Crime and violence are regularly seen as being ripe for politicians to turn into campaign issues and win votes. This study argues, in contrast, that success on public security is not so automatic: human rights values constrain the use of security and the winning of votes on it. Even in Latin American countries, where voters' concerns about rampant crime and violence are among the highest in the world, considerations of human rights combine with low trust in security forces to restrict the viability of the issue in key ways. Examination of presidential campaigns in Colombia in 1994, 1998, 2002, and 2010 supports this claim. Success on security is a two-step process: invoking the issue and then gaining voter support on the topic. Usability depends on the absence of recent repression and the degree of organization of security threats. Then, winning votes on it depends on having a civilian background, a campaign that balances security with other issues, and messages of careful enforcement. These messages of careful enforcement promise targeted, deliberate use of security forces' enforcement activities in a way that pays attention to human rights, rather than promising unbridled enforcement, increased punishment, or programs of long-term prevention. This study therefore shows how candidates are forced to walk a fine line between promising to establish order and promising to protect basic rights and liberties. These findings are powerful, providing an understanding of public security in electoral campaigns that maintains a much closer fit with empirical reality than existing research. The results also provide a critique of the sociological school of vote choice and points to ways in which ownership of the issue of security may be leased away. Furthermore, because the results are driven by the spread of human rights values, the results demonstrate the importance of quick shifts in political culture as a factor that explains changes in political patterns. / text

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Chapter 1 develops a model of parallel trading of corporate securities (shares, bonds) and derivatives in which a large trader can sometimes profitably acquire securities and the corporate control rights inherent therein for the sole purpose of reducing the corporation's value and gaining on a net short position in the corporation created through off-setting derivatives. At other times, the large trader profitably takes a net long position in the corporation and exercises its control rights to maximize the corporation's value. This strategy is profitable if and because other market participants cannot observe the large trader's orders and hence cannot predict how the control rights will be exercised. In effect, the large trader is benefitting from trading on private information about payoff uncertainty that the large trader itself creates. This problem is most likely to manifest in transactions that give blocking powers to small minorities, particularly out-of-bankruptcy restructurings and freezeouts, and is bound to become more severe when derivatives trade on an exchange rather than over-the-counter. Chapter 2 investigates in parallel the cross-country determinants of crime and punishment in the largest possible sample of countries with data on homicides, victimization by common crimes (ICVS), incarceration rates, and the death penalty. While models with a small number of plausible covariates predict much of the variation of homicide and incarceration rates between major developed countries, they predict only one seventh of the actual US incarceration rate. Chapter 3 probes into the pervasive correlations between legal origins, modern regulation, and economic outcomes around the world. Where legal origin is exogenous, it is almost perfectly correlated with another set of potentially relevant background variables: the colonial policies of the European powers that spread the "origin" legal systems through the world. The chapter attempts to disentangle these factors by exploiting the imperfect overlap of colonizer and legal origin, and looking at possible channels, such as the structure of the legal system, through which these factors might influence contemporary economic outcomes. It find strong evidence in favor of non-legal colonial explanations for economic growth. For other dependent variables, the results are mixed. / Economics

This dissertation consists of three essays investigating questions of politics and policy. The first essay proposes an index that assigns probabilities to all majority coalitions. This index takes as inputs the seat shares and policy positions of the parties represented in parliament. In addition to providing coalition probabilities, it has some desirable properties lacking from the commonly used concept of the minimum-connected winning coalition. In an empirical test, the proposed index slightly outperforms the predictions generated by this standard concept. Furthermore, the probabilities generated by the index are shown to be empirically meaningful. The second essay proposes a model of voter decision-making in proportional representation systems: ultra-rational strategic voters construct expectations of coalitions and policy outcomes based on expected seat distributions and attributed policy positions and vote to maximize their expected utility. The predictions of the model are examined using data from the Netherlands and successfully predict the voting behavior of significant numbers of voters. Nevertheless, other factors matter more than the strategic prediction. Three main take-aways follow: (1) At least to some extent, voters seem to take complex coalition considerations into account. (2) There is a need for large-scale qualitative studies about voter decision-making in proportional representation systems. (3) Narrowly defined strategic voting might matter less in proportional representation systems than in plurality systems. The third essay presents new data on effective corporate income tax rates in 85 countries in 2004. The data come from a survey, conducted jointly with the World Bank’s Doing Business unit and PricewaterhouseCoopers, of all taxes imposed on "the same" standardized mid-size domestic firm. In a cross-section of countries, the estimates of the effective corporate tax rate have a large adverse impact on aggregate investment, FDI, and entrepreneurial activity. Corporate tax rates are correlated with investment in manufacturing but not services, as well as with the size of the informal economy. The results are robust to the inclusion of many controls.

