This work is an attempt to define a comprehensive contemporary model of the causes of wars of secession, state and illustrate its gaps, and develop new theories to accentuate and improve that model, and through comparative case studies perform some elementary tests of their validity. My theoretical paradigm is dependent on an assumption that the ultimate causes, as captured under the rubric of institutions and structures, of an event involving rational but free-willed human beings are inadequate to explaining the onset of radical, extraordinary politics in general and wars of secession in particular. On the contrary, proximate causes, in the form of environmental factors that cannot be classified structural or institutional and which are either deeply influenced by elite decisions or deeply influence elite decisions must be brought into the theoretical chain. Specifically I examine the case of Namibia, focusing on the East Caprivi region where in 1999 a substantial portion of the Lozi population attempted to secede, comparing it to the case of Botswana and another minority, the Kalanga people who dominate the North East District. I find that the two states are (1) structurally and institutionally similar, to the point that were these the only causal factors involved one would assume they would suffer similar behavioral outcomes, (2) divergent in terms of minority political identities and degrees of mobilization, and (3) divergent in terms of a series of internal and external environmental decision that cannot be described as structural or institutional.

In this dissertation I examine the reciprocal relationship between voters and political parties in coalitional democracies in three essays. First, I investigate how voters alter their perceptions of political parties in response to their participation in coalition cabinets. I argue that voters view coalition participation as broad and wide-ranging policy compromise and update their perceptions of the policy positions of cabinet participants accordingly. I find that voters perceive coalition partners as more similar than parties that are not currently coalesced, all else equal. In the following essay, I examine the electoral repercussions of this shift in perceptions by proposing a model of voting that considers coalition policy-making. I argue that voters will equate the policy compromise they perceive in the cabinet with a failure to rigorously pursue the policies they were promised and that voters who perceive compromise will punish the incumbent. The data reveals that this perception may cost incumbent cabinets about 2.5% of their vote share. Finally, I move from the electorate to the legislature to investigate if and how these perceptions condition legislative behavior. The previous essays suggest that coalition parties have substantial motivation to differentiate themselves from their partners in cabinet when voters perceive them as becoming more similar. I test this argument by examining partisan behavior in legislative review. The data show that coalition partners who are perceived as more similar are more likely to amend one another’s legislation.

Includes bibliographical references. / The aim of this dissertation is to analyse the phenomenon of civil supremacy, and in particular how it evolves and is sustained over time. A theoretical case study of Namibia will be undertaken to achieve this objective, with three traditions of civil supremacy, namely colonial, revolutionary/insurgent and democratic (as well as the relevant mechanisms and techniques), being the focus. This dissertation seeks to determine how these traditions emerge and develop over time. Basically, civil supremacy rests on a set of ideas, institutions and behaviours. Together these practices limit the possibility of excessive military intervention in political affairs and provide a system that endows civilian officials with the authority and the machinery to exercise supremacy in military affairs.

Includes abstract. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 104-109). / This thesis is concerned with the phenomenon of Single Party Dominance (SPD) and the implications of such a phenomenon on the party system in post-Independence India. Specifically, the work is tasked with explaining how dominance can end by providing an analytical narrative of a single case of SPD and its collapse. This will be done by examining the precipitous decline of the Indian National Congress over a ten-year period from 1967, where Congress lost its first state-level elections, to 1977, where the party was finally rejected at the national level after three decades of dominance.

Despite a fairly successful institutional transformation in the early 1990s, the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC), in particular its News and Current Affairs division, is widely perceived to lack political independence from the African National Congress-led government and to have neglected its role as a political watchdog in South Africa's young democracy. Most academic studies continue to be concerned with formal factors such as the SABC's institutional structure, media laws, or commercial imperatives -yet have not been able to explain the above anomaly. This paper focuses instead on the institutional culture around editorial independence which is conceptualised as comprising of beliefs (journalists' role perceptions), values (news values and the professional ethos) and internal practices (news decision-making, internal debate etc.). The main focus of analysis lies on the ways dissent is being managed within the corporation. This paper transcends the classical boundaries of political science into the neighbouring disciplines of media studies and sociology and draws specifically on (a) the literature on public broadcasting in young democracies, (b) debates around journalists' roles and professional values, and (c) conceptualisations of institutional culture as well as power and power relations within organisations. In-depth interviews with 17 current and former SABC employees suggest that beliefs and values around editorial independence are highly contested at the SABC - in particular among staff and management and so much so that the struggle around which ones should be dominant has become part of the institutional culture itself. The resulting dissent is being managed both from above (by management and senior editors) and from below (by newsroom staff). The SABC does not seem to be subject to unusual levels of political pressure from outside. Instead, threats to editorial independence seem to originate mostly on the level of the SABC's board and senior news management. They take the form of pressure and rewards which, in combination, effectively stifle independent thinking and hence work against editorial independence and a professional ethos integral to the SABC's public broadcasting mandate. Hirschman's concepts of exit, voice, and loyalty are used to analyse how journalists respond to such pressure and rewards. While exit is not an option for many staff and voice is perceived as costly, loyalty (towards the idea of public broadcasting) does not appear to be very common either. Instead, what I call opportunistic loyalty or quiescence in the face of power seems to be the preferred way of dealing with the dilemma of individually-held values and beliefs and a dominant institutional culture that runs contrary to them. As a result, debate is silenced, staff morale suffers, and routine processes of news decision-making are easily manipulated by senior managers or other powerful individuals with the will to enforce their preferred values and beliefs (which in tum might have little to do with the ideals of public broadcasting). Journalists and editors seem to generally be reluctant to get involved in sensitive news decisions, to take responsibility and exercise their professional judgement which then makes the corporation potentially vulnerable to political interference from outside as well.

