The Senate Apprenticeship Norm: A Longitudinal and Multivariate Investigation (open access)

The Senate Apprenticeship Norm: A Longitudinal and Multivariate Investigation

This study has as its central focus an investigation into the existence and nature of the apprenticeship norm in the United States Senate. Over its history, the Senate has been frequently portrayed as a body guided by rather restrictive, informal rules of behavior for its members. The apprenticeship norm has been identified by some as the most important of these rules; contributing to the Senate's centralized and conservative policy orientation. More recently, however, it has been argued that the Senate has become a more decentralized and fragmented body within which the apprenticeship norm is no longer important. The present study offers for the first time an empirical test of the existence and nature of the apprenticeship norm for selected sessions of the Senate for the time period 1940-1976. The frequency of performance of various types of floor activity by members of the Senate were correlated and regressed with years of service in the Senate as well as with other background characteristics of Senators to test both for the existence of the apprenticeship norm as well as to identify its relevance relative to other potential explanations of Senate floor behavior. Several definitions of apprenticeship were advanced and tested.
Date: December 1983
Creator: Carter, James L. (James Lee), 1937-
System: The UNT Digital Library
Foreign Policy-Making in Jordan: the Role of King Hussein's Leadership in Decision-Making (open access)

Foreign Policy-Making in Jordan: the Role of King Hussein's Leadership in Decision-Making

The purpose of this study is to identify King Hussein's belief system, or operational code as it is called by George and Holsti, and to test its influence on foreign policymaking in Jordan. The research has three related goals: to identify King Hussein's operational code through analysis of his writings and speeches during the period between 1967 and 1980, to review four major foreign policy decisions in an attempt to understand the factors affecting the decision making process in Jordan, and to analyze these decisions to ascertain the impact of the king's personality and beliefs on them in order to discover whether the operational code construct can be used to predict or explain Jordan's foreign policy behavior.
Date: December 1989
Creator: Rashdan, Abdelfattah A. (Abdelfattah Ali)
System: The UNT Digital Library
International Political Economy of External Economic Dependence and Foreign Investment Policy Outputs as a Component of National Development Strategy: Nigeria 1954-1980 (open access)

International Political Economy of External Economic Dependence and Foreign Investment Policy Outputs as a Component of National Development Strategy: Nigeria 1954-1980

This study examined the effects and expectations of external economic dependence on foreign investment policy outputs with particular reference to the Nigerian experience between 1954 and 1980. Three basic kinds of external economic dependence were studied: foreign investment, the penetration of the Nigerian economy by foreign capital through the agency of the multinational corporations (MNCs); foreign trade, a measure of the Nigerian economy's participation in the world market; and foreign aid (loans and grants), a measure of Nigeria's reliance on financial assistance from governments and international financial inst itutions. For the most part, the level of Nigeria's economic dependence was very high. However, economic dependency is not translated into changes in foreign investment policy in favor of the foreign investors in Nigeria as is predicted by the dependency paradigm. The Nigerian case casts doubt on the dependency paradigm as a framework for fully explaining factors that may determine foreign direct investment policy changes that occur in a less developed Third World country. In other words, the dependency paradigm has a limited explanatory power; there is a factor independent of the economic factor operating out of the control of global capitalism (the center of the center in alliance with the center …
Date: December 1986
Creator: Ighoavodha, Frederick J. O. (Frederick J. Ofuafo)
System: The UNT Digital Library
The Political and Administrative Role of Planning and Budgeting in Saudi Arabia: Adaptation for Rapid Change (open access)

The Political and Administrative Role of Planning and Budgeting in Saudi Arabia: Adaptation for Rapid Change

This study examines the political and administrative role of planning and budgeting in Saudi Arabia. It demonstrates how they have contributed to lessening the political crises of distribution, participation, and penetration that confront developing countries. The study also investigates how these two bureaucratic processes have helped adapt rapid changes in a manner acceptable to the cultural milieu. In addition, the study explores the politics of planning and budgeting and identifies the roles various actors play. The evolution and institutionalization of planning and budgeting are examined through printed materials and interviews with planners and budgeters in the Ministries of Planning and Finance. In addition, a number of the Ulama, businessmen, former government bureaucrats, officials of key ministries and agencies, and media were interviewed in an attempt to understand how they interact in the politics of planning and budgeting.
Date: December 1989
Creator: Al-Kahtani, Mohammed S. A. (Mohammed Saeed A.)
System: The UNT Digital Library
Religious Resurgence and Religious Terrorism: a Study of the Actions of the Shiʹa Sectarian Movements in Lebanon (open access)

Religious Resurgence and Religious Terrorism: a Study of the Actions of the Shiʹa Sectarian Movements in Lebanon

