College of Behavioral & Social Sciences
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The collections in this community comprise faculty research works, as well as graduate theses and dissertations..
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Item THE CONTRASTING EFFECTS OF SOCIAL CAPITAL ON NONVIOLENT RESISTANCE: EVIDENCE FROM PERU(2020) CORONADO-CASTELLANOS, PAVEL; Birnir, Johanna; Government and Politics; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This dissertation develops a model to understand the joint role of social capital and nonviolent resistance campaigns to obtain concessions and changes in public goods provision in new democracies and in democracies with weak party systems. The factors that explain variation in effectiveness among nonviolent campaigns have been understudied. By adding social capital to the analysis, this dissertation contributes to filling this theoretical and empirical void. I use data from Perú to provide empirical support to my theory. In Chapter 2, a micro-level theory of nonviolent campaigns is developed. This theory argues that by making cooperation easier, social capital increases the levels of participation in nonviolent campaigns, thereby making concessions more likely. A novel result of this theory is that it shows that social capital is a key feature of social life that can help to generate disruptive collective actions but also to prevent the use of such disruptive means. Thus, under some circumstances, social capital can help to reduce the observed disruptive actions. Chapters 3 and 4 test the theoretical propositions derived in Chapter 2 using Peruvian data. Chapter 3 finds that social capital has a negative statistically significant effect on some types of nonviolent campaigns but positive effects on other types of nonviolent campaigns. Chapter 3 also provides evidence that peasant communities’ organizations in the first half of the 20th century were product of persistence effects of early colonial extractive institutions (i.e. the mining mita) with colonial revolts as important channels of persistence. Chapter 4 shows that nonviolent campaigns and social capital form a positive interactive relationship to affect the provision of public goods at the local level. Social capital makes more likely nonviolent campaign’s success. Chapter 5 summarizes the main conclusions of this dissertation.Item Raising Hope in Bosnia-Herzegovina: Youth, Education, and Peacebuilding in the Post-war State(2018) Schneider, Mary Kate; Soltan, Karol; Tismaneanu, Vladimir; Government and Politics; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)In 1995, the Dayton Peace Agreement (DPA) ended the Bosnian War, a conflict fought along ethnic lines that claimed nearly 100,000 lives. The DPA created a new Bosnian government based on a power-sharing model that allocates political power according to the ethnic composition of the population. Although this arrangement has preserved an uneasy peace in Bosnia-Herzegovina (BiH), it has also produced a political system in which ethnic politics prevail and social divisions are institutionally reinforced, particularly at the local level. Since 1995, institutions such as education have trended toward ‘separate but equal’ models. I argue that this poses a threat to the reconciliation process in BiH. Therefore, the question that this dissertation seeks to address is: what is the effect of ethnically divided education on the post-war generation of Bosnians? To answer this question, the dissertation traces the relationship between the extreme consociationalism first articulated at Dayton and the Bosnian education system, in which 14 education ministries—appointed through an entrenched local tradition of (ethnic) party patronage—have created the competing and often contradictory policies that currently govern Bosnian education. These policies include ethnically separating students into “two schools under one roof,” and adopting curricula and textbooks that favor one ethnic group over another. Because education is integral to identity formation, it stands to reason that education can therefore shape national identity as well as civic and social attitudes. Drawing from original survey data, focus groups, and interviews, I measure the attitudes of third- and fourth-year Bosnian high school students toward other ethnic groups, exploring whether or not there exists a pattern of intolerance that can be traced to school type. Although students across BiH reported largely tolerant attitudes toward other ethnic groups, patterns in the data also suggest that the notion of a codified Bosnian civic national identity is lacking. This lack of civic national identity is problematic because it means that not only is the post-war Bosnian state built upon a foundation of separateness rather than unity, but that little progress on national unity has been made in the twenty-two years since the DPA ended the war.Item ESSAYS ON PHARMACEUTICAL ADVERTISING(2015) DAI, WEJIA (DAISY); JIN, GINGER Z; SWEETING, ANDREW; Economics; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)The dissertation focuses on two distinctive issues in pharmaceutical advertising. One on the matching choices between advertisers and advertising agencies, and the other on the effect of paid-link advertising on consumer search for online pharmacies. The goal of this dissertation is to empirically uncover the underlying economic mechanisms. Moreover, the analysis of matching problem provides new insights on the formation of vertical relationships between clients and professional service agencies and has implications for professional service market consolidations. And the examination of consumer searches for pharmaceuticals online sheds lights on consumers' concerns over quality and affordability of prescription drugs and draws attention on advertising regulation. In the first two chapters, I focus on two essential features of the market for professional services. One is the necessary mutual agreement in forming relationships, and the other is that a client perceives conflict when hiring the same service agency as his product market