This dissertation is about how the state influences individuals’ behavior by giving certain citizens the legal and physical means to coerce other citizens. Using field experimentation, participatory observation, and time-series analysis of two large sets of micro-data on crime to study policing in West Africa and Melanesia, the findings challenge conventional wisdom about the relationship between coercion, corruption, and the state. Empowering women by sending police officers to assist them in disputes with men may not necessarily reduce gender-based coercion, because men can preserve their privileges by drawing on alternative authorities. Conferring police officers powers to coerce other people does not necessarily induce corrupt behavior, because conferral of power may cause them to care more about their reputation than the rents they can extract. Competitive elections may not reduce petty police corruption even if they make principals accountable; instead, elections may incentivize corruption by increasing agents’ uncertainty about how principals will act in the future. These findings contribute new insights to the theory of state-building, accountability, and bureaucratic politics.

This dissertation aims to examine masculinities and transitional police reform, considering policy and processes, and investigating the policing of gender-based violence in post-war societies. Drawing upon current feminist theory in the field of transitional justice, it focuses on masculinities in formal post-conflict police reform processes, an area that has been much under-researched in the academic literature. More specifically, the dissertation examines international processes focused on police reform advocacy relating to gender-sensitive reform, and local level police reform relating to gender-based violence (GBV). To examine local level reforms, two post-conflict case sites, Bosnia Herzegovina (BiH), and Northern Ireland (NI) were selected for investigation. My research understands gender as a discursive construct and investigates the gendered conceptions built into police reform policy, process, and practice. How these conceptions come to be part of police reform texts and how they manifest in post-conflict policing responses to gender-based violence (GBV) is the focus of the dissertation. Overall, my research identifies masculinity as an unstated norm in police reform, and case study findings indicate that hegemonic masculinities shape police reform policy and practice relating to GBV in particular ways, reiterating conventional gender norms, and limiting the potential for transformative change. Findings suggest that current reforms in post-conflict transitions contribute to, and constitute a process of remasculinisation.

Thesis (Ed. D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2007. / The entire dissertation/thesis text is included in the research.pdf file; the official abstract appears in the short.pdf file (which also appears in the research.pdf); a non-technical general description, or public abstract, appears in the public.pdf file. Title from title screen of research.pdf file (viewed on December 13, 2007) Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.Ed.)--University of Hong Kong, 1980. / Includes bibliographical references (leaf 240-241). Also available in print.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Notre Dame, 2004. / Thesis directed by Guillermo O'Donnell for the Department of Political Science. "April 2004." Includes bibliographical references (leaves 405-414).

Thesis (M.A. in International Security and Civil-Military Relations)--Naval Postgraduate School, March 2002. / Thesis advisor(s): Jeanne Giraldo, Maria Rasmussen. Includes bibliographical references. Also available online.

Thesis (M.P.A.)--Kutztown University of Pennsylvania, 1995. / Source: Masters Abstracts International, Volume: 45-06, page: 2953. Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaf 84).

Thesis (M.A.)--Kutztown State College, 1977. / Source: Masters Abstracts International, Volume: 45-06, page: 2952. Typescript. Abstract precedes thesis as preliminary leaves i-ii. Includes bibliographical references (leaf 106).

published_or_final_version / Criminology / Master / Master of Social Sciences

published_or_final_version / Public Administration / Master / Master of Public Administration