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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    POWER AND STATUS IN JUDGING AND PUNISHING IMMORALITY
    (2018) Ho, Hsiang-Yuan; Lucas, Jeffrey W.; Sociology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
    This research offers a framework that explains how observers respond to moral violations when considering the amount of power and status held by violators. It follows the group processes literature on the characteristics of power and status. A proposed theory describes that prior to witnessing moral violations, observers develop moral expectations about potential violators on the basis of the levels of power and status attributed to the violators. When the moral violations occur, the moral expectations about the violators, as well as the resources available to the violators, in turn, affect the judgment and punishment decisions of the observers toward the violators. An online vignette study and a laboratory experiment test my predictions based on the proposed theory by varying the relative levels of perceived power and status between evaluation targets (i.e., violators) and evaluators (i.e., observers). Vignettes used in Study 1 described that observers had lower, equal, or higher power/status compared to violators in hypothetical scenarios. In Study 2, observers were assigned with either lower or higher power/status relative to violators in a group interaction setting in which the observers experienced differential risks of retaliation from the violators. Both studies assessed expectations of observers about the moral character of potential violators before exposing the observers to details of a moral violation committed by the designated violators. Punishment decisions of observers examined in Study 1 were attitudinal measures while those in Study 2 were based on behavioral reactions. Results indicate that prior to the immoral incident, observers developed lower moral expectations about violators with greater power and higher moral expectations about violators holding greater status. However, these expectations did not always translate into moral judgment and punishment. While viewing the violation as immoral regardless of power/status held by the violators, depending on the context, observers might or might not penalize the violators differentially across the power/status spectra. Fears of retaliation from violators who utilized resources attached to varied power and status positions did not affect how observers punished the violators. Therefore, results of the studies suggest a resilient power and status hierarchy despite the disruption of moral norms.
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    To Dictate the Peace: Power, Strategy, and Success in Military Occupations
    (2014) Marcum, Anthony Scott; Huth, Paul K; Government and Politics; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
    The dissertation addresses the following question: why do some states win a war only to lose the occupation whereas other states can successfully impose their preferred outcome via the control of foreign territory? For example, compare the United States' failure in Iraq (2003-2008) to the Allied Powers' success in France (1815-1818). To explain this variation, I develop and test a principal-agent model in which I incorporate the occupied elite's costs of compliance and the occupier's strategies of control. As agents, the occupied elites expect to incur significant domestic and international costs if they consent to the occupier's demands, and thus have strong incentives to not comply. The occupying state can overcome this hostility through a costly exercise of power to shape the choices and manipulate the incentives of elites to influence their decision-making. Occupying states that engage in dictating as a strategy of control are compelling the elites to make a costly choice. By constraining the choice set to compliance or non-compliance with its terms, the occupying power can effectively separate strongly adverse elites from moderately or weakly adverse ones, and thereby gain a commitment to its objectives. Although previous work on occupations recognizes the difficulties in achieving success, the costs of compliance to the elite and the occupiers' strategy of control are largely overlooked in previous scholarship. To evaluate the theoretical argument, I employ two research methods in the project. First, I built an original dataset to test the effects of the costs of compliance and the strategies of control on the outcomes of 137 military occupations that result from interstate wars between 1815 and 2003. The statistical analyses are paired with two plausibility probes: the Chilean Occupation of Peru (1881-1883) and the Soviet Occupation of North Korea (1945-1948). Second, I examine in-depth the American Occupation of Japan from 1945 to 1952. The case study investigates how the costs of compliance - across regime change, economic stabilization, and rearmament - generated resistance among Japanese politicians, and how the Americans exercised their power to dictate that the former comply with the latter's costly terms during the course of the occupation.
