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Tabletop role-playing games (TRPGs) present a unique opportunity to study political behavior. In educational settings, role-playing games (RPGs) of all kinds have proven to be valuable educational tools, and even when played for fun, participating in role playing games has been shown to increase one's level of confidence. Knowing this, I designed an experiment to attempt to increase internal political efficacy through the use of a politically-themed TRPG. I took inspiration from the original TRPGs of the 1970s and 1980s which were used purely for entertainment purposes to create my own game in a traditional TRPG setting with current issues woven into the story of the game (also called a campaign), and utilized quantitative and qualitative methods to analyze participants' reactions to the campaign and levels of efficacy. In doing so, I seek to determine whether players will recognize real-world issues when presented in a science fiction or fantasy-themed campaign. Furthermore, given that TRPGs have the potential to shape players' understanding of how the world works and their place in it, will players be more motivated to act on said issues presented in-game, even if they do not consciously make the connection between the real-life issues presented in the science fiction/fantasy setting and those same issues in the real world?

Do the experiences that an immigrant faces in their country of origin affect the political attitudes and behavior when an immigrant is in their country of residence? Although there is a considerable amount of work exploring the political behavior of racial and ethnic minorities, some work on immigrant political behavior, and some work that that connects premigratory experiences with post migration political behavior, there is relatively little work that examines premigratory experiences with autocracy, corruption, and violence and how that affects the political behavior of immigrants. In this project I observe how experiences with corruption, political violence, and conflict has an affect on political trust, political behavior, and social trust among immigrants that have experienced such events.

To this point research on firms’ political behavior has contributed knowledge concerning large firms’ relationships and strategies with political actors and their surrounding environment. Less is known about small firms’ behavior towards political organizations. As a matter of fact, the fields of international marketing, international business and corporate political science have left the political behavior of small firms almost untouched. Therefore, extant literature assumes that small firms due to their resource constraints are passive receivers of political initiatives. About 99 percent of all firms within the European Union are small firms, and it is therefore questioned whether all these firms are passive receivers of political initiatives. The intention with this thesis is to challenge some assumptions regarding how small firms manage their relationships with political actors concerning EU related rules and regulations. Consequently, the study raises the overarching research question; how do small firms manage their political environment? Theoretically, the study takes a network perspective on business political interaction to examine both individual and/or collective political behavior of small firms. It develops a theoretical view constituted of knowledge, commitment and legitimacy. Methodologically, two sequential stages are followed: first an in-depth qualitative case study of three successful cases is presented and second, the in-depth understanding is broadened to a wider population of firms based on a quantitative survey. A central contribution of this thesis is to aid research on the political behavior of small firms. It is found that small firms, in contrast to prevailing assumptions, do possess political resources. They are not passive receivers of political initiatives. Instead, the findings show that small firms are active and can exercise influence. This, however, is shown to be dependent on the firm’s political commitment, political knowledge and competency and business-political legitimacy. It is also shown that small firms mobilize these critical resources not only directly, but also indirectly through various intermediating actors. Besides the theoretical contributions, these conclusions are important not just because of the managerial implications but also, and perhaps more importantly, for the policy implications that can be drawn from the study. Being exploratory and opening up the black box of small firm’s political behavior, the thesis ends with a number of future research directions.

<p>This manuscript is comprised of three papers that examine the far-reaching and often invisible political outcomes of gender role socialization in the United States. These papers focus primarily on two areas: political confidence amongst girls and women, and the effects of gender on survey measurement and data quality.</p><p>Chapter one focuses on political confidence, and the likelihood that women will run for political office. Women continue to be underrepresented at all levels of political leadership, and their lack of political ambition, relative to men, has been identified as a primary cause. In this paper, I explore the relationship between an individual's masculinity and femininity and her development of political ambition. Using original survey data from the 2012 Cooperative Congressional Election Study (CCES), I first empirically demonstrate that gender (masculinity/femininity) and sex (male/female) are unique elements of identity and, moreover, are both independently related to political ambition. I then explore the relevance of gender for the study of candidate emergence, testing whether and how masculinity and femininity might be related to political ambition are supported empirically. While the results suggest that masculinity is positively associated with the development of political ambition, the relationship between femininity and candidate emergence seems to be more complicated and not what prevailing stereotypes might lead us to expect. Moreover, while the relationship between masculinity and political ambition is the same for men and women, the relationship between femininity and political ambition is very different for women than it is for men. This study suggests that gender role socialization is highly related with both men's and women's desire to seek positions of political leadership.</p><p>Chapter two continues this exploration of gendered differences in the development of political ambition, this time exploring how social attractiveness and gendered perceptions of political leadership impact the desire to hold political office.Women are persistently underrepresented as candidates for public office and remain underrepresented at all levels of government in the United States. Previous literature suggests that the gendered ambition gap, gender socialization, insufficient recruitment, media scrutiny, family responsibilities, modern campaign strategies, and political opportunity structures all contribute to the gender imbalance in pools of officeholders and candidates. To explain women's reticence to run, scholars have offered explanations addressing structural, institutional, and individual-level factors that deter women from becoming candidates, especially for high positions in the U.S. government. This paper examines a previously unexplored factor: how dating and socialized norms of sexual attraction affect political ambition. This study investigates whether young, single, and heterosexual women's desire for male attention and fear of being perceived as unattractive or "too ambitious" present obstacles to running for office. The results of these experiments suggest that social expectations about gender, attraction and sexuality, and political office-holding may contribute to women's reticence to pursue political leadership. Chapter two is a co-authored work and represents the joint efforts of Laura Lazarus Frankel, Shauna Shames, and Nadia Farjood.</p><p>Chapter 3 bridges survey methodology and gender socialization, focusing on how interviewer sex affects survey measurement and data quality. Specifically, this paper examines whether and how matching interviewer and respondent sex affects panel attrition--respondents dropping out of the study after participating in the first wave. While the majority of research on interviewer effects suggests that matching interviewer and respondent characteristics (homophily) yields higher quality data, little work has examined whether this pattern holds true in the area of panel attrition. Using paradata from the General Social Survey (GSS), I explore this question. My analysis reveals that, despite its broader positive effects on data quality, matching interviewer and respondent sex increases likelihood to attrit. Interestingly, this phenomenon only emerges amongst male respondents. However, while assigning female interviewers to male respondents decreases their propensity to attrit, it also increases the likelihood of biased responses on gender related items. These conflicting outcomes represent a tradeoff for scholars and survey researchers, requiring careful consideration of mode, content, and study goals when designing surveys and/or analyzing survey data. The implications of these patterns and areas for further research are discussed.</p><p>Together, these papers illustrate two ways that gender norms are related to political outcomes: they contribute to patterns of candidate emergence and affect the measurement of political attitudes and behaviors.</p> / Dissertation

