Very limited attention is paid to the variegated character of state policy agendas. We simply do not know why state policy agendas vary across the states yet careful inspection reveals vast differences in attentiveness to major issues. In this project I map major characteristics of state policy agendas and develop and test models that account for interstate variation in agenda attention to redistributive issues. I develop a model of state policy agenda formation that integrates the ideological preferences of the political actors across institutions with those of constituents and looks at the conditioning effects of elections and the preferences and the influence of other institutional actors. The analyses also control for the effects of interest organizations and select socio-economic factors. Redistributive "agenda space," defined as the proportion of state policy agendas devoted to redistributive issues out of their total agendas, will serve as the dependent variable in the analysis. The empirical analysis investigates the allocation of agenda attention to redistributive policies (e.g., welfare and education) across all 50 states during the period of 1993--1996. This project demonstrates that state redistributive agendas are a function of both elite and mass preferences conditioned by patterns of inter-institutional competition, electoral contingencies and interest group activity. In addition to the importance of elite and mass preferences, this analysis illustrates the importance of contextual and institutional factors in understanding the attentiveness of state institutions to these issues. This project shows how ideological preferences, political context, institutional settings, and socio-economic factors shape public policy in the American states, influencing the overall redistributive nature of the states.

Reorganizations occur in all institutions, whether political or business or personal. Sometimes the reorganizations happen so slowly that they are almost indiscernible over time. At other times, the effects of the reorganization are immediately apparent. The consensus regarding political institutions, at least, is that change occurs slowly, when it occurs at all. This research focuses primarily on legislative change at the state level, and examines one particular reason for legislative change: change in the executive branch. The theory posits that one reason for state legislatures to reorganize their institutions is preceding executive branch reorganization. Legislatures should reorganize concomitant to executive branch reorganization and should do so in a way that brings their structure more closely into alignment with the structure of the executive branch. Legislatures possess compelling reasons to attempt to match the structures of their institutions with those of the executive branch. Doing so facilitates better oversight and helps to reduce information and power asymmetries. The results demonstrate that while legislative change by itself is sufficient to increase the degree to which legislative structure is congruent with that of the executive branch, the increase in congruence is maximized when a legislative reorganization follows an executive reorganization.

This research investigates the linkage between political change and legislative institutional change in the Mexican Chamber of Deputies since 1970. A series of electoral reforms beginning in 1977 allowed the opposition parties to increase their Chamber representation. How were issues of internal organization resolved in the new political context of strengthened opposition conflict? How did these institutional changes affect the Chamber activity? In contrast to the efficiency and specialization perspective from Organization Theory, the theoretical approach to these questions directs attention to how members try to shape the legislative structure and rules to advantage themselves. In this research, I track the institutional and behavioral changes in the Chamber floor and committee system since 1970 with an interrupted time series design. These political and institutional changes reflect the power and strategic interaction between the opposition and ruling majority party, PRI (Institutional Revolutionary Party). The majority party restricted the institutional rules and structures in the early post-reform legislatures until the opposition increased to an average of 41% of the seats in the 1988-97 legislatures. Then, the opposition parties were able to force some institutional changes to allow them more political space. Currently, the opposition holds a majority in the Chamber and has capitalized on the gradual changes that have been taking place since the late 1970s.

Campaigns are an important but under-studied component of legislative elections. How candidates allocate their financial and material resources during the course of a political campaign has implications not only for election outcomes but also for representation within legislative institutions. This analysis begins an exploration of state legislative campaigns by first examining their basic features--the organizational structure, reliance on professional consultants and party operatives for assistance, and the strategies and techniques used for contacting voters. Next, the analysis examines factors related to the candidate, financial capability, and district conditions that influence the type of campaign which is waged. Finally, the analysis considers the impact of campaign activity on the vote margins won by candidates. Information obtained from survey responses along with campaign finance data collected on candidates running in seven states in 1994 is used in the analysis (Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Oregon, South Carolina, Texas, and Wyoming). Results show that financial resources play prominently in affecting the type of campaign which is waged, but not always in ways we might expect. Candidates with higher levels of funding are likely to utilize more modern techniques, but they are also likely to have strong campaign organizations which make grass-roots contact possible. District conditions such as total population, population density, and media market congruence affect the choice of voter contact strategies. The results also indicate that some forms of electioneering have a greater influence than others. Overall, these findings lend support to the idea that the campaign process has implications for election outcomes as well as for representation in legislative institutions.

Federalism is designed to enhance democratic representation because it gives citizens the opportunity to shape policymaking at multiple levels of government. This design feature is premised on the assumption that individuals make distinctions in the responsibilities that pertain to different levels of government and link these distinctions in a rational way to their voting decisions. Citizens are expected to sanction politicians for those policy decisions over which their level of government has responsibility. This dissertation draws on work in both political and social psychology to develop a theoretical framework consistent with the federalist view of democratic representation. Existing and original survey data drawn from U.S. samples were employed to test the hypotheses derived from this model. These data corroborate the federalist view, suggesting that federalism shapes voting behavior in the United States in expected ways. Further evidence also demonstrates that how policy responsibilities are divided among levels of government is responsive to changes in public opinion. All together, these findings buttress the claim that federalism enhances democratic representation.

