Government & Politics
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Item DOMESTIC AND INTERNATIONAL POLITICAL LOGIC OF CHINESE AND RUSSIAN HISTORICAL MYTHMAKING OF WWII(2024) Gao, Kainan; Pearson, Margaret; Kastner, Scott; Government and Politics; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Both President Xi Jinping and President Vladimir Putin are waging wars on “historical nihilism” to eradicate rival interpretations of important historical events to enhance regime survival and to advance geopolitical ambitions. In contrast to the political significance and the far-reaching policy implications of historical issues in China and Russia, the politics of historical mythmaking is a disproportionately undertheorized and understudied area in political science. My dissertation addresses this gap by unpacking the political logic of Chinese and Russian official historical mythmaking. What the Chinese and Russian states gain from manipulating historical discourse? Under what conditions do the Chinese and Russian states intensify their historical mythmaking? What are the implications of their historical mythmaking, both in domestic politics and in international relations? These are the questions I seek to answer in this dissertation. I argue that perceived Chinese and Russian past righteousness offers powerful normative justifications for the paternalistic states and for the geopolitical ambitions of both nations. Through in-depth case studies using congruence analysis approach, this dissertation shows that Chinese and Russian states are more confident in exploiting the nation-building utilities of historical narratives when their rivals with strong claims over the past righteousness become weakened; meanwhile, Chinese and Russian perception of western deviation from orthodox interpretation of Yalta-Potsdam framework constitutes the essence of Chinese and Russian dissatisfactions towards the West in post-Cold War period; lastly, Chinese and Russian states’ mythmaking of WWII experiences, as a pushback against perceived “historical nihilism”, become intensified when they expect weakening future bargaining leverage. For practical implications, based on the insights from this dissertation I contend that lasting peace is not attainable without achieving historical synthesis among the world’s major great powers. Both Chinese and Russian obsession with historical truth and western ahistoricism are detrimental to a truly just international order.Item Taking Get Set Seriously: Young Adults Delay in Running for Office(2024) Sheaff, Simon Phillip Thomas; Hanmer, Mike; Rouse, Stella; Government and Politics; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Young adults are drastically underrepresented at every level of government. This is not a necessary outcome of any political system and thus requires explanation. This dissertation focuses on the lack of young adult representation in state legislatures, a traditional steppingstone to higher office. Several different theories for the underrepresentation are proposed and tested. The results critically suggest thinking about young adults not as those who are choosing to stay outside of the political sphere, but as potential actors who have not yet been pushed into action.Item TIES THAT MATTER: THREE ESSAYS ON COOPERATION AMONG ARMED NONSTATE ORGANIZATIONS(2024) Yarlagadda, Rithvik; Cunningham, David; Government and Politics; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Armed non-state groups frequently cooperate with other groups, even to the point of allyingwith them. This dissertation examines the role of group leaders in understanding when and to what extent do armed groups cooperate, and the impact that cooperation has on the severity of terrorist violence. When operating in complex environments such as civil wars, armed groups face information barriers in credibly signaling to other groups about their willingness to engage in cooperation. I argue that group leader’s length of time in power and their prewar experiences help resolve the information uncertainty and promote cooperation between armed groups. Prior to assuming power, some leaders participate in a variety of military and political activities. These prewar leader experiences, I argue, condition the type of armed group cooperation that occurs during civil wars. Furthermore, I also explore if and how cooperation influences the violent behavior of armed groups. Specifically, I argue that in addition to the number of cooperative ties, the diversity and directionality of support within those ties also matter equally, if not more, in affecting the severity of armed group violence. Using a large-N design, I conduct a variety of statistical models to test my hypotheses related to the incidence, type, and effects of cooperation among armed groups. My findings show that leader tenure is positively and statistically significantly associated with the occurrence of armed group cooperation. I also find that leaders with prior military experience are more likely to engage in informal ties while prior political experience increases the odds of formal cooperation in a statistically significant manner. Lastly, the proportion of cooperative ties in which an armed group is the major provider of support is shown to have a negative and statistically significant impact on violence lethality. Overall, this study demonstrates the value of leaders in understanding the