Government & Politics Theses and Dissertations
Permanent URI for this collectionhttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/2775
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Item ELECTORAL LOSS AND CONTENTION(2019) Patch, Allison Kathryn; Birnir, Johanna K; Government and Politics; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This dissertation is an exploration of the consequences of elections for those kept out of power. I draw from both the winner-loser gap literature, which explores attitude differences between winners and losers following elections focusing on individual voters as they process electoral results, and the electoral contention literature, which examines the causes and consequences of protests, riots, and violence connected to electoral contests focusing on the elites. My dissertation works to bring these two literatures by examining the factors that create opportunities for attitude and behavioral change for those who are unable to access power in the aftermath of elections. The first two papers use surveys to focus on individuals—their personal identities and their attitudes towards democracy and political contention or violence. The third paper examines the motivations of individual leaders in making public accusations of fraud and the consequences these accusations have on the voters’ perception of the legitimacy of elections and the likelihood of electoral contention. Through the ideas explored in these papers, this dissertation provides further context for differences in attitudes between winners and losers towards democracy and contention, while also cautioning some of the more dire predictions of the consequences of the gap in perceptions and attitudes between winners and losers. Additionally, by examining the ramifications of fraud accusations in the wake of election loss, we can see a better picture of the kinds of motivations that can successfully mobilize those out of power to contention.Item OVERCOMING NON-COOPERATION: DESIGNING A PATENT SYSTEM FOR THE PUBLIC(2019) Leaderman, Arthur Isaac; Soltan, Karol E; Government and Politics; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Patents allocate power by assigning exclusive property rights to persons who claim to have discovered new scientific or technical art. Accordingly, infringers can be treated like trespassers. In a longstanding theoretical quarrel, some insist that these exclusive rights serve society as incentives to innovation and as just rewards for inventors. Others counter that learning is socially generated and that intangible ideas should not be privately rationed. Theory aside, the institutional facts are polycentric and modulated. While a dominant regime of codes and treaties indeed protects exclusionary property in ideas, several enduring exceptions (subregimes) counter patent exclusivity. Regulations in the technology domains of environment, energy, pesticides, plant genetic resources, and some pharmaceuticals, for example, sometimes set aside strict exclusionary norms and force a patent holder to include others in a semi-commons of cooperative sharing. This dissertation observes that the polycentricity and variability in the patent system expose resistance to exclusionary property rights in ideas. The resistance is stable and can inspire an institutional redesign that brings inclusive norms into dominance, without forfeit of reasonable social and material rewards for inventors. It further challenges the two prevailing modes of justification for the dominant exclusionary norms. Utilitarian or welfare-maximizing justifications for the exclusionary norms are shown to be both multifarious and conflicting. At the same time, non-consequentialist justifications, under the banner of natural rights for the inventor, stumble because patents can be assigned arbitrarily, waste the resources of non-patent holders, and constrain society’s collective liberties to expand knowledge. This study also supports a “proof of concept” for an alternative, inclusive patent system that 1) operates without prohibitory injunctions; 2) extends licenses-of-right that compensate inventions without deadweight losses; 3) opens application and examination procedures for better patent quality; and 4) expands private ordering of disputes to lower transaction costs. This inclusive alternative is hardly utopian: the aforementioned subregimes significantly validate the practicality of cooperative, non-exclusive norms.Item BY INVITATION ONLY: A LEGISLATIVE THEORY ON PUBLIC LOBBYING AND THE GATEKEEPERS OF INFLUENCE(2019) Vallejo Vera, Sebastián; Calvo, Ernesto; Government and Politics; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)In democratic politics, the participation of interest groups in policymaking is commonly understood as a secluded affair; an exchange were interest groups actively influence the fine print of statutory laws without being observed by the public at large. Why would interest groups and policymakers make public an otherwise private affair? By focusing on the public participation of interest groups in legislative committees, I argue that legislators use the public participation of interest groups in the legislative process as a means to raise the salience of issues they own. By taking advantage of the sequential organization of the legislature, legislators with gatekeeping authority will open the gates of committees to interest groups when the party benefits from the increased public attention and close them when the party does not. Interest groups, on their part, are granted access to micro-manage policy--to benefit from specific modifications of a law--. Evidence to test my arguments comes from an original dataset of 6,989 instances of interest group participation in committee meetings in the Ecuadorian Congress between 1979 and 2018, as well as over 30 semi-structured interviews to interest group representatives, legislators, and congressional staff. I find that, not only are legislators inviting interest groups to participate in issues the party owns, but they are doing so at a greater rate when the exposure of the party brand matters the most: before an election.Item Empathy and Electoral Accountability(2019) McDonald, Jared; Hanmer, Michael; Government and Politics; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)In this dissertation, I examine the important role empathy has on voting behavior and election outcomes. First, I provide a rationale for why Americans find empathy a desirable trait in a leader. I argue that voters desire an empathetic leader, not because empathy is an inherently desirable trait as the literature so often assumes, but because this form of caring indicates