This American Political Development research explains cross-state variation in aid for children at private religious schools in the United States up to the end of 2012. Using a mixed-methods approach I examine how the institutional orderings of Federalism, Constitution, Church and Party affect policymaker decisions to instigate and sustain programmes of aid. By ‘aid’ I mean education vouchers and tax credits, transportation, textbook loans, equipment, nursing and food services, and tax exemptions for private religious school property. I conduct Fuzzy-Set Qualitative Comparative Analysis across all fifty states, supported by interview and archival research in six case-study states – California, Florida, Illinois, Louisiana, New York and Utah – and by statistical treatment of the constitutional amendments known as ‘No-Aid Provisions’. All of the aid policies examined here are ‘submerged’ in Mettler’s terms, in that they help private organizations to take on state functions, re-frame such functions in terms of the marketplace, and are poorly understood by the public. In this thesis I extend Mettler’s conception of submergedness to explain when institutions matter, which institutions matter, and why they matter for religious school student aid. State decentralization is necessary for high levels of aid and a high proportion of Catholics is sufficient for high levels of aid. Republican control of the state offices is a necessary condition for the passage of tax credit or voucher scholarships but not for other types of aid. No-Aid Provisions are unrelated to aid. Of the four institutional explanatory conditions, Federalism and Church have the most important effects on aid for children at private religious schools. Party explains some types of aid but not all, and Constitution is surprisingly lacking in explanatory power.

The state of Arizona became the main corridor for unauthorised migration into the United States in the early 2000s. A security approach to the issue at the state and local levels of policymaking became increasingly marked later in that decade. This escalation challenged the longstanding settlement in the United States that immigration was an exclusively federal matter, but occurred during a time when, by traditional measures, the unauthorised entry problem was easing. Such a development raises important questions about why security is chosen as a policy approach, highlighting the need to understand the securitization of immigration as a matter of political rationality. This thesis uses recent immigration politics in Arizona as a case study in order to examine why policymakers treat an issue like immigration as a security issue, when other interpretations are available. This thesis provides a detailed historical narrative of the evolution of migration and border-security politics at these levels of government in Arizona from 2004, when a broad political consensus began to emerge that there was a security problem on the international border which the state had to act to address, to 2011, when the then-years-long trend of securitizing immigration at the state level was abruptly halted. Taking an interpretivist approach to understanding policymaking, this thesis employs semi-structured elite interviews with state and local-level policymakers in Arizona, and extensive analysis of media and government documents. This research contributes originally to knowledge in two main ways. First, it furthers the migration politics field by advancing its understanding of the securitization of migration, and particularly the phenomenon of parties across the political spectrum coming to support security approaches towards, and restriction of, immigration. This thesis thoroughly explains the occurrence of this phenomenon in a major case, identifying the elite political logics, strategies, and understandings that were instrumental in the decisions that composed this process. Second, this thesis contributes to a developing security-studies literature that conceptualises securitization not as an “exceptional” form of politics, but as driven by “normal” political considerations. This research identifies how competitive democratic political logics produced phenomena usually ascribed by securitization theory to exceptionalism, including the narrowed field of contestation around security issues, and the adoption of policies that would previously have been considered extreme. It also examines how, in this case, securitization was successfully contested democratically. In this way, this thesis contributes toward the development of a concept of “security politics.”