nature of armed group interactions. Cooperative ties involving armed groups are not necessarily uniform and it is recommended that both scholars and policy makers should consider the heterogeneity in ties when evaluating the risks posed by armed groups.Item Firm Connectivity and Trade Protection under Global Value Chains(2024) Park, Kee Hyun; Allee, Todd; Government and Politics; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Antidumping (AD) duties have been the most widely used trade policy globally to protect domestic industries from foreign competition. Prior research assumes that firms within domestic industries will demonstrate a united stance in petitioning their home government for AD protection, and that the political salience of unified domestic industries will compel the home governments to grant protection. However, I find that many firms in the same industry remain silent or oppose these petitions, even though AD aims to protect the entire industry. I offer a firm-level theory that explains how a firm’s business connections with foreign firms shapes its AD participation. As a domestic firm connects with foreign firms, two sources make it vulnerable to potential costs generated if AD duties harm foreign firms with whom it is connected. First, foreign firms can pass along the costs of AD to the domestic firm by increasing the prices of inputs or by cutting demand for products they sell to or buy from the domestic firm. Second, targeted governments can impose various trade and investment barriers on the domestic firm’s business in the target country’s market. I test my theory with a new firm-level dataset that accounts for all domestic firms involvedin US AD cases between 2010 and 2020, matched with millions of shipment records representing their foreign connections. I find that firms that are more sensitive to trade and have more foreign affiliates are less likely to participate in AD. Next, I demonstrate that the previously identified firm participation in AD significantly reduces the probability that the US International Trade Commission (ITC) will accept the petition and impose AD. I first show that the ITC is largely insulated from external political pressure and that its investigation operates like a quasi-judicial procedure, through which the ITC (i.e., the judge) collects information from supporting firms (i.e., the plaintiff) and the opposing firms (i.e., the defendant) to identify the causal link between foreign dumping and material injury to the domestic industry. Under such a setting, information from opposing firms can help the ITC identify and counteract potentially biased information from the supporting firms, making rejection of the petition more likely. I test my argument by examining the ITC’s AD decisions between 2010 and 2020, using the previously-constructed dataset accompanied by data taken from the ITC’s final reports on these cases. I find that greater opposition from domestic firms in an AD case makes an AD petition more likely to be rejected. This dissertation offers a more precise understanding of the origins and outcomes of antidumping duties through a firm-based approach, which bring the AD literature in line with more recent scholarship on trade. The dissertation also demonstrates the value of rule-based and transparent trade policymaking in the context of antidumping duties, providing important policy lessons for the current era of rising protectionism.Item Black Racial Grievance, Black American Identity, and Black Political Participation(2024) St Sume, Jennifer; Laird, Chryl; Government and Politics; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This dissertation explores the relationship among Black racial grievance, Black American identity, and Black political participation. Black racial grievance is defined as the extent to which Black individuals believe their racial group is mistreated in the United States. This study is divided into three articles. The first article explores the link between Black racial grievance and Black American identity. Political science research has found that racial discrimination makes Black people feel less American (Huddy and Khatib 2007; Kam and Ramos 2008; Theiss-Morse 2009; Levundusky 2017). However, the consequences of discrimination and how they shape what it means to be a Black American remain underexplored. This paper addresses this critical gap, arguing that Black Americans consider their racial group’s treatment and the consequences of this treatment in their self-conception as Americans. I propose a new six-item measure of Black racial grievance, capturing Black perceptions of unfair treatment regarding their racial group, the current significance of racial grievance, and their awareness of these grievances across social, political, and economic domains. Using two national samples, I find that Black people who score higher on the racial grievance measure—indicative of a belief that the mistreatment of their racial group is a problem to be addressed across American society —feel less American. These findings underscore the importance of institutional inequality in Black politics. The second article examines the relationship between Black racial grievance and Black political participation. Previous research has employed measures such as relative deprivation, group consciousness, politicized collective identity, and linked fate to predict Black political participation. However, these