Understanding how race shapes the lives of individuals and transforms institutions is central to social science. Yet, for many scholars, race is widely understood as a fixed and monolithic category that is resistant to manipulation. As a result, making causal claims about "immutable characteristics" such as race or ethnicity has been strongly discouraged by statisticians and experts of causal inference. In contrast to previous literature, I propose a different framework that, in some cases, reconciles race and causation. Using a lab experiment and observational data about the urban uprisings of the 1960s, I test whether racialized and politicized cues from a subordinate group (in this case, blacks) can change psychological, behavioral and attitudinal measures among a dominant group (in this case, whites). Looking at more than 750 violent protests that flared up in black neighborhoods across the United States, I examine whether increased exposure to signals of black unrest is associated with decreased support for the Democratic party. In the 1964, 1968, and 1972 presidential elections, I find a strong negative relationship between exposure to civil unrest and the county-level Democratic vote share. I find a similar negative relationship between exposure to violent protests and Democratic vote share in congressional elections between 1968 and 1972. Finally, I find that in counterfactual scenarios of fewer violent protests the Democratic presidential nominee, Hubert Humphrey, would have beaten the Republican nominee, Richard Nixon, in the 1968 election. In the lab experiment, I test how exposure to images of politicized and armed white and black men changes psychological, behavioral and attitudinal measures among subjects in the dominant (white) group. Methodologically, this study investigates the degree to which at least some aspects of race are better operationalized as variable, divisible, continuous and responsive to manipulation. Substantively, this experiment also attempts to assess the degree to which media representations of violence and politics might increase the salience of ethnic/racial identities, particularly in a dominant group. In the context of the 1960s urban uprisings, such a result might help explain why a significant subset of white voters switched away from the Democratic party, that had become identified with black interests, and towards candidates promising "law and order." / African and African American Studies

My dissertation focuses on the effect of several variables on two key forms of political participation -- voting and candidacy. First, I examine how voter turnout is impacted by differences in the intensity of political beliefs across the electorate and the resulting impact on candidate issue choice. Next, I examine the role of term limits and political party recruitment policies in determining the quality of the political class. Finally, I examine the impact of term limits at the lower rungs of the political ladder on the quality of individuals seeking higher office. In Chapter 2, I present a modified version of Downs’ spatial model to analyze the effect on candidates’ policy choices when there is a positive relationship between political extremism and conviction. I assume that alienation and lack of conviction affect voter turnout negatively. I find that the positive relationship between political extremism and conviction leads candidates away from the center and describe the conditions under which segments of the electorate will abstain in equilibrium. Incorporating candidate asymmetry through differences in valence and campaign finances resulted in the strategy of the disadvantaged candidate being unrestricted. Meanwhile, the advantaged candidate can afford to be more centrist or extremist than his opponent in order to win the election. In Chapter 3, I present a multi-period model analyzing the impact of political party recruitment and retention policies and the implementation of term limits on the quality of individuals seeking a career in politics. Candidates differ in political skill and their political skill directly affects the provision of a public good. Term limits lead to a restructuring of the timing of rewards for political careers. I find that term limits increase the probability of entry of those of lesser quality. Under certain conditions, term limits reduce the expected ability of those entering the political arena, as those of higher ability are more adversely affected by the restructuring of rewards. In Chapter 4, I explore the extent to which term limits alter the average quality of office-seekers for higher-level political positions. In addition, I determine whether improvement in quality in upper level political positions comes at the expense of lower level positions. The results suggest that term limits on lower level elected offices reduce the expected political skill of officeholders at this level. Under limited circumstances, term limits will also reduce the expected political skill of those seeking upper level political positions. Under most conditions, term limitation at lower level offices lead to an improvement in the quality of elected officials in upper level offices. / text

