<p> The interests of African Americans are underrepresented in Congress. The Congressional Black Caucus was formed to further the interests of African Americans. However, how effective the CBC may be in its congressional representation of the African American community is subject to dispute. It was hypothesized that throughout the 102^nd through the 112^th Congress (1992&ndash;2012), the CBC&rsquo;s legislative behavior persuaded party leaders to advance the CBC&rsquo;s legislative agenda. Archival data gathered by Scott Adler and John Wilkerson in their Congressional Bills Project 1947&ndash;2012 was utilized to complete the study. Linear regression T-tests and Chi-square tests were used to assess CBC members&rsquo; legislative behavior and the likelihood of the CBC introducing legislation that supported its legislative agenda. The results of the study show that the CBC demonstrated a robust legislative behavior of bill sponsorship, floor speeches and press conferences in support of its legislative agenda. The presence of the CBC in Congress is substantive, necessary to the success of legislation affecting African American interest and its&rsquo; legislative behavior is statistically significant compared to non-CBC members of Congress. The study validates, as essential, the presence of African American members of Congress.</p>

This study examines the strengths and influence of International News Media Coverage in Politics as manifested in the "Arab Spring." Key variables that shape global news coverage are examined with Western media institutions in particular being the focal point. The analytical agenda or purpose of this research is to examine the relationship between international news media and politics by evaluating news media coverage of protests, demonstrations and uprisings in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Syria, in an effort to determine how the Western media has shaped political views on those countries and other parts of the world using its technology, political principles and advantages. A case study analysis approach was used to explore the systemic factors that influence international news coverage and how these factors determine the volume and content of news that flows from various parts of the world. The researcher found that news coverage does not change the policy, but it does create the environment in which the policy is made and that the media remains crucial in focusing international attention on the Arab Spring, but they do not determine the policy, the key decisions, nor their implementations. The conclusion drawn from the findings suggests that although global news media is increasingly becoming a source of rapid real time information, it is used by politics to convey its ideological messages and propaganda.

No description available.

In this dissertation, I explore the relationship between legal systems, the rule of law, and states' cooperative and conflictual behavior. I analyze how domestic legal systems (common, civil, Islamic, etc.) influence a state's foreign policy behavior towards other states and international regimes. I also consider the extent to which the legitimacy of a domestic legal system modifies the relationship between legal systems and foreign policy behavior. In particular, I address the following questions: 1) How does the similarity of domestic legal system influence a state's foreign policy behavior towards other states and international institutions?, and 2) How does the legitimacy of a domestic legal system shape states' behavior towards other states and international institutions. I put forth a legal normative argument, which traces the reasons standing behind states' actions to their internal legal structure. I argue that states with similar and highly legitimate legal systems are more likely to cooperate with one another than states representing divergent and weakly legitimate legal traditions. In the same way, a nation is more likely to be supportive of an international institution if its legal rules and procedures resemble the nation's domestic legal order. My argument can be summarized as follows: International cooperation, both formal and informal, can be understood as contractual relationships. Domestic legal systems have an important effect on the way that states bargain over international contracts, because they affect the costs, benefits, and uncertainties of interstate cooperation. In particular, domestic legal system types and legitimacy influence contractual relations as far as the probability of signing interstate contracts, design of contracts, and their enforcement. I test my argument empirically in three different areas: states' propensity to accept the compulsory jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice; alliances; and the link existing between states' legal tradition and their conflictual interstate behavior. I find that both of the characteristics of the internal legal structure, legal system type and legitimacy, have a substantial impact on the way that states behave on the international arena. / Dissertation submitted to the Department of Political Science in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Degree Awarded: Summer Semester, 2006. / Date of Defense: August 4, 2006. / Alliances, International Court Of Justice, MID, Comparative Law, Legal Systems / Includes bibliographical references. / Dale L. Smith, Professor Directing Dissertation; Nathan Stoltzfus, Outside Committee Member; Sara McLaughlin Mitchell, Committee Member; Paul R. Hensel, Committee Member; Jeffrey K. Staton, Committee Member.