measures fail to explain how individuals define their personal Black racial grievance, overlooking how these grievances shape Black participation. These shortcomings are driven by the assumption that little variation exists in Black political behavior. Accordingly, I argue that Black Americans rely on specific evaluations of racial grievance to determine whether to participate in politics. I develop a refined measure of Black racial grievance that captures the extent to which an individual perceives their racial group as being treated unfairly across various domains. I validate this measure through factor analysis and assess its robustness by comparing it to previous measures. As a proof of concept, I find that Black people who score higher on the racial grievance scale—those who feel their group is treated unfairly in more domains of society—and feel strongly attached to their racial group are more likely to participate in politics. The third article investigates the causal links among Black racial grievance, Black American identity, and Black political participation. Current research suggests that Black participation is motivated by perceptions of discrimination (Klandermans, 2014). To date, scant research has explored the interplay among Black racial grievance, Black American identity, and Black political participation. Therefore, this study addresses this gap by evaluating how Black racial grievance shapes political behavior among Black Americans. Using data from a national survey of 505 Black adults, I introduce a new measure of Black racial grievance and explore its impact on political engagement. The findings reveal that while experiencing racial discrimination increases racial grievance, it also complicates the relationship with political participation. Specifically, elevated levels of racial grievance correlate with decreased political participation in contexts where individuals feel disillusioned with the prospect of systemic changes. Thus, Black people with high Black racial grievance may choose not to vote or engage in political campaigns if they believe these actions will not lead to meaningful change. This article illustrates how Black racial grievance can sometimes hinder political action. Overall, this dissertation offers three significant contributions to the study of Black political behavior. First, it provides a novel framework to explain how Black people process racial mistreatment. Second, it highlights the intricate interplay among racial grievance, identity, and political action. Third, it lays the groundwork for future research on policy interventions tailored to the unique challenges faced by Black Americans. Ultimately, this work enhances the understanding of systemic marginalization and improves the ability to foster a more inclusive and equitable democracy.Item Popular Backlash to Language Assimilation Regimes(2024) Derks, John William; McCauley, John; Government and Politics; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Do assimilationist restrictions on a minority language lead to greater national unity or a more rebellious minority population? Under what conditions might short-term backlash to language assimilation evolve into greater national unity in the long term? While much of the literature on ethnic politics implicitly treats language simply as an identifying feature of ethnic groups, this dissertation contends that salient language identities and grievances can serve as a source of meaningful division. I examine when and why the costs of pursuing linguistic homogeneity exceed its practical benefits. Just as minority individuals must conduct a cost-benefit analysis to determine whether they should acquire or have their children acquire the dominant language of a host state, so too must governments consider the likelihood that an assimilation program will succeed or fail. I highlight an interaction between three key mechanisms that lead to a distortion of political leaders’ cost-benefit analysis when deciding on the nature of their desired language assimilation program. This distortion leads host states governed by the dominant language group to systematically overestimate the willingness of minority individuals to assimilate voluntarily and underestimate the likely level of subsequent backlash to severe language restrictions. From this theoretical framework, I argue that more severe language restrictions increase minority backlash and that the intensity of this backlash is influenced by the presence of exclusionary political and economic policies targeting the minority group. To this end, I conduct five comparative historical case studies on the language assimilation programs imposed on the South Tyroleans in Italy, Amazigh in Algeria, Azerbaijanis in Iran, Mayans in Mexico, and the Anglophones in Cameroon. The overall findings show that the use of more severe language restrictions and exclusionary political and economic policies are very likely to result in intense backlash responses. More often than not, this elevated backlash response will inflict considerable long-term damage to a state’s national unity.Item Supernatural Ties: Religious Beliefs and Practices and Commitment and Cohesion in Politics(2024) Rao, Sean Christopher; Cunningham, Kathleen G; Government and Politics; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)I propose a general mechanism of religion in politics which is not limited to the