Communication infrastructure underlies all group interaction in an extended republic, yet the role of its evolution in the development of American political parties remains relatively unexplored. Rather than examine how attributes of this infrastructure might act as variables shaping organization and behavior, traditional models of party development assume it to be a neutral element of the larger context within which partisan actors operate. The model developed here brings the evolution of infrastructure into the foreground, exploring its role in shaping American political parties over time. The most widely accepted models of parties locate the source of change with the actors who create and control party institutions, but by viewing control itself as a potential variable, the model developed here is able to isolate how infrastructure development itself alters power relations over time. The central contention of this work is that changes to the nation's communication and information infrastructures alter the opportunities and constraints for political action, driving the evolution of parties over time. As new infrastructures are deployed, the patterns of partisan interaction throughout society change, opening windows of opportunity during which party leadership is more likely to change hands. Particularly important are decentralizing infrastructural changes, which can provide previously marginalized actors with the tools necessary to challenge their exclusion from party activity. Citizen involvement in party politics is thus demonstrated to vary with both the nature of the available infrastructure and the content that infrastructure carries. This new infrastructure-driven model of change is tested through an examination of party development in two eras: 1790-1835, between the expansion of the post office and the development of the telegraph; and 2000-2012, when the Internet first became an important infrastructure for organizing party activity. The model is found to be quite useful in explaining the evolution of party conflict in both eras, highlighting similarities that demonstrate how the decentralization of communication infrastructure creates opportunities for political outsiders to drive change.

This dissertation studies how different voter characteristics and electoral rules affect the incentives and decisions to seek political office. The focus is on generalizing standard approaches to observed differences in the runoff rule and incorporating more accurate descriptions of voter behavior which may not be fully rational. In each chapter, I consider a model of strategic entry by candidates for office in democratic elections. In the first chapter, I incorporate the observed differences in thresholds for first-round victory in a model of runoff elections. The set of equilibria varies substantially with the threshold, indicating that the 50 percent threshold used in most models is not innocuous. The set of equilibria immediately contains equilibria that were thought to exist only under plurality rule, whereas for thresholds above 50 percent, there is no change in the set of equilibria. Additionally, for any threshold under one half, there exist equilibria in which a candidate who loses with certainty still chooses to run. The set of two candidate equilibria is invariant to all thresholds under one third, and the set of multicandidate equilibria is invariant to all thresholds above one half. In the second chapter, I introduce aggregate uncertainty by making candidates unsure of the distribution of voter preferences in the electorate. The set of three candidate equilibria expands and equilibrium platforms become more diverse. This provides a theoretical basis for Duverger’s Hypothesis. Equilibria also feature two common empirical phenomena. For instance, some candidates choose to enter despite losing with certainty in equilibrium. Also, in some equilibria, a Condorcet winning candidate (a candidate who would win every pairwise election) fails to win the election. In the third chapter, I generalize the citizen-candidate model to a multidimensional setting and characterize the set of equilibria. I later incorporate two well-documented violations of the Weak Axiom of Revealed Preference in a model of plurality elections: the compromise and attraction effects. Entry by an extreme candidate may shift the frame of reference for some voters in ways which favor particular moderate candidates. Incorporating these preferences generate equilibria in which extremist candidates enter plurality elections in order to attractively frame their preferred moderate, even if the extremist has probability zero of obtaining office themselves.

Covers the history of senatorial elections in Iowa from 1846-1911 and Senators Augustus Caesar Dodge, George W. Jones, James Harlan, James W. Grimes, Samuel J. Kirkwood, James B. Howell, George G. Wright, James W. McDill, James F. Wilson, William B. Allison, John H. Gear, Jonathan P. Dolliver, Lafayette Young, Albert B. Cummins, and William S. Kenyon.

Magister Commercii - MCom / This thesis provides an in-depth explorative case study of the relationship between electoral management and civil rights, using the 2013 Tlokwe By-Elections in South Africa as a case study. The central question in this thesis was: what are the implications of the Tlokwe Ruling on South Africa’s electoral democracy? This topic is extremely important to the field of democracy and elections, as electoral processes become ever more essential in allowing citizens to access free and fair elections. Without the ability to access free and fair elections, the power of citizens to hold leaders accountable is diminished. The study used the framework provided by Diamond and Morlino on the quality of democracy because it contains useful normative values of a democracy and assisted in providing a lens by which to view and analyse elections in a democratic regime.

