Thesis: Ph. D., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Political Science, 2017. / Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references. / The United States has developed a reputation for consistently failing to respond to mass killing and genocide throughout history. The conventional wisdom is that the United States has the resources and intelligence to act, but fails to do so because of a lack of political will. However, a closer examination of history reveals that although the modal response of the United States is indeed to refrain from devoting significant resources to these crises, at times the United States reverses course to pursue policies aimed at assisting victims of atrocity. Previous analyses have not fully explained the sources this policy variation. Drawing on extensive archival research, this dissertation proposes a theory explaining when these shifts in US policy occur. I suggest that three factors-the level at which dissent occurs within the government, the degree of congressional pressure, and the direction of a variable that I term political liability-are responsible for shifting US policy toward a more robust response. I illustrate the theory with case studies covering US responsiveness to the following cases: the Holocaust (193 8-1945) under presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry S. Truman; mass killing in Bosnia (1992-1995) under presidents George H.W. Bush and William J. Clinton; and mass killing in Rwanda (1994) under Clinton. A comparative analysis of US responsiveness to the / by Amanda Joan Rothschild. / Ph. D.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Political Science, 2002. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 142-149). Includes bibliographical references (leaves 142-149). / It is striking that the sharp increase in the number of countries moving towards self-governance and democracy has not been accompanied by more equal political representation of women. What is equally puzzling is the contrast in the share of women in positions of political authority observed between countries, with many developed nations having fewer women legislators than a number of lesser-developed countries. Why are there so few women in most parliaments and why is there such variation across countries? To understand gender-based inequality in political authority, we look at the various stages of candidacy and identify potential bottlenecks to women participation and election into public office. There are three stages which one must pass through successfully to become a legislator. The first is becoming eligible and a part of the pool from which politicians are drawn, then being selected as a candidate and finally being elected to office. Potential barriers to entry for women in the legislative process may exist at any or all of these three stages. Each of these candidacy stages is discussed through a cross-national analysis and a case study of India. The cross-national data is for 175 countries at three points in time: 1975, 1985 and 1995. The Indian case study looks at women in parliament from the first general elections in 1951-1952 and focuses most on the 1996 parliamentary data. We argue that the key factor limiting the recruitment of women into politics is women's sparse representation in the pool from which politicians are recruited. Just as in thecase of men, women are drawn from an elite pool based on their occupational achievements. / (cont.) Countries that have a greater share of women in their professional and managerial labor force are able to recruit more women into politics. Having women well represented in the eligibility pool for political candidates, broadly the elite professions is necessary to provide a conduit for women into politics. While female labor force participation has increased dramatically in the last three decades, the relative position of women in highly paid/high status professions has increased only marginally. So it is not a case of active discrimination against women in politics or a case of different gender preferences, with women having less interest in politics. It is fundamentally a case of women being less represented in the specific labor pool from which politicians are drawn. In a number of developing countries, secluded labor markets have provided access for women from elite families into top industry and professional leadership positions. This has led to a relatively larger proportion of women in the political eligibility pool and consequently to a higher level of female recruitment in politics than in countries in which women comprise a smaller part of the elite professional pool. However, in many countries, the process of industrialization has generated economic and social pressures that have imposed greater restrictions on women in the economic, and consequently, political sphere. This suggests that economic development, while it opens some opportunities for women, can also make achievement of higher leadership positions more difficult. / by Bela Prasad. / Ph.D.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Political Science, 1997. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 207-225). / by Joanne M. Kaufman. / Ph.D.

Thesis: Ph. D., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Political Science, 2017. / Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references (pages 161-169). / This dissertation presents new models and experimental designs for understanding network behavior and social interaction. The first paper develops a model for a new kind of data, "path data," that represents the sequential decisions made by actors navigating social, geographic, and other kinds of networks. The model is validated in a benchmark test, then used to measure sectarian influences in the ways that Sunni and Shia individuals navigate the streets of Baghdad in a smartphone-based field activity. The second paper uses a novel experimental design to examine the social network search patterns employed by both sects. Using smartphone and self-reported data, the paper shows that differing search strategies result in differential access to public services in Baghdad. The third paper presents a new model for measuring rhetorical style and other modes of speech in political deliberation. The model is validated in a benchmark test of conflictual speech in political debates. / by Dean Knox. / A Model for Path Data with Application to Sectarian Movement in Baghdad -- Experimental Evidence on Sect and Network Access to Services in Baghdad -- A Model for Classifying Mode of Speech in Political Deliberation -- Supporting materials for each paper. / Ph. D.