This thesis traces the contours of the Black-White color line in modern America by illuminating how Whites' racialized political behavior varies across local geographic contexts. In a critical reinterpretation of the racial threat hypothesis, I argue that local geography conditions the relationship between Whites' racial orientations and their preferences on policies related to race - but not because Whites are passively threatened in proximity to a Black population. Rather, Whites are active, subjective perceivers of their surroundings who have an interest in maintaining their racial privilege. This conceptual shift not only challenges the assumed neutrality of Whites' vision; it also enables me to identify the range of contextual indicators that Whites might construe as threatening, and the range of White attitudes that are activated as a result. My empirical evidence comes from three case studies. The first two use geocoded survey data to analyze White opinion on welfare spending in 2000, and on affirmative action between 2006 and 2010. The third study draws on in-depth interviews conducted in 2016, exploring an issue related to school desegregation in Louisiana. Each study affirms the core findings of the thesis: Whites' policy preferences are polarized according to racial orientations in settings where race is salient; and a shared White perspective is evident even across polarized attitudes. My findings offer hope, showing that a sign of threat to some Whites may activate racially tolerant behavior in others; as well as reason to restrain our optimism, challenging the assumption that affluent Blacks, unlike the 'undeserving' Black poor, will not be perceived as threatening by Whites. Ultimately, only by recognizing the color line's responsiveness to local geography - and its resilience even as White attitudes liberalize and Black class positions improve - can we understand the line's persistence or the possibility of one day dismantling it.

The world faces many complex and difficult problems at the global level – problems that are increasingly recognised as requiring political as much as technical solutions. While such issues are often taken to concern, in broad terms, global governance, more specifically, the political aspects of such governance are fundamentally linked to interactions between the United Nations system and the power exercised by the United States of America (US). One important and distinctive arena within which these interactions can be viewed is the international food aid regime, and its central organisation, the World Food Programme (WFP) - an area lacking in concerted political science study in recent years. This thesis is concerned with the role of the US in shaping the legitimacy of the WFP within the institutional context of the international food aid regime. Legitimacy is defined as deriving from the three elements of inclusion, accountability and effectiveness. The WFP and international regime are, it is argued, well respected, relatively effective, and enjoy high levels of legitimacy. At a micro level there are many specific historical and localised factors resulting in this legitimacy; at the macro level many of these factors can be linked to the interaction of norms and interests between the US and the regime. / In particular, the regime’s development and success has been closely related to both a congruence between the US domestic feed-the-hungry norm and the regime’s international feed-the-hungry norm, and a process of divergence between those norms. It is this normative interplay that has enabled US power to be deployed and constrained in a manner resulting in high levels of legitimacy for the WFP. While in many respects this has limited WFP’s capacity to do more with the problem of global hunger than merely ameliorate it, the nature of the problem is much bigger than the capacities of any single operational agency of the United Nations.

Black electoral politics has undergone a profound transformation in the half century since African Americans statutorily secured equal voting rights with whites. Once confined to a small number of exceptional cases, the population of black elected officials has multiplied dramatically. The genre which studies African American politics has, likewise, vigorously proliferated, but theoretical deficiencies persist. In particular, the dominant model used to explain the choice of racial campaign strategies by African American candidates in jurisdictions where most of their voters are white is incomplete. The model's underlying hypothesis is premised on limited and increasingly outdated assumptions. Commentators continue to argue that successful black candidates must discard their racial identity in order to win white votes, yet a careful examination of the actual practices of black politicians in majority-white jurisdictions demonstrates that this argument is not substantiated empirically. As a result, scholars are mischaracterising the potential for black candidates to win elections in majority-white contexts. This thesis is an attempt to advance the scholarship through a theoretical reconceptualisation of racial campaign strategies underpinned by original, empirical research. The thesis sets out to achieve two goals. The first goal is to provide a rich, analytical account based on primary research of the range of campaign strategies available to office-seeking African American candidates outside of majority-black election contexts. The thesis demonstrates the capacity for black candidates to embrace their racial identity and champion policies which redress racial inequality while still seeking support from white voters. The second objective is to offer plausible explanations as to the strategic decision-making process in these campaigns. The thesis highlights the shifting importance of three sets variables which candidates face when choosing their racial campaign strategies: racial context and history, the racial attitudes of supportive and opposing elite actors, and candidates' own racial biographies.

No description available.

