Theses and Dissertations from UMD
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Item MORE THAN JUST ‘MOB VIOLENCE’: AN IN-DEPTH LOOK AT VIGILANTE VIOLENCE IN SOUTH AFRICAN TOWNSHIPS(2016) Gross, Mark; Madhavan, Sangeetha; Villarreal, Andres; Sociology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Vigilante violence is generally understood as an alternative means of controlling crime and providing security where the state does not. It has been found in nearly all modern societies at one point or another. Currently, in South Africa, vigilantism is common, accounting for roughly 5% of daily homicides. Despite its ubiquity, vigilante violence has largely been ignored by scholars, and in South Africa, vigilante violence tends to be dismissed as “mob violence.” This dissertation draws on extensive fieldwork, multiple qualitative and quantitative data sources, and different theoretical and methodological approaches, to provide a comprehensive analysis of vigilante violence in Gauteng, South Africa. The first paper address critical theoretical issues surrounding the role of weak and failed states in fostering vigilantism. In this analysis, I use large-scale quantitative data from the Gauteng City-Region Observatory 2013 Quality of Life Survey and an independently compiled database of newspaper articles detailing incidents of vigilantism in Gauteng. I employ measures of perceptions of government performance and the provision of state security to test the relationship between perceived state legitimacy and vigilante violence. I find that negative perceptions of government performance are actually associated with decreases in vigilante violence, while negative perceptions of state security are associated with increases. The second paper utilizes the same data sources and uses the well-establish social disorganization ad neighborhood effects literature to examine the relationship between neighborhood cohesion, collective efficacy, and vigilante violence. I find that, in contrast to existing research, higher levels of neighborhood cohesion and collective efficacy actually result in more incidents of vigilante violence. The third paper expands upon the micro-sociological perspective of violence developed by Collins (2008), “forward panic,” the process whereby the tension and fear marking most potentially violent situations is suddenly released, bringing about extraordinary acts of violence. Analysis of in-depth interviews shows that episodes of vigilante violence in townships are often clearly episodes of forward panic. Although the concept of forward panic focuses on individuals, I argue that if the pre-conditions that foster forward panics in individuals are structural, there is the potential for forward panic in entire groups or parts of communities.Item Passing It Forward: Intervening and Moderating Mechanisms in the Supportive Leadership Cascading Process(2011) Sharma, Payal Nangia; Chen, Gilad; Business and Management: Management & Organization; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Using survey data collected from enlisted soldiers and non-commissioned officers (NCOs) nested in platoons in the U.S. Army, my dissertation examines intervening and moderating mechanisms in the cascading process of supportive leadership. Typically cascading studies focus on influence processes occurring in dyadic settings, neglect to consider boundary conditions, and utilize a group mean approach to analyzing the phenomenon. In my study, however, I find support for a conditional indirect effect of cascading supportive leadership at the group level, such that supportive leadership by groups of upper-level leaders (officers) promotes social cohesion for groups of lower-level leaders (NCOs) under high levels of combat exposure. In turn, lower-level social cohesion is positively linked with supportive leadership by groups of leaders at lower organizational levels. In addition, analyses using within-unit standard deviations of the substantive measures (i.e., strength) indicate that combat exposure strength moderates the relationship between upper-level supportive leadership strength and lower-level social cohesion strength, such that the positive relationship is stronger when combat exposure strength is higher (i.e., when within-unit standard deviation in combat exposure is lower).Item Family Structure and Adolescent Well Being: The Mediating Effects of Family Cohesion and Parental Leadership(2010) Messina, Lauren A.; Leslie, Leigh; Family Studies; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Research comparing single-parent households to two-parent households suggests better outcomes for adolescents of two-parent households. Much of this research has narrowly focused on assessing the benefits of family structure. The current study explores the family processes of family cohesion and parental leadership as mediators of child well-being in single and two-parent families. Child well-being is assessed through using adolescent self reports of attachment style. Findings indicate no relationship between the proposed mediators, family structure, and adolescent secure attachment. Family structure did not have an impact on the potential mediating variables so mediation could not be established. The possible meaning of the lack of relationship in this sample is discussed.