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Adverse weather events such as earthquakes, tornados and floods affect thousands of people around the globe every year. The responses to such adverse events by national governments differ from country to country. While some states protect their populations relatively well, in others people suffer tremendously. The goal of this paper is to explore the political sources of this variation. Political factors have been acknowledged to play a core role in determining the degree of damage to people's lives and personal properties caused by natural disasters. Surprisingly, however, there is a lack of empirical research on the role of political institutions in disaster prevention and mitigation. This paper addresses this research gap and tests the effect of democracy and institutional quality on the degree of natural disaster damage using time series cross section data from the International Disaster Risk database, Varieties of Democracy Project and the Quality of Government dataset. Democracy with its freedom of speech, participation and representation and quality of government, which improves provision of public goods and policy implementation, are believed to minimize the number of people affected by natural disasters. We posit that democratic principles and high institutional quality are both crucial for building resilience and neither of the conditions is sufficient for disaster prevention and mitigation. The results support our expectations and show that higher institutional quality is associated with fewer people suffering the consequences of natural disasters only when egalitarian democracy is high. Additionally, if institutional quality is low, more democracy is associated with more human suffering. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers information on the views of several philosophers including Socrates, Plato and Aristotle regarding the conflicts in philosophy and democracy. Topics discussed include morality, justice and fabric of social life. Also highlights the conflict between the city of the rich and the city of the poor in Athens, Greece.

Although the ultimate result of the 2012 Democratic Primary was never in doubt, there was an interesting and much discussed phenomenon that occurred in several primaries in the Upper South. In Kentucky, large numbers of Democratic voters voted "uncommitted" rather than pledging support for Obama. Likewise, in Arkansas and West Virginia, Obama performed poorly against token candidates. Pundits in the press argued over the importance of these election results. This paper will analyze the Democratic primary election in these three states. Using spatial analysis, election data will be compared to other voting trends in each of the counties within these three states. Using the results of the analysis this paper will attempt to find if loyal Democratic voters in these states have indeed displayed displeasure with the president and his policies or if there is another explanation for the primary vote. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The political disengagement of the poor poses an enduring challenge to the integrity of American democracy. In 1993, Congress attempted to address this problem by passing Section 7 of the National Voting Registration Act (NVRA), which requires that all public assistance agencies provide beneficiaries with the opportunity to register to vote. Since the passage of this legislation, compliance with Section 7 has declined steadily and has exhibited marked variation across the American states. This paper draws on federal administrative data as well as census and other contextual information to explain the reasons for such patterns. Times series cross-sectional analyses reveal that state level configurations of race and class are key determinants of section 7 implementation. Moreover, these findings reflect a combination of top-down (stemming from political elites) and bottom-up (stemming from street-level bureaucrats) influences. The paper concludes by considering the broader implications of non-compliance with Section 7 and assessing the appropriate policy tools for combatting states' tendencies towards conditional commitment to the political equality of marginal groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a synthesis theoretical framework that could serve as a basis for empirical studies of the fulfillment of electoral pledges in modern democracies. A weak version of positive mandate theory is put forth that draws on a number of theoretical sources. A partially restricted mandate is seen as a natural theoretical fit for modern representative government, as well as manifesto-based governance and responsible party government. Nevertheless, these approaches share a sense of normativity, in that they all assume that representative government is in line with the 'public good'. Mandate theory, so defined, remains self-contradictory, which poses difficulties for the efforts to create a coherent theoretical framework that can be functional for empirical testing. Leaving questions of the public interest aside, a potent alternative to standard accountabilitycentered, ex post theories of representative government may be constructed. Amongst the major elements of this framework counts the informativeness of the electoral campaign; the transparency and straightforwardness of electoral pledges; and the unambiguity of the results of the authorization process, i.e. the election. A weak version of positive mandate theory, so construed, lends itself well for operationalization. Thus, the paper concludes by outlining a possible research agenda for this weak version of mandate theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The power to forbid political parties from running for office is an important instrument in the arsenal of both democracies and electoral autocracies. Although party bans can significantly affect electoral outcomes--whether by increasing the likelihood of an authoritarian incumbent's reelection or by decreasing the threat of an authoritarian opposition party's dismantling of democracy--which parties are targeted for bans, and when, remains unclear. In this paper, I address these questions using a game theoretic model. I show that different kinds of opposition party extremism have different, and often surprising, implications for the possibility of a ban. While an opposition party's "insider status" decreases the probability of a ban, so does its militarism; and a party's ideological extremism has an ambiguous, potentially non-monotone effect on the likelihood that it is banned. In addition to these results, I demonstrate that the involvement of a court in the banning decision has surprising effects: While the court may function as a "veto player" in situations when the court prefers the opposition party to be in office, banning is not automatic if the court shares the incumbent party's interests. Lastly, the unavailability of other instruments of electoral manipulation has a positive effect on the probability of a ban, suggesting one reason party bans may be so prevalent among democracies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Civil service systems are commonly both praised for assuring bureaucratic expertise and criticized for obstructing democratic accountability. In this paper I argue that, even when limitations on the ability of politicians to appoint agency personnel and review agency decisions are constitutionally protected, the parties in power can often use structural reorganization to accomplish the same partisan objectives as they would have in the absence of such constraints. In particular, they can often use their control over the rules that assign authority and responsibility in the bureaucracy to indirectly determine who is allowed to set agency agendas and override agency policy commitments. To buttress this conjecture I examine the termination rates of all administrative agencies enacted in the executive civil service of Sweden between 1960 and 2014 and show that the risk of termination increases