Call number: LD2668 .T4 1955 O96 / Master of Science

The purpose of this study was to determine the community power structure and its influence on the outcome of bond elections in four selected school districts in the State of Texas. The investigation of the following subproblems was necessary: 1. To determine the involvement of power structure in the decision-making process of the school district. 2. To determine the community people who have exercised the greatest influence in school matters. 3. To determine the educator's need to become cognizant of the nature of power structure. 4. To determine to what extent leaders in school bond elections are also leaders in non-school issues.

This study expands the literature on clergy as political actors by shedding light on the relative electoral performance of clergy who hold office in state legislatures. Kinney’s 2008 study on the occurrence of clergy in local office, as well as other works showing the divergence in attitudes towards church-state separation among racial groups and religious traditions, illustrate potential factors affecting the performance of clergy in elections. The analyses examine the factors related to differences in vote percentages, margins of victory, and campaign funding between clergy and non-clergy. These factors include racial and religious traditions and how their effects interact. The analyses find that clergy-legislators receive larger vote percentages, larger margins of victory, but less campaign funding. These effects, with the exception of campaign funding, tend to be the strongest when looking at black Protestant clergy compared to mainline Protestant clergy and non-clergy legislators.

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My dissertation explains the extent to which electoral institutions and declining political party competition precipitated a steep decline in U.S. turnout after 1896 from which the nation never recovered. Turnout dropped from 83 to 66 percent in less than ten years. This is a persistent puzzle in political science because data limitations have stymied empirical assessment of existing theories. Using original datasets on nineteenth century voter registration laws and records on political gambling on presidential elections from 1880 to 1916, I test the hypothesis that the shift in electoral behavior was a function of registration reforms and declining competition. I find that registration laws and political competition modestly explain the decline. Registration reforms explain one percent of the seventeen point turnout drop, and the combined effect of registration and declining competition is approximately two to three percentage points of the drop. I also found that the effect of registration are conditional on immigration, the effect is stronger in states with higher immigrant populations. For the most part, political party competition had a positive effect on turnout in the expected direction. In states remaining competitive after 1896, the long-term average effect of competition on turnout was an increase of about 14 percentage points. To validate this argument, I use election-betting data to create a measure of the public's perception of electoral competition in the states. My findings indicate that highly informed individuals accurately predicted election outcomes, which suggests the public was aware of the electoral competitiveness of presidential elections in the states. This means that perceptions about the electoral competitiveness of races likely influenced voters' decisions to participate. My dissertation advances our empirical and theoretical understanding of the interaction between institutions and political behavior and helps to inform the current debate on the potential implications that contemporary legal reforms in election laws might have on voter participation in America.

Le principe de l’alternance démocratique au pouvoir fait généralement défaut en Afrique. Cette étape si importante pour le fonctionnement régulier de tout système démocratique se pose avec acuité dans presque tous les Etats africains. Les mécanismes juridiques et institutionnels régissant les processus électoraux dans ces pays souffrent d’énormes irrégularités. La routinisation des règles électorales n’est pas acquise et le processus démocratique est en perpétuel reconstruction. En conséquence, la paix civile, la sécurité et la stabilité politique restent souvent menacées. Sauf dans de rares cas où la démocratie se consolide, le processus de démocratisation en Afrique est en panne, ce qui impacte gravement le développement économique de ces pays. Dans toutes les étapes du processus électoral, des contentieux d’ordre juridique, institutionnel, politique se règlent entre les différents acteurs qui y prennent part. Cependant, sur le plan théorique, tous les mécanismes juridiques et institutionnels consacrés reconnaissent et garantissent les droits et libertés fondamentaux du citoyen. Mais dans la pratique, ces normes ne sont pas appliquées de façon effective. Elles sont biaisées, instrumentalisées pour répondre à des fins politiques visant des intérêts personnels. Dans une période marquée par l’instabilité politique, l’insécurité juridique, les incertitudes et les violences électorales comme en Côte d’Ivoire, en Centrafrique, au Mali, au Soudan, en Guinée (…), le Sénégal réaffirme son attachement à la démocratie avec deux alternances politiques régulières en 2001 et 2012. Cette exception du modèle démocratique sénégalais bien qu’imparfaite est l’œuvre de la maturité de son peuple qui lutte inlassablement pour la sauvegarde des acquis démocratiques. C’est aussi le résultat de la longue marche de l’évolution constitutionnelle de l’Etat du Sénégal, de son histoire politique, de sa tolérance religieuse basée sur sa laïcité politique malgré ses progrès économiques limités. / The principle of democratic alternation to power is generally lacking in Africa. This stage, which is so important for the regular functioning of any democratic system, is acute in almost all African States. The legal and institutional mechanisms governing electoral processes in these countries suffer from enormous irregularities. The routinization of these electoral rules is not gained and the democratic process is in perpetual reconstruction. As a result, civil peace, security and political stability are often threatened. Except in rare cases where democracy is consolidated, the process of democratization in Africa is broken, which seriously affects the economic development of these countries. At all stages of the electoral process, legal, institutional and political disputes are resolved between the various actors involved. However, from a theoretical point of view, all the legal and institutional mechanisms enshrined recognize and guarantee the fundamental rights and freedoms of the citizen. But in practice, these standards are not effectively enforced. They are biased, used to respond to political ends aimed at personal interests. In a period characterized by political instability, legal uncertainty, uncertainty and electoral violence, as in Côte d'Ivoire, Central African Republic, Mali, Sudan, Guinea ..., Senegal reaffirms its commitment to democracy with two regular political alternations in 2001 and 2012. This exception to the Senegalese democratic model, though imperfect, is the work of the maturity of its people, which tirelessly struggles to safeguard democratic gains. It is also the result of the long progress of the constitutional evolution of the State of Senegal, its political history, its religious tolerance based on political secularism despite its limited economic progress.

