<p>The Global South, and particularly Latin America, experienced a remarkable expansion in conditional cash transfer (CCT) programs in the last fifteen years. Although a large literature examines the effects of CCTs on human development, the political behavioral consequences remain underexplored. In the dissertation, I address this gap by analyzing the effects of CCTs on political participation and policy. I also explore the implications of these effects for human development. </p><p>My central argument is that CCTs increase political participation among beneficiaries, and both program transfers and conditionalities contribute to these positive effects. More specifically, CCTs provide beneficiaries with politically relevant resources, including civic skills and access to state officials and community leaders. These resources reduce the costs of political participation and facilitate more involvement in political activities, particularly in more demanding forms of participation. In addition, I argue that CCTs increase the private provision of local services and influence the outcomes of some non-national elections. </p><p>To test this argument, I use four main sources of data: (1) existing survey data from Latin America in 2012; (2) original survey data from Mexico in 2014; (3) experimental data from Mexico in 1998-2000; and (4) in-depth interviews and focus groups from Mexico in 2012. Multilevel models and linear regression models are used to estimate the effects of CCTs on political behavior and service provision. The in-depth interviews and focus groups help to unravel more of the causal mechanism that connects CCTs to political participation. </p><p>The evidence largely supports my argument. I find that CCTs increase participation in a wide variety of political activities, including electoral and non-electoral activities. In addition, the pathways to increased participation include improved civic skills and increased access to state officials and local leaders. Moreover, CCTs increase the private provision of sewerage services.</p><p>I conclude that CCTs have both desirable and undesirable consequences. On the one hand, CCTs increase democratic political participation, improve civic skills, reduce the distance between beneficiaries and government officials, and increase access to local services. The increased access to sewerage services creates an indirect pathway to improved human development outcomes. On the other hand, CCTs reduce the pressure on local officials to provide local services, and in some contexts contribute to electoral rewards for undeserving incumbent parties.</p> / Dissertation

This study examines the impact of political information conveyed through computer-mediated social networks. Using a popular social networking website, Facebook, a randomized field experiment involving Georgia State University undergraduates explores the extent to which computer-mediated peer-to-peer communication can increase political knowledge. For this experiment two Facebook profiles were created, one to administer information about the 2009 Atlanta mayoral election and the other to administer timely entertainment information. Students were randomly assigned one of these profiles to “friend.” Students choosing not to “friend” their assigned profile were aggregated to create an additional control condition. Treatments were administered to those who “friended” their assigned profile for the seven days preceding the mayoral election. To assess the transfer of knowledge between the profiles and the students a subsequent in-person survey was conducted (N=374). Results reveal that being exposed to political information by a peer through a social networking website increases the probability of recalling at least some of that information by 18.2 percent. Notably, the same method of exposure to entertainment information produces no significant effects on the recall of that information.

How do migrants from Mexico to the U.S., including those who return permanently to Mexico and those who engage in cross-border communication from the U.S., contribute to changes in the political attitudes and behavior of Mexicans living in Mexico? Individuals who return to Mexico after experiencing U.S. democracy directly are less likely to influence change among their non-migrant co-nationals than are migrants who remain in the U.S. This holds even though the former can share their experiences face-to-face, while the latter must transmit them from a distance and across the border. Non-migrants' propensity to learn foreign political practices and beliefs from migrants is conditioned by their ambivalent attitudes towards the U.S. These attitudes condition both migrants' willingness to share the forms of civic engagement they learned up north and non-migrants' receptivity. Non-migrants are more receptive to migrants who remain in the U.S. than to returnees because they have a higher esteem for them and because the long-distance ties that bind non-migrants to migrants abroad, as opposed to those back home, are stronger. Both types of migrants have an interest in sharing their new beliefs and behaviors with non-migrants; but while returnees struggle to accept adaptations of American-style practices to the Mexican context, this produces little inconvenience for migrants abroad. The anti-American attitudes returnees find in Mexico also dampen their efforts to introduce change. I employ statistical regressions, Qualitative Comparative Analysis and process tracing to evaluate two data sources: (1) a large-n database that draws from an original survey administered on a nationwide sample of Mexican citizens living in Mexico; and, (2) scores of interviews with migrants and the people in Mexico with whom they communicate. The statistical results indicate the outcomes that migrant-led international diffusion produces. The qualitative analysis explains the mechanisms that drive or constrain diffusion. The project applies theories of international diffusion to change occurring among individuals at the level of mass publics. It highlights the importance of intersubjective beliefs about the sources of foreign innovations--including both people and countries--in shaping diffusion processes. / text

The incorporation of social and environmental objectives in water resources planning and management has been, and will continue to be, the result of several evolutionary processes. The most general of these processes is the evolution of rational-analytic thinking as a form of problem solving behavior. A second evolutionary process is the development of institutional and analytical procedures for making public decisions. The most specific process is the evolution of federal water resources planning procedures in the United States. These processes are examined, the changing institutional environment within which water resources planning and management occurs is characterized, and implications are drawn for future incorporation of social and environmental objectives.

