In recent times, religion has become a powerful force in giving legitimacy to terrorist actions. The present work considers this highly salient fact, as well as stresses the necessity to consider the historical and social contexts and group power resources in any meaningful analysis of violent protest movements. Quantitative rigor is combined with a sensitivity to context. Terrorism is operationalized by taking a time-based count of terrorist killings of innocent people. Regime acts of omission and commission are coded as time series interventions. The analysis also includes a continuous variable measuring the incidence of economic distress in Punjab. A case is also made for the superiority of Box- Jenkins time series techniques for the quantitative analysis of problems of this nature.

This study emphasizes the impact of family planning program components on contraceptive prevalence in less industrialized countries. Building on Lapham and Mauldin's "Program Effort and Fertility Decline" framework and policy evaluation's theory, the author developed two models to examine the impact of family planning programs on contraceptive prevalence and fertility under the constraints of socioeconomic development and demand for family planning. The study employed path analysis and multiple regression on data from the 1982 program effort study in 94 less developed countries (LDCs) by Lapham and Mauldin and 98 LDCs of the 1989 program effort study by Mauldin and Ross. The results of data analyses for all data sets are consistent for the most part. Major findings are as follows: (1) A combination of program effort and socioeconomic development best explains the variation of contraceptive prevalence. (2) Among socioeconomic variables, female literacy exerts the strongest direct and indirect influences to increase contraceptive prevalence and indirect influence to decrease total fertility rate. (3) Christianity performs a significant role in reducing contraceptive prevalence. (4) Among program effort components, availability and accessibility for fertility-control supplies and services have the most influence on contraceptive prevalence. (5) When controlling for demand for family planning, female …

This study has attempted to explain the dramatic challenges to the existing party system that occurred in Canada and the United States in the early 1990s. The emergence of new political movements with substantial power at the ballot box has transformed both party systems. The rise of United We Stand America in the United States, and the Reform Party in Canada prompts scholars to ask what forces engender such movements. This study demonstrates that models of economic voting and key models of party system change are both instrumental for understanding the rise of new political movements.

A mail survey of Nigerian immigrants in Dallas, Texas, and Chicago, Illinois, was conducted during October and November 1995. Four hundred and sixty-eight Nigerian immigrant families in the two cities were selected by systematic sampling through the telephone books. Return rate was approximately 40% (187). The variables included in the study were media exposure variables, general demographics, immigration traits, U.S. demographics, Nigerian demographics, and political and cultural traits. New variables which had not been included in previous studies were also tested in this study: television talk shows, talk radio, diffuse support for the U.S. political system, authoritarianism, self-esteem, and political participation. This study employed multiple regression analysis and path analysis of the data. This study found that Nigerian immigrants have high preference for television news as their main source of political information. This finding is in consonance with previous studies. Nigerian immigrants chose ABC news stations as their number one news station for political information. Strong positive associations existed between media exposure and length of stay in the United States and interest in U.S. politics. Talk radio positively associated with interest in U.S. politics and negatively associated with length of stay in the United States. Thus, this finding likely means …

This comparative study assesses the state of democracy and examines the process of democratization in the Arab World between the years 1980-1993. It addresses shortcomings in the mainstream democracy literature that excluded the Arab World from the global democratic revolution on political cultural grounds. To fulfil the objectives of this study, I employ both the qualitative and quantitative research approaches to test a number of hypothesized relationships. I hypothesize that transition to democracy is negatively associated with economic development, militarism, U.S. foreign policy, the political economy of oil, and dependency. I contend that emerging civil society institutions so far have had no significant effect on democratization in the Arab World. Finally, I hypothesize that the level of democracy in the Arab World is influenced greatly by the issue of civil rights. In order to investigate the hypothesized relationships, the following data sets have been used: Gastil's Freedom House Data set, "Repression and Freedom in the 1980s" data set, and Vanhanen's 1990 data set. The findings of this study support the aforementioned hypothesized relationships. I find that Arab countries, in general have made modest progress toward democracy, making the Arab World part of the global revolution.

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.

