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 Credible Commitments and Post-Conflict Refugee Return: A Statistical and Network Analysis(2016) Creed, Daniel Patrick; Calvo, Ernesto; Government and Politics; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)I examine determinants of refugee return after conflicts. I argue that institutional constraints placed on the executive provide a credible commitment that signals to refugees that the conditions required for durable return will be created. This results in increased return flows for refugees. Further, when credible commitments are stronger in the country of origin than in the country of asylum, the level of return increases. Finally, I find that specific commitments made to refugees in the peace agreement do not lead to increased return because they are not credible without institutional constraints. Using data on returnees that has only recently been made available, along with network analysis and an original coding of the provisions in refugee agreements, statistical results are found to support this theory. An examination of cases in Djibouti, Sierra Leone, and Liberia provides additional support for this argument.Item AN OCCUPATION WITH DEMOCRATIZATION: A MARGINAL VALUE APPROACH TO UNDERSTANDING THE CONSOLIDATION OF IMPOSED DEMOCRATIC REGIMES(2013) Mathewson, Jesse-Douglas Robert; Soltan, Karol; Government and Politics; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)The dissertation attempts to understand the causes and correlates of democratic consolidation in occupied territories. A Marginal Value Model attempts to explain the consolidation of democracy in these cases as a function of international threat dynamics and the relationship between the occupiers and the occupied regime. The dissertation tests the Marginal Value Model and its corresponding hypotheses against four case studies: post-WWI Germany, post-WWII Germany, Japan and Korea. The study finds that democracies are more likely to consolidate when there is an external threat, when the occupier credibly protects the new regime against this threat, and when the occupier provides additional goods to the domestic population. These tests find support for the Marginal Value Model and its corresponding hypotheses.Item Democracy and State Repression: What we Don't Know, Can Kill Us(2009) Armstrong II, David; Davenport, Christian; Government and Politics; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)There is an overwhelming amount of empirical evidence that democracy makes states more pacific toward their citizens. This robust finding has left scholars working in this area confident that they know {\em why} democracy causes states to be more pacific. I argue this is not true for two reasons. First, the theories adopted to explain this relationship have not been properly tested. Second, when good faith efforts have been made to test theories, measurement of all key variables has not been treated rigorously. I solve both of these problems by revisiting the theories upon which the literature rests and using a rigorous measurement strategy that is as true as possible to the theories proposed. I show that while the theories are up to the task of explaining the relationship, often the data are the weak link. Often, there is relatively little variation on the dependent and key independent variables. Thus, I show that most of the results generated in the literature are of the between-country variety rather than the within-country variety.Item Abortion Escorts and Democratic Participation(2008-04-16) Maloney, Steven Douglas; Alford, Charles F; Government and Politics; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)My dissertation explores the theoretical value of political participation. I argue that some acts of political participation, such as abortion escorting, constitute "political action" as Hannah Arendt used the term. These acts do not fall under the umbrella of either civil society or activism. A more nuanced account of political participation is needed. This account must include participatory, deliberative, and republican ideals, and it must take political action more seriously than the predominant procedural, communicative, or economic visions of liberalism currently do. Here, abortion escorts exemplify the type of political participation that Hannah Arendt argued was missing at Little Rock Central High School during the period of integration. Arendt called for citizen escorts during integration, and abortion escorting provides a positive example of this behavior today. Arendt confessed she was moved to write her essay only from a photograph that she saw, and she was criticized for her lack of fieldwork. However, I went into the field to observe abortion escorting. Moreover, while Arendt's factual statements about integration and American racial politics have been somewhat discredited, I argue there are still important theoretical insights in her essay--and in Arendt's theoretical work more broadly--that need resuscitating even if her empirical account is troubled at times. As such, I use abortion escorts as an example--a means of rescuing Arendt's theory of political action and integrating it into a contemporary body of American political theory that has been both inspired by Arendt and unsettled by her contributionsItem The Bureaucratic Politics of Democracy Promotion: The Russian Democratization Project(2006-04-27) Nelson, Susan H.; Kaminski, Bartlomiej; Government and Politics; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)At the outset of the Clinton Administration, relations with Russia and assisting its transition to a market democracy sat at the top of the U.S. foreign policy agenda. Analysis of democracy promotion in Russia in the 1990s reveals three distinct levels of activity. First, through legislation and public statements, the U.S. foreign policy elite set the goals to assist the new independent states of the former Soviet Union in developing the rule of law with an independent judiciary, market economy, plural representative political institutions including free and fair elections, and civil society with independent media. Second, accomplishing these goals fell to the key foreign affairs agencies--the State Department, U.S. Agency for International Development, and the U.S. Information Agency--to translate them into actionable democracy promotion programs. Finally, through federal acquisition regulations and institutional procedures, those agencies conducted competitions and awarded grants to U.S. non-governmental organizations to design and implement programs in country to build market democracies in the former Soviet space. Analysis of this three-tiered process suggested that democracy promotion programs in the 1990s were designed and implemented in isolation from one another. By the end of the decade, Russia clearly had not made the progress in economic and political reform, which U.S. officials initially expected. Russia's internal dynamics, over which the U.S. had no control, hindered external assistance efforts. Because building democracy is such a complex and long-term internal process, external actors could not create democracy where the ground was not fertile. In order for democratic institutions to take root, the Russian population needed to be open to democratic values like transparency, accountability, tolerance, and political participation. Democracy programs needed to be customized, taking into account the relationships among political and economic institutions, rule