This study develops a model of collaboration choice among city governments. The theoretical model suggests that collaboration is a function of transaction costs that vary with different institutional arrangements utilized in cities, as well as the degree of competition between cities. This study argues that cities facing high transaction costs and high competition are less likely to participate in collaboration and to participate less deeply. Underlying these environmental factors are resource factors that create incentives for cities to collaborate for efficiency gains, which affect both the decision to collaboration and the depth of collaboration. Eleven hypotheses are presented to explain why cities choose to participate in collaboration in the first stage of the analysis and how deeply they collaborate in the second stage. Utilizing a Heckman model of this two-stage process, I find broad support for a number of variables that measure each of these theoretical constructs.

This study presents an overview of Indo-Soviet relations in light of the U.S.-U.S.S.R. competition for a favorable position in relations with India. Both superpowers consider better relations with India to be crucial to the furtherance of their interests in the Indian Ocean region. The study provides background information on Indo-Soviet diplomacy, with emphasis on the period 1968-1976m during which the Soviets gained their greatest influence in the region. This period also represents the nadir of Indo-American relations, although India formally maintained a policy of non-alignment with either of the two superpowers. Conclusions are drawn about India's role as a non-aligned nation, its relations with the superpowers, and its quest for regional influence.

Thomas Hobbes’s knowledge of religious doctrine, typology, and use religious rhetoric in his writings is often glossed over in an over-eager attempt to establish his preeminence as a founder of modern political theory and the social contract tradition. Such action, however is an injustice to Hobbes himself, who recognized that in order to establish a new, and arguably radical, political position founded upon reason and nominalist materialism he had to reform people’s understanding of religious revelation, and Christianity specifically. Rather than merely move to a new epistemological foundation, Hobbes was aware that the only way to ensure religion does become a phoenix was to examine and undermine the foundations of religious thought in its own terms. This reformation of religious language, critique of Christianity, and attempt to eliminate man’s belief in their obligation to God was done in order to promote a civil society in which religion was servant of the state. Through reforming religious language, Hobbes was able to demote religion as a worldview; removing man’s fear of the afterlife or obligation to obey God over a civil sovereign. Religious doctrine no longer was in competition with the civil state, but is transformed into a tool of the state, …

"This report concludes that the evidence from the analyses seems to support the following propositions in regard to Texas electoral behavior. (1) The 1956 election year was a critical election year in Texas. (2) A pattern indicative of an underlying economic liberalism-conservatism was present in Texas voting patterns from 1944 through 1956, but not after. (3) The Mexican-American and German counties experienced political realignment in 1956 which continued through 1972. (4) The counties affording the most support to the liberal faction shift continuously. (5) The Texas electorate had been in a state of flux since 1956. To date no pattern other than the ethnic group realignment has stabilized. (6) Party-competition in gubernatorial elections has been increasing since 1962. (7) Ralph Yarborough has been the only liberal candidate for a major statewide office to draw support in a high and uniform degree across the state. (8) Ralph Yarborough's base of support has completely shifted since 1952. (9) The Farenthold vote was most closely aligned with that of Donald Yarborough. (10) Socio-economic factors have stronger relationship to Republican, liberal Democratic candidates, and major third party candidates than to conservative Democratic candidates. (11) All evidence form these analyses points to personalism and candidate …

This dissertation analyzes several topics related to political life in ethnically divided societies. In chapter 2, I study the relationship between ethnic social conflict, such as protests, riots, and armed inter-ethnic violence, and bloc partisan identification. I find that protests have no effect on bloc support for political parties, riots increase bloc partisan identification, and that armed violence reduces this phenomenon. In chapter 3, I analyze the factors that influence the targeting of ethnic groups by ethnic parties in social conflict. I find some empirical evidence that conditions favorable to vote pooling across ethnic lines reduce group targeting by ethnic parties. In chapter 4, I analyze the effects of ethnic demography on ethnic party behavior. Through a qualitative analysis of party behavior in local elections in Macedonia, I find that ethnic parties change their strategies in response to changes in ethnic demography. I find that co-ethnic parties are less likely to challenge each other for power under conditions of split demography. In fact, under conditions of split demography, I find that co-ethnic parties have political incentives to unite behind a single party because intra-group competition jeopardizes the group's hold on power.

