<p>In this dissertation, I explore the impact of several public policies on civic participation. Using a unique combination of school administrative and public–use voter files and methods for causal inference, I evaluate the impact of three new, as of yet unexplored, policies: one informational, one institutional, and one skill–based. Chapter 2 examines the causal effect of No Child Left Behind’s performance-based accountability school failure signals on turnout in school board elections and on individuals’ use of exit. I find that failure signals mobilize citizens both at the ballot box and by encouraging them to vote with their feet. However, these increases in voice and exit come primarily from citizens who already active—thus exacerbating inequalities in both forms of participation. Chapter 3 examines the causal effect of preregistration—an electoral reform that allows young citizens to enroll in the electoral system before turning 18, while also providing them with various in-school supports. Using data from the Current Population Survey and Florida Voter Files and multiple methods for causal inference, I (with my coauthor listed below) show that preregistration mobilizes and does so for a diverse set of citizens. Finally, Chapter 4 examines the impact of psychosocial or so called non-cognitive skills on voter turnout. Using information from the Fast Track intervention, I show that early– childhood investments in psychosocial skills have large, long-run spillovers on civic participation. These gains are widely distributed, being especially large for those least likely to participate. These chapters provide clear insights that reach across disciplinary boundaries and speak to current policy debates. In placing specific attention not only on whether these programs mobilize, but also on who they mobilize, I provide scholars and practitioners with new ways of thinking about how to address stubbornly low and unequal rates of citizen engagement.</p> / Dissertation

Using the 1990, 1994 and 1998 Congressional mid-term elections, this study looks at whether the type of primary system in a person's state has an effect on whether or not that person will vote in the general election. The five types of primary systems (closed, semi-closed, semiopen, open and blanket) are explained as well as traditional factors for likelihood of voting. It is hypothesized that the more closed the primary system, the less likely a person is to vote. Data analysis shows that when significant, living in an open primary state does significantly increase the likelihood that a person will vote. However, primary type was significant in only six of the nine models studied here.

In this paper I explore the causal relationship between the strategic economic interdependence advanced by Western democracies after WWII and the "puzzle of participation" in US presidential elections. More specifically, I seek to illustrate first how economic convergence within the West and then the transition from Keynesian to monetarist policy rhetoric reflexively diminish the degree to which US working class voters can realistically petition their elected officials regarding the most salient matters of economic self-interest. My results indicate that from 1948-2004, the working public became more isolated from their most salient economic decisions, voted less often due to heretofore unexplored macroeconomic indicators.

Thesis advisor: Shep R. Melnick / Almost half a century since the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the most fundamental right in our democracy is still the most contested one. The recent photo identification requirements across the country remind us that discrimination still exists in our elections. The partisan interests at stake over these voter suppressive laws and the ever-present reality of racial gerrymandering are further evidence of that. This thesis examines the history of voting rights litigation since 1965 and discusses the recent tension between the courts and the Department of Justice with respect to their competing interpretations of Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act and their conflicting views on voter ID laws. / Thesis (BA) — Boston College, 2013. / Submitted to: Boston College. College of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Political Science Honors Program. / Discipline: Political Science .

