My dissertation contains three chapters studying the strategic allocation of resources in political environments. Chapter 2 asks if redistricting is the result of partisan gerrymandering or apolitical considerations. I develop a statistical test for partisan gerrymandering and apply it to the U.S. Congressional districting plan chosen by the Republican legislature in Pennsylvania in 2001. First, I formally model the optimization problem faced by a strategic Republican redistricter and characterize the theoretically optimal solution. I then estimate the likelihood a district is represented by a Republican, conditional on district demographics. This estimate allows me to determine the value of the gerrymanderer's objective function under any districting plan. Next, I use a geographic representation of the state to randomly generate a sample of legally valid plans. Finally, I calculate the estimated value of a strategic Republican redistricter's objective function under each of the sample plans and under the actual plan chosen by Republicans. When controlling for incumbency the formal test shows that the Republicans' plan was a partisan gerrymander. In Chapter 3 I introduce a new and novel electoral reform that continues to allow redistricting but changes the incentives to do so. This reform ensures that parties earn seats proportional to their performance at the polls without substantially changing the electoral system in the U.S. In order to evaluate the reform's impacts, I model and solve a game that incorporates the redistricting decision, candidate choice, state legislative elections, and policy choice. Unsurprisingly, strategic redistricting biases policy in favor of the redistricting party. In the environments studied, the new reform never increases policy bias, and often reduces it. Political campaigns often require the strategic allocation of resources across multiple contests. In Chapter 4 I analyze these environments in terms of the canonical Colonel Blotto game, beginning with the most basic of Blotto games: Two officers simultaneously allocate their forces across two fields of battle. The larger force on each front wins that battle, and the payoff is the sum of the values of the battles won. I completely characterize the set of Nash equilibria to any such game and provide the unique equilibrium payoffs. This characterization comes from an intuitive graphical algorithm which I then apply to several generalizations of the game. I completely characterize the set of equilibria and provide the unique equilibrium payoffs to Blotto games with battlefield values that vary across players and games with general resource constraints. I also use my approach to solve the Blotto games on more than two battlefields with asymmetric battlefields and force endowments. / text

本論文旨在探討1990年後期興起的中國大陸鄉鎮選舉改革。四川省遂寧市市中區步雲鄉1998年的鄉長直選係全中國大陸首例。因此以步雲鄉鄉長直選為案例，探討其起源、歷程、困境及意義為何？特別是著重探究推動基層選舉改革的動因為何？本論文使用「次級資料分析法」與「案例分析法」為研究方法，進而分析中國大陸基層選舉制度的相關海內外文獻，另採用理性選擇制度變遷、自主性制度變遷及強制性制度變遷等理論，以及國家與公民社會研究途徑，以探析影響中國大陸基層選舉改革的因素。 / The theme of this thesis lies in probing into the reforms of China’s local election at Xiang/township level that was beginning to rise in late 1990's. The election of Buyun Xiang chief directly in the Shizhong District of Suining in Sichuan Province set a precedent for the first time at the end of 1998. So in order to regard Buyun Xiang as the case, probe into the origin, course, dilemma and meaning of the Xiang chief election directly? Especially understand emphatically what promote the incentive of the election reform at the basic level? The thesis uses “secondary materials analysis” and “case study analysis” as the research method, as to analysing about the relevant documents which study the Mainland China electoral system at the basic level both at home and abroad, and choose Rational Choice Institutionalism, Motivational and Compulsory of Institutional Transitions, complement it with research approach of State and Civil Society, do case analysis to the factor influencing electoral reform at the basic level.