This research seeks to identify the factors that account for the variation in development levels across nations by focusing on the institutional components of development, especially the effects of financial market development on economic and political development. I argue that financial market institutions are critical to economic and political development, and provide a partial explanation for the variation in development observed across nations. Financial market development affects political development indirectly through greater economic efficiency and growth and directly by reducing poverty, increasing economic equality, strengthening the middle class and increasing political participation. Increased financial market development also produces more efficient institutions and eliminates certain perverse incentives in government that result in corruption. The action mechanisms rest largely on the idea that increasing access to financial services allows the lower and middle- income segments of society to smooth their income and invest in high return activities that can lift people out of poverty. These improvements distribute both economic and intellectual resources throughout society and provide greater opportunities for political entrepreneurship from all societal groups. This, along with greater ability to participate either through monetary means or greater time, increases political participation and democratic development. Using a variety of econometric techniques to …

This dissertation examines the effects of micro-level inequality on political preferences and voting behavior.

While there have been several rich studies that have provided insight into the teachings of Xenophon that emerge from a careful reading of the Cyropaedia, the problem of reconciling the apparent good rule of Cyrus with the ruin of his empire persists. I argue that this problem can be reconciled by focusing on the problem that Xenophon initially informs us he is interested in, political stability.

The research question addressed by this study is: what is the relationship between Europeanization and the rise of extremist parties? In particular I examine the impact of Europeanization on the rise of extreme right parties in Europe from 1984 to 2006. Europeanization in this paper is defined as a process whereby the transformation of governance at the European level and European integration as a whole has caused distinctive changes in domestic politics. This process of Europeanization is one part of a structure of opportunities for extremist parties (which also include social, economic, and electoral factors). Although this study finds that Europeanization does not have a statistically significant effect it is still an important factor when examining domestic political phenomenon in Europe.

This research sought to ascertain how newspaper ownership structures influence the quality of local political news coverage. More specifically, do independently owned newspapers tend to produce larger quantities of quality local political reporting than do corporately owned and publicly traded newspapers? In the thesis, I develop an understanding of "quality" news coverage as being coverage that is thematic, or providing interpretive analysis and supplying contextual information. Additionally, I tackle the question of quality news coverage from three angles: whether or not independently owned newspapers provide more quality local political news stories per edition than corporately owned papers; whether or not the percentage of quality local political news stories of total political news stories within an edition is higher for independently owned or corporately owned newspapers; and whether or not the percentage of total political news stories of total news stories is higher for independently owned or corporately owned newspapers.

This thesis discusses the use of Daniel Elazar's theory of political subcultures in the United States. The first chapter is an introduction to the concept of political culture. The second chapter discusses Elazar's theory and method. The third chapter points out the problems in Elazar's theory and his method with a discussion of recent studies. The fourth chapter outlines the present analysis and the method used. The fifth chapter sets out the conclusions and offers avenues of new direction in the study of political culture.

The purpose of this thesis is to answer the question, why is there a variation in anti-Muslim sentiments across Western Europe? There is existing literature on individual and country-level variable s to explain why prejudice exists, but this research examines the impact of political institutions on anti-Muslim sentiments. Based on new institutionalism theory, electoral systems can shape public attitudes by providing far-right parties a platform to put their concerns on the agenda, and these parties promote anti-Muslim popular sentiments. The results of this analysis support this argument in that the larger the average district magnitude in a country, the greater the anti-Muslim sentiments. The findings also show that an increase in far-right party vote-share also covaries with an increase in anti-Muslim sentiments.

This dissertation examines the emergence, survival, performance, and national impact of rebel parties following negotiated settlements. Building on a growing literature examining the environmental and organizational factors affecting insurgent-to-party transformations, this dissertation asks why some insurgent organizations thrive as political parties in post-conflict environments and others fail to make such a transformation. I propose that foreign actors play a pivotal role in the formation of what I call “protégé parties,” which are better equipped to make the transformation into political parties than other rebel groups. Further, different kinds of sponsors have varying effects on transformation. Empirical analysis supports these propositions, finding that protégé parties with authoritarian sponsorship are better equipped to develop than those backed by democracies or no one.

This dissertation addresses a question fundamental to democratic government: Under what conditions are bureaucrats responsive to citizens and elected officials?