This thesis extends our understanding of a ‘puzzle of participation’ (Brody 1978). Across established Western democracies, turnout in elections has been steadily falling - at the same time, society is modernising. Central to this latter phenomenon is educational expansion, a process in which there is increased higher education (HE) enrolment, rising attainment levels, and even wider citizenship education. Under classic civic education hypotheses, such factors are anticipated to increase political literacy, raise electoral interest, and provide encouraging environments for political participation. Hence, the patterns we observe in turnout present as paradoxical. This is especially evident among the very youngest electors, who comprise arguably the most educated generation yet but are also the least likely to vote. The thesis thus poses the question: Why is the comparatively higher level of education enjoyed by young people today not associated with a higher level of voter turnout? My response takes inspiration from Norris’s ‘critical citizens’ (1999, 2011) and combines this with repertoire replacement (Dalton 2008; Norris 2003) and sorting model (Nie et al 1996) theories to develop an argument based on a multiplicity of education effects on turnout. Specifically, I present a thesis which contends that higher levels of education today encourage the emergence of a non-voting disaffected citizenry, characterised by two distinct dimensions. The first, a dissatisfied-disaffection is thought to be present among growing student populations. It is this demographic group which, in response to its members’ HE experiences, is challenging established political processes, becoming more demanding of an active role in politics, and turning to alternative participation activities when opportunities arise. Within this I posit two non-voter types: (a) frustrated electors, committed to voting yet exasperated by the responsiveness of political actors and their policy offers at elections, and (b) engaged activists, pointedly rejecting voting in favour of more direct and ongoing influencing activities. The second dimension reflects alienated-disaffection. Here, individuals who lack HE experience are seeing their status and position decline in line with educational inflation, and, as a consequence, experience limited political network mobilisation, find their confidence for participation falling, and so withdraw from politics altogether. They are marginalised citizens. Meanwhile, a number of young people will continue to vote, receiving encouragement from their social networks and partisan attachments; mobilised voters. This thesis makes its contributions in testing and refining these propositions in the case of the British electorate using data from the British Election Study, British Participation Survey, and the Citizens in Transition Survey. Through a range of statistical techniques (including logistic regression, latent class analysis, and structural equation modelling) I devise new ways of operationalising disaffection, and assess its varied impact on turnout. This thesis progresses to explore typologies of participation repertoires, within which combinations of disaffection attitudes and turnout behaviours exist. It then examines in more detail the educational mechanisms through which these occur.

We introduce an electoral pollster in a two-candidate costly voting model to study the incentives that pollsters have regarding the release of poll results. In our model, the pollster has private knowledge about the distribution of citizens\' preferences, but it may report false information to the public. If this happens, we say the pollster is misreporting the poll. An often heard criticism about pollsters is that they might manipulate in order to benefit some candidate. We show that they have incentives to misreport even in the absence of ideological motives. Moreover, misreported polls are welfare-improving relative to truthful polls. / Introduz-se um instituto de pesquisa eleitoral em um modelo de voto custoso a fim de estudar quais incentivos os institutos possuem ao divulgarem suas pesquisas. No nosso modelo, o instituto possui informação privada a respeito da distribuição de preferências da sociedade sobre os candidatos, mas pode escolher reportar incorretamente essa informação ao público. Se isso acontece, diremos que o instituto manipulou a pesquisa eleitoral. Uma preocupação comum das pessoas em relação aos institutos de pesquisa é a possibilidade de eles manipularem uma pesquisa eleitoral com o objetivo direto de beneficiar um determinado candidato. Nós mostramos que eles possuem incentivos para manipular a pesquisa mesmo na ausência de motivações partidárias. Ainda, essa manipulação aumenta o bem-estar da sociedade, em comparação com pesquisas verdadeiras.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-25T20:21:07Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Mamerto Granja Garcia.pdf: 3048919 bytes, checksum: b442a16b24cfc59b90c080c63cc574cc (MD5) Previous issue date: 2014-03-24 / Understand the electoral process and to identify the variables explicitly or implicitly involved remains a field full of mysteries as dark as the human mind. Psychosocial factors awakened in the election period refer the researcher to an environment full of symbols , the most unusual emotions and diverse interests that include a search undertaken by the voter , apparently rational , in order to find convergence between their personal aspirations and potential characteristics representative . This paper aims to outline considerations on the subject based on an analysis of voter behavior from three factors that stand out during the election process: indecision, the continuity and the candidate. Indecision will be analyzed from a survey of undecided voters indicated in several polls. It is demonstrated that the simple fact of being located in the stratum of the undecided voter presents trends vote for a particular candidate. On the topic continuity and candidate assesses the issue of parliamentarians that keeps on elective position for long periods, through successive re-elections, and in addition, an analysis of the candidate's profile and its effect on the voter's decision. To all these questions, appropriate quantitative models are used, which seek to create a bridge between research in the social sciences and the analysis of observations by means of statistical / Compreender o processo eleitoral e identificar as variáveis explicitamente ou implicitamente envolvidas continua sendo um campo repleto de mistérios tão obscuros quanto a mente humana. Os fatores psicossociais despertados no período eleitoral remetem o pesquisador a um ambiente repleto de simbologias, as mais inusitadas emoções e interesses diversos que compreendem uma busca empreendida pelo eleitor, aparentemente racional, no sentido de encontrar convergência entre seus anseios pessoais e as características do potencial representante. Este trabalho tem como objetivo delinear considerações sobre o tema com base em uma análise do comportamento do eleitor a partir de três fatores que se destacam durante o processo eleitoral: a indecisão, a continuidade e o candidato. A indecisão será analisada a partir do levantamento dos eleitores indecisos apontados em diversas pesquisas eleitorais. Demonstra-se que pelo simples fato de se situar no estrato dos indecisos, o eleitor apresenta tendências de voto para determinado candidato. No tópico continuidade e candidato, avalia-se a questão dos parlamentares que se mantem no cargo eletivo por longos períodos, através de sucessivas reeleições e como complemento, é feita uma análise do perfil do candidato e seus efeitos na decisão do eleitor. Para todas essas questões, são utilizados modelos quantitativos apropriados, os quais buscam criar uma ponte entre a pesquisa nas Ciências Sociais e a análise das observações por meio de ferramentas estatísticas

