More and more, elections around the world seem to be won or lost on the basis of the candidates’ personal qualities rather than their policies. Despite its prevalence in new and established democracies alike, we still know very little about what explains such candidate-centered voting. This study moves our understanding of this issue by examining variation in candidate-centered voting across individuals and electoral contexts in recent presidential elections in the United States, Brazil, and Mexico. I argue that candidate-centered voting is largely an information problem. At the individual level, I focus on the conditioning role of political sophistication, arguing that voters with higher levels of political sophistication engage in less candidate-centered voting due their increased capacity to manage the more cognitively demanding types of information related to policy and performance. Moving beyond the individual level, I consider how candidate-centered voting may vary across electoral contexts as well. In particular, I consider how the institutionalization and structure of political competition shape the cognitive demands on voters, making it more or less difficult for voters to evaluate candidates on bases other than their personalities. To test these arguments, I estimate models of voters’ electoral utilities and vote choices using electoral survey data from the U.S. (2008), Brazil (2002), and Mexico (2000 and 2006). Overall, the empirical analysis supports my individual-level argument regarding political sophistication’s conditioning role. As political sophistication increases, the dominance of candidate considerations in voters’ electoral decisions tends to decrease. Likewise, comparisons in the level of candidate-centered voting across the elections under study suggest that certain aspects of the institutionalization and structure of political competition may help explain contextual variation in candidate-centered voting. / text

Au début du vingtième siècle, après deux décennies sans réforme électorale, le mode de scrutin devient un sujet de controverse. Cette étude se propose d’examiner les conditions du choix de la représentation proportionnelle par les membres de la Chambre des députés française ainsi que par d’autres militants. Au-delà de la rééligibilité législative, c’est à travers le changement du mode de scrutin (introduction du scrutin de liste et de la représentation proportionnelle) que le problème de la réélection apparaît sous la Troisième République. Les professeurs de droit constitutionnel, tant à Paris qu’en province, délaissent cette expertise malgré quelques entreprises militantes éparses. Leurs étudiants formulent alors un savoir académique vite enserré par les contraintes récurrentes des jurys de thèse. Nous cherchons à examiner pourquoi et comment le parlement s’est emparé de cette question. Si les conservateurs et les socialistes sont les plus zélés partisans de la représentation proportionnelle, on ne peut en rester au fait que les partis défendent des systèmes qui les favorisent le plus. Notre étude insiste sur la stabilité socio-biographique du recrutement parlementaire plutôt que sur les variations de majorité et donc d’intérêts. Il faut expliquer pourquoi et comment ce fut le débat parlementaire lui-même qui a pu aboutir à une réforme électorale. Le système mixte de 1919, entre proportionnelle et principe majoritaire, exprime cette tendance des députés à l’ « auto-critique » qui dessine in fine un « auto-portrait ». Progressivement, les circulaires ministérielles adressées aux préfets confondent ces problèmes en un seul mouvement qui tente de codifier l’organisation des candidatures qui pourrait être au fondement du renouvellement souhaité. Ce travail préfectoral retire aux seuls entrepreneurs électoraux le monopole de l’anticipation des résultats et en ménage une co-production administrative. Dans la production préfectorale, de nouvelles cartes des circonscriptions uninominales ont eu tendance à perpétuer le traditionnel « scrutin d’arrondissement ». Ces tentatives de réforme électorale spatiale ont également introduit une nouvelle échelle dans le déroulement des campagnes électorales. Cet élargissement de la capacité électorale a été rendu possible par une nouvelle représentation : la circonscription administrative du département a eu tendance à devenir le critère principal de la mobilisation électorale que ce soit pour la loi électorale de 1919 ou celle de 1927. / Early twentieth century, after two decades of indifference to electoral reform, the electoral system has become a controversial question. This study explores the factors that should been taken into consideration when members of the French Chamber of Deputies and some other activists have tried to choose “proportional representation”. Beyond its political and legislative dimensions, the problem of re-election of representatives in the Third Republic was influenced by manipulation of electoral rules – in particular the introduction of proportional and list voting. In Paris and in Province, professors desert this part of doctrine in spite of some militant activities. Students had produced their thesis under constraint because the boards of examiners were always the same. We seek to explain how and why Parliament becomes leader in this electoral reform. Conservatives and Socialists advocated more strongly the proportional representation. The problem is often stated on the level in which every political party prefers the electoral system that favors it. This study will underline the biographical and social effect of membership stability instead of change in partisan control of the legislature. We seek to explain why a parliamentary debate may lead to a change in the established electoral system. The mixed system of 1919, between proportional representation and majority principle, expresses the deputies’ trends to self-criticism which is also self- representation. Increasingly, ministerial letters of instruction to Prefects tend to conflate these elements into a single effort to codify the pre-selection of candidates who could form the base of the desired political renewal. In this way, the monopoly of expertise relating to anticipating and predicting electoral outcomes once held political entrepreneurs was replaced by co-management of elections by them and the Prefects. First, new maps for single-seat districts have tended to perpetuate the traditionnal “scrutin d’arrondissement”. These attemps of spatial electoral reform have introduced a new scale in electoral campaign. This enlargement of electoral capability was made possible with a new representation : the administrative district of “département” has tended to become the main criterion in electoral mobilization whatever one of the two different electoral rules in 1919 and 1927.