This study examines the agenda setting and decision-making behavior of the United States Supreme Court from 1888 to 1989.

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

The major purpose of this study is to analyze hazardous waste enforcement by the states as mandated by the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act of 1976 (RCRA). States' historical enforcement records from 1980 to 1990 are analyzed to determine the pattern of variations in enforcement. This study differs from previous studies on hazardous waste regulation in that it employs longitudinal data from 1980 to 1990 to analyze states' enforcement effort.

The theme of this study is that seven major East Asian less developed countries (LDCs) have experienced "dependent development," and that some internal and external intervening factors mattered in that process. Utilizing a framework of "dependent development," the data analysis deals with the political economy of development in these countries. This analysis supports the fundamental arguments of the dependent development perspective, which emphasize positive effects of foreign capital dependence in domestic capital formation and industrialization in East Asian LDCs. This perspective assumes the active role of the state, and it is found here to be crucial in capital accumulation and in economic growth. This cross-national time-series analysis also shows that the effects of external dependence and military spending on capital accumulation and economic growth can be considered as a regional phenomenon. The dependent development perspective offers a useful way to understand economic dynamism of East Asian LDCs for the past two decades.

This study tested theoretical propositions concerning agenda-setting by minority political groups in the United States to see if they had the scope to be applicable to American Indian tribes or if there were alternative explanations for how this group places its agenda items on the formal agenda and resolves them. Indian tribes were chosen as the case study because they are of significantly different legal and political status than other minority groups upon which much of the previous research has been done. The study showed that many of the theoretical propositions regarding agenda-setting by minority groups were explanatory for agenda-setting by Indian tribes. The analyses seemed to demonstrate that Indian tribes use a closed policy subsystem to place tribal agenda items on the formal agenda. The analyses demonstrated that most tribal agenda items resolved by Congress involve no major policy changes but rather incremental changes in existing policies. The analyses also demonstrated that most federal court decisions involving Indian tribes have no broad impact or significance to all Indian tribes. The analyses showed that both Congress and the federal courts significantly influence the tribal agenda but the relationship between the courts and Congress in agenda-setting in this area of policy …

It is increasingly recognized that manpower planning and policies are a major component of a country's development efforts. The purpose of this study is to examine the labor market in Jordan and to identify the main determinants of employment (labor force) during the period from 1961 to 1987 in order to advise policy makers as to the best course of action to achieve full employment. This period was divided into two periods: 1961 to 1972 and 1973 to 1987 for comparative purposes. The socio-economic and political framework of the labor market, as well as the labor policies during the period were examined in an effort to determine the determinants affecting the labor market in the two periods. The findings of this study reveal that Jordan's labor market and policies over the last three decades have been influenced by changes and events not only in Jordan, but by changes and events in the entire region. The study also indicates that factors influencing the labor market differ under different conditions. The impact of the independent variables tested in this study differ between the two periods, 1961 to 1972 and 1973 to 1987. Policy which may serve the country's best interest during the …

This study assumes that political terrorism results from conscious decision-making by groups opposing a governing system, policy or process. The kinds of terrorist activity employed depend upon such factors as the philosophy, goals, objectives, and needs of the terrorist group. This presents a comparative analysis of three types of terrorists in southwest Asia: Palestinians, Marxist-Leninists, and Muslims. The first section summarizes and compares the three groups' motivational causes, philosophies, histories and sources of inspiration. The second section compares their behavior from four perspectives: trends and patterns, level of violence, tactical preferences, and lethality. The third section identifies and categorizes socioeconomic, political and military variables associated with tactic selection and acts of terrorism.

The focus of this investigation is the relationship of the United States Supreme Court's functional performance to its environment. Three functions of courts are noted in the literature: conflict resolution, social control and administration. These functions are operationalized for the United States Supreme Court. Hypotheses are developed relative to the general performance of these three functions by all courts. Box-Jenkins time series analysis is then used to test these hypotheses in relation to the performance of the United States Supreme Court. The primary analysis rests upon a data set that includes all non-unanimous decisions of the Supreme Court from 1916 to 1986. A supplemental analysis is conducted using all formal decisions for the 1953 to 1986 period. The results suggest that intellectual resources, legal resources, modernization, and court discretion are significant influences on the functional performance of the United States Supreme Court. Future research must consider these influences in the development of a general theory of courts.