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Political Science, 2001. / "June 2001." / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 163-178). / Coercion is at the center of politics, yet how it is organized has remained poorly understood. This dissertation analyzes how the Chilean military regime (1973-90) organized coercion, focusing especially on two major shifts during the period of most institutional flux, from 1973-78. Available explanations for the shifts fail to account for the magnitude of organizational changes. As an alternative, this dissertation provides a typology of coercion, based on measurements of how well principals monitor agents' operations and performance. Principals can monitor from within their own organization (internal monitoring), or from information sources outside their direct control (external monitoring). Measuring levels of internal and external monitoring, using various criteria for the breadth and depth of information, yields a matrix with types that are mutually exclusive and jointly exhaustive. The four basic types are blind, bureaucratic, transparent, and hide and seek coercion. There are tradeoffs to each type of coercion, which can prompt principals to shift from one to another. In Chile, measurements of internal and external monitoring before and after each of the two major shifts, alongside counterfactual analysis and tests of the competing available explanations, reveal that the regime in each case grappled with organizing coercion as a discrete problem of governance. In 1974 the regime created a powerful secret police to better coordinate coercion through higher internal monitoring. The police resolved many organizational problems but failed to increase internal monitoring substantially. / (cont.) Moreover, it created a series of new problems as it began to run amok. In 1977-78 it was replaced by another institution, which increased internal monitoring, a shift that also coincided with an increase in external monitoring. In each case, the regime's choices were influenced by, but not reducible to, broader political dynamics such as power struggles and efforts to institutionalize the regime. Secondary literature is used to analyze three other cases (Argentina, East Germany, and South Africa), that organized coercion differently than Chile. In all cases, the framework provided accounts for the variation in the organization of coercion. / by Pablo Policzer. / Ph.D.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Political Science. Thesis. 1974. Ph.D. / MICROFICHE COPY ALSO AVAILABLE IN DEWEY LIBRARY. / Vita. / Bibliography: leaves 591-627. / Ph.D.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Political Science, 1984. / MICROFICHE COPY AVAILABLE IN ARCHIVES AND DEWEY. / Bibliography: leaves 225-232. / by Linda Carolyn Cummings. / Ph.D.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Political Science, 2011. / Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references. / This dissertation explores two main puzzles. First, why do some countries have more generous welfare policies than others? Second, why do some people support welfare policies more than others? This collection of essays aims to answer these two questions, focusing on the political and economic determinants of welfare policy and attitudes. Chapter 2 deals with methodological issues that will be addressed in the later substantive chapters. While this chapter discusses measurement error in general, it focuses on the problem that some respondents are likely to choose around the middle for reasons other than their true moderate attitudes in many survey items. The chapter formally analyzes the effects of this "concentrated measurement error" on the bias in regression coefficient estimates. It then proposes two estimation strategies for the handling of this problem. Turning to substantive research questions, Chapter 3 addresses the determinants of government welfare spending around the world. With the use of a unique dataset that has been constructed from six different cross-country social surveys and government finance statistics, this chapter demonstrates that public ideological preferences influence government decisions regarding the size of welfare expenditure. The chapter further presents a meaningful difference between fully and less democratic countries in welfare policy responsiveness; among less democratic countries, welfare spending policies have been little affected by public preferences. The empirical findings presented in this chapter serve as better evidence to support the mechanisms that traditional representation theories offer. In Chapter 4, I turn my attention to individual-level determinants. Recognizing the unique situation of the US, where the immigrant population is large and the natives have a distinctively individualistic taste for redistribution, this chapter assesses the role of socialization and assimilation by examining the political preferences of first-, second-, and third-generation immigrants with regard to welfare spending. It provides empirical evidence that first-generation immigrants show greater support for welfare than US-born natives; however, it also shows that the political views of immigrants more closely resemble those of US-born natives the longer that the immigrants stay in the US, thereby suggesting their assimilation into US society. Furthermore, this chapter documents that the more liberal views of first-generation immigrants do not persist into the next generation due to the effects of assimilation and socialization. / by Jungho Roh. / Ph.D.

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Political Science, 2011. / Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references. / The current but inconsistent upheaval in the Middle East suggests variations in what will topple regimes, and thus in how regimes have laid the groundwork to remain in power. This thesis examines variation in a social condition, relative dominance of a ruling ethnic group in a multi-ethnic society, as the source for systematic variations in how a mono-ethnic regime will justify its rule to the general population. This thesis argues that the ruling group's relative dominance, defined as its relative percentage to other groups in the population, drives a regime's justifying argument to be either rooted in the presence of universally lauded institutions (democratic-institutional), the regime's demonstrated record of economic and social developmental achievements (economic-social developmental), or the regime's ability to further the interests of an identity common to itself and the population at large (identificational). Relative dominance, it is contended, affects regime behavior by influencing the functioning of two mechanisms: the degree to which a regime can tolerate public accountability and the extent to which it needs to reduce the salience of ethnicity in order to endure. The thesis hypothesizes that the former decreases and the latter increases as dominance decreases. The thesis incorporates quantitative and qualitative analyses to measure and evaluate relationships between relative dominance and justifying arguments. It demonstrates the existence of relationships between dominance and regimes' justifying arguments by means of content analysis of senior leaders' speeches in eight Sunni-dominant, Shi'ite-subordinate countries--Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq (under Saddam Hussein), Jordan, Kuwait, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, and Yemen. Case studies of one high-dominance country (the UAE), one medium-dominance (Yemen), one low-dominance (Iraq), and one outlier (Bahrain) then illustrate the speculated mechanisms in action. / by Deborah Rachel Berman. / S.M.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Political Science, 1993. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 281-323). / by You-Ping Cheng. / Ph.D.