Reports of smear campaigns and manipulated narratives about Sweden unfolding online, following a few derogatory comments by US President Donald Trump (2017-21), provided this thesis with three research aims. (1) To investigate the framing of Sweden in some of the most influential US newspapers, (2) to examine the agenda-setting role and influence of the president through US foreign policy, (3) to construct a comprehensive US media image of Sweden. To be up-to-date and for comparative purposes, the period 2013-2022 was selected to accommodate the presidencies of Barack Obama, Donald Trump, and Joe Biden. The chosen theories make sure a common thread is running through all parts of the thesis, and enhance our understanding of the environment in which this thesis takes place. Rooted in a positivist epistemology, a quantitative content analysis was conducted to systematically go through vast amounts of data. Although considering other external factors and explanations for the empirical data, this thesis successfully isolates US foreign policy as an independent variable. It finds that the interest in Sweden and tone more generally declined from Obama to Trump and then back to be more positive again during Biden. It seems that the way Sweden is framed – and that certain topics get politically activated – is indeed linked to how the US interacts with foreign nations. The thesis adds to a rather limited research field, and provides a platform for future studies. It, also, increases our knowledge of the role of US foreign policy in framing nations with which the US, for the most part, has a positive relationship. This study is relevant and of interest to people, not least scholars, that desire to learn more about determinants in US media, foreign policy, and international relations.

Studien undersöker politiska partiers inverkan på miljöförbättringar i USA. Vi undersöker även om ökad polarisering mellan republikaner och demokrater har gett upphov till större skillnader i miljöinvesteringar över tid. Med hjälp av paneldata och fixa effekter för amerikanska delstater mellan åren 2009 - 2022 analyserar vi de genomsnittliga miljöinvesteringarna per invånare beroende på det styrande partiet i den lagstiftande församlingen. Resultatet påvisar inga signifikanta effekter om att storleken på miljöinvesteringar skiljer sig mellan partierna vilket ger stöd åt förväntningarna om medianväljarteoremet. När vi undersöker skillnaderna i miljöinvesteringar mellan partierna över två perioder observeras signifikanta effekter. Resultatet tyder på att delstater med demokratiskt styre i den lagstiftande församlingen investerar 9 $ mer per invånare på miljöförbättringar under den andra perioden än delstater med republikanskt eller delat styre. Det är däremot inte möjligt att fastställa om den ökade skillnaden i miljöinvesteringarna mellan partierna över tid är till följd av en ökad polarisering. / This study investigates the impact of political parties on environmental improvements in the United States. We also investigate whether increased polarization between Republicans and Democrats has led to greater differences in environmental investments over time. Using panel data on US states for the period 2009 - 2022 and including fixed effects, we analyze the average per capita environmental investments based on the ruling party in the legislature. The findings indicate no significant effect that the size of environmental investments differ between the political parties  which supports the expectations of the median voter theorem. When examining the differences in environmental investments between the parties across two periods significant effects are observed. The result suggests that states with Democratic rule in the legislature invest $ 9 more per capita on environmental improvements in the second period than Republican or divided states. However, it is not possible to determine whether the increased difference in environmental investments between the parties over time is the result of increased polarization.

This qualitative study investigated perceived barriers to the incorporation of Haitian immigrants in Florida into local politics and government. The theoretical framework for this study was Marschall and Mikulska's theory of minority political incorporation to better understand the political ambition of Haitian immigrants to emerge as candidates and voters toward achieving electoral success and a substantive representation. The research question addressed the lived experiences and perceptions of Haitian immigrants related to barriers to their political mobilization at district, state, and federal levels. A phenomenological study design was used with open-ended interviews of 10 Haitian Americans who lived in Florida for at least 3 years. Data were analyzed through a six phase thematic analysis, were categorized into themes and subthemes and were later coded to determine which ones best expressed the challenges that Haitian immigrants were facing. Results indicated immigration statuses, language, and poor knowledge of Haitian immigrants of U.S. politics as well as poor leadership and the absence of a communication platform as factors hindering the incorporation of Haitian immigrants into local politics and governments. Haitian-American leaders could benefit from the results of this study as they may develop a cohesive framework for citizenship drives, voter registration, community outreach, and literacy programs. The positive social change implications from this research include the view that Haitian immigrants are not a burden on the U.S. economy, but a potentially mature and attractive minority group with political value to U.S. lawmakers, district, state and presidential candidates.