The purpose for undertaking this case study of the Shi'a in Lebanon is threefold. First, as a hypothesis-generating case study, its objective is to formulate relevant hypotheses about religious resurgence and religious terrorism. This study achieves this objective by formulating 14 general and nine special hypotheses, and testing and confirming the latter. Second, the purpose of this study is also to explore the trajectory of the Lebanese Shi'a's sectarian mobilization. This exploration permits the conceptualization of geocultural immobility and its effect upon a religious minority. It deduces that the Lebanese Shiga's geo-cultural immobility is directly related to their active religious resurgence. The third purpose is to study the changes in the objectives and tactics of a religious minority, that of the Muslim Shi'a in Lebanon. This research is able, via its primary and secondary data, to show a relationship between the Lebanese Shiga's religious resurgence and their use of religious terrorism. This study introduces the concept of geo-cultural immobility. A minority's geo-cultural immobility is identified as an imposed low geographic mobility within a nation with low cultural pluralism. It establishes the Lebanese Shi'a's geo-cultural immobility, to which it attributes their religious resurgence. This Lebanese Shi'a religious resurgence is proven in …
Date: December 1988
Creator: Schbley, Ayla Hammond
System: The UNT Digital Library
Respecification of Factors Affecting Vote Turnout: A Test of Three Competing Models (open access)

Respecification of Factors Affecting Vote Turnout: A Test of Three Competing Models

This study tests hypothesized causal relationships between predictor variables and voter turnout. Attention is focused on the psychological and attitudinal dimensions of turnout. Using data from the 1980 National Election Study of the Center for Political Studies, recursive and nonrecursive causal models are constructed to test the effects of election specific factors, social psychological factors, and rational choice based factors on voter turnout. Self-reported turnout is used as the primary dependent variable in all models. Validity tests support use, despite acknowledged limitations.
Date: December 1983
Creator: McClure, David Lawson
System: The UNT Digital Library
Management of Communal Conflict in the Middle East: The Case of the Kurds (open access)

Management of Communal Conflict in the Middle East: The Case of the Kurds

The objective of this study is to describe and analyze the management of communal conflict in the Middle East, focusing on the Kurds. To this end, an effort is made to examine (1) the means that have been used to manage the Kurdish conflict by Middle Eastern countries; (2) the degree of success or failure of applied measures and (3) possible explanations for the first two questions.
Date: December 1983
Creator: Khosrowshahi, Manouchehr Rostamy
System: The UNT Digital Library
The National Defense College of Thailand and Its Alumni in the Context of Thai Politics (open access)

The National Defense College of Thailand and Its Alumni in the Context of Thai Politics

This study deals with the National Defense College of Thailand and its alumni, who are senior military and civil service officers of the government of Thailand. The study examines the proposition that the political attitudes of military and civil service officers in developing countries are likely to be similar and negative. The second proposition examined in this study is that the attitudes of government officials toward the people are likely to be similar and negative. The study also attempts to examine the official attitudes on the basis of cluster. Each of the three clusters consists of seven classes of the National Defense College. It is argued that the political contexts of each cluster were different and that these differences may result in the different attitudes of officials in each cluster. The study found that military and civil service officers in Thailand hold similar attitudes toward politics and that the attitudes are predominantly negative. Official attitudes were similarly negative. Attitudes toward politics vary, depending upon the time in which the officials were in government service. Officers who worked within the environment of the military government are the most distrustful of politics while officials who worked under a more relaxed, more democratic …
Date: December 1986
Creator: Surapong Burusphat
System: The UNT Digital Library
Media Agenda-Building Effect: Analysis of American Public Apartheid Activities, Congressional and Presidential Policies on South Africa, 1976-1988 (open access)

Media Agenda-Building Effect: Analysis of American Public Apartheid Activities, Congressional and Presidential Policies on South Africa, 1976-1988

The mass media's role in informing the American public is critical to public support for government policies. The media are said to set the national agenda. This view is based on the assumption of selective coverage they give to news items. Media coverage also influences the salience the public attaches to issues. However, media agenda effect has been challenged by Lang and Lang (1983). These scholars, in their media agenda-building theory, argued that the success of media effect on national agenda is dependent on group support. In order to test this theory, time-related data on South Africa crises, media coverage"of South Africa, American public reactions, congressional, and presidential apartheid-related activities, between 1976 and 1988, were analyzed. Congressional anti-apartheid policies were the dependent and others, the independent variables. The theory made analysis of the data amenable to the additive adopted to test for the significance of the interactive variables, indicated that these variables were negatively related to congressional anti-apartheid policies. The additive model was subsequently analyzed. The time series multiple regression analysis was used in analyzing the relationships. Given autocorrelation and multicollinearity problems associated with time series analysis, the Arima (p, d, q) model was used to model the relationships. This …
Date: December 1989
Creator: Agboaye, Ehikioya
System: The UNT Digital Library
International Peacekeeping Operations: Sinai, Congo, Cyprus, Lebanon, and Chad Lessons for the UN and OAU (open access)

