The Last Stand of the Gorilla: Environmental Crime and Conflict in the Congo Basin (open access)

The Last Stand of the Gorilla: Environmental Crime and Conflict in the Congo Basin

This report discusses the status of gorillas in the Greater Congo River Basin. The report looks at challenges such as poaching and habitat loss.
Date: 2010
Creator: Nelleman, Christian; Redmond, Ian & Refisch, Johannes
Object Type: Text
System: The UNT Digital Library
Electoral Rules, Political Parties, and Peace Duration in Post-conflict States (open access)

Electoral Rules, Political Parties, and Peace Duration in Post-conflict States

This dissertation examines the following research question: Which types of electoral rules chosen in post-conflict states best promote peace? And are those effects conditional upon other factors? I argue that the effects are conditional upon the types of political parties that exist in the post-conflict environment. Although this explanation is contrary to scholars that speak of political parties as products of the electoral system, political parties often predate the choice of electoral system. Especially in post-conflict states, political parties play an important role in the negotiation process and hence in the design of the electoral rules. I argue that the effects of electoral rules on peace duration are mitigated by the degree to which a party system is broad (nonexclusive) or narrow (exclusive). I develop a theoretical model that led to three hypotheses focusing on the independent role that political parties play in mitigating the effects of electoral rules on peace duration. To test these hypotheses, I use the Cox proportional hazard model on 57 post-conflict states from 1990 to 2009 and had competitive elections. The empirical results show support for the main argument of this study. First, the findings show that electoral rules alone do not increase or decrease …
Date: December 2014
Creator: Kisin, Tatyana Tuba Kelman
Object Type: Thesis or Dissertation
System: The UNT Digital Library