The Victorian general election of 1859 occurred during a time of social transition and electoral reformation, which extended the vote to previously unrepresented adult males. Gold discoveries, including those on the Ovens, triggered the miners’ insistent demands for access to land and participation in the political process. The thesis identifies issues, which emerged during the election campaign on the Ovens goldfields, surrounding Beechworth. The struggle centred on the two Legislative Assembly seats for the Ovens and the one Legislative Council seat for the Murray District. Though the declared election issue was land reform, it concealed a range of underlying tensions, which divided the electorate along lines of nationality and religion. Complicating these tensions within the European community was the Chinese presence throughout the Ovens. The thesis suggests the historical memory of the French Revolution, the European Revolutions of 1848 and the Catholic versus Protestant revivals divided the Ovens goldfield community. The competing groups formed alliances; a Beechworth-centred grouping of traders, merchants and the Constitution’s editor, ensured the existing conservative agenda triumphed over those perceived radicals who sought reform. In the process the land hungry miners did not gain any political representation in the Legislative Assembly, while a prominent Catholic squatter who advocated limited land reform was defeated for the Legislative Council seat. Two daily Beechworth papers, Ovens and Murray Advertiser and its fierce competitor, the Constitution and Ovens Mining Intelligencer are the major primary sources for the thesis.

<p>Theories of ambition have taught us that higher offices are valuable commodities to certain politicians, and under the right circumstances, the benefits of running for an office outweigh the associated risks. Yet some ambitious politicians emerge as candidates while others do not. In this dissertation, I present a Theory of Strategic Candidacy Decisions to explain how primary elections unfold. With new comprehensive data on the timing of candidacy decisions, I test several hypotheses regarding the determinants of electoral and fundraising success, the timing of strategic candidacy decisions, the interactions of prospective officeholders, and the impact of strategic retirements on primary races for the United States Senate. Using both qualitative and quantitative tools, including event history techniques to capture the complex dynamics of primaries, I find that potential candidates interact with one another and the unique political context within each race and emerge from the pool of potential candidates in systematic ways. In the end, the strategic behavior of ambitious politicians has implications for the slate of candidates available to the electorate and ultimately, on the quality of representation between legislators and constituents.</p> / Dissertation

Various questions regarding Latinos’ descriptive representation in the mayoralty are examined in this dissertation including: Where and why are Latino mayors elected? Why do Latino mayoral candidates emerge and win? And, is there is a link between Latino ethnicity and electoral outcomes in municipal elections? The empirical results of a cross-sectional analysis of U.S. cities from 1981-2006 suggest that institutions such as term limits and mayor-council governments influence the representation of Latinos in the mayoralty. These effects, however, are conditioned by Latinos’ numerical strength in a city – which suggests that Latino descriptive representation in the mayoralty is largely a function of population size. Despite the prominence of this factor, the results further reveal that Latinos need to swell the ranks of the city council to provide a steady supply of qualified Latino candidates to ultimately win the mayoralty. An analysis of 648 mayoral elections in 113 cities in the Southwest further tests theories of Latino candidate emergence and success based on city-level factors – that supply elections with Latino candidates – as well as strategic factors in elections – that influence Latino candidates’ cost-benefit decision calculus. The results reveal a combined effect of supply and strategy on candidate emergence and success. For example, in cities where Latinos are sizeable (+40 percent) and the electoral context is more competitive (i.e., where turnout is high, more candidates are on the ballot, and when incumbents are not vying for reelection), Latino candidates are more likely to emerge. A similar pattern occurs with regard to the success of Latino candidates except that the individual candidate’s previous political experience is particularly influential in improving their chances of winning. Given the theoretical expectation regarding the impact of ethnicity on electoral outcomes in municipal elections, I also examine whether Latino ethnicity shapes turnout rates and the margin of victory. Latino ethnicity is not statistically associated with these outcomes. However, other factors such as the election timing and the type of election (i.e., runoff election, open seat) seem to be more influential. In sum, the research here examines various aspects of Latino representation in the mayoralty that is the most comprehensive to date.

Thesis (doctoral)--Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität in München, 1990. / eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references (p. [4-31] (2nd group)).