Who, if anyone, controls the massive government bureaucracy responsible for the elaboration, implementation, and enforcement of laws and executive orders? Typical managerial techniques---screening, reward, and punishment---are hampered by the rules of the civil service system. All but the most senior bureaucrats are hired and promoted according a non-political examination and review system, and most are protected from punishment or termination by tenure. I argue that the executive can control the bureaucracy by creating competition for budget allocations within and between agencies, a process I call strategic budgeting. These incentives work under realistic assumptions: highly imperfect monitoring, bounded rationality of executives and bureaucrats, ideological motivations, and professional norms are all a part of the model. I test the predictions of my theory in the laboratory and in data from the American states, finding evidence to confirm that strategic budgeting is an effective strategy for bureaucratic management. / A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Political Science in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Degree Awarded: Summer Semester, 2008. / Date of Defense: June 25, 2008. / Quantal Response, Budgeting, Bureaucracy, Principal Agent / Includes bibliographical references. / William D. Berry, Professor Directing Dissertation; Tim Salmon, Outside Committee Member; John T. Scholz, Committee Member; Bumba Mukherjee, Committee Member; T.K. Ahn, Committee Member.

Does the developing world significantly differ from the developed world when it comes to "correlates" of war? Do economic factors influence interstate conflict in the developing world more so than they do in the developed world? How and why do economic development, growth, and importance to the great powers shape conflict behavior of developing countries? And finally, does economic development condition democracy's purported peaceful influence on interstate relations in the developing world? In this study, I try to provide partial answers to these questions analyzing the militarized interstate disputes (MIDs) in the developing world between 1951 and 2000 and the negotiated settlement in such disputes. I provide a theoretical approach that rests on the concept of satisfaction and relate economic factors to interstate conflict in the developing world through their effects on states' satisfaction with the international and local status quo. Briefly, I argue that whereas economic development and growth increase the satisfaction of a developing state with the international and regional status quo and thus make it less conflict-prone, increasing economic importance of developing states to the great powers increase the costs of those states' militarized conflicts for the great powers, thereby augmenting the incentives for the great powers to prevent the militarization of disputes among developing states with higher economic importance to them. I also argue that, because economic conditions influence the foundation, performance, and survival of democratic systems, democratic institutions in less developed countries will not be as solid and functional as the ones in more developed countries and thus democracy will not have any independent effect on interstates conflicts of developing states; instead, democracy's influence on interstate relations of a developing country will be contingent on that country's economic development level. My arguments on economic development, economic importance to the great powers, and democracy received significant empirical support. My findings underline the importance of economic factors in shaping the conflict behavior of developing countries. An important policy implication of this study is that to achieve sustainable global peace, policies that would foster economic development in the developing world as well as economic integration of developing countries with the world economy ought to be encouraged and supported on a global scale. / A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Political Science in partial fulfillment of the requirement for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Degree Awarded: Summer Semester, 2008. / Date of Defense: April 24, 2008. / Interstate Conflict, Economic Development, Economic Growth, Economic Importance, Dispute Settlement, Developing Countries / Includes bibliographical references. / Dale L. Smith, Professor Directing Dissertation; Barney Warf, Outside Committee Member; Mark Souva, Committee Member; Paul Hensel, Committee Member.

Does privatization of state-owned assets result in economic growth? This paper seeks to theoretically and empirically link this market reform strategy to the outcome of economic growth. By taking a deeper look at developing countries, particularly sub-Saharan Africa and juxtaposing institutional and economic variables I will be able to test the relationship between privatization and economic growth. / A Thesis submitted to the Department of Political Science in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science. / Degree Awarded: Fall Semester, 2009. / Date of Defense: August 18, 2009. / Market Liberalization, Developing Countries / Includes bibliographical references. / Dale L. Smith, Professor Directing Thesis; Ray Block, Committee Member; Charles Barrilleaux, Committee Member.

