This dissertation investigates social conservative activism in the American Republican Party and in four parties of the Canadian right: the Progressive Conservative Party, Reform Party, Canadian Alliance Party, and Conservative Party of Canada. While issues like gay and lesbian rights and abortion became politically contentious in both countries during the late 1960s, American social conservatives emerged earlier than their Canadian counterparts and enjoyed considerably more success. Understanding this contrast explains an important part of the difference between Canadian and American politics and explicates a key aspect of modern conservatism in North America. The argument developed here focuses on different norms about the boundary of politics held in right-wing parties in the two countries. Norms are embedded components of institutions that codify the “logic of appropriateness” for actors within a given institution (March and Olsen 1989, 160) and both construct and regulate the identities of political actors (Katzentstein 1996). The recognition of norms has been an important development in organizational theory, but one that has never been applied to modern office-seeking parties (Ware 1996, Berman 1998). Qualitative case studies establish that many Republicans understood both sexuality and appeals to religion as politically legitimate throughout the period under investigation. In Canada, alternatively, Progressive Conservatives saw such questions as being inappropriate grounds for political activity. This norm restricted social conservative mobilization in the party. It was only when the Reform Party upset both the institutions and ideology of Canadian conservatism that social conservatives began to gain prominence in Canadian politics. Since then, the success of Canadian social conservatives has been limited by Canada’s political culture and institutions but they are now, as their American counterparts have long been, consistently recognized by other Canadian conservatives as partners in the conservative coalition.

California has now become a majority-minority state. Latinos, currently the largest minority group in the Golden State, have made remarkable political gains in the past two decades, more recently since the the approval of Proposition 187 in 1994. How have Latinos used this new political power? This thesis provides an in-depth look into the dynamics of the Latino political entity in California, along with a quantifiable analysis of voting trends. Discussion of policy implictions since the Latino wave into the state Legislature is also provided, along with interviews with notable Latino figures, such as Senator Art Torres and Redistricting Commissioner Gabino Aguirre.

Studies in the past few years have found that California has the highest recidivism rate in the nation. Until just a few decades ago, many did not believe that the rate of recidivism could be decreased for Robert Martinson’s 1974 study stated that “nothing worked” when trying to rehabilitate criminals. However, a renewed interest has proven that criminals can be rehabilitated. Thus, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR), as well as various independent researchers have begun to study the effects of programming on inmates. This thesis evaluates various California in-prison and parole programs in order to determine if recidivism can be reduced, and if it can, how? Researching a CDCR study, as well as other independent studies, it can be concluded that California can reduce its recidivism rates and that there are various principles that will help to accomplish this. However, while various evaluated programs proved successful one cannot accurately determine how successful the programs are at reducing recidivism due to the problem posed by the selection effect. Therefore, while recidivism can be reduced and it appears that specific programs and principles will prove valuable in accomplishing this goal, more research should be conducted in order to determine whether the programs are successful or whether the success is due to the inmates enrolled.

In the past century, there has been an increasing trend in American government toward opening government procedures to the general public. The intention of these reforms was to improve government accountability and responsiveness, increase public education and involvement in government, and prevent corruption and undue influence by special interests. Conventional wisdom about open government, however, does not take into consideration many of the repercussions of opening up congressional proceedings to the glare of public scrutiny. Reforms in the 1970’s opened the deliberative process and made members of Congress more vulnerable to constituent and interest group pressure. These effects have had many negative impacts, in both the House Appropriations Committee and the Ways and Means Committees, for deliberative democracy and responsible budgeting.

The California experience previous to the passage of Proposition 13 taught the citizens of California that even with representation, the freedoms of individuals could be threatened. This lesson is especially true when we see the assessment scandals, a rapidly increasing real estate market and the failure of California’s representative officials to respond to the threat to individual liberty. In addition to watching corrupt tax assessors take advantage of the system, individuals were tired of paying inflated property taxes that were changing drastically from year to year. People’s homes were literally being taken from them by the power of the tax collector. This strongly deviated from the initial founding of our nation that was supposed to be “of the people, by the people and for the people.” While few people initially expected Proposition 13 to pass, ultimately it passed with 64.8 percent of the vote. The initiative process in California gave individuals the opportunity to make a constitutional amendment to the California Constitution in regards to the taxation processes of the government. With the passage of Proposition 13, the citizens of California made their statement.

According to the American Marketing Association (AMA), marketing is defined as the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large.[1] To do this, marketing institutions have developed systematic processes for evaluating the wants and needs of the masses, and designed mechanisms to persuade large groups of people, as well as smaller targeted markets. If the "product" is a presidential candidate…. The marketing objective of a political party / candidate is to communicate, deliver, and exchange offerings (policies for votes). Hence, political campaigning and traditional marketing have similar objectives. For clarity, the term candidate and political party are synonymous when applied to marketing concepts. In the 1950s, marketing experts realized the potential of selling the value of their candidate, party, and specific initiatives, through a systematic process now known as "political marketing."[2] This study will review the evolution of political marketing, evaluate how several presidential candidates gained a competitive advantage over their opponents by both utilizing traditional marketing practices, and, with social marketing, gained leverage with the Internet. It concludes with the significance of the Internet, online campaigning, social media, and their collective effects on the current and future of the political system. [1] "Definition of Marketing," The American Marketing Association, http://www.marketingpower.com/AboutAMA/Pages/DefinitionofMarketing.aspx. [2] Dominic Wring, "The Marketing Colonization of Political Campaigning," in The Handbook of Political Marketing, ed. by Bruce I. Newman. (London: Sage Publications, Inc, 1999), 44-45.