that a politician is uniquely motivated and qualified to help others. And whereas prior scholarship emphasizes partisanship and global evaluations of politicians on support, I show how perceptions of empathy can serve as a heuristic for voters. This heuristic is especially important when voters do not have a partisan affiliation to influence their vote, such as in the case of pure independent voters and partisan voters in primaries. Second, I present a theory to explain why some politicians are perceived as more empathetic than others. Perceptions of empathy, I argue, are shaped largely by the presence of commonalities that link voters with a politician. In discussing the importance of commonalities, I differentiate between sympathy and empathy. I argue that empathy in a politician, or their ability to walk in another’s shoes, is more powerful than sympathy as a motivator of support. When a politician simply claims to “care” for the average American, voters may be skeptical. By demonstrating a common link with the voter, the politician overcomes what I call the “sincerity barrier,” or the tendency of individuals to approach the promises of politicians with skepticism. The key theoretical contribution in this dissertation is a classification scheme for the types of commonalities perceived by voters that lead to stronger perceptions of empathy: 1) a shared experience; 2) a shared emotion; or 3) a shared identity. To support this theory, I rely on a mixed-method approach, using in-depth interviews with political professionals, nationally representative surveys, and behavioral experiments.Item Intersectional Stereotyping in Political Campaigns(2019) Hicks, Heather Mary; Banks, Antoine J.; Government and Politics; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Political scientists have debated whether gender stereotypes influence support for women candidates. Similarly, scholars have examined how racism among whites affects evaluations of minority candidates. Yet, rarely have political scientists considered how racism and gender bias intersect when a female minority candidate runs for office. In this dissertation, I propose a theory of intersectional stereotyping, which argues that evaluations of black women candidates are influenced by unique stereotypes based on the intersection of race and gender. Specifically, I argue that stereotypes associating black women with agentic traits (such as assertiveness, dominance, and anger) put black women at a disadvantage when they run for elected office. I hypothesize that members of racial or gender out-groups will penalize black women candidates when they receive campaign information consistent with these agentic stereotypes. On the other hand, I expect that black women will reward an agentic black female candidate because these traits suggest that the candidate is willing and able to stand up for the interests of black women. I test these expectations using a content analysis and two national survey experiments (one using a sample of whites and the other using a sample of blacks). In my content analysis of the 2018 Democratic primary for governor of Georgia, I find that Stacey Abrams, the black female candidate, was more likely to be described with agentic traits, especially negative agentic traits, in newspaper coverage than Stacey Evans, her white female opponent. My experimental data demonstrates that this media coverage of agentic traits puts black women at a disadvantage among white voters. White voters are more likely to penalize a black female candidate for acting in an assertive manner than identical white female and black male candidates. However, I find no penalty or reward for the assertive black female candidate among black voters. This research underscores the importance of studying the influence of race and gender in politics simultaneously. We cannot fully understand the effects of race and gender on support for minority women candidates by studying these concepts in isolation from one another.Item Corruption, Reform, and Revolution in Africa's Third Wave of Protest(2019) Lewis, Jacob Scott; McCauley, John F; Government and Politics; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)What explains diverging calls for reform and revolution in Africa over the past ten years? African countries have made substantial strides toward actual democratic devel-opment, including a concerted effort to address corruption. As African democracies have strengthened, calls by citizens for anti-corruption reform have grown, highlighting the progress that is being made. Yet, in recent years, some anti-corruption movements have called instead for revolution - completely replacing the state or seceding altogether. What explains these calls for revolution? I argue that we need to understand how differ-ent types of corruption shape contentious goals. When corruption generates material benefits, citizens lose trust in politicians but do not lose trust in the system. In response, they call for reform, seeking to improve the system. When corruption generates system-ic benefits (distorting the system altogether), citizens lose trust in the institutions and instead call for revolution. I test this using individual-level data from survey experi-ments as well as large-n surveys, and group-level data using statistical analysis of pro-test events as well as case studies. I find strong support that types of corruption matter greatly in shaping contentious politics in Africa.Item The Strategy of Civil Conflict: The Determinants of Conflict Intensity and Effect of Intensity on Duration(2019) Plettner, Theodore; Reed, William; Government and Politics; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Conflict onset and duration have been studied extensively, however the dynamics of what happens within a conflict have received much less attention. At the center of the issue of conflict dynamics is conflict intensity. Some civil conflicts resemble interstate wars with armies using conventional tactics which kill thousands of people per year, while many others consist of small guerrilla conflicts that kill only dozens. The capabilities of the rebel groups in these conflicts determine the tactics they will adopt, which in turn determines how intensely the conflict will be fought. Foreign intervention into civil conflicts influences the tactical decisions of actors, further increasing conflict intensity. To add to the disastrous effects of high-intensity conflicts, when intensity increases, conflicts also last longer, increasing the period over which the damage from these conflicts is inflicted.Item DUAL IDENTITY AND ETHNIC PROTEST IN DIVERSE SOCIETIES(2019) Ives, Brandon Jeffrey; Cunningham, David