considerably when the policy preferences of an agency's upper management are in conflict with those of the executive cabinet. I conclude that while civil service systems can increase the costs of personnel management, they are typically neither as protective of bureaucratic expertise nor as problematic for democratic accountability as is commonly believed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There has been a long held belief that democracy and economics have a positive correlation. As the freedom of a nation enlarges, so does the economy. Most studies look at the GDP to measure the growth of the economy and its success or failure. However, this assessment does not allow for variables such as corrupt government, and thus does not depict an accurate picture of the people that live in these nations. This paper focuses on the middle class of six African countries, using the sum of the middle three quintiles of income share to define middle class. Data from Polity IV was used to gather the information on each of the country's level of democracy. These factors were compared regarding trends between the income share of the middle class and the level of democracy. After examining the data, it was concluded that there is a negative correlation between democracy and income share held by the middle class. The small sample size could have an effect on the data and may account for the negative correlation, requiring further research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Modern democracies rely on the participation of their citizens to function properly. This paper investigates how district magnitude affects political efficacy and participation. District magnitude determines is the number of people who serve a district and it influences the number of candidates and parties that participate in elections (Cox 1997; Duverger 1963). Based upon previous work, I theorize that there is a link or tie between voters and politicians and as the district magnitude increases from one to two to three and so on, the closeness or link between voters and politicians gets weaker (Norris 2001; Powell 2000; Sartori 1997). This closeness is based on several factors. Voters in systems with smaller districts have fewer candidates and parties from which to choose, making it easier for them to recognize elected officials and distinguish their different policy positions (Powell 2000). Fewer candidates also help to create a clarity of responsibility for the voter about whom to contact when in need of assistance and whom to hold accountable for their performance in office (Powell 2000). Due to the heightened identifiability of candidates and elected officials, there is pressure to maintain close relationships with voters (Fenno 1978; Norris 2001, 2004). Utilizing data from the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems I found that generally, voters in smaller district magnitudes have more political efficacy and are more likely to participate in politics than are voters from larger magnitudes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The role of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in emerging democracies has been widely discussed within the literature. In fact, democratic theorists have long cited the importance of civic activity within a strong democracy. NGOs are one part of a larger civil society sector that might contribute to democratization. The strategies and tools NGOs utilize in order to make these contributions have expanded significantly in the past two decades, as digital connectivity and then social networking platforms became available to a greater portion of the global population. NGOs are increasingly connecting with stakeholders, volunteers, supporters, and beneficiaries via social media platforms, and can now build social capital within the digital sector. The question, however, remains as to whether these groups are successfully contributing to a vibrant civil society through these online networks. While many studies have considered if and how various organizations utilize social media, little research has been conducted on the use of social media within the developing world, where the process of democratization is often still underway. This paper takes a first look at whether and how NGOs within a democratizing state, Nigeria, are utilizing social media by considering the use of Facebook and Twitter by 1988 Nigerian NGOs. Additionally, we analyze Twitter feed content from 151 Nigerian NGOs, considering the level of interactivity of these tweets. We find that, as expected, few Nigerian NGOs in our data set are utilizing social media at all and that when groups do use Twitter, they tend to do so in a way that is more consistent with one-way communication, rather than in a more interactive way. However, while the majority of tweets represent one-way communication, we find that the level of interactivity in terms of tweets is generally higher than what others have found with similar organizations in the United States. Thus, while few NGOs in Nigeria appear to utilize social media, those that do seems to be somewhat more interactive in their usage than we might expect given previous research on nonprofit organizations in the United States. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Interest groups are important intermediaries in western democracies, with the potential to offer political linkage. They can function as filter or barometer of the preferences of particular groups in society, and in that way form a bridge between the concerns of citizens and the agenda of political elites. And while we know an increasing amount about the issue-based activity of groups, we do not as yet know much at all about how they selected these issues to work on, or why they decide not to focus their activities on particular matters.. This raises the question: How do groups prioritize issues? In this paper, we provide a first empirical assessment of this question, relying on a data from surveys of interest groups in the United States and Australia [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How do remittances affect democratization in developing countries? The existing literature on this relationship is mixed. Remittances provide governments greater revenue for repression and patronage (Ahmed 2012), while also reducing the dependency of citizens upon the state for the provision of public goods (Escriba-Folch and Wright 2013). In this paper we reconcile these divergent positions by examining the effect of remittances on democracy in developing countries over time. Specifically, we argue that remittances, which are sent directly to citizens and largely bypass government control, disturb the authoritarian bargain--autocrats can no longer buy allegiance among the masses. However, we predict that this democratizing effect of remittances will wane over time. As citizens increasingly fund their own needs with remittances, democratic politicians are incentivized to fund patronage politics over broad-based public goods with revenue generated from increased economic activity. Thus, in the long run, we expect a decreasing marginal effect of remittances on democratization, as democracies receiving large inflows of remittances fail to consolidate. We test our theory on a dataset of developing countries from 1980 through 2010. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The International Republican Institute (IRI) has conducted political party building programs in developing democracies for twenty-five years. The historic and geographic breadth of the Institute's work in this area gives it a unique perspective, which can yield important lessons about strategies and activities that are most successful in strengthening and democratizing political parties. To identify lessons learned from this experience, IRI's Office of Monitoring and Evaluation undertook case study research of political party programs in eight countries. To frame the research, the team first developed six principles that describe attributes of a mature, fully-functioning political party. The research phase of the project included a desktop review of in-house documents, a review of political conditions on the ground and interviews with in-country partners, as well as IRI staff in Washington, D.C. and in the field. Using the collected data, the team then assessed the extent to which targeted parties had developed, and what role the Institute had played in that development, using the six principles to frame the analysis. Based on the findings of this research, this paper provides an overview of common strategies and activities employed by IRI to promote party development. This paper also makes some initial conclusions regarding how IRI's activities impacted party development in particular political contexts, including why some strategies may have been more effective than others. These conclusions are then distilled into a series of recommendations designed to inform and strengthen future party development efforts. The recommendations are elaborated on throughout the body of the paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The evaluation to voters' competence is controversial topic. Some scholars are very pessimistic, but other scholars retain the hope. The purpose of the paper is to assess the relationship between democratic accountability mechanism and voters' competence by focusing on the swing voting in the 2009 lower house election to cause the historical power shift. This paper displays that swing voting from the LDP to the DPJ contributed to the triumph of the DPJ. Moreover, analyzing the level of political knowledge and political information environment on the Japanese Election Study 4 dataset, this paper indicates that the swing voters are not ideal, but ordinary citizens who followed more knowledgeable side. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that without making a substantial progress in solving the Kurdish question, Turkey will not be able to become a full-fledged democracy. Consequently, this paper tries to answer the question, what the major disagreement points among the political elites are over the Kurdish-issue and how these disagreements impact the democratic consolidation in Turkey. The main obstacle to the resolution of the Kurdish problem is the Turkish elites' short-sightedness, historical fears, partisanship-concerns as well as the DNA's of the mainstream political parties in Turkey. These factors foster disagreements among the political elites over one of the most crucial issues, the Kurdish question, which poses an existential threat to the integrity of the Turkish state. The paper utilizes the most recent public opinion polls to discuss the stands of the relevant political parties as well as the larger society toward various issues related to the Kurdish question and its potential political implications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is well known that individuals who vote for the winning party in an election are more satisfied with democracy than those who backed a losing party. However, many winners deviate from their first choice in the voting booth. I argue that the ideological and psychological mechanisms that boost satisfaction should attenuate among such winners. Using data from the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems, this paper shows that these "non-optimal winners" do, in fact, experience a much smaller boost in satisfaction than "optimal winners," those who voted their expressed first preference. Results also demonstrate that psychological benefits better explain the boost in satisfaction associated with winning than ideological considerations. Lastly, this paper shows that the proportion of winners voting for the optimal party is more prevalent under majoritarian electoral rules, which provides a new explanation for the relatively pronounced effect of winning on satisfaction in such systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper suggests that political institutions mediate public choices, and when citizens are exposed to opposing sides of an argument they make political choices that are consistent with their underlying principles. The substance of democratic politics is that political choices are organized for citizens by political institutions. To win political power, parties and candidates must compete, and a central aspect of this competition is to define the terms of political choice. In this respect, a frame provides a comprehensible basis suggesting how citizens should think about an issue. Parties and candidates solicit popular support through the positions they adopt and how they frame issues. However, previous framing literature has overlooked the fact that frames are themselves contestable. It assumes that citizens are exposed to only one frame, in which only one way to think about an issue is presented, so that citizens can easily be swayed to one side or the other of an issue, depending on how the issue was framed. I argue that to capture campaign effects, we need to consider how citizens react when they are exposed to opposing ways of thinking about an issue. And I hypothesize that citizens' thinking, being exposed to competing issue frames, is clarified, and they can choose the alternative closest to their general political principles. This paper explores this theory using the 2004 National Annenberg Election Surveys. Methodologically, this paper uses panel fixed effects regression with vector decomposition to overcome problems of panel data, such as unobservable heterogeneity, and not estimating time-invariant variables and inefficiency caused by fixed effects. The preliminary findings suggest that under competing issue frames, citizens tend to increase the constraint between their underlying political principles and perception of meaningful differences between candidates. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most scholars interpret the Athenian Stranger's theory of government Plato's Laws in light of Polybius' theory of mixed government or regimen mixtum. From this perspective, the theory of regimes in the Laws comes of poorly. The Athenian Stranger argues that almost all regimes are a combination of monarchy and democracy, but this leaves out Polybius' third type of regime, namely, aristocracy or oligarchy. Curiously, the regime proposed for the colony that is to be founded very much resembles an aristocracy or oligarchy, even though the Athenian Stranger does not use these terms. The argument of this paper is that the Athenian Stranger proposes a theory of regimes that is in important ways distinct from Polybius' rather than its incomplete precursor. The Athenian Stranger is less concerned with the problem of faction as he is with man's inability to deal with power responsibly. He consciously posits monarchy, which concentrates governing power into the hands of one, against democracy, which disperses power over the populace, arguing that a balance should be maintained between the two. This paper shows that the Magnesian regime in the Laws is constructed accordingly, with governing power dispersed over a range of offices that are internally moderated by mixing different claims to power. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A half-century after the civil rights movement, blacks and whites in Alabama and the South seemingly have come to terms—terms that will amaze outsiders—about living together in a halfway house of racialized politics. A New Racial System has taken hold as the region develops a politics of biracial accommodation despite its hard racial history.For most Southerners, the Old South is dead; Southern Democracy is a memory; the Republican Revolution has been consolidated; and two-party competition is a reality in various parts of the region. Most importantly, descendants of slaves and slave-owners have reconciled pressures for systemic progress with certain aspects of their cultural pasts; and the civil rights movement of the 1950s-'60s has morphed, rather curiously, into a new order for the new century.This paper will analyze contemporary southern politics as neither the stark past nor an idealized future. Based on his background as a political science professor and public official, the author proposes that the South now is a halfway house of racialized politics in which white politicians and black politicians attempt to secure for themselves and their constituents the blessings of democracy and the goodies of political life. (The presenter of this proposed paper is a longtime political scientist who also served in the U.S. Congress, as Alabama's Secretary of State, and as an Alabama State Legislator. He is the author of a new book, The South's New Racial Politics: Inside the Race Game of Southern History.) ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Why have attempts to force democracy by military force, whether by the United States and other external interveners, generally been unsuccessful? This paper suggests that there are at least four causes. The first is the fact that the motives and goals of the intervening actors may not easily translate to democracy. The second is that domestic factors of the neighborhood are often not taken into consideration. The third factor is that aid targeted specifically at democracy may not be sufficient and/or wisely used. Finally, general support by the international community may not be as helpful as it might be. The paper also suggests avenues for future research into the concept of forced democratization. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Through an experiment, this paper purports to evaluate how valence in political ads affects the seeking and processing of information in political campaigns. This paper builds on the debate between those who argue that negative ads provide valuable information and those who argue that it demobilizes the electorate. The main focus of this paper is in information processing. The demobilization hypothesis long ago proposed that negative ads disenchant the electorate and make them more skeptical about politics. On the other hand, Geer (2006) argued that negative ads are valuable for democracy because they provide information that must be backed up by the attacking party. This is in contrast to positively toned ads where the candidate will portray himself in the best light possible and attempt to make the viewer like him without necessarily taking positions that may alienate a group of voters. This study directly assesses the claim that negative ads provide voters with more information. Although I do not argue with Geer's great content analysis of political ads and the finding that the amount of information negative ads convey is much greater than that of positive ads; I do question the usefulness of this information for the electorate. I argue that negative ads may disenchant the public and make them less likely to pay attention to these ads, and that they will also recall less factual information than if the information were presented in a positive light. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To what extent can electoral systems reinforce or undermine the conflict dampening potential of power sharing arrangements in divided, post-conflict states? Despite previous research that highlights the potential for democratic institutions to defuse inter-sectarian conflict, particularly power sharing arrangements and electoral frameworks, central questions remain regarding how varying mechanisms work in combination to either defuse or exacerbate domestic conflict and whether particular institutions may work to either reinforce or undermine other mechanisms or democracy in general. In contributing to research on democratic peacebuilding, this paper explores the interactive relationship between power sharing and electoral systems in the fragmented, confessional environment of post-war Lebanon. As one of the longest-running cases of continuous institutional engineering in the region, Lebanon offers not only a rich exploratory case in which to evaluate institutional interactions and the impact on inter-communal conflict, but also salient insight into power sharing initiatives in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as intra-state conflict outside the region. Investigating several institutional configurations over time, the paper assesses the hypothesis that a confessional electoral system stymies executive and legislative power sharing, while undermining genuine democratic participation and competition, thus negating the ability of democratic mechanisms to facilitate meaningful conflict resolution. Moreover, the research explores the extent to which consequent erosion in government legitimacy, combined with a weakened executive, impedes the ability of the state to mediate inter-group conflicts or promote national unity effectively in the face of destabilizing forces from domestic and regional/international arenas. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study has examined the influence of independent civil society organizations and other governance factors, public access to information, citizen's unhindered participation in elections, executive accountability and control of corruption, on media freedom by using the 2007 governance indicators data of Global Integrity and World Bank. The author has used Pearson correlation and OLS regression methods to analyze the data of 47 countries. This paper has also examined the comparative influence of independent governance variables on media freedom by continents. This paper is revolved around an argument that a vibrant civil society, accountable and transparent state systems and citizen's unhindered access to information and voting can strengthen democracy and complement the practice of the free press. Governance factors can help institutionalize democratic practices through ensuring transparency and accountability and facilitating citizen's participation in political processes, while civil society and citizens' groups have emerged as advocates of civil liberties to safeguard democracy in different regions. Correlation test has identified a trend that media freedom has significant relationships with factors--executive accountability, citizen's participation in election, control of corruption, and the functioning of independent civil society organizations. The regression analysis recognizes that all the variables of democracy are not functioning at the same level in all countries as civil society and governance indicators do not contribute to media freedom in the same way in every context. This paper has also reinforced the argument that media freedom is not an isolated factor in strengthening democratic culture and facilitating good governance. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper seeks to explicitly inject sources of legitimacy as an independent variable into the debate concerning the creation of stable democratic states. The classic debate concerns the relative importance of socio-economic variables (no bourgeoisie, no democracy) and the importance of crafting proper political institutions. Government authority rests on legitimacy, the perception by the people of the government's right to rule. Colonial empires weakened or destroyed traditional sources of legitimacy for local political elites. Colonial government authority rested on, at best, performance legitimacy, demonstrations of economic development and provisions for social welfare. At worst, the colonial powers lacked any legitimacy whatsoever. French West Africa provides a case study of countries which had relatively similar transitions to independent modern states, having been forcibly transported from traditional sources of legitimacy into the second half of the 20th century without the development of indigenous replacement sources. Individual leaders of local political elites during the Post-Colonial period of French West Africa had to develop government legitimacy for states with weak government capacity, colonially established borders, and a colonial power determined to maintain influence. This paper provides a comparative typology of the sources of legitimacy developed by the variety of states in post-colonial French West Africa. The purpose is to link the issue to the classic state-society development literature in a fashion that demonstrates that legitimacy should not be considered the outcome of state development, but rather as an independent variable determining the success of state development. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Do skyrocketing crime rates erode citizens' support for the rule of law in nascent democracies? In Central America, recent events have propelled this question to the top of the political agenda, as crime has replaced civil war as the key detriment to citizens' security and citizens have expressed frustration with the inability of their governments to stem the tide of criminality. Some have expressed a willingness to support undemocratic alternatives with the hopes that they might improve citizen security. In recent surveys, approximately half of the citizens in Central America stated that a military coup would be justified under conditions of high crime. When asked to identify the most serious challenge facing their countries, crime ranked first in Guatemala, El Salvador, and Costa Rica. Crime ranked second and third in Panama and Honduras respectively, and in the top five in Nicaragua. Given such trends, this paper examines the impact of the current crime wave on a crucial component of democracy: the rule of law. More specifically, it examines whether fear of crime and victimization can erode citizens' support for the rule of law in Central America. To examine citizens' support for the rule of law, this study relies upon recent survey data collected through the Latin American Public Opinion Project (LAPOP) in 2006. This study measures support for the rule of law through questions gauging citizens' willingness to allow authorities to circumvent the law to capture criminals and their support for vigilante justice. This paper then aims to gauge the impact of justice reform, crime, and media coverage on citizens' respect for the law. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Chilean women are frequently typecast as conservatives. Most famously (or infamously), Chilean women led the "March of the Empty Pots and Pans" in a highly public and influential protest against Allende in 1971. Conservative women constructed a strong political organization, Poder Femenino (Feminine Power), to channel their opposition efforts against this leftist government (Power, 2002). Due to such political mobilization, many credit (or blame) Chilean women for helping to pave the way for Pinochet's 1973 coup. With the return of democracy in 1990, Chilean ideological orientation received renewed attention as ideological divisions have manifested themselves quite clearly in several policy areas. Perhaps the most prominent ideological battle was that over the issue of divorce. Chile's conservatives managed to delay the legalization of divorce until 2003, when Chile became one of the last countries to provide for the legal dissolution of marriage. This paper examines ideological orientation and its implications in Chile. Building upon recent work on the ideological gender gap in the United States (Norrander and Wilcox, 2008), this paper determines whether there is an ideological gender gap in Chile today. Relying upon the 2006 survey data of the Latin American Public Opinion Project, this paper examines women's responses to ideological self-identification, as well as their attitudes in specific policy domains (i.e., political, economic, and social issues). The goal of this paper is to determine whether Chilean women are following the recent Latin American trend towards the left, or if they remain staunch conservatives. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Under what circumstances are unpopular religious minorities persecuted? In this paper, I argue intolerance of religious minorities is not simply a function of dislike for them—many religious minorities are widely disliked, but only some are persecuted, and only in some places. Instead, persecution can be explained by intervening political variables, especially the responsiveness of state officials to intolerant demands from civil society. In this paper I will examine three religious groups (Jehovah's Witnesses, Mormons and Scientologists) which are almost universally unpopular, but which have experienced great cross-national and cross-temporal variance in state and civil tolerance. I will focus specifically on the treatment they have received in democracies, where constitutional guarantees of religious freedom may conflict with the state's imperative of "protecting" the public from religious practices that are widely seen as abhorrent. The outcome of this conflict may depend on the relative strengths of different branches of the state, and the relationship between the state and established religious groups. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The issue of changing of political systems in post-communist countries represented one of the most frequent topics of political and scientific discussion during the early 1990s. Lots of articles, papers and books that dealt with this subject from various points of view were published in post-communist countries as well as in the Western European and the American atmosphere. In most cases there were the texts of a popularizing character or they were consolidated specialized publications aimed only at partial questions. The goal of this paper is to present more complex view on the given issue. Therefore this paper covers "only" four Central European countries: the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary and Poland. Such a range is not accidental, but derives from the array of analogical political trends and institutional links that connects these countries in a historical and contemporary temporal perspective. The paper is pointed at the total descriptive and analytical depiction of a particular political systems' evolution and partial system aspects of this process. The main framework is based on the description of political development of these countries towards the democracy after 1989, brief characteristic of legislative, executive and judicial powers; and the development of party systems, which plays an important role in the founding of democracy in this area. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The issue outlined in this paper is that U.S. democracy promotion in Africa occurs only when it is convenient for the superpower from the West. Analyzing the countries that comprise the Gulf of Guinea – which share commonalities of recently discovered oil reserves, marginally democratic or nondemocratic regimes, and friendly relations with the U.S. - this paper illustrates how U.S. foreign policy continues to be shaped more by motives of self-interest than by real concern for the promotion of democracy and constitutional liberalism. The gap that exists between political rhetoric and policy is especially noteworthy in the wake of the September 11 attacks and the increased focus of the U.S. on democracy promotion in the Middle East. Given the renewed efforts to thwart terrorism by pressuring authoritarian regimes to open up politically and increase human liberties, the ongoing friendly relations between the U.S. and authoritarian regimes in arenas outside the Middle East border on hypocrisy. Despite recent rhetoric by U.S. policymakers concerning freedom and human rights advancements in Africa, actual U.S. policy in the Gulf of Guinea region belies the fact that U.S. economic interests still subvert the professed desire to see democracy succeed on a global scale. United States involvement in the Gulf of Guinea has important implications for the ability of individual countries in the region to avoid the ‘resource curse’ and to establish viable institutions. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Two centuries after Hamilton and Jefferson staked out their controversy, we are still searching to understand how the state of the public mind affects the prospect for good government. How much should the electorate understand about government, its functions, its undergirding theories, the nature of man, and the lessons of history? By what signals can we perceive that public opinion in a representative democracy may not be adequately enlightened to preserve the nation's best interests? Is the protracted build up of national debt an indicator that the public mind is debilitated? To get at these matters I search the Federalist Papers for clues regarding the qualifications for a healthy public mind and an enduring democratic republican regime as understood by Publius. The paper concludes that our American heritage is not secure if the public does not understand the nature of their liberties and the requirements for enduring preservation of political institutions. The public must have the understanding and will to resist the accumulation of debt, such debt eventually hazarding the interests of the electorate. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What factors cause protests? Scholars have conducted cross-national analysis on determinants of protest. However, their studies have been paid less attention on institutional factors. This paper examines the importance of institutional factors in accounting for protest in 17 Western European democracies from 1980 through 1995. To deal with cross-sectional time-series count data, this paper uses Generalized Estimating Equation (GEE) model with negative binomial distribution. Results show that institutional factors do matter in explaining the causes of protest. Especially, electoral system is strongly related with the number of protests: Proportional Representation (PR) system really decreases the number of protests more than any other electoral systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Strongly influencing recent work on political parties has been the framework of party system institutionalization developed by Scott Mainwaring and Timothy Scully in their 1995 book Building Democratic Institutions: Party Systems in Latin America. This paper addresses an important anomaly arising from Mainwaring and Scully's work on party system institutionalization when the approach travels from its home base in Latin America to a communally-charged or ethnically-segmented environment such as exists in many countries of Asia and Africa. Using the case of post-Suharto Indonesia and drawing on the author's dissertation research, the paper discusses institutionalization in the contemporary Indonesian party system and shows how party rooting, one of Mainwaring and Scully's four key areas of party system institutionalization, can serve as a negative force in the consolidation of democracy, rather than the positive one highlighted by the authors. Particularly, in the Indonesian case, party rooting in communal groups and the existence of historic and programmatic tensions among those groups have contributed to high levels of instability, as could be seen in the tumultuous process surrounding the impeachment of President Abdurrahman Wahid in 2001. In the Indonesian case, the negative effects of party rooting have been brought about by the exploitation of party roots by cost-conscious potential political leaders in the development of their political power bases. As rational actors, Indonesia's party leaders have perpetually used the least costly means available to reach their political goals. The existence of ready-made groups waiting to be captured by an enterprising leader has allowed inter-communal tension to be escalated, bringing the country almost to the brink of civil war in 2000 and 2001. In addition to the threats to Indonesia's stability, the exploitation of inter-communal tensions for political gain has had important effects (all negative) on the nature of... [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Few questions about the media and politics generate as much attention and speculation as those about ideological bias and its effect on public opinion. Yet, the number of claims about a biased and influential media far exceeds the amount of systematic evidence. This stems, in part, from the ostensibly insurmountable methodological challenges of both controlling for variations in political events and market forces, and validly measuring voter response at the polls. In this paper, we overcome these challenges by focusing on a single Senate campaign in a single market with two competing, ideologically distinct newspapers. Combining comprehensive content analyses of the papers with an Election Day exit poll, we assess campaign coverage and its effect on voters. We find compelling evidence of ideological bias that, in turn, shaped voters' candidate evaluations. Our results raise serious questions about the media's place in democratic processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A conference paper on relationship between the mass media and the political participation of young adults in the U.S., which will be presented at Southern Political Science Association Conference in Orlando, Florida from January 3-4, 2013, is presented. Topics discussed include the importance of electoral participation in democratic system, political engagement in the U.S. and the role of mass media on youth's participation in electoral system.

A conference paper is presented on topic related to the influence of personal attitudes on income redistribution, which was p[resented at the annual conference of the Southern Political Science Association held in Orlando, Florida on January 4, 2013, is presented. Topics discussed include the impact of democracy on living standards of the public, the effects of democratic redistribution and implementation of social programs that do not favor poor people.

Established by President Kennedy in 1963, the Presidential Medal of Freedom (PMOF) is the nation's highest civilian honor. Presidents may award the Medal at their sole discretion to "any person who has made an especially meritorious contribution to (1) the security or national interests of the United States, or (2) world peace, or (3) cultural or other significant public or private endeavors" (Executive Order 11085). Because presidents act in an unconstrained manner when recognizing Medal recipients, the PMOF provides a unique opportunity to examine the civic contributions sitting presidents value most. Using an original database of all PMOF recipients between 1963 and 2012 (N=512), this paper examines who and what type of achievements presidents recognize when awarding the PMOF. Our analysis reveals differences in who Democratic and Republican presidents recognize as Medal recipients. In addition, we address trends in PMOF awards since 1963, test whether PMOF ceremonies increase a president's approval rating, and model the number of PMOFs a president awards in a given ceremony. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research has convincingly shown that polarization has increased in Congress in recent decades (Poole and Rosenthal 1991, 2007). Though explanations for the causes of polarization are diverse and somewhat disputed, few challenge the contention that political elites in the U.S. have exhibited increased divisions along party lines. At the same time, however, little work has looked at polarization with the federal judiciary, particularly at the lower court level. An early study identified limited partisan differences amongst federal district court judges prior to 1969 (Carp and Rowland 1983). However, starting in the late 1960's and until 1985, robust partisan differences between Democratic and Republican judges became clearly identifiable (Carp and Rowland 1996). Much time has passed since this research was published, and no work has revisited the matter. This paper seeks to readdress the question. Analyzing 60,201 coded federal district court decisions handed down from 1986 to 2011, we create annual judicial ideology measures and evaluate the partisan gap between Democratic and Republican jurists. The data reveal that over the past 25 years Democrats consistently handed down more liberal decisions than their Republican colleagues. Our work finds that polarization in the