Redistricting is a challenging task in any state, and Alaska, with its vast geography, sparse population, and uneven population concentrations, presents a unique set of difficulties. The state requires that its legislative districts be contiguous, compact, and relatively socio-economically integrated. Further complicating the process are the requirements of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Alaska is one of nine states required to submit its redistricting plans to the federal government for preclearance, as a result of a history of discrimination against a minority population. Under the VRA, Alaska must avoid retrogression of the voting power of its Alaska Native population. Particularly over the last couple of decades, the requirements of the VRA have come into conflict with the requirements of the state constitution. In the following paper, I will explore the impact of the VRA on redistricting in Alaska, with a particular focus on the redistricting cycle following the 2010 Census.

What Calvin Coolidge saw in the early Progressive movement was a lack of faith. In American institutions, in the founding principles thereof, and in Man writ large, Calvin Coolidge had a faith that his contemporaries deemed antiquated. The advancement of scientific knowledge promised to discover "a new principle for a new age," as Woodrow Wilson—a founding father of Progressive America—posited.1 Since science offered men the ability to "reconstruct their conceptions of the universe and of their relation to nature, and even of their relation to God," the founders' view of human nature as unchanging and eternal only restricted progress by applying Newtonian strictures on a Darwinian society.2 For an organic society to evolve in America, political leaders needed to interpret the founding documents in the circumstance of modern times, not in their own context. A Hegelian faith in the rational, positive evolution of the human condition through history combined with a reverence for German administrative excellence compelled Wilson to employ rhetoric as a means to gain political support—often citing the beloved Abraham Lincoln as his political and philosophical antecedent. Coolidge noted the great power that Lincoln’s name held among Americans at the time: "Two generations have sought out whatever could be associated with him, have read the record of his every word with the greatest eagerness, and held his memory as a precious heritage."3 Wilson sought to deny the political philosophy of the founding—which Lincoln understood as grounded in natural rights and strict constitutionalism—severing current affairs from the influence of the past and freeing himself and future leaders to act as circumstance demanded.4 Ironically, freedom from the founding ideals made the Progressives slaves of expediency. Coolidge understood Wilson’s denial of founding principles to be dangerous and actively sought to restore faith in self-government as a principle and way of life. 1 Wilson, Selected Papers, 1:235. 2 Ibid, 222. 3 Coolidge, The Price of Freedom, 120. 4 Harry V. Jaffa of Claremont McKenna College offers a deep and comprehensive exposition of Lincoln’s words and actions surrounding the issue of slavery in “A New Birth of Freedom.” Jaffa shows that Lincoln had a pseudo-religious belief in the doctrines and theories presented in both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution and saw slavery as violating not only the morality of the owner but the natural rights of the slave.

The race between Republican Cory Gardner and Democratic incumbent Betsy Markey for Colorado's 4th Congressional District was a partisan fight for political momentum. In the 2010 campaign cycle, Republicans looked to retake the historically Republican 4th District as part of a national strategy to win back the U.S. House, while Democrats tried desperately to hold on to both. Cory Gardner was only one of fifty-four Republican challengers to defeat a Democratic incumbent in 2010, but the Gardner-Markey race is particularly interesting as a case study of voter motivation and the mediating forces, both regional and national, that influence electoral success. Political commentators and staffers from both campaigns describe Markey's defeat as inevitable, but the same sources explain the election results from three different theoretical perspectives: (1) Betsy Markey was a poor fit for the district and never represented constituent interests, (2) Cory Gardner was the perfect candidate, and (3) Markey’s defeat was a result of the national political mood and a referendum on Democrats in Washington. This thesis analyzes and evaluates each of these theories, and concludes that a combination of the arguments and their evidence provides the most complete answer. While no single theory is the definitive reason that voters in the 4th District elected Cory Gardner, each contributes to a comprehensive understanding of the inevitability of Rep. Betsy Markey's defeat in 2010.

This dissertation investigates social conservative activism in the American Republican Party and in four parties of the Canadian right: the Progressive Conservative Party, Reform Party, Canadian Alliance Party, and Conservative Party of Canada. While issues like gay and lesbian rights and abortion became politically contentious in both countries during the late 1960s, American social conservatives emerged earlier than their Canadian counterparts and enjoyed considerably more success. Understanding this contrast explains an important part of the difference between Canadian and American politics and explicates a key aspect of modern conservatism in North America. The argument developed here focuses on different norms about the boundary of politics held in right-wing parties in the two countries. Norms are embedded components of institutions that codify the “logic of appropriateness” for actors within a given institution (March and Olsen 1989, 160) and both construct and regulate the identities of political actors (Katzentstein 1996). The recognition of norms has been an important development in organizational theory, but one that has never been applied to modern office-seeking parties (Ware 1996, Berman 1998). Qualitative case studies establish that many Republicans understood both sexuality and appeals to religion as politically legitimate throughout the period under investigation. In Canada, alternatively, Progressive Conservatives saw such questions as being inappropriate grounds for political activity. This norm restricted social conservative mobilization in the party. It was only when the Reform Party upset both the institutions and ideology of Canadian conservatism that social conservatives began to gain prominence in Canadian politics. Since then, the success of Canadian social conservatives has been limited by Canada’s political culture and institutions but they are now, as their American counterparts have long been, consistently recognized by other Canadian conservatives as partners in the conservative coalition.