E; Government and Politics; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)What are the conditions in which some countries experience ethnic protests, while others do not? What are the conditions in which an ethnic community member will protest? What explains why some ethnic community members initiate an ethnic protest and some join later? Ethnicity is a crucial societal cleavage and ethnic protest a critical subtype of protest. It is not gender or class that challenge the territorial sovereignty of states, but ethnic-based opposition groups, often in the form of self-determination movements, that make the most extreme demands in terms of separatist policies. This dissertation adjudicates between conflicting expectations in the literature for why ethnic community members protest and why countries experience ethnic protest. It argues that an ethnic member’s decision to join an ethnic protest is affected by whether the ethnic member identifies primarily with the ethnic group, or with the ethnic group and the national group (dual identity) as well as if the ethnic member resides in a democracy or non-democracy. An ethnic member’s likelihood of ethnic protest participation impacts a country’s likelihood of ethnic protest. A multimethod approach tests the theoretical expectations. Survey-experiments amongst Afro-Panamanians in Panama (which is a democracy), and Greek Orthodox in Lebanon (which is less democratic) examine the micro-level expectations. Interviews with Syrian refugees in Lebanon and with Syrians in Syria via Skype complement the survey-experimental work. The micro-level analysis finds that in non-democracies, dual identity is associated with a decrease in ethnic protest participation likelihood. The decrease is greater during later stages of an ethnic protest. In democracies, however, higher levels of dual identity do not associate with a decrease in ethnic protest participation likelihood. Event data and Afrobarometer survey data are used to examine the conditions in which countries experience ethnic protest. Consistent with the micro-level analysis, in non-democracies, dual identity is associated with a decrease in ethnic protest likelihood. The dissertation finds a previously unexplored conditional effect of identity. In non-democracies, even with a simultaneous ethnic identity, maintaining a national identity can decrease intent to protest.Item TRUTH COMMISSIONS IN TRANSNATIONAL PERSPECTIVE. WORKING THROUGH THE PAST IN CHILE AND ROMANIA(2019) Garcia, Andres; Tismaneanu, Vladimir; Government and Politics; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Truth commissions are an active deliberative process. Outgoing and incoming politicians, government and opposition parties, victim’s groups, civil society, human rights organizations, the judiciary, and the media participate in truth commission processes to achieve multiple objectives. What makes them essentially deliberative is that the commissioners and the staff constantly makes choices when they define such basic objectives as truth, reconciliation, justice and memory and decide how those objectives should be met and whose needs should be served. Inevitably, there will be winners and losers in a truth commission process. Thus, assessing the conditions under which truth commissions are likely to emerge is vitally important in order to understand how truth commissions are capable of influencing policy.Item Home Field Advantage: Roots, Reelection, and Representation in the Modern Congress(2019) Hunt, Charles Russell; Miler, Kristina; Government and Politics; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Prior scholarship has alluded to the importance of biography and other differentiating characteristics between candidates that are reflected in divergent electoral support from their voters. However, recent trends in partisanship and nationalization of congressional elections have led many to believe that these differences are no longer meaningful to voters or elites. In this dissertation, I argue for the continued importance of one aspect of the constituent relationship that has gone previously unstudied: the lived local roots in their districts that members of Congress often (but do not always) share with their constituents. I argue that the shared local identity that emerges from these mutual roots strengthens these legislators’ constituent relationships, and as a result improve legislators’ electoral dynamics in their districts. This project has multiple theoretical and empirical aims: first, to disentangle the concept of local district roots from related but ultimately distinct concepts like the incumbency advantage, “home styles”, and the personal vote; second, to use originally-collected biographical data from nearly 3,000 members of Congress to more precisely specify what district roots are, and to capture the full breadth of benefits they provide both legislators and constituents; and finally, to use advanced quantitative methods to demonstrate the significant positive effects that district roots continue to have on the quality and durability of a legislator’s relationship with their constituents. I first demonstrate in Chapter 3 that when legislators have deep local roots in their district, they are uniquely suited to cross-cut partisanship and outperform their party's presidential nominee in their district. In Chapter 4, I demonstrate that deeply rooted legislators have broader, more supportive constituencies than similarly-situated legislators without District route, and that as a result they outperformed expectations in both the primary and general election stages. Finally, in Chapter 5, I show that in part because they are so influential the legislator-constituent relationship, district roots also have a significant effect on legislators’ campaign spending activity. Deeply-rooted legislators require significantly less campaign spending to achieve results comparable to otherwise-similar legislators without deep local roots; and when they do spend, they do so at much higher proportions within the geographic confines of their districts. All three sets of results demonstrate that district roots are not only an important component of many legislators’ relationships with their constituents, but are also positive conditioners of their electoral dynamics in the district. I close in Chapter 6 by summarizing my results, and by laying out several noteworthy implications that these findings have on future research in congressional elections and representation. I also make a broader case for why, in many circumstances, deep local roots in the district are a normatively desirable component of congressional representation.