use of violent tactics or a particular religious background: religious belief and practice generate strong mutual commitment among individuals in a group and this commitment can, in turn, create political cohesion. This process gives a strong organizational resource to political actors who can successfully link political goals to religious commitment and illuminates three puzzles: first, why do some organizations persist in demanding autonomy or independence for decades while others cease after only a short time? Little is known about the persistence of contentious actors, violent and nonviolent, who may eventually become rebels in a civil war. Linking research on civil war duration, nonviolent contention, and the club model of religion with novel cross-national time series data from a sample of self-determination organizations in Pakistan, India, Ethiopia, and Canada, I find some evidence that organizations based on religion or religion-like ideologies in the sample are more likely to persist. I find stronger evidence that organizations persist when they encourage membership practices (such as religious study or dress codes) through which individual members demonstrate public commitment to the group. Second, why do some politicians offer an overt religious basis for their policies? Overt religious rhetoric can harm a politician’s standing with less religious voters in the United States, and positive stereotypes of religious people are diminishing. Still, even politicians who depend on less religious voters sometimes use overt rhetoric instead of subtler religious cues. In two survey experiments, I find that religious rhetoric does not increase the level of a voter’s confidence that a politician is committed to a noncontroversial policy in an undergraduate sample nor to a controversial policy in a national sample in the United States, but it does increase the probability that a voter becomes completely convinced of a politician’s commitment to a controversial policy, though not among Democrats, nor does visible participation in a congregation affect this signal. Third, what keeps some civil wars from resuming after violence has stopped? Previous research has shown religious civil wars are likely to recur due to time-invariant factors of issue indivisibility and information uncertainty. Using existing data on secessionist rebels from 1975 to 2009, I find evidence that recruitment from religious networks drives recurrence. Giving religious constituencies equal access to political power and reaching formal ceasefires or agreements with territorial rebels discourages rebels from mobilizing that network for a return to fighting and makes them no more likely to return than nonreligious territorial rebels. These results identify a general process of religion applicable across different religious backgrounds and political contexts: cohesion from practices, often related to religion, which allow individuals to signal their commitment to a group. Identifying this process makes the study of religion in politics less context limited giving a starting point for future research.Item The Life Cycle of Issue Spaces(2024) Hightower, Tristan Matthew; Miler, Kristina; Government and Politics; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)In this dissertation I explore the dynamics of interest group populations through the development and application of a novel life cycle theory. Building on the work of population ecologists and other interest group scholars, this theory examines the stages of formation, growth, and decline of interest groups within various issue spaces. I conduct empirical analyses across three distinct domains: the agricultural sector with a focus on cranberries, the contentious and ideologically driven area of reproductive rights, and the declining population of banking institutions. These cases illustrate how interest groups navigate their life cycles and influence policy outcomes. Life cycle theory emphasizes the role of density dependence and interspecific competition, providing a comprehensive framework for analyzing the long-term trends and adaptive strategies of interest groups. The analysis of the cranberry lobby demonstrates how group diversity and population density affect policy attention. The analysis of reproductive rights organizations highlights the complex interplay between opposing groups and the significance of group population dynamics in shaping legislative outcomes. Finally, the analysis of the banking sector focuses on how regulatory changes and economic shifts impact the life cycles of financial institutions. My findings underscore the importance of considering group populations in understanding group formation, policy attention, and democratic engagement. I conclude that interest groups are essential components of American democratic processes, providing marginalized communities with avenues for influence amidst overburdened institutions. By offering a framework for analyzing the adaptive strategies and long-term trends of interest groups, this research contributes to a deeper understanding of how interests are advanced and under what conditions they thrive.Item LOCAL DYNAMICS IN CIVIL WARS: HOW CIVILIANS RESIST VIOLENCE(2024) Su, Mingyang; Cunningham, David E.; Government and Politics; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This thesis addresses puzzles related to violence against civilians in civil wars. Specifically, the