What are the relationships between strength of racial identification, anger, and the political behavior of white women? Building on the literature on white identity politics and anger in political behavior, I argue that white identity and anger have a conditional relationship that leads to changes in multiple aspects of white women's political behavior. This dissertation uses the 2016 American National Election Survey and the 2016 Comprehensive Multiracial Post-election Survey to explore these associations. The findings show that there is a relationship between white racial identity conditioned on anger or threat and the strength of white women's partisanship and their issue opinions. When there is no anger or threat measure included, the relationship with political participation is weaker than expected which supports the importance of anger and its predecessor threat in the political behavior of white women. Overall, this dissertation expands the areas of white political behavior that are associated with strength of racial identity and anger as well as finding these relationships specifically with white women.

Objective – Views surrounding COVID-19 are divided. The objective of this thesis is to investigate if views surrounding COVID-19 can be inferred based on college-level demographics. I explore the views of undergraduate students at the University of Central Florida. Methods – A link to the questionnaire created through Qualtrics was sent out to university leaders asking them to distribute it accordingly among their respective undergraduate populations. Students (N=149) responded to questions about issues related to COVID-19, college-level demographics, and political attitudes. The data was analyzed using both descriptive and inferential analysis. Results – Students still viewed COVID-19 as a serious issue (79%). (44%) were concerned about issues other than the direct health implications and (28%) viewed the public response as an overreaction. Seniors were more likely to say it is important to know others’ vaccination status. Those in the College of Engineering/Computer Science were most supportive of Trump’s handling of COVID-19 and viewed the pandemic as less serious. They were also less supportive of vaccine mandates and less likely to change their behavior than Arts and Humanities students. Only the CDC received majority support as a helpful source of information about COVID-19. Conclusions – Further research needs to be undertaken using a larger and more representative sample to better understand how college-level demographics interact with political behavior. The CDC should be the chief source of information regarding public health. And schools should address the different concerns students have about the pandemic while also making sure students who disagree with public health measures have avenues to express their opinion.

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Tabletop role-playing games (TRPGs) present a unique opportunity to study political behavior. In educational settings, role-playing games (RPGs) of all kinds have proven to be valuable educational tools, and even when played for fun, participating in role playing games has been shown to increase one's level of confidence. Knowing this, I designed an experiment to attempt to increase internal political efficacy through the use of a politically-themed TRPG. I took inspiration from the original TRPGs of the 1970s and 1980s which were used purely for entertainment purposes to create my own game in a traditional TRPG setting with current issues woven into the story of the game (also called a campaign), and utilized quantitative and qualitative methods to analyze participants' reactions to the campaign and levels of efficacy. In doing so, I seek to determine whether players will recognize real-world issues when presented in a science fiction or fantasy-themed campaign. Furthermore, given that TRPGs have the potential to shape players' understanding of how the world works and their place in it, will players be more motivated to act on said issues presented in-game, even if they do not consciously make the connection between the real-life issues presented in the science fiction/fantasy setting and those same issues in the real world?

Do the experiences that an immigrant faces in their country of origin affect the political attitudes and behavior when an immigrant is in their country of residence? Although there is a considerable amount of work exploring the political behavior of racial and ethnic minorities, some work on immigrant political behavior, and some work that that connects premigratory experiences with post migration political behavior, there is relatively little work that examines premigratory experiences with autocracy, corruption, and violence and how that affects the political behavior of immigrants. In this project I observe how experiences with corruption, political violence, and conflict has an affect on political trust, political behavior, and social trust among immigrants that have experienced such events.

To this point research on firms’ political behavior has contributed knowledge concerning large firms’ relationships and strategies with political actors and their surrounding environment. Less is known about small firms’ behavior towards political organizations. As a matter of fact, the fields of international marketing, international business and corporate political science have left the political behavior of small firms almost untouched. Therefore, extant literature assumes that small firms due to their resource constraints are passive receivers of political initiatives. About 99 percent of all firms within the European Union are small firms, and it is therefore questioned whether all these firms are passive receivers of political initiatives. The intention with this thesis is to challenge some assumptions regarding how small firms manage their relationships with political actors concerning EU related rules and regulations. Consequently, the study raises the overarching research question; how do small firms manage their political environment? Theoretically, the study takes a network perspective on business political interaction to examine both individual and/or collective political behavior of small firms. It develops a theoretical view constituted of knowledge, commitment and legitimacy. Methodologically, two sequential stages are followed: first an in-depth qualitative case study of three successful cases is presented and second, the in-depth understanding is broadened to a wider population of firms based on a quantitative survey. A central contribution of this thesis is to aid research on the political behavior of small firms. It is found that small firms, in contrast to prevailing assumptions, do possess political resources. They are not passive receivers of political initiatives. Instead, the findings show that small firms are active and can exercise influence. This, however, is shown to be dependent on the firm’s political commitment, political knowledge and competency and business-political legitimacy. It is also shown that small firms mobilize these critical resources not only directly, but also indirectly through various intermediating actors. Besides the theoretical contributions, these conclusions are important not just because of the managerial implications but also, and perhaps more importantly, for the policy implications that can be drawn from the study. Being exploratory and opening up the black box of small firm’s political behavior, the thesis ends with a number of future research directions.