The primary objective of this research is to address a basic question: What types of governmental structures serve to enhance the public's trust in government? It develops and tests a theory linking local political characteristics to citizen attitudes toward government. These relationships are analyzed by (1) collecting original survey data on citizen attitudes toward local governments and information on local political characteristics, and (2) using multi-level analytical techniques to investigate how the context created by various governmental structures and political realities impacts the political attitudes of residents. The research presented here unites much of the political, social, and psychological research on political trust by presenting a model of the attitude based on individual-level judgments about the policies, processes, and people of local government as well as the political structures and realities that surround these individuals. This study also provides insight into how contextual variables can contribute to an understanding of individual-level attitudes by showing how a person's political surroundings can operate to shape their feelings of trust in the government.

Social capital---what it is, how it is generated, and what it may or may not do for the larger political system---is the subject of a large and ongoing debate within political science. This dissertation seeks to answer the question: "What is it about group membership that may or may not produce social capital?" Much of the social capital literature alludes to a relationship between group membership and social capital, yet findings are often mixed on the importance of group membership for the production of social capital. Before the relationship between group membership and social capital can be discounted, it is critical to examine whether or not the organizational structure of a group has an impact on social capital. A theory of organizational structure and member involvement on the production of social capital is introduced and suggests that appropriately structured groups provide a context in which social capital can be produced. Appropriately structured groups are groups that promote face-to-face interaction between members and leaders, avenues for member participation in decision-making and the setting of group goals, communication between members and leaders, and member participation in strategies to achieve group goals. It is expected that the level of member participation within the group will mediate the influence of the group organizational structure. Data used to examine the influence of member involvement and general group structure on the production of social capital are from the American National Election Study, 1996 and the American Citizen Participation Study, 1990. Original data collected from a random sample of members of the Texas Bicycle Coalition and the Lone Star Chapter of the Sierra Club are used to examine more closely the impact of group structure and member involvement on social capital. Overall, the findings indicate that group structure affects the production of social capital and suggest that future research should focus on examining the organizational structure of a larger number of groups.

Perspectives of judicial behavior regularly fail to recognize the impact of judge attributes on decision making. This thesis seeks to integrate two theories of judicial behavior, the strategic perspective and the institutional perspective, by introducing the distribution of judge characteristics as an explanation of judicial behavior. While the strategic perspective reasons judges behave differently if threatened by retaliation from other political actors and the institutional perspective reasons judges decide differently based on whether they face an electorate, this thesis further considers whether heightened diversity creates collective action problems. This thesis suggests many factors affect the diversity of the courts. These factors include the risks and incentives of office that affect the motivation of office seekers. Risks and incentives include formal methods of selection, court structural characteristics, and the political environment. The forces that affect the distribution of preferences on courts may differently affect collective action problems where courts are more or less cohesive. Where forces vary, different forms of composition are expected. Where the distribution of preferences is highly dissimilar conflict is anticipated. Similarly, where the attractiveness of office contributes to more cohesive courts, consensus should materialize. This dissertation includes an investigation of several forms of diversity, including gender, racial, ideological, and tenure diversity. The results show that risks and incentives of office structure the composition of the courts. In relation to consensus, several areas of policy are examined, including capital cases, non-violent crimes, taxation policy, and tort law policy. These analyses reveal that diversity has a significant effect; however, diversity's influence varies by methods of selection, with elected courts restricting the impact of diversity and appointed courts creating environments for sincere behavior. While conflict is influenced by the distribution of preferences and characteristics, consensus is highly dependent on the institutional determinants of diversity that structure collective action problems. This dissertation successfully reveals that the distribution of preferences and characteristics influences collective outcomes. Furthermore, this dissertation reveals that the composition of the courts shares a strong relationship with the risks and incentives of office, thus suggesting the attractiveness of office influences collective outcomes.

Why do some mediation activities produce favorable outcomes while others fail to achieve success? I investigate this question by focusing on the type and characteristics of mediators of international conflicts. Are some types of mediators more able to facilitate negotiated settlements between the disputants than others? Drawing on the bargaining theory of war and building upon Kydd's (2003) game-theoretical model of mediation, I argue that mediators that have information about the military capabilities and/or resolve of the disputants are more likely to induce negotiated settlements between the disputants than those without such information. I develop operational measures of mediator's information about the disputants and mediator's bias towards the disputants and find that having relevant information about the disputants increases a mediator's likelihood of success. However, I do not find empirical support for the argument that a mediator needs to be biased towards one of the disputants in order to credibly convey information. The findings of this study increase our confidence in the usefulness and relevance of the bargaining theory of war, which perceives information imperfections as a central cause of conflict.

This thesis addresses one of the central questions in political philosophy, the question of political obligation why people have a duty to support the political institutions of their countries. The traditional and dominant answer to this question is voluntarism, which claims that people have such a duty because they have consented to the ruling of their states. The thesis systematically refutes this voluntarist approach, criticizes some of today's leading non-voluntarist alternatives to the voluntarist one, and advances a new way of looking at the problem, which is derived from a transcendental argument.