The purpose of this study is to determine whether democratization should be utilized as a method of peacekeeping. This is determined by studying both the United States and the European Union's efforts to spread democracy globally. The historic framework is studied to understand the unique perspective each body has formed in defining democracy, and the method through which it should be spread. The definition of power, democracy, and the state are studied. The concepts are applied to the case studies of Iraq and Turkey in order to make a determination.

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China and Mexico present an intriguing case for comparison. In 1990, the Peruvian Nobel Prize winner described Mexico as “the perfect dictatorship”. By 2000, just a decade later, Mexico’s peaceful transition to a democracy culminated in the victory of Vicente Fox, and the unseating of the PRI’s seventy-one year rule over Mexico. China, or more specifically, People’s Republic of China, on the other hand, has been under the one-party leadership of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) for sixty-seven years, since it was founded in 1949, and remains an authoritarian regime today. Since the Third Wave of Democratization swept the world’s developing countries, there have been heated discussions about the potential of democratization in China. Much of the buzz surrounds the direct village elections in China, in which Chinese citizens have the opportunity to vote directly for their village leaders. Although it makes no pretense of hosting national elections, China has held village elections that seem to be a step towards democratization. Or is it? Despite the focus on village elections and the extent to which they are democratic, there has been little work comparing China’s local elections to that of other countries that have been through similar experiences, namely Mexico. This thesis will compare the cases of Mexico and China in order to explore the conditions for democratization, and hypothesize the future of China’s democracy. By examining scholarly works, historical trends, and recent events, this thesis will argue for the importance of local elections on the process of democratization in both Mexico and China.

Gays and lesbians have long struggled for their rights as citizens, yet only recently has their struggle been truly politicized in a way that fosters mobilization. When and why social movements coalesce despite the many obstacles to collective action are fundamental questions in comparative politics. While examining social movements is worthwhile, it is important to examine not only when and why a social movement forms, but also when and why a social movement is successful. This dissertation tackles the latter of these objectives, focusing on when and why social movements have success in terms of their duration from the time of their formation until their desired policy output is produced.

This dissertation argues that the Alberta Progressive Conservative organization constructed a rural political monopoly that facilitated a general provincial political monopoly. It will argue that rural Alberta was vital for the rise of the Progressive Conservatives and accounted for much of its success over the subsequent twenty-five years. The argument also challenges the theories of ‘responsible party government’ that have traditionally explained the perpetuation of the quasi-party system and tradition of one-party dominance in Alberta. It argues that a more comparative approach, specifically the thesis of democratic quality, be integrated into this field of study. The employment of democratic quality biases and the consolidation of economic power in rural Alberta contributed heavily to Conservative political success between 1971 and 1996. Over this period, the Conservatives perpetuated a system of electoral malapportionment that overrepresented rural constituencies and underrepresented urban ridings. At the same time the Conservatives actively challenged independent rural/agrarian civil society organizations and any policy contrary to the party’s political interests. Alberta’s once considerable independent rural and agrarian lobby is today predominantly mediated by their position within or in relation to the Progressive Conservative Association. The decline of general farm organizations (GFOs) and agrarian civil society organizations, facilitated in part by government complicity and a changing agricultural economy, resulted in a ‘political monopoly’ in rural areas. During this period malapportionment underpinned a general political monopoly with rural overrepresentation shoring up collapses of urban support (i.e. Edmonton) in the 1980s and 1990s. This work will provide evidence of participation, competition and other democratic quality biases through a construction of this theoretical framework in terms of a broader comparative perspective based on the evaluation of ‘democratic quality’.