O monitoramento automático de pacientes é um recurso essencial em hospitais para o bom gerenciamento de cuidados médicos. Enquanto que alarmes devido a condições fisiológicas anormais são importantes para o rápido tratamento, estes também podem ser uma fonte de ruídos desnecessários devido a falsos alarmes causados por interferência eletromagnética ou movimentação de sensores. Uma fonte significativa de falsos alarmes é relacionada com a frequência cardíaca, o qual é disparado quando o ritmo cardíaco do paciente está muito rápido ou muito lento. Neste trabalho, a fusão de diferentes sensores fisiológicos é explorada para fazer uma estimativa robusta de frequência cardíaca. Um conjunto de algoritmos utilizando índice de variabilidade cardíaca, inferência bayesiana, redes neurais, lógica fuzzy e votador majoritário são propostos para fundir a informação do eletrocardiograma, pressão sanguínea e fotopletismograma. Três informações básicas são extraídas de cada sensor: variabilidade cardíaca, a diferença de frequência cardíaca entre os sensores e a análise espectral. Estas informações são usadas como entradas para os algoritmos. Quarenta gravações selecionadas do banco de dados MIMIC são usadas para validar o sistema. Finalmente, a frequência cardíaca calculada é comparada com as anotações do banco de dados. Resultados mostram que a fusão utilizando redes neurais apresenta a melhor redução de falsos alarmes de 89.33%, enquanto que a técnica bayesiana apresenta uma redução de 83.76%. A lógica fuzzy mostrou uma redução de 77.96%, o votador majoritário 61.25% e o índice de variabilidade cardíaca de 65.43%. Portanto, os algoritmos propostos mostraram bom desempenho e podem ser muito úteis em monitores de sinais vitais modernos. / Automatic patient monitoring is an essential resource in hospitals for good health care management. While alarms due to abnormal physiological conditions are important to deliver fast treatment, it can be also a source of unnecessary noise due to false alarms caused by electromagnetic interference or motion artifacts. One significant source of false alarms are those related to heart rate, which is triggered when the heart rhythm of the patient is too fast or too slow. In this work, the fusion of different physiological sensors is explored in order to create a robust heart rate estimation. A set of algorithms using heart rate variability index, bayesian inference, neural networks, fuzzy logic and majority voting is proposed to fuse information from electrocardiogram, arterial blood pressure and photoplethysmogram. Three basic informations are extracted from each source, namely, heart rate variability, the heart rate difference between sensors and the spectral analysis. These informations are used as inputs to the algorithms. Forty selected recordings from MIMIC database was used to validate the system. Finally, the calculated heart rate is compared with the database annotation. Results show that neural networks fusion presents the best false alarms reduction of 89.33%, while the bayesian technique presents an error reduction of 83.76%. Fuzzy logic showed an error reduction of 77.96%, majority voting 61.25% and the heart rate variability index 65.43%. Therefore, the proposed algorithms showed good performance and can be very useful for modern bedside monitors.