I focus on three district-level demographic variables indicative of contemporary social cleavages, and construct measures of their influences on partisan representation in American state legislatures during the 1999-2000 years. Using these measures, I examine a series of questions concerning the relationship between social cleavages and state legislative outcomes. I find that district racial composition is the most important constituency-based factor influencing partisan representation and voting in legislatures, but that other constituency variables are also important under various circumstances. I also present OLS regression analyses demonstrating the independent effect of the overall representation of social cleavages on levels of legislative polarization. / text

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Η Ηλεκτρονική Διακυβέρνηση (e-government), με τη συνεχή αύξηση της σπουδαιότητας της, απλώνεται σε όλες τις βαθμίδες της δημόσιας διοίκησης, τόσο σε Εθνικό όσο και σε Ευρωπαϊκό επίπεδο. Τα τελευταία χρόνια, η Ευρωπαϊκή Ένωση έχει προσδώσει βαρύνουσα σημασία στην εφαρμογή υποδομών αλλά και εφαρμογών Ηλεκτρονικής Διακυβέρνησης, σαν μέσο αναβάθμισης της ποιότητας των υπηρεσιών που παρέχουν οι δημόσιοι οργανισμοί στον πολίτη και τις επιχειρήσεις. Επιπλέον, η νέα αυτή τάση υπόσχεται μια μοντέρνα, αξιόπιστη και ανοικτή λύση η οποία θα συμβάλει στην γενικότερη αναδιάρθρωση της διοίκησης σε όλα τα επίπεδα. Για τον καθορισμό των κατευθύνσεων και των προδιαγραφών των συστημάτων Ηλεκτρονικής Διακυβέρνησης, διαμορφώθηκε το πλαίσιο eEurope, το οποίο εξειδικεύει τις αποφάσεις της στρατηγικής της Λισσαβόνας για την ανάπτυξη των τεχνολογιών Πληροφορικής και Επικοινωνιών (ΤΠΕ), με σκοπό να καταστεί η Ευρώπη η πιο ανταγωνιστική και βασισμένη στη γνώση οικονομία, στοχεύοντας παράλληλα στην ανάπτυξη και την κοινωνική συνοχή. Στη παρούσα διπλωματική εργασία περιγράφονται οι βασικές αρχές της Ηλεκτρονικής Διακυβέρνησης, το πλαίσιο μέσα από το οποίο εφαρμόζεται μέχρι σήμερα καθώς και ποιες είναι οι νέες τάσεις και προκλήσεις στο χώρο αυτό (Κεφ. 1 και 2). Στη συνέχεια, αναλύεται λεπτομερώς ένας από τους σημαντικότερους χώρους εφαρμογής της Ηλεκτρονικής Διακυβέρνησης, η Ηλεκτρονική Ψηφοφορία. Συγκεκριμένα, προτείνεται ένα μοντέλο ασφαλούς ηλεκτρονικής ψηφοφορίας (evoting) με τη χρήση της τεχνολογίας των έξυπνων καρτών (smart cards). Η τεχνολογία των έξυπνων καρτών διασφαλίζει το απαιτούμενο επίπεδο ασφάλειας που απαιτείται σε τέτοιου είδους συστήματα, στα οποία η διακινούμενη πληροφορία πολλές φορές αφορά ευαίσθητα και προσωπικά δεδομένα (Κεφ. 3). Τέλος, παρουσιάζεται μια πιλοτική εφαρμογή ηλεκτρονικής ψηφοφορίας, η οποία χρησιμοποιείται σε ένα αντιπροσωπευτικό δείγμα «ψηφοφόρων». Οι απαντήσεις της «ψηφοφορίας» αποτελούν τα τελικά δεδομένα – αποτελέσματα τα οποία αναλύονται τόσο ποσοτικά όσο και ποιοτικά (Κεφ. 4). Από τα δεδομένα αυτά, προκύπτουν τα τελικά συμπεράσματα όσον αφορά την εξοικείωση των πολιτών για θέματα Ηλεκτρονικής Διακυβέρνησης (Κεφ. 5). / -