of law, and civil society on the ground. Targeting elements of a market democracy individually created gaps and relegated some important programs, particularly targeting the rule of law, to lower priorities. Greater attention to connecting people through educational exchanges and sharing information through Internet access would have helped prepare the ground for democracy.Item Brushing History Against the Grain: What The Experience of East European Dissent Teaches us about Democracy(2005-04-04) Kammas, Anthony; Tismaneanu, Vladimir; Government and Politics; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)After the fall of communism in Europe, it was thought that those in the East would look westward to learn about building stable, vibrant democracies. This dissertation, however, proceeds against the current, and considers what the East can teach the West (and the world in general) about the as-of-yet-unexplored possibilities latent within democratic politics. While focusing on the role of the post- and non-Marxist Left in Eastern Europe, my research explains how radical, emancipatory thought and engagement took a non-violent, democratic turn, and subsequently aided in the development of what later came to be known as civil society. Thus, my dissertation offers an answer to the following question: What can the Left's role in the revival of engaged citizenship and democratic politics in Eastern Europe teach us about confronting the enduring dilemmas associated with making democracy work? The analysis critically assesses the East European dissident experience, between the crushing of Czechoslovakia's Prague Spring (1968) and the East European revolutions of 1989. It finds that democracy was able to develop in this hostile environment because the opposition remained committed to a non-violent, pluralist spirit of radical political theory and praxis. Furthermore, by revisiting the emergence of democracy precisely where it was not permitted to exist, this research re-presents the East European dissident experience as a constellation of ideas and actions that challenges us to reconsider contemporary forms of citizenship, political engagement, and democracy.Item The Role of Religion in Alexis de Tocqueville's Democracy in America(2004-11-17) Tishman, Primrose Pratt; Butterworth, Charles E; Government and Politics; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)ABSTRACT Title of Dissertation: THE ROLE OF RELIGION IN ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE'S DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA Primrose Pratt Tishman, Doctor of Philosophy, 2004 Dissertation directed by: Professor Charles E. Butterworth Department of Government and Politics This study explores the influence of Montesquieu, Rousseau and Pascal on Tocqueville's religious teaching to show that it has two components: (a) to provide for order in the disordered democratic state and (b) to satisfy a primordial human need for the eternal. The analysis follows Tocqueville's own method of contrast and analogy to show how the harmonious combination of the teaching of the enlightenment with religion in America on the one hand and their discordant linking in France on the other produced opposite consequences for liberty. The study examines why Tocqueville insists that the mutual dependence of religion and liberty is more necessary in democracy than in aristocracy. Second, it demonstrates how Montesquieu's teaching helps Tocqueville to explain the American religious phenomenon, which combines an equal fervor for material well-being with systematic piety. Third, it explores how Tocqueville modifies Rousseau's teaching on opinion to promote religion as the appropriate source of moral authority in democracy. Fourth, it uncovers how Tocqueville combines selected elements of Rousseau's natural religion with Montesquieu's concept of virtue as enlightened interest and the moralistic language of Pascal to encourage religious habits that conform to the inclinations of the democratic intellect and sentiment. Finally, it explores how Tocqueville's teaching can help thoughtful Americans deliberate about the moral issues that confront the U.S. today. Tocqueville's teaching draws attention to the precarious position of liberty in egalitarian societies where the instinct for individual independence causes human beings to become amoral and apolitical. Equality induces them to become totally absorbed with the pursuit of material well-being and thus to direct all personal intellectual resources toward that goal, making common opinion the sole guide of reason in all other matters. Moreover, since laws usually reflect changing opinions Tocqueville affirms that religion-- the only fixed point around which human beings can orient themselvesmust be used to sustain liberty by making it the foundation of public opinion.Item Champions of the Public or Purveyors of Elite Perspectives? Interest Group Activity in Information and Communications Policy(2004-07-06) Sherman, Tina Won; McIntosh, Wayne; Government and Politics; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Communication is a valuable tool of democratic politics as it is used by citizens to persuade decision-makers, and it also allows groups to come together and provide citizens with information about the polity. Today, communication that relies on the Internet plays an increasing role in how information is exchanged between citizens. Theorists assert that the democratic potential of the Internet and related communication technologies is great, given that citizens are able to serve as both producers and receivers of information. Yet, the policies that underlie the communications industry and the technologies it produces can limit that potential. This industry and its technologies are influenced by business interests that can limit democratic potential in favor of marketplace demands, leaving the policymaking process described in arenas, including as information and communications (info-comm) policy, as more elitist in nature than political scientists would otherwise like to believe. This study seeks to examine how elitism impacts the public interest position furthered by info-comm groups by exploring the following paradox: the leadership of the info-comm policy community help citizens participate in politics while at the same time deem the public generally unaware and uninformed on info-comm policy issues. This study's primary research question asks whether leadership of the info-comm policy community inform themselves about the public interest through dialogue with citizens. The secondary question for this research observes whether the leadership of the info-comm policy community approach their decision-making in a democratic fashion. These research questions and related propositions were tested through semi-structured interviews with the leadership of the info-comm policy community, including info-comm group leaders and the foundation grant officers that financially support them. The responses of the interviewees illustrate the impact of elitism on the formulation of policy positions by leaders and pose further considerations for the activities of this policy community. The findings of this study support the aforementioned paradox, suggesting that the public's voice in this policy arena may be more limited than we would otherwise expect. This could have implications for the future direction of info-comm policy and its related technologies, ultimately limiting the citizen participation in democratic deliberation.