federal district courts has not increased since 1985, but neither has it decreased significantly. During the period of observation, Democrats were 51.6% more likely to hand down a liberal ruling than Republicans -- a fact that is not inconsequential. Overall, the data suggest that polarization within the judiciary identified in earlier research may have been a harbinger of increased polarization throughout the political system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper is to explore the determinants of individual-level voter turnout among the mass public in Latin American countries. We develop a model in which we depict voter turnout as a function of independent variables representing several theoretical clusters, including economic variables, the informational environment, attitudes toward democracy, ideology, contextual variables, and demographic attributes. We test hypothesis about the effects of these variables using data from the 2009 Latino Barometer. We find substantial evidence of the effects of compulsory voting on voter turnout, particularly when compulsory voting is accompanied by sanctions and strong enforcement. Further, we also find that variables reflecting attitudes toward democracy and the informational environment have particularly strong effects on voter turnout, and there are some economic and demographic variables that influence turnout as well. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Economic development is widely known to stabilize democratic regimes. Models of distributional conflict have revealed that with increased average income, the ability of political parties to agree on redistribution rates grows. A key assumption of such models is that parties are programmatic and will enact their mandates once elected. Yet, political parties vary in their dedication to these platforms. Some parties are quite programmatic, only enacting policies that voters endorse, while others are less programmatic, preferring to attract voters using clientelism. This suggests the possibility that countries with clientelistic parties could experience less conflict over redistribution rates because there would be an absence of parties compelled to represent the poor once in office. In this paper, I relax the assumption in this model that parties always follow their mandates once in office, and I test the hypothesis that countries with clientelistic parties experience increased regime stability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Can direct democracy provisions improve welfare over pure representative democracy? This paper studies how such provisions affect politicians' incentives and selection. While direct democracy allows citizens to correct politicians' mistakes, it also reduces the incentives of elected representatives to search for good policies. This responsibility substitution reduces citizens' ability to screen competent politicians, when elections are the only means to address political agency problems. A lower cost of direct democracy induces a negative spiral on politicians incentives, which we characterize by a disincentive multiplier. As a consequence, introducing initiatives or lowering their cost can reduce voters' expected utility. Moreover, when elections perform well in selecting politicians and provide incentives, this indirect welfare reducing effect is stronger. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we investigate voting behavior in Africa and seek to explain rural and urban differences in the preference for the dominant parties in a subset of African countries where the independence party has continually won all elections keeping them in power to this day. We ask why ruling parties continue to receive the majority of rural and very little urban support. The literature on African voting patterns has grown considerably but we find that the rural/urban dichotomy has yet to be fully explained. Our research seeks to explain this dichotomy. We find that rural voters differ in their understanding of democracy, policy preferences, access to independent media and knowledge about opposition political parties, all of which influence support for or against the ruling party. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Questions on the separation of powers in the United States have tended to focus on the push-and-pull of one branch of government over another in terms of making public policy. In examining the Supreme Court of the United States, often times these theories of institutions will largely ignore the power of the public, arguing that Justices are immune to appeals such as public opinion (Segal & Spaeth, 2002) or that while there could be an "association" between the Court and public opinion, it is simply unclear whether or not public pressure has more than a subtle affect on the decisions of jurists (Mishler & Sheehan, 1993). It would seem then that - at least for the Supreme Court - E.E. Schattschneider's (1975) proclamation that, "lurking in the background [of democratic governments] is the notion that the people actually do govern" (pp.128) is untrue. In order to come to some conclusion on the "democratic nature" - if one exists - of the Court, this paper conducts an analysis of the effect of public opinion on the percentage of liberal salient reversals of precedent made by the Court between 1953 to 2003 utilizing a vector auto-regressive time series model. What is found is that the Court appears to be receptive to the mood of the public given the saliency of the issue in the public sphere, and as such seems to "play Galahad" by adjusting their own personal policy preferences in order to accommodate the mood of the public. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The effect of election results on democratic support has been studied to understand the democratic legitimacy. Although the existing studies found that winners are more supportive of democratic systems and incumbent performance than losers, there are two analytical issues. One is that they mainly analyze the data at one time point, thus failing to capture the change of democratic support before and after the election. The other is that the preceding studies tend to examine the cross national variations, lacking the analysis on the long-term change. This study attempts to capture the change in democratic support among winners and losers in longer periods of time, focusing on Japanese case. Japan is the good example to investigate the long-term effects of electoral results on voters' sense of democracy since the one party, the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), ruled in the government for more than a half century from 1955 to 2009 (except 10 months in 1993-1994). The winners tends to continue to be winners, while losers stay in a loser position. In addition, in 2009, Japanese politics experienced the change in government through the election. This paper investigates how this longtime losers and the long-time winners accept the election results. The survey analysis shows that the long-term voters are more supportive of the democratic institutions even when they lost in elections. This implies that the longterm winners/losers stabilize their democratic support, lacking flexibilities. In addition, in 1983 the way in changing democratic support varied, while in 2009 all voters and nonvoters enhance their democratic support. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The difficulty of democracy is to ensure that the defeated at the poll obeys the results of elections. This is a difficult task, since the defeated has an incentive to engage in armed conflict to modify or annul elections. This paper investigates under what conditions elections lead to armed conflicts onset by considering a decision-making problem of the defeated who chooses to wait for the next election or to engage in violent conflicts. We argue that the compliance on the electoral outcome is dependent on following two factors; (1) the type of elections (presidential and legislative democracy) and (2) amounts of natural resource rents. First, the type of democracy directly affects the stakes of elections. Since the president exercise far greater discretionary power than the executive in legislative democracies does, the losers in presidential regime are more likely to resort to violence. Second, as the rents derived from natural resource increases the amounts of resource which the state monopolizes, the defeated is more likely to challenge the government. We test these hypothesis by employing new data set which disaggregates observations from country-year to country-month. The results show that armed conflicts are more likely to take place after presidential elections, and this destabilizing effects of presidential elections are more magnified by the oil production. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While several studies have been focused on the conflict onset or escalation between democratic dyads, not so much research has been done on conflict escalation between the mixed (democratic and non-democratic) dyads. I add to this ongoing discussion by evaluating the effect of state preferences on conflict escalation between the mixed dyads. By applying the social network analysis on the measurement of state preferences, this paper gives students of conflict study a better understanding of measuring preferences than other ordinary first-order indicators. I also analyze relative Militarized Interstate Disputes (MIDs) between 1946-1992 by a censored probit model to examine the effects of structural affinity (state preferences) on ordinal levels of escalation. My finding suggests that structural affinity scores are statistically significant on conflict escalation among democratic and non-democratic dyads. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A healthy democracy requires a citizenry that participates in political life. While interven- tions such as removing barriers to registration and mobilizing partisans have received fre- quent scholarly attention, formal civic education has been largely ignored. This paper finds, however, that students who complete a year of coursework in American Government/Civics are 3-6 percentage points more likely to vote in an election following high school than those without exposure to civic education. Further, this e®ect is magnified among students whose parents are not highly politicized. Among students who report not discussing politics with their parents, additional coursework is associated with a 7-11 percentage point increase in the probability of voting. This result suggests that civic education compensates for a relative lack of political socialization at home, and thereby enhances participatory equality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Two literatures touch upon the cognitive world of democracy or democratic politics: political knowledge and democratic conception. However, the former has not examined knowledge about democracy among mass publics, and the latter has missed the extent to which citizens in developing countries are informed of democracy. Consequently, little is known about democratic knowledge and its evolution over the last few decades of global democratization. Thus, this study is purposed to conceptualize, measure, and explain democratic knowledge among global mass publics. It defines democratic knowledge as conceptual knowledge about democracy as a political system and measures its quantity and quality. Using World Values Surveys and multilevel statistical analysis, the present paper found that three determinants have substantial effects in improving democratic knowledge: economic development at the country level, formal education, and non-voting participation at the individual level. Nevertheless, the effects of these three and other determinants are different in the quantity and quality of democratic knowledge. This finding has important implications for studies of political knowledge, conceptions of democracy, and political culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Prior studies have focused heavily on one dimension of democratic attitude (support for democracy over authoritarianism) and neglected its multidimensional nature. Conceptually, this study proposes a hierarchical model of democratic attitude consisting of three components: affection, cognition, and conation toward democracy at the regime level. Substantially, the present paper shows that global mass publics have strong conation to live in democracy but their affective commitment toward democracy and cognitive knowledge of democracy are limited. Empirically, the democratic attitude and its components are shaped by self-expression values, education, non-voting participation, and evaluation of democratic performance. However, these common determinants have different effects across democratic attitude and its components. Overall, the empirical analysis suggests two implications: the three components of democratic attitude are distinct but related and democratic attitude is more comprehensive and complex than prior studies have identified. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Democratic support is the most important political capital all democratic regimes-new and old-need to survive and maintain. Prior studies have focused on the dynamic aspect of democratic support accompanying with support for democracy and rejection to authoritarianism. However, this analytical convention is not able to capture how democratic support has evolved over the last few decades of democratic advancements. Thus, this study first re-conceptualizes democratic support as a dynamic as well as developmental process. Second, scholars in comparative politics have documented political, economic, and cultural sources of democratic support. However, another important source, cognitive origin, has received less theoretical and empirical attention. This study argues that people who know more about democracy form more authentic support for democracy versus its alternatives than those who know less. Using the theories of attitude and institutional support, it posits that democratic support evolves as people learn democracy to understand that democracy is different from authoritarianism. Using the fifth World Value Surveys and multi-level statistical techniques, the present paper empirically shows that democratic support develops as people become cognitively knowledgeable about democracy. The findings imply that to know democracy is to love it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The democratic culture is still fighting a battle for survival on the African continent. Elections which are a hallmark of democracy are becoming increasingly contentious. Almost all over the continent, they are anything but credible where they are conducted at all. In recent times, elections in Nigeria, Kenya and Zimbabwe have left so much to be desired. Political parties do not also present the electorate with clear alternatives from which to choose. The aftermath of these fraudulent elections have been calls for the formation of governments of national unity- a concept which is in any case loosely defined. This paper looks at this disturbing scenario in which the formation of governments of national unity (so called) is fast replacing the conduct of credible elections. It blames this phenomenon on among other things the predatory nature of the political elite and the high premium it places on political power which has made it increasingly difficult for the consolidation of democracy especially as can be seen in the conduct of credible elections and the nature of governance. It recommends among other things, the formation of issue based political parties, the provision of good governance and if need be the institutionalization of arrangements in which power could be shared in order to avoid the winner takes all syndrome and the negotiations which become necessary as a crisis management mechanism after the 'conduct of elections'. Most importantly, it affirms the need to conduct credible elections as a mark of the continent's democratic development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]