Submitted by André Luiz Vieira Dias (andrelvdias@me.com) on 2018-11-23T20:12:35Z No. of bitstreams: 1 DIAS, André - Tese - versão final.pdf: 5338157 bytes, checksum: e75f634b7129e1609759ed502d34cc53 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Milena Maria Rodrigues null (milena@fclar.unesp.br) on 2018-11-23T22:47:44Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 dias_alv_dr_fclar.pdf: 5338157 bytes, checksum: e75f634b7129e1609759ed502d34cc53 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2018-11-23T22:47:45Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 dias_alv_dr_fclar.pdf: 5338157 bytes, checksum: e75f634b7129e1609759ed502d34cc53 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2018-09-14 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES) / O objetivo deste trabalho foi testar e analisar o efeito da escolaridade sobre o engajamento cívico e político dos brasileiros no período de 2000 a 2016, destacando, sobretudo, as mudanças do comportamento dos mais escolarizados – se são os mais interessados, participativos e aderentes aos valores e atitudes democráticas. A partir dos dados obtidos pelo survey Latinobarômetro, foi adotada a função explanatória, e não apenas exploratória e descritiva aplicando as técnicas de análise quantitativa, no intuito de verificar o desempenho da influência da escolaridade – isolada e controlada por outras variáveis posicionais e socioeconômicas sobre as dimensões da proficiência cognitiva, engajamento e esclarecimento democrático. A análise quantitativa recorreu à aplicação dos modelos de regressão multinomial probit e logit, além de seus efeitos marginais, adequados à explicação da probabilidade normal de ocorrência de um determinado fenômeno. Neste sentido, a hipótese verificada foi a de que, diferente do efeito ocasionado sobre a cidadania nas democracias avançadas, fatores contextuais reduziram progressivamente a capacidade preditiva da escolaridade sobre a cognição, o engajamento e a adesão à democracia no Brasil. / The objective of this study was to test and analyze the effect of schooling on the civic and political engagement of Brazilians from 2000 to 2016, highlighting, above all, the behavioral changes of the more educated - if they are the most interested, participative and adherent to values and democratic attitudes. From the data obtained by the Latinobarómetro survey, the explanatory function was adopted, not only exploratory and descriptive, applying the techniques of quantitative analysis, in order to verify the performance of the influence of schooling - isolated and controlled by other positional and socioeconomic variables on the dimensions of cognitive proficiency, engagement, and democratic enlightenment. The quantitative analysis utilized the multinomial regression models probit and logit, in addition to their marginal effects, adequate to the explanation of the normal probability of occurrence of a certain phenomenon. In this sense, the hypothesis was accepted that, unlike the effect on citizenship in advanced democracies, contextual factors progressively reduced the predictive capacity of schooling over cognition, engagement and adherence to democracy in Brazil.

Made available in DSpace on 2014-06-11T19:35:19Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 2006Bitstream added on 2014-06-13T21:07:51Z : No. of bitstreams: 1 lenardao_e_dr_arafcl.pdf: 3665415 bytes, checksum: 1ec26a74d6164a8defac4ef538e2d630 (MD5) / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES) / Faz-se, aqui, uma investigação sobre as razões da presença de práticas políticas do tipo clientelista entre setores das classes populares, no Brasil contemporâneo, com destaque para os anos 1990. Propõe-se valorizar as razões inscritas na própria conjuntura sóciopolítica que circunda o fenômeno, de modo que se vá além das explicações que se fiam nos aspectos histórico-culturais ou de viés economicista, exclusivamente. Para este propósito, recorre-se a fontes bibliográficas e a periódicos, dos quais tirou-se uma interpretação própria sobre o período. Constatou-se que as práticas clientelistas receberam estímulos para se manifestarem na organização política nacional, principalmente, na esfera federal, mas com reflexos efetivos nos estados e municípios, do fato de a coalizão de forças políticas formada para a implantação do projeto neoliberal no Brasil ter juntado a moderna Social Democracia Brasileira e as velhas oligarquias regionais - situadas dentro do PFL, PP, PTB e setores do PMDB, principalmente -, cujos representantes são reconhecidos pelo apego às práticas de recorte patrimonialista e paternalista. / A survey is carried out on the reasons for the presence of political practices such as clientelism among sectors of popular classes in contemporary Brazil, with an emphasis on the 1990s. Our purpose is to value the reasons that are proper of the social-political situation that surrounds the phenomenon, in such a way that one can go beyond explanations, which are based exclusively on historical-cultural aspects or economy bias. In order to do so, some bibliographical sources and periodicals were used, from which a proper interpretation was taken about that period. It was observed that the clientelistic practices were stimulated to manifest themselves in the national political organization, mainly in the federal scope, but with effective reflections in the States and cities, due to the fact that, the coalition of political forces formed for the implementation of the neo-liberal project in Brazil, has joined the modern Brazilian Social Democracy and the old regional oligarchy - located mainly within the political parties PFL (Liberal Front Party), PP (Progressionist Party), PTB (Brazilian Labor Party) and sectors of PMDB (Brazilian Democratic Movement Party), whose representatives are well-known for their patrimonial and paternalist practices.