This dissertation is a cross-national, empirical study of human rights conditions in a dynamic international political economy. The scope of the examination covers 176 developed and developing countries from 1980 through 1993. Through evaluating the numerous theoretical aspects of human rights conceptualization, I draw upon Shue's framework and consider whether there are indeed "basic rights" and which rights should fit into this category. Further, I address the debate between those who claim that these rights are truly universal (applying to all nations and individuals) and those who argue that the validity of a moral right is relative to indigenous cultures. In a similar vein, I empirically investigate whether various human rights are interdependent and indivisible, as some scholars argue, or whether there are inherent trade-offs between various rights provisions. In going beyond the fixation on a single aspect of human rights, I broadly investigate subsistence rights, security rights and political and economic freedom. While these have previously been addressed separately, there are virtually no studies that consider them together and the subsequent linkages between them. Ultimately, a pooled time-series cross-section model is developed that moves beyond the traditional concentration on security rights (also know as integrity of the person rights) …

This study is the first systematic global analysis of the impact of law on human rights, analyzing the impact of twenty-three constitution provisions and an international covenant on three measures of human rights behavior, over the period of 1976-1996. Three sets of constitutional provisions are analyzed, including 1) ten provisions for individual freedoms and due process rights, 2) nine provisions for elements of judicial independence and 3) four provisions that outline procedures for states of emergency. Additionally, the impact of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights on actual human rights behavior is analyzed. Each of these areas of law are evaluated individually, in multiple models in which different elements vary. For example, some models control for democracy with different measures, others divide the data into the Cold War and post-Cold War eras, and some test constitutional indices. Finally, all provisions are simultaneously analyzed in integrated models. Provisions for fair and public trials are consistently shown to decrease the probability of abuse. An index of four freedoms (speech, religion, association, and assembly) decreases the probability of abuse somewhat consistently. Three of the provisions for judicial independence are most consistent in reducing the probability of abuse: the provisions for exclusive …

This dissertation investigates the consequences of fractional dynamics for political modeling. Using Monte Carlo analyses, Chapters II and III investigate the threats to statistical inference posed by including fractionally integrated variables in bivariate and multivariate regressions. Fractional differencing is the most appropriate tool to guard against spurious regressions and other threats to inference. Using fractional differencing, multivariate models of British politics are developed in Chapter IV to compare competing theories regarding which subjective measure of economic evaluations best predicts support levels for the governing party; egocentric measures outperform sociotropic measures. The concept of fractional cointegration is discussed and the value of fractionally integrated error correction mechanisms are both discussed and demonstrated in models of Conservative party support. In Chapter V models of presidential approval in the United States are reconfigured in light of the possibilities of fractionally integrated variables. In both the British and American case accounting for the fractional character of all variables allows the development of more accurate multivariate models.

The postwar transformation of the international environment has caused economic issues to become a main source of contention among industrial states. The trade imbalance between Japan and its trading partners became a major source of conflict. Reciprocity of access and opening the market of Japan became the main point of debate and the major issue affecting relations between Japan and the United States. While the distinction between the domain of domestic and international politics increasingly is blurred, different domestic political economies create bilateral political and economic conflict. The structure and politics of intercorporate groups or vertical keiretsu are a major feature of Japan's industrial structure and political economy. This case study examines how vertical keiretsu in the automobile and home electric appliance industries affect the Japanese political economy and international trade. A political economy approach focuses on the political context of economic phenomena by analyzing both political and economic variables. Case studies of keiretsu were used in order to gain an understanding of Japan's political economy. A number of propositions or assumptions about the political economy and the dynamics of keiretsu were examined in these studies. It was found that vertical keiretsu influences the industrial sector, trade, and foreign policies …

The importance of party-military relations in the People's Republic of China was succinctly stated by Mao in his dictum that "political power comes from the gun" and "the Party should command the gun." Party-military relations in the PRC have never fully conformed to Mao's warning. This study seeks to analyze the nature and types of party-military relations in the PRC during the post-Mao period and the factors affecting change in these relations.