competitor. To incorporate these two features, I construct and estimate a two-sided matching model and allow agents' choices to depend on conflict. The results show that conflict does indeed reduce match surplus, and the reduction is greater for a pair of agents who have matched with each other in the previous period. Also, preserving previously formed matches yields much higher surplus than forming new matches. Based on these estimates, I conduct a counterfactual exercise to illustrate the effect of conflict on allocation of matches and another counterfactual exercise to illustrate the effect of a merger between advertising agencies on market equilibrium. In the third chapter, coauthored with Matthew Chesnes and Ginger Jin, we examine how government's sudden ban of foreign online pharmacies from paid search on Google and other search engines changes consumer searches for the banned websites. Using click-through data from comScore, we find that non-NABP-certified pharmacies receive fewer clicks after the ban, and this effect is heterogenous. In particular, pharmacies not certified by the NABP but certified by other sources, referred to as tier-B sites, experience a reduction in total clicks, and some of their lost paid clicks are replaced by organic clicks. These results have implications for the change in consumer search cost and health concern.Item THE SPANISH CIVIL WAR: A NEW INSTITUTIONAL INTERPRETATION OF THE SOCIAL ORDER AND MILITARY FACTIONS DURING THE SECOND REPUBLIC (1931-1939)(2014) La Parra Perez, Alvaro; Wallis, John J; Economics; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This dissertation presents a new view that emphasizes the role of intra-elite fights in understanding the failure to consolidate democracy during the Second Spanish Republic. The two traditional explanations have emphasized the action of "blocks" and often reflect the ideological tensions behind the interpretation of the Second Republic. Rather than seeing elites as blocks or focusing on ideological divisions, my view focuses on the heterogeneity of interests within elites and how the redistribution of political and economic rents during the Republic relates to the support or animosity of elite factions vis-à-vis the republican government. I apply my view to one specific Spanish elite -the Army- showing that, contrary to traditional interpretations, the military was a non-monolithic organization that was divided into different factions with conflicting interests. I explore the impact that factional military interests had on officers' chosen side (rebel or loyal) during the Spanish Civil War that ended the Republic. The econometric analysis uses a new data set that identifies officers' sides and uses information from military yearbooks to follow officers' individual histories between 1910 and 1936. The results confirm that the Army was a non-monolithic organization where factions behaved differently and responded to the impact from republican military reforms. Officers in favored corps and those that enjoyed greater promotions between 1931 and 1936 were more likely to support the republican regime. I also explore the effect of hierarchy on officers' choice. Results show that subordinates tended to follow the side chosen by their senior officers.Item Cultural Contingencies of Mediation: Effectiveness of Mediation Styles in Intercultural Disputes(2012) Salmon, Elizabeth; Gelfand, Michele J.; Psychology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)The difficulties of intercultural negotiations are well established, yet few studies have examined the factors that facilitate the successful resolution of these disputes. This research took a dynamic approach and examined the types of mediation tactics that are most effective in intercultural disputes given specific disputant characteristics. One-hundred and ten participants from the United States and Turkey negotiated a community-based dispute using a newly developed virtual lab. Dyads were randomly assigned to negotiate with a formulative computer mediator, a manipulative computer mediator, or in an unmediated control condition. As predicted, the results showed a significant interaction between manipulative mediation and dispute difficulty; manipulative mediation produced better objective and subjective outcomes in dyads that reported difficult disputing conditions than in dyads with favorable conditions. The results support the contingency approach using two new indicators of difficult conditions (generalized trust and cultural intelligence).Item The Role of Cultural Models of Self-Worth in Vicarious Experiences of Wrongdoing(2012) Lyons, Sarah Louise; Gelfand, Michele J; Psychology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This research sought to understand why people from different cultures respond in fundamentally different ways to their own ingroup transgressions. We predicted that in face cultures, where self-worth is defined by one's reputation, ingroup transgressions would elicit vicarious shame and withdrawal tendencies, especially in public; in dignity cultures, however, where self-worth does not depend on reputation and justice is a focal concern, ingroup transgressions would elicit vicarious guilt and reparative behavior. In Study 1, participants responded to hypothetical ingroup transgressions. In Study 2, sorority and fraternity members recalled a time when a group member committed a wrongdoing. In Study 3, we simulated a real ingroup offense in the lab. We found partial support for our hypotheses in Study 1; face predicted distancing behavior, mediated by image-threat appraisals and shame, but only in public. The results in Studies 2 and 3 were less clear, and suggest evidence for motivated distortion.Item I get High with a Little Help from my Friends (and Family): Close Relationships, Distress Tolerance, and Risk-Taking in Adolescence(2012) Ehrlich, Katherine Babcock; Cassidy, Jude A; Psychology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Despite substantial efforts to educate adolescents about the consequences of their risky decisions, adolescent risk behavior remains a significant social and public