay home on election day at the expense of the primary opposition party and significantly less likely to punish the incumbent party with a vote for either of the major opposition parties if they did vote.Item Politics, religion, and philosophy in Al-Farabi's Book of Religion(2014-08) Siddiqi, Ahmed Ali; Pangle, Thomas L.This thesis offers an interpretation of Al-Farabi’s Book of Religion, in which the tenth- century philosopher addresses more directly than in any of his other works the relationship between human and divine wisdom. Believing Farabi to be a philosopher in the full sense of the term, I attempt to approach his writing in the spirit of his own approach to the writings of Plato and Aristotle. I argue that the discussions of religion, philosophy, and political science found in the text constitute a single teaching, through which Farabi addresses some of the most fundamental questions facing man as both a political and spiritual animal.Item Principled abstention : a theory of emotions and nonvoting in U.S. presidential elections(2012-08) Vandenbroek, Lance Matthew; Valentino, Nicholas A.; Shaw, Daron R., 1966-; Jessee, Stephen A.; Luskin, Robert C.; Philpot, Tasha S.More than a half-century of behavioral political science has shaped the dominant view of American nonvoters in terms of their engagement and resource deficits. While nonvoters on average are indeed less educated, poorer, younger and less politically engaged, other scholarship suggests that many of them actively abstain due to disaffection with the political system. My dissertation aims to reconcile these disparate explanations for nonvoting, and to better understand those nonvoters whose resources and political attention should suffice to vote. Drawing upon recent work in psychology, I advance a theory that disgust with politics causes many to abstain, irrespective of resources. These disgusted individuals feel the political system has violated deeply held interpersonal and moral norms, and believe participation will be ineffective to mitigate its affronts. As a result, these individuals withdraw from politics both in terms of voting and gathering additional information. I label this behavior “principled abstention.” To test my hypotheses, I employ observational data, including original question batteries on the 2008 and 2010 Cooperative Congressional Election Studies, and a series of laboratory and nationally representative experiments.Item Whirlpools of information: information processing in policy subsystems 1995-2010(2015-12) Shafran, JoBeth Surface; Jones, Bryan D.; Workman, Samuel; Theriault, Sean; Moser, Scott; McDaniel, EricThis project focuses on information processing in policy subsystems, specifically how congressional committees in the domestic commerce, energy, and health care policy areas prioritize available information, with an extended analysis of information supply and prioritization in energy policy. I examine the conditions under which federal bureaucrats are most likely to supply information to Congress in these three policy areas. I seek to determine whether and to what extent the bureaucratic supply of information changes by issue area, presiding congressional committee, and in response to problem uncertainty. My findings suggest that the number of bureaucrats testifying varies by both policy area and committee type. Furthermore, as the problem uncertainty for a committee increases, so too does the number of federal bureaucrats invited to testify. These findings are especially true for careerist bureaucrats. Within energy policy, my findings show that the subsystem actors most likely to supply information at a hearing varies across committees, over time, and by specific issue area. By examining who supplies information, this project will provide a better understanding of how subsystem actors are prioritized by congressional committees as information suppliers. This study is important because the information supplied by these non-elected policy elites can then influence the problem definition process, structure policy debates, and impact policy formulation.