thesis emphasizes civilians’ roles in influencing rebel groups’ decisions to escalate indiscriminate violence against civilians in conflicts. Previous literature on violence against civilians suggest that rebel groups in civil wars may kill selectively or indiscriminately. These studies argue that indiscriminate violence is counter-productive since it eliminates incentives for civilian collaboration with the perpetrator. Yet, indiscriminate violence remains a common phenomenon. Why do rebels use indiscriminate violence when doing so is counterproductive? What explains the occurrence and intensity of indiscriminate violence? The thesis answers the puzzle by focusing on civilian mobilizations against rebel groups. It argues that civilians’ resolve to mobilize against rebel groups is important in influencing rebels’ decisions to escalate indiscriminate violence. Civilians can signal this resolve by engaging in violent and nonviolent risky mobilization against rebels. Statistical tests, which are based on conflict event data collected from civil wars in Africa, reveal that the occurrence, long duration, and high frequency of civilian mobilization negatively correlate with violence. The thesis further traces a detailed single case study on Boko Haram and four cross comparison cases to provide qualitative evidence on the mechanisms of the theory. The thesis makes two theoretical contributions to the field of conflict. First, when explaining indiscriminate violence, the thesis shifts the attention to civilians’ decisions and resolve to reduce violence. Second, the theory provides novel mechanisms on how civilians mobilize to deter rebel groups from using indiscriminate violence. The mechanisms also link specific predictions on the conditions under which civilians are likely to be successful in deterring rebels from using violence.Item Rule of the Fewer: Electoral Inversions and their Consequences(2024) Friedman, Jack Ryan Chambers; Calvo, Ernesto; Government and Politics; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)The advent of democracy is supposed to represent a transition from the rule of the few to the rule of the many. In this folkloric account, majority rule is both the embodiment of democracy and its source of legitimacy. Unsurprisingly, however, democratic realities are far more complex—and sometimes more disappointing—than democratic ideals. Although democracy is often equated with the principle of majority rule, government by popular minorities is more common in modern liberal democracies than is government by popular majorities. But if the ideal of majority rule often goes unfulfilled, a redeeming quality of most elections in most democracies is that they nevertheless manage to satisfy the principle of “plurality rule.” That is, even when popular minorities govern, as is so often the case, the minority that governs is usually the largest minority. But not always. Sometimes governments are elected without even the support of a popular plurality. This phenomenon is called an electoral inversion; it is the focus of my dissertation. More precisely, electoral inversions occur when the party (or coalition of parties) that wins the most votes nevertheless loses the election. While scholars have long recognized that electoral inversions can and sometimes do occur, especially with respect to the U.S. Electoral College system for presidential elections, no systematic attempt has been made either to identify how often electoral inversions occur in the world’s established liberal democracies, or to understand what their consequences are for democracy when they do occur. I address both of these unanswered questions. My first objective is to understand where, when, and thus how often electoral inversions have occurred historically. To do so, I undertake a descriptive study of electoral inversions in 28 established democracies. The results show that electoral inversions have occurred in roughly 8% of elections between 1900 and 2022. To better understand the consequences of electoral inversions, my second objective, I examine how inversions affect democratic support in two countries that have experienced electoral inversions in recent years: Canada (2019 and 2021) and the United States (2000 and 2016). Building on the “winner-loser gap” literature, I show that electoral inversions magnify winner-loser effects on democratic support. While I find consistent evidence in the U.S. and Canada that inversions widen winner-loser gaps by weakening losers’ support for democracy, I also find, paradoxically, that the 2016 U.S. inversion increased winners’ support. I argue that the negative effect of electoral inversions on losers’ support is the consequence of a basic and widely shared normative expectation—which electoral inversions violate—that democratic elections ought to respond the preferences of the greater number. The positive effect of inversions on winners’ support in the U.S. is more difficult to explain. I consider whether this result indicates a propensity of these voters to conflate democracy with its short-term benefits, or whether it reflects underlying conditions of political polarization. Either way, since democracy depends on the support of its citizens—and in particular, on their willingness to accept the results of democratic processes—these findings have implications for continued democratic stability in countries that experience electoral inversions.