Matching Items (47)
Filtering by
- All Subjects: Political Science
- Creators: School of Politics and Global Studies
- Creators: Fridkin, Kim
- Creators: Siroky, David
Description
What does it mean to speak of governance in the absence of states? This dissertation seeks to answer this question through an empirical examination of the founding of two unique agricultural settlements constructed by the Jewish community of Palestine, also known as the Yishuv: the kibbutz and the moshav. Commonly, in order to be considered effective, states must, at minimum, provide their population with two critical public goods: the satisfaction of their material needs and their physical protection through a military or police force. Dominant assumptions across multiple subfields of both Comparative Politics and International Relations content that because weak and failed states cannot provide their civilian populations with these critical public goods, that governance in the absence of effective, sovereign, and territorial states is a myth. It is often argued that violence, anarchy, and human suffering inevitably follow in the wake of state collapse and that in order to alleviate these problems, state building practices must focus on creating a fully sovereign state that has a monopoly on the legitimate use of violence within its borders. This dissertation questions these assumptions. Through quantitative analysis of an original dataset constructed from Israeli archival sources as well as a qualitative historical examination of declassified Israeli archival material from 1920-1948, this dissertation demonstrates that it is possible for non-state actors to construct institutions of governance within the context of a weak or failing state. The Jewish community, through its organs of governance, utilized the kibbutzim and the moshavim to provide the all important public goods of military defense and economic growth respectively. It is shown in this dissertation how political institutions can be crafted endogenously within weak and failing states and how these institutions may actually serve to increase political stability, staving off anarchy and violence.
ContributorsMuchlinski, David (Author) / Warner, Carolyn (Thesis advisor) / Siroky, David (Committee member) / Hechter, Michael (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
Description
Why do religious organizations facilitate secular political activism in some settings and not others? This dissertation uses regional variation in political activism across Mexico to elucidate the relationship between religious organizations and political activism, as measured through associational activity and involvement in political protests. I utilize a quantitative analysis of 13,500 data observations collected from the nationally representative National Survey of Political Culture and Citizenship (ENCUP), supplemented by municipal and diocesan-level data from a variety of governmental and Church statistical databases, to test several theories describing religion's potential impact on political activism. I also utilize a qualitative comparative analysis examining the relationship between the Catholic Church and political mobilization in the Mexican States of Chiapas, Morelos, and Yucatán. I present an agent-based model developed to delineate the micro-level mechanisms linking Church institutional configurations and religion's pro-social effects to individual incentives to politically organize. The predictions of the agent-based model are assessed against my statistical dataset. The study finds where religious institutions devolve decision-making, monitoring, and sanctioning authority to the laity, individuals develop capacities to overcome collective action problems related to political activism. Religious ideology is also found to influence capacities for political activism.
ContributorsHale, Chris (Christopher) (Author) / Warner, Carolyn (Thesis advisor) / Hechter, Michael (Committee member) / Siroky, David (Committee member) / Hinojosa, Magda (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
Description
Voting in presidential primaries, compared to general elections, provides a challenging task for voters given the lack of party cues, the similarity of the candidates' policy positions, and the relatively low information levels. As trustworthy sources of local information, local news media in presidential primaries have a profound potential to shape voters' evaluations of candidates. I argue that the proximity of local news, its local nature, makes it a trusted and influential source of candidate information, moderated by candidates' prominence. Furthermore, variation in local news across states as a result of differences in standards of newsworthiness and organizational resources helps clarify the distinct role that local news plays in voter opinion of presidential primary candidates. Relying on an original content analysis of news coverage in 11 battleground and early primary states, and utilizing an extensive panel survey of 5,301 respondents over the course of the 2008 primary campaign, I am able to match primary voters with their local news content. I examine the influence of the quantity and tone of local news coverage on voters' evaluations of presidential candidates over the course of the primary season. The findings suggest that local news outlets provide voters with vastly different amounts and types of campaign news. I find that the amount of local news coverage influences people's willingness to evaluate presidential candidates. In addition, evaluations of low tier presidential candidates are significantly influenced by the tone of local news coverage, even after controlling for voters' ideological predispositions and local candidate activities. These findings suggest that local news coverage has a powerful effect on voters' evaluations of low tier candidates in particular, consistently shaping voters' recognition and evaluations of these candidates. The availability and bias of candidate information in presidential primaries may ultimately impact electoral outcomes in both nominating contests and general elections.
