Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 1999. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 187-195). Available also in a digital version from Dissertation Abstracts.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2000. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 145-166). Available also in a digital version from Dissertation Abstracts.

More than a half-century of behavioral political science has shaped the dominant view of American nonvoters in terms of their engagement and resource deficits. While nonvoters on average are indeed less educated, poorer, younger and less politically engaged, other scholarship suggests that many of them actively abstain due to disaffection with the political system. My dissertation aims to reconcile these disparate explanations for nonvoting, and to better understand those nonvoters whose resources and political attention should suffice to vote. Drawing upon recent work in psychology, I advance a theory that disgust with politics causes many to abstain, irrespective of resources. These disgusted individuals feel the political system has violated deeply held interpersonal and moral norms, and believe participation will be ineffective to mitigate its affronts. As a result, these individuals withdraw from politics both in terms of voting and gathering additional information. I label this behavior “principled abstention.” To test my hypotheses, I employ observational data, including original question batteries on the 2008 and 2010 Cooperative Congressional Election Studies, and a series of laboratory and nationally representative experiments. / text

This dissertation---"The Necessity of Affections: Shakespeare and the Politics of the Passions"---is a contribution to an important and interesting aspect of early modern thought. It examines the role of the passions or emotions in Shakespearean tragedy and in early modern politics. Shakespeare can be seen to share a perspective on tragedy and political thought with a number of other writers, some of whom were his contemporaries, and some of whom---like Thucydides and Tacitus---were classical writers. What these figures, here called 'politic historians,' have in common is an interest in using the passions as an explanatory category to reveal the states of mind of tyrants, princes and also other agents, including manipulative Machiavellians. Shakespeare's use of this politics of the passions is shown to be more acute and insightful than the rival treatments given by Stoicism, Hobbes and Machiavelli, in terms of explaining motives, agency and action. It is also argued that an understanding of the passions tells us something about tragedy, necessity and chance: namely, the need for realism about the dangers posed by those who seek to fashion or shape our minds. However, this dissertation proposes that this political realism does not go so far as to become the cynicism of realpolitik. A discussion of a number of important passages and themes in the tragedies---in particular, Hamlet, Macbeth and Coriolanus---shows how the notion of a rich and vividly articulated self plays a significant role in Shakespearean tragedy.

Typescript. / Bibliography: leaves 364-375. / Microfiche. / xvii, 375 leaves ill

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of California, San Diego, 1998. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 340-364).

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Syracuse University, 2008. / "Publication number: AAT 3347262."

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of California, Santa Cruz, 1989. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Ohio State University, 2005. / Title from first page of PDF file. Document formatted into pages; contains xvii, 270 p.; also includes graphics. Includes bibliographical references (p. 265-270). Available online via OhioLINK's ETD Center

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2006. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references.