Por mais que a negociação do voto em troca dos mais variados benefícios tenha desembarcado no país junto da coroa portuguesa ao início do século XIX, se percebe que ela não definhou na história política brasileira. Nem a queda da monarquia e instauração da república e seus valores, a perda de poder dos coronéis de terras, a implantação de punições eleitorais mais duras aos negociantes do voto, ou mesmo a introdução do voto eletrônico para dificultar a prestação de contas do eleitor cliente ao político patrão ao final do século XX foram capazes de conter o desenvolvimento do fenômeno político denominado clientelismo. Um tipo de prática difícil de mensurar, sobretudo, porque para confirmar a troca do voto por algum benefício é necessário que o eleitor admita ter participado desse tipo de transação, ou que o candidato admita ter proposto esse tipo de situação aos eleitores. A confissão é pouco provável de ocorrer, principalmente em decorrência das punições eleitorais e jurídicas que recaem sobre ambos. Para contornar essa dificuldade se optou por tomar apenas o eleitor brasileiro como objeto de análise, e questionar se suas características demográficas, socioeconômicas ou culturais favorecem o clientelismo no Brasil? A delimitação temporal consistiu no período com início no ano de 2000 e término no ano de 2010. Se decidiu trabalhar com duas linhas de investigação: a) mensurar a oferta do clientelismo pelo político ao eleitor; b) mensurar a aprovação do eleitor para uma situação específica de clientelismo vivenciada por si ou por outros. As hipóteses adotadas de início foram: (H1) residir em município de pequeno porte populacional aumenta a probabilidade da oferta clientelista ao eleitor brasileiro; (H2) possuir pouca renda mensal aumenta o risco da oferta e da aprovação ao clientelismo no Brasil; (H3) possuir uma cultura política paroquial aumenta a probabilidade da aprovação do clientelismo pelo eleitor brasileiro. Os resultados obtidos ao final da tese desmentem a maioria das afirmações embasadas no senso comum, algumas realizadas por pesquisadores da área, e todas as hipóteses da tese. Eles demonstram que a região de residência do eleitor e sua idade foram significativas para a ocorrência da oferta clientelista, e que nenhuma das características da população de eleitores foi capaz de influenciar em sua aprovação ao clientelismo na primeira década de 2000. / Even though the negotiation of the vote in exchange of the most varied benefits has landed in the country along with the Portuguese crown at the beginning of the XIX century, it is noticed that it does not decreased in Brazilian political History. Not even the fall of the monarchy and instauration of the Republic and their values, the loss of the power of the colonels, the implementation of harsher electoral punishments to the voting dealers or even the introduction of eletronic voting to difficult the accountability of the cliente elector to the political boss at the end of the 20th century were able to contain the development of the political phenomenon called clientelism. A type of practice that is difficult to measure because to confirm the exchange of votes for some benefits is necessary that the voter admits to having participated of this type of transaction or that the candidate admits that he has proposed this type of situation to the voters. The confession is unlikely to occur mainly due to electoral and legal punishments that fall in both. To get around this difficulty, it was decided to take only Brazilian voter as the object of analysis and question whether if their demographic, socioeconomic and cultural characteristics favor clientelism in Brazil. The temporal delimitation constitutes in the period beginning in the year 2000 and finish in the year 2010. It was decided to work with two lines of research: a) measure the offer of the clientelismo by the politician to the voter; b) measure the voter approval for a specific situation experienced by itself or others. The hypotheses adopted at the beginning were: (H1) inhabit in the municipality of small population increases the probability of clientelist offer to the Brazilian voter; (H2) having a small monthly income increases the risk; (H3) have a parochial political culture increases the probability of the clientelism approval by the Brazilian voter. The results obtained at the end of the thesis disprove most of the common sense affirmations, some performed by researchers in the área and all hypotheses of the thesis. They demonstrate that the region of residence to the voter and his age were significant for the occurence of clientelistic and that none of the characteristics of the population of the voters was able to influence their approval to the clientelism in the first decade of 2000.

The purpose of this paper is to clarify the correlation between economic development and inclusive political institutions. Research in the field of development economics highlights the importance of durable institutions for sustained economic growth. Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson propose that we should consider inclusive political institutions are key drivers of economic development, but political inclusion is challenging to measure quantitatively. We investigate novel ways ways to operationalize political inclusion and economic development by using voter turnout as the independent variable while median income acts as the dependent variable to better reflects the living standards of the broad population. Our thesis is that increased voter participation as a percentage of voting age population should correlate to a higher median income. Our bivariate regression shows a clear relationship but low explanatory power since linear regression doesn’t explain significant variations in the data. Multivariate linear regression results show a weaker correlation than expected but explains our data better by highlighting a clear tendency for high income democracies to enjoy high voter turnout whereas low income countries have varied outcomes. A high degree of data variability raises doubts about the validity of comparing voting participation between different political systems.