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI)

This PhD dissertation analyses the processes used by political parties to select candidates for the European elections, making the unique institutional setting and electoral dynamics of the European Parliament a “litmus test” for party organisations. By applying an institutional design theory to the ways parties nominate their candidates for the EP, I can test a wide range of pre-existing postulates about parties’ behaviours, and can do so across many different countries (thus considering various electoral settings and socio-political arenas) while also accounting for the multi-level setting in which they operate. To this end, I thoroughly explore the intra-party “machinery” at work in the drafting of nominees. More specifically, this dissertation first provides a descriptive account of the main intra-party formal rules that govern the EP selection procedures from a comparative perspective. Concretely, this descriptive analysis serves to measure the relative power of individuals, party organs, and party levels, and to establish what imperatives (membership fees, endorsements, incompatibilities, quotas) are prescribed by the various parties. On that basis, I identify the patterns of selection rules put in place by the parties. I then explore the factors that condition the parties' choices of procedures by relating the aforementioned observations to a number of national- and EU-level characteristics. Later, I confront these rules with the parties’ informal practices during the actual process, and further trace an entire process from the rules' enactment to the choice of candidates. In doing so, I hope to contribute a small but important building block to the understanding of current political parties, while also speaking directly to those who are more generally interested in comparative politics and EU politics. / Doctorat en Sciences politiques et sociales / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

M.A. University of the Witwatersrand, Faculty of Humanities, 2012 / The past two decades have seen the rise of power sharing agreements as a means to end protracted civil wars. Following from the perceived success of these agreements, power sharing has become an important tool in the mediator’s arsenal and has increasingly been advocated in periods of democratic deadlock and civil strife following highly-contested elections. The viability of this model has rarely been questioned. This study will undertake a deep analysis of the success or failure of the power sharing agreements undertaken in Kenya and Zimbabwe in 2008 following the outbreak of violence in both countries. It will explain the different results seen in these two cases through an examination of the agreements, the roles played by regional and international actors as well as through an analysis of the influence of local political culture and inter-elite relations. The relative success of the Kenyan agreement can be attributed to a culture of cooperation amongst the elite alongside consistent and concerted pressure exerted by the mediation team and international actors. In contrast, the Zimbabwean government of national unity has hobbled along and little progress has been made to implement the agreement. This can largely be attributed to a badly drafted document which allowed for an inequitable distribution of power, the obduracy of the ZANU-PF elite and the unwillingness of the agreement guarantors to place sufficient pressure on the parties for reform. In a context where inter-elite relations are characterised by opposition and intransigence, the framing of the document and the actions of enforcer parties become particularly important. Due to the political cultures in both countries, it is unlikely that the power sharing agreements will have produced significant gains for democracy or have reformed the prevailing culture of impunity. This report concludes that in spite of the problems with the power sharing model, there are currently few alternatives to help mend torn societies. In order to overcome the problems that have been highlighted within this report, it is necessary for mediators to undertake innovative and reflexive strategies to ensure the full implementation of future agreements.

This dissertation uses quantitative methods and archival research to study three aspects of political violence in Pakistan –1) the effect of political party ideology on political violence, 2) the relationship between the electoral cycle and political violence, and 3) the effectiveness of cellphone shutdowns in reducing political violence. The first essay focuses on whether the political party in power in a region influences the forms of political violence prevalent in that region – i.e. does political violence vary when left-wing, right-wing, religious, ethnic or ethno-nationalist parties come into power? The results show that a) riots increase when ethnic parties come into power in a district, and b) violent demonstrations increase when ethno-nationalist and center-right parties hold seats. Based on newspaper reports from 1988 to 2011, it is argued that ethnic parties in power often create conditions that are conducive for rioting to occur by favoring their own ethnic group with privileged access to public sector jobs, land and other resources and creating resentment amongst other ethnic groups. In addition, it is argued that ethno-nationalist parties engage in a politics of grievance and rely on demonstrations to protest the actions and policies of the national government with regards to their ethnic group. The second essay focuses on the nature and timing of election violence over the course of six elections in Pakistan between 1988 and 2011. It looks at how four different forms of violence – assassinations, riots, demonstrations and terrorist attacks – vary before, during and after elections. The paper shows that riots and terrorist attacks sharply increase on election day, in line with the existing literature. However, assassinations are not affected by the onset of elections and violent political demonstrations see a slight decline in the week after the election which challenges important work on election violence. My final essay examines the effectiveness of disrupting cellphone networks as a counter-terrorism strategy to tackle terrorist violence. The paper shows that when cellphone shutdowns occur unexpectedly they disrupt terrorist attacks, although the effect is short-term as terrorist groups carry out their attacks when cellphone services resume on the next day.

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