health problem. The goal of this research was to examine the role of individual and contextual predictors of adolescent health risk behavior and risk-taking measured in the laboratory. Specifically, I examined parent-adolescent relationships and friendships as two contextual predictors of risk, and I measured adolescent distress tolerance as an individual predictor of risk behavior in a longitudinal study of adolescents and their families. In Aim 1, I used a variable-centered approach to examine concurrent and prospective predictors of adolescent risk-taking. In Aim 2, I took a person-oriented statistical approach to the study of adolescent risk-taking by examining whether there are particular groups of adolescents with particular relationship characteristics who were most likely to engage in risky behavior, and whether these groups of adolescents would be more likely to take risks if they had low distress tolerance. Aim 1 analyses revealed that adolescents were most likely to engage in health risk behaviors when they had negative parent-adolescent relationships or positive friendships, but distress tolerance was unrelated to risk-taking. None of the predictors was related to laboratory risk behavior. Aim 2 analyses revealed that the influence of adolescents' relationships on their risk-taking behaviors depended on their ability to tolerate and manage their emotions. Among adolescents with high levels of friendship conflict, distress tolerance served as a protective factor against health risk behavior. Among high distress tolerant adolescents, those who had high parent-adolescent conflict engaged in greater risk-taking than adolescents who had high friendship conflict. Across all analyses, none of the predictors accounted for Time 2 risk behavior after accounting for Time 1 risk-taking in the models. Overall, these findings suggest that adolescents' relationship experiences and distress tolerance relate to risk-taking behaviors, even at an age when adolescents are engaging in relatively low levels of risk behavior. Future research should continue investigating predictors of risk behavior across multiple levels of analysis, with an emphasis on biological, individual, relational, and environmental factors that contribute to risk-taking.Item Sustaining Peace? Environmental and Natural Resource Governance in Liberia and Sierra Leone(2011) Beevers, Michael David; Conca, Ken; Government and Politics; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Over the last decade environmental and natural resources governance has received a growing share of attention on the international peacebuilding agenda. Few studies have scrutinized in detail the role of international peacebuilders or whether reforms and policies help or hinder peacebuilding outcomes. This dissertation examines international efforts to shape the governance of forests in Liberia and diamonds and minerals in Sierra Leone. I find that international peacebuilding organizations frame the challenge in both cases as transforming conflict resources into peace resources for the purpose of reducing the propensity for violence. To accomplish this transformation, international peacebuilders promote and establish governance reforms and policies designed to securitize and marketize the environment and natural resources. I find that, despite producing the potential peace enhancing benefits of increased stability and revenue, rapidly pushing such a transformation strategy comes with significant linked pathologies that run the risk of recreating pre-war political arrangements, provoking societal competition, undermining environmental management and sustainable livelihoods, and creating unrealistic expectations. These effects can produce contention, foster resistance and increase the likelihood of violence in ways that undermine the conditions essential for achieving a long-term peace. An alternative approach would be to mitigate the effects of securitization and marketization by first addressing issues that have historically led to violence and contention in the environmental and natural resources sector, including land ownership and tenure issues, genuine public participation, government corruption and a lack of sustainable livelihoods.Item Ten Years of Dealing with Kim Jong Il: Can Negotiations Ensure Conflict Resolution?(2006-08-07) Grzelczyk, Virginie; Schreurs, Miranda; Government and Politics; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This study investigates the tumultuous negotiation relationship between the Democratic People's Republic of Korea and the United States, from Kim Jong Il's accession to power in 1994 to the historic but short-lived September 19, 2005 agreement. The purpose of this work is to gain understanding regarding North Korea's negotiation strategies, in order to bring contributions to the literature on negotiation, rogue states, and Northeast Asia. The literature lacks a clear understanding of how North Korea has been operating since 1994, at which time Kim Il Sung passed away and power was assumed by his son, Kim Jong Il. Gaining a clear understanding of what has happened under the Kim Jong Il Administration leads to the construction of a comprehensive analysis of all the different bilateral and multilateral negotiation episodes that have occurred between the United States and North Korea from 1994 to 2005. Those episodes range from such diverse issues as two weeks of bilateral talks to free an American pilot who crashed by accident on North Korea territory in December 1994 to years of nuclear talks). This research is qualitative in nature and based on archival and media resources, as well as interviews conducted with those who served under several different administrations in the United States and in Korea, Japan, and China, as well as scholars, politicians and negotiators. The study concludes that there is a distinctive North Korean negotiation strategy, but that this strategy is increasing in complexity and is highly dependent on the United States' position in the world. North Korea is also revealed as a strategic, non-random player that will only rarely compromise on its red line.