ContributorsCarle, Jill (Author) / Fridkin, Kim (Thesis advisor) / Kenney, Patrick (Committee member) / Espino, Rodolfo (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2014
Description
Objective. Both the civic education literature and the political ambition literature leave a gap in addressing the impact of political science coursework on political ambition. I address this gap by specifying the relationships between civic education, political knowledge, and political ambition. Methods. I employ paired t tests, chi-square tests, and Fisher's exact probability tests on an original dataset of 174 paired pre- and post-test survey responses. My survey improves upon prior works in the ambition literature (Fox and Lawless 2013) by virtue of its field experiment design. Results. My findings indicate that political science coursework has a positive impact on political knowledge, but only among women, and that political science coursework has a negative impact (among women) on one of the most valid measures of political ambition—how likely one is to run for office in the future. Conclusions/Implications. The results have negative normative implications for those trying to use political education as an instrument to reduce the gender gap (see Lawless and Fox 2010, Fox and Lawless 2013) in political ambition. This suggests the need to explore further options for increasing political ambition, particularly among women.
ContributorsWiezel, Adi (Author) / Kittilson, Miki (Thesis advisor) / Fridkin, Kim (Committee member) / Woodall, Gina (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2014
Description
International organizations are ubiquitous in the international system and often intervene in domestic political affairs. Interventions can occur because states do not have adequate infrastructure to govern, because a political regime seeks international legitimation of its rule, or because an intervention may prevent political crisis. Whatever the reason, there are consequences of such interventions for domestic society. This project asks how interventions sanctioned by international organizations affect individual political involvement, specifically attitudes toward democracy and democratic institutions. I theorize and empirically demonstrate that when an international intervention reinforces existing democratic institutions in a state, individual levels of confidence in democracy and levels of trust in democratic institutions improve. By contrast, when an intervention undermines existing democratic institutions, levels of confidence in democracy and trust in democratic institutions decrease. This research is important because it shows that the determinants of individual political engagement are not only domestic, but also affected by international-level phenomena. This means that international organizations and the interventions they regularly employ in states can meaningfully affect the prospects for democratic consolidation.
ContributorsSwagerty, R. Scott (Author) / Kittilson, Miki C (Thesis advisor) / Siroky, David (Committee member) / Abbott, Kenneth (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2015
Description
In 1985 Schotland made the observation that judicial campaigns were becoming “nosier, nastier, and costlier.” Because judicial campaigns are one of very few occasions in which individuals receive information about the bench (Schaffner and Diascro 2007), there is a possibility that such negativity in judicial elections could harm individual perceptions of the legitimacy of state supreme courts (Gibson 2008). This dissertation seeks to uncover the amount of negativity present in judicial campaigns, and to understand the effects of such negativity on perceptions of state courts’ specific and diffuse legitimacy.
To accomplish this goal I first conduct a content analysis of all televised judicial advertisements aired from 2005-2016. While other scholars have examined the use of attack advertisements in judicial elections (Hall 2014), my study is the first to consider ads airing before and after the U.S. Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling that removed spending limits for political groups. I find that neither the use of attack nor contrast advertisements appears to be increasing, though the sponsors of such ads have changed such that candidates and political parties air far fewer negative advertisements, but political groups air more negative ads than they did before Citizens United.
I then conduct a unique experiment to examine the effects of negativity on perceptions of specific and diffuse legitimacy. Unlike previous studies, I include a treatment group for contrast advertisements, which are advertisements containing elements of negativity about a target, as well as positive information about the target’s opponent. I find that, perceptions of the court’s diffuse legitimacy are only moderately influenced by exposure to negative ads. I do however find that contrast advertisements appear to depress perceptions of the court’s diffuse legitimacy by a significant amount for individuals with high knowledge of the courts.
To accomplish this goal I first conduct a content analysis of all televised judicial advertisements aired from 2005-2016. While other scholars have examined the use of attack advertisements in judicial elections (Hall 2014), my study is the first to consider ads airing before and after the U.S. Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling that removed spending limits for political groups. I find that neither the use of attack nor contrast advertisements appears to be increasing, though the sponsors of such ads have changed such that candidates and political parties air far fewer negative advertisements, but political groups air more negative ads than they did before Citizens United.