This study tests a theory detailing the increased likelihood of conflict following an initial resource discovery in the discovering nation and its region. A survey of prior literature shows a multitude of prior research concerning resources and nations' willingness to initiate conflict over those resources, but this prior research lacks any study concerning the effects of the discovery of resources on interstate conflict. The theory discusses the increased likelihood of conflict in the discovering nation as both target and initiator. It further looks at the increased chance of conflict in the discoverer's region due to security dilemmas and proxy wars. The results show strong support for the theory, suggesting nations making new resource discoveries must take extra care to avoid conflict.

This dissertation examines the relationship between violent organized crime and foreign direct investment (FDI) through sub-national analysis focused on the case of Mexico. The results indicate that FDI decisions vary based on the type of violent organized crime.

This study focuses on clarifying the relationships among decentralization, privatization, and economic development in developing countries.

This dissertation seeks to test the proposition that public opinion is a driving force in integration, and thus examines the effect of euroscepticism on EU integration. Utilizing an understanding of integration as the process of European states achieving similar legal, social, cultural, political and economic policy outcomes while ceding greater policy power to European institutions, the relationship between aggregate level euroscepticism in EU member states (the United Kingdom, Germany, Ireland, Greece, Spain, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Austria, and Sweden) and speed of compliance with EU policies is examined. More specifically, this dissertation examines the relationship between aggregate level euroscepticism in an EU member state, and the speed at which that state transposes EU directives. In testing this relationship a number of contextual conditions are examined, including the role of issue salience, domestic party systems, and electoral conditions. The findings of this dissertation suggest that the widely held belief that public opinion is driving European integration may be false.

The relationship between judicial independence and the levels of ethnic conflicts in developing countries has remained a significant research area due to increased cases of the conflicts with lack of judicial independence in the countries. Judicial independence is seen as an essential element of democracy in that an independent judiciary can act as an arbiter between different groups and institutions. The main aim of this study was to examine the relationship between judicial independence and ethnic conflicts empirically. Greater judicial independence should be associated with less ethnic conflict, because an independent court can serve as an arbiter for disputants, and thus lessen the likelihood of conflict. The study involved 128 developing countries over a 30-year period from 1981 to 2010 using secondary data sources and employing statistical methods to test the relationship between judicial independence and the levels of ethnic conflicts. Findings indicate that judicial independence has a statistically significant negative association with the levels of ethnic conflict. Therefore, this study recommends that the governments of developing countries should promote judicial independence as part of solutions for ethnic conflicts .

The main purposes of this study are to elaborate on the concept of ethnic military mobilization and to identify the factors that contribute to its occurrence.

There is some controversy which centers around the question of whether a particular government policy or program may be Judged successful. This dissertation takes the position, with due respect to the difficulties of such a task, that policy success can be evaluated and that it is important that such evaluations be made. Traditionally, health care in the United States has been delivered by the solo medical practitioner on a fee-for-service basis. A relatively new concept in the health care delivery system combines group practice with prepayment for services. These types of practices were designated as Health Maintenance Organizations in 1970 by the Nixon Administration.The major question of this dissertation is whether or not the HMO policy of the federal government has been a success. Along with this question the primary focus of this dissertation is upon the development and evolution of the federal HMO program.

This study applies Destler's institutional counterweights to Putnam's two-level analysis, substituting Liberal Institutionalism and Realism for internationalism and isolationism, in a comparative case study of the roles played by the U.S. and the EC in multilateral trade negotiations in agriculture under the aegis of the General Agreement for Tariffs and Trade during the first half of the Uruguay Round. Using game theory as an analytical tool in the process, this present study demonstrates that a clear pattern emerges in which stages of cooperation and deadlock can be easily anticipated in games of Chicken and Prisoners' Dilemma in accordance with various but predictable levels of institutional influence.

How does state capacity affect the state's ability to intervene in events of communal violence? Communal violence is conflict that occurs between two non-state groups that share a communal identity. The state controls the monopoly on the use of force, so it should be expected that the state will control these violent events. Research on intervention has shown that a state's military is an important indication of their ability to intervene. The study of other elements of state capacity such as the bureaucracy and political institutions have been largely ignored as factors to explain intervention. This paper builds on these elements of state capacity to argue that intervention can be explained by the state's military, bureaucracy, and the institutions that are in place. This argument has support from an empirical analysis conducted through replication data in Sub-Saharan Africa from 1989 to 2010.

The specific problem with which this investigation is concerned is training for public administration in Thailand. Of particular importance are the Western-style training programs developed since 1956, when Indiana University began the Institute of Public Administration in conjunction with the Thai government.