The prevailing wisdom among scholars of civil war is that weak states, or resource-poor states, are the most prone to this form of political violence. Yet, a large portion of resource poor states never experience civil war. What can account for why resource-poor states, like El Salvador, are prone to civil war while resource-poor states, such as Bhutan, are not? I offer a theory of civil war onset that explains how dissidents and states interact to produce civil war. This theory moves beyond structural explanations and explains how the choices of states and dissidents jointly produce violence. From the theory, I derive the expectation that states that repress their citizens are the most likely to kill citizens and to generate dissident violence. In short, the resolution to the puzzle is: State leaders from resource-poor states, who choose to repress, are the most likely to generate violence that exceeds the civil war threshold. This insight not only resolves an academic puzzle but when tested provides a model with better in-sample prediction of civil war than previous models. After explicating the theory and discussing concepts, I empirically evaluate the hypotheses implied by these arguments using a large cross-national dataset including a global sample from 1975 to 1999. I utilize structural equation modeling as well as two-stage procedures to estimate the direct and indirect effects of variables outlined in the theory. Using a novel approach to reducing bias in my data, time-dependent propensity score matching, I isolate the causal effects of repression on a state's likelihood of experiencing civil war. I then extend the insights of the model to other forms of political violence including interstate conflict and insurgency and offer hypotheses relating to current debates over counterinsurgency policy and the relationship between state making and interstate war. / A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Political Science in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Degree Awarded: Summer Semester, 2008. / Date of Defense: June 23, 2008. / Political Violence, International Relations, Civil War / Includes bibliographical references. / Will H. Moore, Professor Directing Dissertation; Richard Feiock, Outside Committee Member; William Berry, Committee Member; Dale L. Smith, Committee Member; Jason Barabas, Committee Member.

The management of natural resources has undergone a fundamental change over the past decade. The traditional management approach that relies on command and control institutions, and punitive measures to enforce existing statues is now being used in conjunction with compliance based strategies. Compliance based programs rely on positive incentives and the community collaborative decision making model to govern natural resources. The most widely used compliance based strategy is collaborative management. The three most common types of collaborative management are ecosystem management, watershed initiatives and forestry partnerships. This dissertation examines why state legislatures adopt collaborative management programs, and analyzes the factors effecting the stakeholder's evaluation of collaborative institutions. The theories of subsystem politics and transaction cost economics are used to answer these questions. The following transaction costs influence the likelihood that a state will adopt a collaborativemanagement program: commitment costs, agency costs, and decision making costs. Thesecosts effect adoption by affecting the exchange that occurs among legislators and their constituents, which in turn impacts the costs associated with this exchange. Additionally, the natural resource management subsystems in some states are more likely to change than the subsystems in other states. Factors such as the mean educational attainment, per capita income, and the political control of government institutions effect if a state's resource management subsystems are prone to change. The evaluation of collaborative institutions is impacted by institutional rules, individual traits and institutional characteristics. The evaluation of a collaborative institution can be done by examining how actors evaluate the decision making process used by their group. Individuals evaluate the decision make process more favorably if their group has an institutional rule limiting discussion. Stakeholders with prior management experience rate the process unfavorably because collaborative institutions weaken their influence over existing deterrence based institutions. If people believe their participation in a collaborative group will benefit them over time, they rate the process more favorably. / A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Political Science in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Degree Awarded: Spring Semester, 2004. / Date of Defense: March 22, 2004. / Policy Adoption, Collaborative Managment, Watershed Intiatives, Ecosystem Management, Transaction Costs, Environmental Policy, Political Transaction Costs / Includes bibliographical references. / Richard Feiock, Professor Directing Dissertation; Ralph S. Brower, Outside Committee Member; Charles Barrilleaux, Committee Member; Tom Carsey, Committee Member.

Does public opinion influence foreign policy? Much work, following the example of such scholars as Page and Shapiro (1983), has suggested that mass public opinion is stable, and is rational and that public policy outputs follow public opinion in advanced democratic countries. Using the case of Germany, I employ a process tracing analysis as well as time series and cross-national time-series regression analyses to test the generalizability of the hypothesis of an opinion-foreign policy nexus in Europe between the years 1970-2002. Results here contradict literature on expected public opinion and policy outputs in the Cold War period yet are supported after. I find that the predicted effect of public opinion on foreign policy outputs to be confounded by such factors as security threats. I conclude that a divergence between the threat perception of leaders and of the public is likely to result in a lack of congruence between public opinion and a state's foreign policy outputs. Convergence between leaders and public opinion in post-Cold War Germany and more broadly in Europe may have necessitated a reassessment of the longstanding foreign policy relationship with the US. / A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Political Science in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Degree Awarded: Fall Semester, 2007. / Date of Defense: July 30, 2007. / Public Opinion Opinion-Policy Nexus Western Europe, Security Threats, Germany, Security, Foreign Policy / Includes bibliographical references. / Mark Souva, Professor Directing Dissertation; Michael Creswell, Outside Committee Member; Paul Hensel, Committee Member; Dale Smith, Committee Member; Robert Jackson, Committee Member.