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Traditional explanations of individual-level variation in political attitudes have emphasized events occurring in the immediate political environment but recent research has started to include baseline dispositional variations in biological traits. In this paper, we continue this trend by analyzing the relationship between political issue preferences and physiological responses to disgusting images. Previously published research reports a connection between disgust sensitivity and certain political orientations, such as those pertaining specifically to homosexuality as well as broader collections of “left-right” issues, but has relied only on self-reports of disgust sensitivity. Given that self-reports are often inaccurate, we instead record and analyze involuntary measures of disgust sensitivity; particularly, skin conductance and startle blink EMG response. These long-accepted psycho-physiological measures permit a richer and more meaningful test of the possibility that some issue preferences are at least partially shaped by bedrock physiological orientations to generic rather than overtly political stimuli. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines voting behavior in three authoritarian and hybrid regimes of the Middle East and North Africa: Turkey, Morocco, and Egypt. It is argued that clientele politics and vote-buying approaches fail to provide a full picture of the voter profile in authoritarian and hybrid regimes. Psychological attachments to the well-established regime and opposition parties (i.e. ideology) as well as resources may explain the decision to vote in these settings. The results of the logit estimation utilizing individual level data from the last wave of the World Values survey show that party-led mobilization increases the likelihood of voting in the three countries under investigation. While citizens equipped with better social, economic, and civic qualities are also more likely to turnout, party attachment increases the chances of voting even for these individuals. Contrary to the findings of vote-buying approaches, the less educated and the poorer are not found to be more likely to vote in authoritarian and hybrid regimes. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scholars know that a 'participation gap' exists between younger and older citizens, but what about age causes such a strong influence on political participation? This paper examines that question in greater detail. Life-cycle explanations provide, to date, the most satisfying accounts for the differences: life events shape and change behavior. Prior studies, however, have treated life-cycle variables as singular influences on behavior and have not examined how they interact together. This study takes life-cycle explanations as a starting point but expands upon it, using an index of life events to extend the life-cycle argument and refine our understanding of why age affects political participation. Instead of modeling life-cycle variables as individual influences on behavior, this study argues that as the experiences of life-cycle events accumulate, behavior, in particular participation, should change. As an individual experiences more life-cycle events, the likelihood that person will vote should be greater than an individual who has experienced fewer life events. The index is tested in multiple logistic models with the intent of showing that cumulative life experiences affect participation both within and across age groups. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on 2008 public opinion surveys in eighteen Latin American countries, the paper investigates the parameters of the gender gap in political participation and finds evidence that it is modest. It then explores the relative effects of political context, resources, agency, and political attitudes on women's and men's political involvement. Separate regression equations for women and men allow for investigation of whether different social processes influence the kind and extent of political engagement undertaken by the two sexes. The study utilizes data from the Latin American Public Opinion Project which surveys public opinion and behavior in the Americas. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While research on the substantive effects of minority representation has progressed considerably in the last decade or so, one area that has been largely overlooked is policing and public safety. For example, how does minority representation on the police force shape minority residents' attitudes about public safety and the police? Are minorities in places where their racial/ethnic group is more proportionally represented on the police force more satisfied and trusting of the police? And if so, are these attitudinal effects symbolic or are they based on specific policies that have been implemented to better serve the needs of minority communities? The objective of this paper is to examine the extent to which the patterns uncovered in previous studies regarding blacks' attitudes of city services are similar for Latinos. Similar to Marschall and Ruhil (2007), this study focuses explicitly on policy outcomes as measured by the perceptions of the target audience, the public served by local bureaucracies. In addition, this study combines insights from the literature on urban politics and public administration to outline the mechanisms and consequences of a representative bureaucracy. We study these questions with a research design that allows us to isolate Latinos' evaluations of the quality of police services under varying representational and socioeconomic conditions. Specifically, data are assembled and combined from multiple sources, including the Multi-City Study of Urban Inequality (Bobo et al. 1998), Census block group data, and Justice Department data on policing, as well as information on black and Latino elected officials in city governments. In sum, our study does not find substantial evidence for the representative bureaucracy model. We do, however, find some evidence that substantive policies have a positive impact on attitudes about police quality. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides an alternative account of John Calvin's political thought, arguing that the aesthetic dimension of his thought, rather than some form of anxiety, is the source of the worldly activism associated with him. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the impact of threats to security on long-held values on civil liberties and tolerance comparing changes in attitudes in one country under such threats and a country that has not experienced such threats. Ideoloigcal self placement is also related to tolerance. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The fear that citizens lack the political knowledge necessary for participation in the democratic process has played a central role in the discussion of voting behavior. Acquiring information can be costly, particularly in light of the low return on voting. One of the most common ways citizens obtain information is by discussing politics with other citizens. Frequent discussion of political matters not only increases citizens' knowledge of politics, but also can be associated with increased levels of engagement in other forms of political participation. This paper investigates the degree to which political institutions can increase the frequency of political discussion. More specifically, it looks at whether compulsory voting laws, which provide citizens with strong incentives to go to the polls, lead to more frequent political discussion. Using data from World Values Surveys conducted in thirty-seven countries, I find compulsory voting increases the frequency of political discussion, but the effect is contingent on a citizen's level of interest in politics. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper will examine the political participation of "ordinary" religious citizens in Indonesia. The focus is on the forms, frequencies, and determinants of political participation pre- and post-Suharto. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The major topic of this paper is how people change their voting decisions in light of campaign effects. Our challenge to previous literature on campaign effects is twofold. First, on substantial ground, past studies have largely focused on and reported activation and reinforcement effect of campaign The flip side of a coin–deactivation– has attracted scant attention. On the other hand, much of the previous research has heavily utilized a binary dependent variable in addressing the change in voting decision. Relying on dichotomous specification, scholars have been forced to analyze either turnout decision or candidate choice, “separately.” Recently, the validity of these dichotomous specifications has been challenged and a unified specification proposed as an alternative. Utilizing a unified dependent variable that combines turnout decision and candidate choice, we investigate systematic differences between the activated and deactivated voter. The deactivated voter refers to those who changed their voting decisions toward the opposite party candidate. The analytic focus is on the question of who are more likely to deactivate their party identification as a voting cue over a campaign and of what underlying mechanism involves in this dynamic process. Regarding activation process, two conceptually distinguishable stages are assumed to intermediate between campaign stimuli and changing voting decision, perception updating and behavior converting stage. Individual party identification is hypothesized not only to biases perception updating stage, but also to exert its unbalanced influence at decision converting stage. Through these processes, party identification increases its role as a voting determinant over a campaign period, leading to prevailing activation. Attitudinal ambivalence–coexistence of positive and negative attitude toward a attitude object– is hypothesized to moderate and overcome the role of party identification as the source of bias at both stages, thus leading to deactivation. Four ambivalence measures are included as the primary independent variable of interest. Those are ambivalence toward the two major parties, issue proximity ambivalence, and emotional and trait-based ambivalence toward the two major party candidates. Because the model proposed here requires a panel data set and dynamic specification, we use the 1980 NES Major Panel Studies and employ nested-logit estimation. What we found, first of all, contradicts the conventional notion of predominance of activation over deactivation, which is mainly drawn form dichotomous specification. For instance, among the Democrats the deactivated voter (107) outnumbered the activated (84). The notion that a campaign serves mainly to activate party identification and makes them electorally relevant is not supported when a unified dependent variable is employed. Results, more importantly, confirm our expectation that attitudinal ambivalence is strongly correlated with deactivation. Specifically, those with ambivalent attitude toward two major parties and its candidates are more likely to overcome the dual barriers by nullifying or dampening the role of party identification at both stages. To sum, those with ambivalent attitude toward the two major parties and its candidate are more likely to deactivate their party identification as a voting cue, ending up with either defection or deactivated abstention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We know a lot about the effects of political knowledge on political attitudes. We know much less about how, if at all, such knowledge affects voter turnout. Part of the problems is theoretical and conceptual, having to do with how electorally-relevant knowledge is acquired not just in the short term but cumulatively over the active life span. Measurement is also problematic, particularly in the case of comparative research â€" just how comparable are our measures of knowledge when the objects of knowledge vary over time and across countries? Finally, how should contextual factors such as the electoral system, the governmental system, the party system, the media system and the interactions between these system-level variables that affect the political learning environment, be taken into account. Using CSES and ESS data, this paper applies a two-step estimation approach to this problem. Making plausible assumptions regarding the other problems mentioned, the paper focuses on the contextual aspect of the relationship between knowledge and turnout, seeking to identify the institutional factors that nurture or stymie electorally relevant knowledge and foster (or fail to foster) a link between such knowledge and voter turnout. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper takes off from a previous paper, "Landmarks and Lessons of Pre-Election Polling in Central America: The Myth of the ?Nicaragua Effect," originally presented at a WAPOR conference in Spain. The current paper, a version of which I will prepa ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Prior research has examined the impact that television exposure has on political attitudes and participation, which has resulted in theories of media mobilization and media malaise. Interestingly enough, we do not know if and how media effects vary between older and younger adults. I argue that the differences in experiences that younger and older adults have encountered in the political world alters the way that each respond to mediated information. Older adults have had greater opportunities to be exposed to mudslinging campaigns, political corruption, scandals, and been effected by government policies (taxes, health care). In contrast, younger adults have yet to be exposed to many of these situations simply due to their age. Given these differences, it is likely that the political information gleaned from tv may provide a greater level of political knowledge and interest of young adults, but at the same time they may experience a greater level of cynicism that also comes with such exposure. In contrast, older adults are already jaded towards politics due to their experiences in the political world, so exposure may continue to impact these attitudes, but to a lesser extent especially for cynicism. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although it is widely believed that participation runs in families, the empirical evidence is surprisingly thin and often based on retrospective accounts. We employ two gnerationally distinct sets of parent-child pairs to broaden our knowledge in this area. Three major conclusions emerge. First, there is clear evidence that learning and modeling processes during adolescence are at work in prompting the reproduction of participation tendencies across generations. Modeling of parental behavior increases when parent participation remains consistent over time and when, in the case of two parents, if parental participation harmony prevails. Second, and contrary to the findings regarding political attitudes, parental influence does not diminish over time. The interaction of the consistency and level of parental activity strongly affects the child's developmental trajectory. Third, voting turnout provides a special case of transmission likelihood. What best predicts offspring turnout is whether the parent voted during the child's adolescence, a time when receptivity to parental cue-giving of this sort is at its height. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using new data and methodological approaches, we study the effect of social cleavages, electoral law, and the interaction between the two on aggregate level electoral volatility in Post-Communist democracies ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using data from the 2005 Latinobarometer, I build a comprehensive model of the determinants of the modes of political participation in Latin America. I focus on the role of democratic values, diffuse support, and fundamental political values. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines young people's political and civic engagement in an established democracy (New Zealand) and in a new democracy (Taiwan) using extant theories to provide a glimpse of the political behaviour of young Taiwanese and New Zealanders. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

My project studies the relationship between remittances and democracy; whether remittances are in-line with the wealth-democracy school and compel recipients to exercise their voice or whether their exogenous nature leads them to exit politics. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scholars have observed a strengthening of partisanship in the electorate in the last couple of decades in the United States (Fiorina 2002). These studies have demonstrated that partisan attitudes have strengthened as the political parties have polarized (Hetherington 2001). While these studies have improved our understanding of the link between partisan elites and the mass public, they have largely ignored differences across individuals. We argue that partisan attitudes are influenced by citizens; issue attitudes and further, that the consistency between issues attitudes has a pronounced effect on individuals; partisan attitudes. Using Data from the National Election Studies between 1972 and 2000, we show that inconsistency in issue attitudes (i.e. liberal positions on some issues and conservative positions on others) leads to a considerable weakening of partisan attitudes in the mass public. Specifically, we show that the inconsistency in issues attitudes produces ambivalence that weakens partisan identification, decreases citizens perceptions of important differences between the parties, and weakens citizens; (positive and negative) feelings towards the parties. These results suggest that partisanship is a reflection of individuals’ values and beliefs and is not the unmoved mover. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research has suggested that when news is driven by conflicts, this leads to an apathetic and negative public. In the context of multi-level governance, it remains, however, unclear whether conflict in news about the European Union negatively influences citizens’ attitudes towards democratic processes in the EU and their participation in EU politics as related research would suggest. We therefore investigated whether the level of conflict displayed in TV news coverage of the EU affects citizens’ satisfaction with democracy in the EU and their engagement in EU politics. The study draws on a content analysis of the television coverage of the 1999 European election campaign in 13 EU countries and nationally representative, identical surveys carried out in each country after the elections. Linking content analysis and survey data at the individual level, we found that higher levels of conflict in EU coverage affected citizens’ satisfaction with EU democracy and their engagement in EU politics. However, these effects were contingent upon the nature of elite opinion about European integration. When elite opinion was consensual, higher level of conflict increased both people’s satisfaction with EU democracy and their engagement in EU politics. When elite opinion was polarized, conflict in the news enhanced citizens’ satisfaction with EU democracy, but decreased people’s engagement in EU politics. Our findings suggest that citizens may be more content with the functioning of supra-national level democracy and more engaged in politics if receiving cues that politics at this level results from the core of democratic decision-making – healthy disagreement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Very little is known about the voting preferences of felon populations. Given that prison is becoming a lived reality for an increasing number of Americans, the oversight of examining the effects of incarceration on political behavior could have large consequences. For instance, it has recently been argued that felon enfranchisement would have changed the 2000 election result. Previous studies have relied on demographic "matching" of prison populations along lines of race, class, and education in order to predict vote choice and voter turnout. What these studies fail to address is the potential effects of incarceration on political beliefs. .x000d..x000d.Through an analysis of the Chicago prison population, we seek to argue that mere demographic matching is insufficient for understanding felon turnout and political attitudes. While realizing the limits of such a small-scale study, we hope that this paper will become a part of a more comprehensive understanding of the political relevance of felon populations. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since 1988, political participation in Mexico became a major goal for civil society. Intellectuals realized that the social change the country was experiencing, offered new opportunities to express their ideas and establish contact to a boarder public, thanks to mass media and the development of public opinion. Currently, every news program on TV must have an intellectual to express opinions about different topics on power, politics and democracy. There are now very interesting debates between intellectuals that criticize political decisions and governmental actions that should be studied. The paper intends to offer a general view about Mexican intellectuals in public opinion, their role as critics of the Mexican political landscape, and points out that, intellectuals in Mexico has become one of the most benefited elites in the country since political and economic changes took place. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent research has suggested that voting may be a habit forming endeavor. These authors present compelling evidence that regardless of the legal barriers and the individual attributes a large number of citizens eventually move from being habitual nonvoters to habitual voters. In this paper I argue that though the habitual voting framework is a persuasive theory, it is incomplete because it ignores attitudinal and environmental factors that can influence an individual’s decision to cast a ballot regardless of one’s previous behavior. In fact, a significant number of individuals are better classified as sporadic voters. Sporadic voters differ from their habitual counterparts in that factors such as their attitudes toward the political parties and their interest in the campaign will determine if they participate in any given election. Using NES panel data, I present evidence that sporadic voters differ systematically from habitual and nonvoters. I also demonstrate how changes in perceptions between presidential elections can influence when a sporadic voter will cast a ballot. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Racial divisions have been an enduring element of American society, and divisions between Blacks and Whites specifically have been the most potent. The stability of this racial-political divide is remarkable, yet very little is known about how individuals identifying as both Black and White fit within the Black-White partition. .x000d..x000d.At present, the social and political consequences of identifying as multiracial is one of the most relevant topics in race relations. Ironically, the relationship between mixed-race heritage and politics has largely been neglected within American political science literature. This oversight is puzzling, because of the continued and rapid increase of a potentially politically consequential demographicâ€"the “more than one race” population. Yet it is also symbolically important in an historic election year in which Barack Obamaâ€"the son of a white mother and a black African fatherâ€"could become president of the United States. .x000d..x000d.My paper will analyze restricted-use data from the Add Health Survey to better understand the racial identity of adolescents and young adults who have one White parent, and one Black parent. I will then assess the relationship between mixed-race heritage and political participation. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many political scientists implicitly assume that elected officials are more politically knowledgeable than most citizens are, and have more consistent political attitudes than most citizens do (Converse 1964; Delli Carpini and Keeter 1996; Schattschneider 1960). Until now, no study has directly compared elected officials’ political knowledge (i.e.: political sophistication) or attitude constraint with everyday citizens’. This paper describes the results of a large-scale experimental study which puts these assumptions of classic democratic theory to a direct empirical test. Via data gathered from hundreds of everyday citizens and elected officials (n= 400) in two states, I find that elected officials and everyday citizens do differ significantly on several core variables known to impact political decision-making. Not only do they differ in their levels of political sophistication and attitude crystallization, but also in their ideological strength, educational attainment, and interest in politics. Implications of these findings for normative theories of representative democracy are discussed. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Explanation, conceptualization, and measurement of attitudes towards democracy have gained new laudable methodological practices but show an important flaw yet. In recent years, it have had innovative and important discussion about the validity of these measurements (i.e. Canache, 2006, Gibson 2006; Schedler and Sarsfield 2007, Doreenspleet 2008; Carlyn and Singer 2008), and the determinants of attitudes toward democracy in different regions and countries (i.e. Rose, Mishler and Haerpfer1998, Bratton and Mattes 2001, Tessler 2002). However, to varying degrees, the existing measures of attitudes towards democracy fail in a fundamental side: measures of legitimacy of democracy don’t explore their theoretical relevance, that is, what and how much these measures explain other political attitudes and behavior. Using data from Latinobarometer and Word Value Survey, this paper explores the capability of explanation of different measures of attitudes towards democracy for two dimensions of political behavior very relevant for democratic stability: vote for “extra- systemic” candidate and political violence. Introducing this theoretical approach, this work seeks to contribute to the construction of better data on the democratic legitimacy. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When do clientelist parties buy votes or instead buy turnout? And to what types of voters do they target benefits? The paper uses a formal model to analyze the factors that make persuasion or mobilization relatively attractive electoral strategies. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using roll call data from selected congresses since the 1970's, this paper explores the influence of increasing partisanship on conference committee politics, by examining changes in partisan support for pre- and post-conference roll call votes. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using mle and matching methods, this paper demonstrates that "European" identity in Moldova exerts a strong influence on political behavior and expectations, and that this effect is strong regardless of demographic and ethnic characteristics. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using econometric analysis, this paper aims to determine if over time, there exists a disparity in the levels of voter participation between military and non-military communities. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies the attitudinal and behavioral consequences of partisans living in areas where their party has no true competitive chance. In particular it concentrates on the contextual influences that bolster or diminish party loyalty. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reveals the influence of Saint Augustine’s thought on the political theory of Hannah Arendt. I argue that Arendt’s articulation of natality with its foundational role for public speech and action has its origins in the work of Augustine. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the racial category of “other” exploring the characteristics of this group. In addition I seek to understand if the “others” political behavior varies from those who identify with a specific category. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper develops a new procedure for testing spatial models of politics and applies it the classic debate about directional and proximity voting. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Do the personal traits of bureaucrats matter? This question has received extensive scholarly attention over the years. Yet, for all the talk about bureaucratic personalities, there is little empirical research to explain why the personal traits of bureaucrats matter, specifically, why people tend to react negatively to ambitious bureaucrats. In this paper we employ two laboratory experiments to test how people react to ambitious decision makers in simple bargaining scenarios. We find that people tend to equate ambition for decision making authority with self-interested and unfair behavior. Moreover, people tend to be less satisfied with decisions made by ambitious decision makers compared to decisions made by unambitious decision makers. This finding is significant given that in both conditions subjects receive a highly unfavorable outcome. In other words, people tend to generally dislike ambitious decision makers independent of policy outcomes. We discuss the implications of these experiments in light of recent work on council-manager relations and in terms of recent calls for reforming the bureaucracy through entrepreneurial leadership. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An impressive body of research documents a persistent link between individuals' religious predispositions and their political attitudes and behaviors. Implicit in much of this research is that candidates and opinion leaders can emphasize or deemphasize religious issues to make prior religious beliefs salient (for example, Layman and Green 2005, Leege et al. 2002). This conclusion makes sense given other research documenting a relationship between the prevailing rhetoric in a given context, and the considerations individuals use to evaluate political objects (Zaller 1992). However, attempts to empirically document a relationship between religious campaigning and voter attitudes has remained elusive and, indeed, research on religious rhetoric has found little variability in politicians' religious rhetoric over time (Hart 2000). In this paper, I suggest that a more nuanced understanding of religious rhetoric may be necessary to fully take account of the dynamics of political campaigning. Using a large campaign speeches database, I draw a sample of explicitly religious rhetoric used in presidential campaigns from 1980 - 2004, and content analyze this rhetoric along the lines suggested by prevailing theories of preference formation and media effects, as well as theories of religious attachment. Consistent with Hart (2000), I find little variability over time in the amount of religious language used. However, I find significant variability in how, exactly, religion is being invoked. In particular, this analysis finds a significant affective component in religious rhetoric, as well as variability in speech emphasizing religious social identity. I also analyze how religious language is used to affect a candidate's image, the opponent's image, and religious issue salience. These findings - coupled with research on priming, affect, image, and social identity - suggest multiple ways in which religious rhetoric may be driving religiously-based candidate evaluations. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper introduces vb, a package to analyze vote behavior. This package, designed for the R computing environment, computes the impact of the different factors that affect the choice of voters from among two or more parties and abstention. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a correlation between how much we talk with our peers about politics and how much we participate in politics.This paper looks at how this relationship varies by socioeconomic status and prior experience with politics and civic activity. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the impact of partisanship-policy preference consistency on the decision to cast a party line vote. The importance of policy consistency varies as a function of both individual characteristics and the macro-political context. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is an attempt to understand the sources of political attitudes and contours of political behavior of Asian Indian Americans. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the demographic and attitudinal explanations of political interest to demonstrate that Blacks and Whites differ in what motivates them to follow politics. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

African Americans have lower levels of political trust than other racial groups. This paper examines to what extent the race of political actors affects African Americans' political trust. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is designed to test if Europeans respond differently to questions of "public support" and "trust." The goal is to understand if we can speak about trust in a meaningful way that is different from the studies on public support. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Immigrants arrive in the United States with prior political experiences that presumably affect their political assimilation and behavior in the new polity. They already hold politically relevant beliefs, attitudes and knowledge, albeit about a different political system. This paper argues that immigrants experience a process of imported socialization. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Canada and Britain both exhibit more than two parties at the district level despite the fact that both have single-member plurality systems. This paper looks at federalism and information as factors regulating strategic voting and Duverger's Law. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines whether African-Americans living in districts with a majority of minorities will have higher levels of group consciousness compared to those who do not. Assessing differences in group consciousness between voters living inside and outside the majority-minority district will help develop a larger theory of elite motivation for drawing majority-minority districts in particular ways and what effects they have on African American political opinion and campaigning. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the effects of descriptive representation on the political participation of women. Specifically, I focus on contacting behavior to determine whether symbolic representation does in fact influence political behavior. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using survey methods and focus groups, this paper seeks to understand how modern political satire influences the attitudes of new voters (aged 18-21). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper develops a new approach to explaining the causes of democratic deepening by examining incentives and structures that develop effective opposition parties. The implications derived from the theory are empirically tested and supported. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The general objective of the present analysis is to characterize the voters’ attitudes and perceptions on key political structures and issues, considering the time period of the Portuguese Parliament elections of 2002 and 2005. It is aimed to analyse the voters’ politics perceptions attitudes evolution, between the two elections period, on several key issues in society and in politics, such as ‘Catholicism’, ‘authority’, ‘profit’ or ‘syndicalism’, amongst other, which are important symbolic elements of a considered civic culture. In methodological terms it is used a multidimensional scale procedure and analysis, based on two post-electoral pools applied on the urban area of the Lisbon’s eight surrounding councils. With this article we seek to contribute to the analysis of the voters’ perceptions about several key structural and infrastructural elements, which knowledge reflects the voters’ involvement on its political culture. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]