Perspectiva convencional na Ciência Política prevê associação forte entre educação e comportamentos políticos desejáveis para a convivência democrática. Essa abordagem também infere que aumentos no nível de escolaridade de uma nação serão acompanhados por ganhos sustentados em participação e apoio a princípios democráticos, além de impactos na confiança nas instituições. Essas hipóteses foram revistas e testadas para o Brasil, com análise de surveys aplicados entre 1989 e 2006. As evidências encontradas confirmam a perspectiva convencional, observado um só ponto no tempo e ressalvadas dimensões de associativismo. A análise longitudinal, entre as duas pontas do período, revelou retornos declinantes para a escolaridade adicionada por diferentes níveis de instrução, sobretudo o ensino médio. Fatores relativos ao ambiente educacional, às gerações e às capacidades cognitivas foram investigados para compreender esse achado. A capacitação cognitiva do cidadão indicou ter efeito independente da escolaridade na conformação dos comportamentos políticos, sugerindo que é na perda de qualidade da escolarização brasileira recente que devem ser buscadas explicações. / Conventional wisdom in Political Science predicts strong association between education and political behavior favorable to democracy. This perspective also infers that increases in educational attainments levels of a nation bring sustainable gains in terms of civic and political participation and democratic principles support, as well as impacts on trust in institutions. These hypotheses were reviewed and tested on the Brazilian context, with analysis of surveys from 1989 to 2006. The evidence gathered confirm the conventional wisdom, when a single point in time is observed and with the exception of dimensions of civic engagement. The longitudinal analyses between the extremes of this time span revealed decreasing rewards to the education added up by different educational levels, specially the upper secondary (ensino médio). Factors related to the educational environment, generations and cognitive skills were then investigated in order to understand the findings. The development of cognitive skills showed effects on political behavior independent from education, suggesting that explanations must be searched for on the loss of quality of the Brazilian educational system.

Why do international migrants send money home? What are the implications of these monetary flows for developing countries? Long debated by economists and sociologists, these questions have received very little attention in the political science literature. This dissertation argues, however, that remittances—money sent home or “remitted” by international migrants—have significant implications for the study of politics. My main contention is that international migrants assume a more significant welfare burden when their home government’s commitment to social insurance provision is in decline. Remittances, in other words, flow to compensate non-emigrating citizens for state retrenchment and the absence of a robust welfare state. I argue that this “transnational safety net” makes remittance recipients (RRs) less vulnerable to economic instability than neighbors who do not receive this money. All else equal, RRs should be more contented with their economic circumstances and have fewer economic grievances with which to politicize. The income-stabilizing and insurance effect of remittances, then, should reduce public pressure on the state, leaving RRs less motivated to mobilize against and punish incumbents for a poor economy when public safety nets are weak. Evidence comes from an original survey of 768 Mexican households, field interviews, and time-series data published by the Bank of Mexico. Statistical tests reveal that Mexicans abroad remit more to families that do not receive social benefits and send roughly $2.5 million more home for every $10 million reduction in spending on social programs by the Mexican government. Analyses furthermore reveal that despite being very poor on average, RRs tend to enjoy higher levels of income stability, are less likely to identify an economic matter as “the most important problem facing Mexico,” and make more positive and optimistic assessments of the national economy and their own financial circumstances. In the 2006 Mexican presidential election, I find that RRs were up to 15 percent more likely to stay home on election day at the expense of the primary opposition party and significantly less likely to punish the incumbent party with a vote for either of the major opposition parties if they did vote. / text