I then conduct a unique experiment to examine the effects of negativity on perceptions of specific and diffuse legitimacy. Unlike previous studies, I include a treatment group for contrast advertisements, which are advertisements containing elements of negativity about a target, as well as positive information about the target’s opponent. I find that, perceptions of the court’s diffuse legitimacy are only moderately influenced by exposure to negative ads. I do however find that contrast advertisements appear to depress perceptions of the court’s diffuse legitimacy by a significant amount for individuals with high knowledge of the courts.
ContributorsThompson, Joshua Robert (Author) / Hoekstra, Valerie (Thesis advisor) / Fridkin, Kim (Committee member) / Ramirez, Mark (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2018
Description
This thesis paper examines the rise of nationalist parties in the Netherlands from the 1960s to 2015. It examines two major explanations for this growth: increasing numbers of predominantly Islamic immigrants and the increasing powers of the European Union. Concerns with these events have brought neo-nationalist parties to the forefront of the political process. This analysis begins in the 1960s during the depillarization of Dutch society and concludes with Geert Wilders and the Partij voor de Vrijheid.
ContributorsVan Gijlswijk, Christiaan Cornelis (Author) / Bustikova-Siroky, Lenka (Thesis director) / Hechter, Michael (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / School of Politics and Global Studies (Contributor) / School of Human Evolution and Social Change (Contributor)
Created2015-05
Description
The purpose of this research is to identify the factors contributing the resiliency of Syria's President Assad amongst a backdrop of falling authoritarians during the Arab Spring. After determining the Assad's regime's strategies of authoritarian rule both before and after the 2011 uprisings, this paper theorizes what Assad's persistence is most dependent on today by analyzing his discourse throughout the conflict. Assad's framing of the war to the media has significantly legitimized his rule.
ContributorsKassab, Seema (Author) / Parmentier, Mary Jane (Thesis director) / Simon, Sheldon (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Department of Economics (Contributor) / W. P. Carey School of Business (Contributor) / School of Politics and Global Studies (Contributor) / Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law (Contributor)
Created2015-05
Description
This paper examines the development of United States drone policy outside of traditional battle zones. It poses the question of why do states use drones as a projection of force? In particular, the paper examines the expansion of the drone program within a system of democratic checks and balances. It looks at the effect that political and legal influences have had on the expansion of the drone program and hypothesizes that the presence of these constraints should increase drone use outside of traditional battle zones. In order to investigate this hypothesis, the paper looks at data on drone strikes from Yemen and Somalia. The data partially supports the hypothesis as there has not been a clear linear increase in the number of drone strikes in each of these countries. Nevertheless, an examination of the surrounding literature regarding political and legal influences within these countries seems to favorably point to the increase of drone operations. Future research, however, needs to be cognizant of the limitations in gathering specific statistics on drone operations as these operations are covert. It's also important to understand how the covert nature of the drone operations impacts issues regarding political oversight and legality. Lastly, it's important to constantly examine the broader implications drone policy has for US policy.
ContributorsRajan, Rohit Subramaniam (Author) / Wright, Thorin (Thesis director) / Rothenberg, Daniel (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry (Contributor) / School of Politics and Global Studies (Contributor)
Created2015-05
Description
This thesis comparatively examines the percentage of women who have been appointed to federal level Cabinet positions in the United States and Canada between 1980 and 2010. The thesis will first explain the differences in the nation's democratic systems -- presidential and parliamentarian -- to contextualize how each nation elects federal representatives coupled with their process of appointing individuals to Cabinet positions per administration. Then the thesis will briefly explain the basis of the political parties that have been active in each country alongside their prominent ideals, in an effort to understand the impact it has had on the number of women elected to federal positions. Finally, the research will focus on the number of women appointed to Cabinet to demonstrate how an increase in the amount of political parties, creates more competition between political parties, in turn allowing for a higher number of women to be elected as well as appointed to federal positions. In conclusion, the research suggests that liberal party's push forth more women to federal level positions in both countries. Coupled with the fact that the increase in the amount of office holding parties increases competition between parties and increases the number of women appointed to Cabinet.
ContributorsOkula, Victoria (Author) / Shair-Rosenfield, Sarah (Thesis director) / Kittilson, Miki (Committee member) / Department of English (Contributor) / School of Politics and Global Studies (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2018-12