Although more women are successfully breaching the social, economic and political barriers that can prevent them from participating as electoral candidates, few women campaign for elected office. A dearth of female candidates may be understandable, given research demonstrating that women tend to avoid competition and competitive environments. Thus, elections – competitive by design – may attract fewer women than men. This thesis posits that the inherent competitiveness of electoral politics may deter women from campaigning for office. However, this work also forwards that competitive sport socialization during adolescence may prepare women for electoral competition. This paper examines the results of a self-administered survey mailed to 449 female candidates for municipal office. The survey investigated candidates’ adolescent experiences in competitive sports and attitudes relating to internal political efficacy. The results appear to demonstrate a strong correlation between competitive sport socialization and either positive or neutral evaluations of political competition. / x, 163 leaves ; 29 cm

This dissertation examines how parties respond and adapt their behavior to political violence. Building a theoretical argument about strategic party behavior and party capture, I address the following questions: How do parties select and recruit their candidates in regions with high levels of violence and the pervasive presence of VNAs? Do parties respond to violence by selecting certain types of candidates who are more capable of fighting these organizations? Do parties react differently at different levels of government? And finally, how do VNSAs capture political selection across at different levels of government? I argue that in regions where there is high "uncertainty," candidate selection becomes highly important for both party leaders and DTOs. Second, I argue that as violence increases and the number of DTOs also, criminal organizations, as risk-averse actors, will capture candidate selection. I posit that as violence increases, there is a greater likelihood that candidates will have criminal connections. To test my theory, I use the case of Mexico. Violence in Mexico and the presence of criminal organizations across the country has experienced a great deal of variation since the 1990s. In Chapter 2, I find that violence affects the gubernatorial candidate selection of the PRI, PAN and PRD. In high violence states, parties select gubernatorial candidates with long experience in subnational politics compared to other types of experiences. In chapter 3, however, I find that at the municipal level not all the parties respond equally to violence. As a municipality becomes more violent, the PRI and PAN party leaders are more likely to select mayoral candidates who were either state or federal deputies or candidates who were both. In contrast, the PRD is likely to recruit state deputies as a function of violence, but not national deputies or candidates who were deputies at both the state and federal level. Interestingly, I find that as the municipality becomes more violent, party leaders are less likely to recruit inexperienced candidates. This result suggests that parties do indeed respond to levels of violence. Finally, in Chapter 5, I show that criminal organizations capture candidate selection to reduce uncertainty. As utility-maximizing actors, DTOs seek to influence the selection of candidates as a function of violence. At the state level, criminal organizations are more likely to capture candidate selection in states with the presence of multiple DTOs. Party capture is more likely to happen in states where more than one DTO are fighting to control the turf. I show that criminal organizations at the state level equally capture all parties. This finding reveals that DTOs are diversifying their political connections. While under the dominant party regime, they colluded with PRI officials, under the new political Mexican democratic configuration, DTOs are establishing other political relationships with different political parties.

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / In 1901, three German American candidates ran for the office of mayor in Fort Wayne, Indiana. The winner, Henry Berghoff, had emigrated from Germany as a teenager. This thesis examines the election discourse in the partisan press for signs of ethnic tension. The first chapter places Fort Wayne in historical context of German immigration and Indiana history. The second and third chapters investigate the editorial pages for evidence of ethnic tension. I also reference a few articles of an editorial nature outside of the editorial pages. The second chapter provides background information about the election and examines indications of the candidates’ ethnicity and references to the German language papers. The third chapter considers the editorial comment about Germany, the intertwining of ethnicity and the issues, and ethnic name-calling. In order to identify underlying bias for or against Germany and to better understand the context of the references to German ethnicity, the fourth chapter explores the portrayal of Germany in the Fort Wayne papers.