Orientador: José Flávio Bertero / Banca: Ângelo Del Vechio / Banca: José Antonio Segatto / Banca: Ruben Murilo Leão Rego / Banca: Pedro Roberto Ferreira / Resumo: Faz-se, aqui, uma investigação sobre as razões da presença de práticas políticas do tipo clientelista entre setores das classes populares, no Brasil contemporâneo, com destaque para os anos 1990. Propõe-se valorizar as razões inscritas na própria conjuntura sóciopolítica que circunda o fenômeno, de modo que se vá além das explicações que se fiam nos aspectos histórico-culturais ou de viés economicista, exclusivamente. Para este propósito, recorre-se a fontes bibliográficas e a periódicos, dos quais tirou-se uma interpretação própria sobre o período. Constatou-se que as práticas clientelistas receberam estímulos para se manifestarem na organização política nacional, principalmente, na esfera federal, mas com reflexos efetivos nos estados e municípios, do fato de a coalizão de forças políticas formada para a implantação do projeto neoliberal no Brasil ter juntado a moderna Social Democracia Brasileira e as velhas oligarquias regionais - situadas dentro do PFL, PP, PTB e setores do PMDB, principalmente -, cujos representantes são reconhecidos pelo apego às práticas de recorte patrimonialista e paternalista. / Abstract: A survey is carried out on the reasons for the presence of political practices such as clientelism among sectors of popular classes in contemporary Brazil, with an emphasis on the 1990s. Our purpose is to value the reasons that are proper of the social-political situation that surrounds the phenomenon, in such a way that one can go beyond explanations, which are based exclusively on historical-cultural aspects or economy bias. In order to do so, some bibliographical sources and periodicals were used, from which a proper interpretation was taken about that period. It was observed that the clientelistic practices were stimulated to manifest themselves in the national political organization, mainly in the federal scope, but with effective reflections in the States and cities, due to the fact that, the coalition of political forces formed for the implementation of the neo-liberal project in Brazil, has joined the "modern" Brazilian Social Democracy and the "old" regional oligarchy - located mainly within the political parties PFL (Liberal Front Party), PP (Progressionist Party), PTB (Brazilian Labor Party) and sectors of PMDB (Brazilian Democratic Movement Party), whose representatives are well-known for their patrimonial and paternalist practices. / Doutor

The objective of this research is to explore the influence of military service on political behaviors and attitudes. Existing studies of the military have long recognized the existence of a predominantly conservative political ideology with a resulting propensity for strong Republican Party support within the military community, but have failed to explain the likely causal mechanism for this. Drawing on multiple sources of data from the 2008 Presidential election cycle, I utilized a descriptive analysis of campaign contribution data and bivariate and multivariate analyses of data from the 2008 Military Times Survey and the 2008 American National Election Survey. Much of the data also permitted me to analyze the effect of an individual's service branch on their attitudes as well. I examined the behavior and attitudes of the military across several dimensions, including candidate support and positions on policies of particular relevance to the military, including the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. This analysis found that people who serve in the military tend to be conservative but in many ways their political attitudes are reflective of those of the general population. An individual's race, ethnicity and gender appear to have more influence than military factors, with the exception of service in the Marine Corps, on ideology, partisan identification and policy preferences.

No description available.

The first step towards developing targeted policies to boost political interest is to identify the main characteristics of individuals interested (and those who are not) in politics. This article aims at exploring the common factors shared by individuals with the same political interest. This is investigated through a cluster analysis, a rarely used technique in the field of political behavior, with data from the European Social Survey. The results are in line with the initial expectations and show that civic skills, represented by the educational background and the frequency of relational meetings, are determinants of political interest. Nonetheless, for those with the same civic skills, other socio-demographic, economic, and relational factors can diverge depending on the political interest. More in detail, the main attributes distinguishing individuals with the same level of civic skills but a different level of political interest are socio-demographic. In other words, among individuals with high civic skills, the main differences between those politically interested and those who are not are on the variables about age, gender and marital status. In addition, the research highlights the relevance of cluster analysis to obtain closer details on behavioral patterns than those obtained through regression analysis.