This study is a Comparative Foreign Policy (CFP) analysis of the Palestine Liberation Organization's (PLO) foreign policy behavior from 1964 through 1981. This study develops and tests a role modification model that accounts for evolutionary changes in foreign policy behavior. One of the major premises of this research is that what often appears as dramatic restructuring in foreign policy is actually the culmination of a series of modifications that transpired over an extended period of time. The model relies on a total of six independent variables as determinants of PLO foreign policy output representing multiple levels of analysis. There are a total of 12 dependent variables expressed as either foreign policy tactical roles or strategic goals. Relying on content analysis of relevant PLO documents, the role modification model demonstrates that the foreign policy output of the PLO experienced a gradual, over time change in both the means and ends of its foreign policy. The model also identifies the conditions under which any one of the independent variables is able to exclusively determine foreign policy output and which roles one can reasonably expect the PLO to exercise under a given circumstance.

Two recent developments dominate the political economy of Sub Saharan Africa -- the adoption of economic structural adjustment reforms and the emergence of pressures for the democratization of the political process. Economic reform measures have spawned civil society, made up of anti-authoritarian, anti-statist, non-governmental organizations, that demand political liberalization. This study is an attempt to analyze, theoretically and quantitatively, the unanticipated association between these developments. Democratic institutions inherited by Sub Saharan Africa at independence were subverted either through military coups or by the abuse and misuse of the institutions by an inordinately ambitious political elite. Thus, about a decade into independence more than three quarters of the sub continent virtually came under authoritarian rule. Contemporaneously there was a decline in the economies of these countries, forcing them to borrow from international financial institutions, in order to offset their balance of payment difficulties. By the mid-1980s most of Sub Saharan Africa had also instituted structural adjustment programs. Using a pooled cross-sectional time series model of analysis, data gathered from Sub Saharan African countries are analysed to test the explanatory power of the three extant contending theories of development: classical, dependency, and neoliberal. Then, most importantly, the analysis examines the relationship between …

The major purpose of this dissertation is to explore the determinants of interest cost for state bonds. Various kinds of variables pertaining to issue characteristics, market characteristics, economic conditions, and political variables were statistically tested to assess their impact on the interest cost of state bonds. This research examines the variables found to be significant for local bonds, as well as some factors unique to state bonds, e.g., the types state agencies issuing debt and the effect of different state income tax policies.

This dissertation surveys electoral change in Great Britain during the period between 1979 and 1996. It analyzes the long-term factors and the short-term dynamics underlying the evolution of three aspects of the electorate: party identification, voting intentions and party support in inter-election periods. Drawing on cross-sectional and panel data from the British Election Studies and public opinion polls, I investigate the impacts of long-term socialization and short-term perceptions on voters' political decisions. I hypothesize that, over the last four elections, perceptual factors such as evaluations of party leaders and issues, particularly economic concerns, emerged as the major forces that account for the volatility in electoral behavior in Britain. Accordingly, this study is divided into three sections: Part I probes into the evolution in party identification across age cohorts and social classes as illustrated in trends in partisanship. Part II focuses on changes in voting intentions as affected by perceptual factors and party identification. Part III investigates the public's support for governing parties by analyzing the dynamics of aggregate party support during inter-election periods.

The Republic of China (ROC) has faced severe foreign policy challenges since its relocation from mainland China to Taiwan, and it has had to modify its position several times as its environment has changed. Its foreign policy since 1949 has gone through three distinct phases of development. A series of diplomatic adversities befell the ROC following its defeat in the United Nations in 1971, which presented the nation with an unprecedented challenge to its survival. These calamitous events for the ROC presented it with a frightening identity crisis: it was isolated in the international community and had become a "pariah" state. This case study examines and analyzes the various changes in the ROC's foreign policy behavior and attempts to determine what has influenced or induced changes in its foreign policy.