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    The Empowerment Paradox: Hope and Helplessness in a Tanzanian Community-Based Cultural Tourism Initiative
    (2014) Stevens, Melissa Aileene; Chambers, Erve; Anthropology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
    Community-based tourism (CBT) has been conceived by its supporters as a pro-poor community development and empowerment strategy. One such initiative is the Longido Cultural Tourism Enterprise, which was established by a Dutch NGO to promote socio-economic development in a Maasai community in northern Tanzania. The enterprise has created opportunities for local participants to build economic and social capital, especially women who do not have many options to earn or control income outside of tourism. However, the promises of tourism are limited by the "tourism gatekeepers" who control access to tourists and the opportunities that they represent. This research explores the paradox of empowerment by investigating the ways that tourism engagement encourages both independence and dependence in Longido, and how conflicting ideas concerning definitions of CBT and its goals affect the residents whose livelihoods have come to depend on tourism. Ethnographic research was conducted in Longido over a period of nine months, and involved participant observation, semi-structured interviews with key informants and Longido residents, a tourist questionnaire, and comparative site visits to other cultural tourism enterprises in Tanzania. This research found that the potential that the Longido enterprise has for transforming relationships of power, particularly between women and men, is limited by the very nature of the community-based tourism (CBT) model employed to achieve this goal. CBT enterprises such as the one in Longido cannot achieve transformative change that leads to the self-determination of its participants when the tourism industry necessitates continued dependence on foreign markets and intermediaries and local people lack market access and knowledge. Attempting to accomplish both development and business goals when they are in direct conflict with one another has led to a failure to fully achieve either. This dissertation concludes that if the Longido enterprise has transformative development as its goal, the CBT model might be the wrong tool. Most significantly, the approach taken in developing and conducting tourism in Longido must consider the diverse priorities and motivations of participants, as well as the touristic relationships of power which limit the agency of local participants in achieving the realization of their own goals in tourism engagement.
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    Alienation and Power: Prison Workers in Prison
    (2013) McGuinn, Stephen Crandall; Wellford, Charles F; Criminology and Criminal Justice; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
    The US incarcerates close to one percent of the adult population. The Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) detains over 200,000 men and women. In order to manage this substantial prisoner population, the Bureau of Prisons employs close to 40,000 individuals. Using multilevel modeling and drawing on data from the yearly Prison Social Climate Survey administered by the BOP, this study poses three questions: (1) How do prison workers perceive institutional power derivation? (2) Do power adoptions impact prison worker perception of effectiveness in inmate management? (3) Does alienation harden prison workers and reduce their ability to effectively manage inmate populations? Results indicate that prisons largely promote formal and constructive power adoptions and these power adoptions improve prisoner management. In addition, alienation harms effective prisoner management and hardens prison workers. Discussion includes implications for theory, policy, and practice.
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    Information Control: Leadership Power in the U.S. House of Representatives
    (2011) Curry, James Michael; Lee, Frances E; Government and Politics; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
    Most congressional scholarship argues that legislative leaders--majority party leaders and committee chairs--are strongly constrained, weak agents of their rank-and-file. This study argues that information, and leaders' ability to control it, is a significant and independent source of power for leaders in the House of Representatives. Most rank-and-file members of Congress lack the time and resources necessary to track, study, or become deeply involved in legislating on most bills considered by the House. As a result, they rely on sources that can synthesize the information they need to decide whether or not to support the bill, offer an amendment, or take other actions. The party leadership and committee chairs, because of their staff and resource advantages, are important sources of information for the rank-and-file. However, legislative leaders often exploit their informational advantages to help their preferred legislation gain easy passage through the chamber. Along with the ability to perpetually collect information on rank-and-file preferences, and provide leadership-approved information about legislation, legislative leaders also have an arsenal of tools to limit the availability of information including withholding legislative language, scheduling votes on short notice, and using large and complex legislation as a vehicle. This information control puts leaders in the driver's seat, allowing them to lead the chamber by shaping the information driving the debate on a bill. Thirty interviews with members of Congress and congressional staff, along with a unique dataset of important legislation considered by the House of Representatives are used to support this theory. Leaders are found to employ information control tactics strategically, to aid the passage of their priority legislation and in response to the potential for significant influence from outside groups. The study, overall, suggests that legislative leaders in the House are more influential than they are typically perceived to be and that participation in congressional policymaking is often restricted.