Habilitationsschrift - Cologne. / Bibliography: p. [279]-296.

Univ., Diss.--Utrecht, 2005.

Thesis (PH. D.)--Michigan State University. Political Science, 2008. / Title from PDF t.p. (viewed on Sept. 3, 2009) Includes bibliographical references (p. 105-113). Also issued in print.

How do citizens vote in rural Pakistan, and how much agency do they have in relation to local landlords, patrons and kinship networks in making electoral decisions? I explore this question in this dissertation through an empirical investigation of the voting behaviour of Pakistan's rural majority in its most populous and politically important province, Punjab, using a mix of qualitative and quantitative methods and original data on the voting behaviour of about 2300 households in 38 villages. The results of this dissertation counter the notions that rural Punjabi voters are dependent and that national elections can be won on the basis of extended kinship networks. My data reveals that the dependence of rural voters that so captivates popular discourse about Pakistani politics describes only about 7 percent of voters, and that kinship networks function more as forums for local collective action than as extended political organisations. I found that a vast majority of rural Punjabi citizens vote as members of village-level vote blocs that are organised by the landed village elite. Nevertheless, most rural Punjabi voters do not participate in vote blocs because of socio-economic dependence. Instead, I found that they are benefitseeking political actors who organise within their kinship networks to strengthen their bargaining position and then give their collective votes to vote bloc leaders who act as broker-patrons and provide access to state officials and services. I also found that voting behaviour varies significantly across villages and across households within the same village. Most of the variation between villages is explained by differences in social structure and varying levels of historical and current land inequality, while the fact that households that lie within the same village behave differently from one another is explained mainly by their wealth and caste status.

The entire thesis text is included in the research.pdf file; the official abstract appears in the short.pdf file; a non-technical public abstract appears in the public.pdf file. Title from PDF of title page (University of Missouri--Columbia, viewed on January 26, 2010) Thesis advisor: Dr. K.C. Morrison. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ohio State University, 2003. / Title from first page of PDF file. Document formatted into pages; contains xiv, 308 p.; also includes graphics Includes bibliographical references (p. 289-308). Available online via OhioLINK's ETD Center

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1970. / Typescript. Vita. Abstracted in Dissertation abstracts, v31 (1970) no. 4, p1864-A. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ohio State University, 1989. / Includes vita. Includes bibliographical references.

This thesis explores the patterns of electoral manipulation in Ghana. Inspired by Andreas Schedler's essay, The Menu of Manipulation, in which he provides a "list of electoral sins" (Schedler 2002, 45), the thesis asks the following research question: how do African politicians choose from the menu of manipulation? To answer this question, the thesis develops a theory about the costs and benefits of electoral manipulation. The theory is based on three arguments: first, that in addition to the direct benefits of electoral manipulation, meaning the increased chance of winning, there are important indirect benefits that drive some politicians to rig, even when victory is guaranteed or entirely beyond reach; second, that electoral manipulation is expensive and that the direct costs, meaning what politicians spend, discourage them as much as the indirect costs, i.e. the risk of getting caught; and, third, that different types of electoral manipulation have different cost-benefit profiles, allowing politicians to tailor their rigging strategies. The thesis tests this theory against original data from Ghana. First, drawing on a dataset, containing information about every, regular, constituency-level parliamentary election over the 2008 and 2012 electoral cycles, it shows that different types of electoral manipulation have different patterns, caused by their different cost-benefit profiles; that not all types are driven by electoral uncertainty; and that there are trade-offs between the direct and indirect costs of rigging. Second, drawing on participant observations from two parliamentary constituencies in eastern Ghana, the thesis shows that consider both their electoral prospects and clientelistic networks, when they choose between different types of electoral manipulation, and that they revert to riskier types only as a last resort: when there are no other options available on the menu of manipulation. The thesis contributes to the academic literature in two ways. First, it adds to the growing body of work pointing to the direct costs and the indirect benefits of electoral manipulation. Second, it proposes a framework for approximating the properties of different types of electoral manipulation and making predictions about their patterns.

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