International Peacekeeping Operations: Sinai, Congo, Cyprus, Lebanon, and Chad Lessons for the UN and OAU

Peacekeeping is a means by which international or regional organizations control conflict situations that are likely to endanger international peace and security. Most scholars have viewed the contributions of peacekeeping forces only in terms of failures, and they have not investigated fully the political-military circumstances" under which conflict control measures succeed. This dissertation is an attempt to bridge this gap and to show how the OAU compares with the UN in carrying out peacekeeping missions. The method of research was the case study method in which primary and secondary data was used to describe the situations in which six peacekeeping forces operated. The content of resolutions, official reports and secondary data were examined for non-trivial evidences of impediments to implementation of mandates. Findings from the research indicate that peacekeeping missions not properly backed by political efforts at settlement of disputes, cooperation of the superpowers, and financial and logistic support were ineffective and usually unsuccessful. Lack of consensus and pursuit of national interests have resulted in ambiguous or unrealistic mandates and have reduced the effectiveness of peacekeeping operations. Moreover, parties to a conflict were interested only in solutions that favored their interests and were often skeptical about the role and credibility …
Date: December 1989
Creator: Demsa, Paul Meslam, 1949-
System: The UNT Digital Library
An Analysis of Media, Social, and Political Influences on Time of Voting Decision in Presidential Elections, 1952-1976 (open access)

An Analysis of Media, Social, and Political Influences on Time of Voting Decision in Presidential Elections, 1952-1976

Early voting studies before television predominance determined that mass media had a "limited effect" on American voting behavior. This work reassesses the limited-effects notion. The thesis is that the mass media do have significant impact on voting decisions. A trend study, the work utilizes the Center for Political Studies national presidential election surveys 1952-1976, and multiple regression analysis to examine the impact of media, social, and political variables on the dependent variable, time of voting decision.
Date: December 1981
Creator: Garrison, G. David (Glenn David)
System: The UNT Digital Library
A Comparison of the Performance of the Radical and Conservative Models of Economic Development in the Carribean Basin (open access)

A Comparison of the Performance of the Radical and Conservative Models of Economic Development in the Carribean Basin

The present study is an attempt to compare the performance of two competing models of economic development-- the conservative and radical models. The conservative model is represented by the Central American countries of El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras; the radical model is represented by Cuba. The following chapters focus on a comparison of these models as they have manifested themselves in the Carribean basin. The analysis of the performance of the models is conducted by comparing socioeconomic variables of the countries representing the models. The study looks at the time period 1960 - 1980 which coincides with the adoption of the two models in the respective countries.
Date: December 1987
Creator: Alfaro, Alban Salazar
System: The UNT Digital Library
Greece and the European Economic Community: Relations During the Panhellenic Socialist Movement's First Term of Office, October 1981--June 1985 (open access)

Greece and the European Economic Community: Relations During the Panhellenic Socialist Movement's First Term of Office, October 1981--June 1985

A nation's foreign policy is often subject to change. This change may occur in its relations with other nationstates or with international organizations such as the European Economic Community (E.E.C.). Greece became a full E.E.C. member in January, 1980, when the conservative Nea Democratia was in power. The Nea Democratia, both in government from 1974 to 1981 and in opposition since 1981, has been consistent in its support for the E.E.C.; in contrast, the Panhellenic Socialist Movement (PASOK) has not. PASOK, in opposition from 1974 to 1 981 , was against Greek membership in the European communities. PASOK, in its first term in office from 1981 to 1985, reversed itself on the issue. During this period, PASOK made no effort to withdraw Greece from the E.E.C. This study examines PASOK's reversal of policy. Two domestic factors are examined in detail: the general economic difficulties of Greece during PASOK's first term, and the role of the powerful agrarian interests.
Date: December 1986
Creator: Psellas, Jimmie
System: The UNT Digital Library
Balance-of-Power Theory and the Ethiopian-Somali Conflict of 1977- 1978 (open access)

Balance-of-Power Theory and the Ethiopian-Somali Conflict of 1977- 1978

Balance-of-Power theory was tested by examining the 1977-1978 Ethiopian-Somali conflict and its outcome. The theory, according to Waltz (1979), claims to explain the international outcome arising from realpolitik or power politics, namely, the formation of balances of power. Given the close fit between the major developments leading to the eruption of conflict and the principal propositions of balance-of-power theory, the outcome of the conflict was expected to be consistent with that posited by the theory. This expectation was borne out by the study's finding which indicated that the conflict has produced a similar result. Confirmation of the theory was achieved by further subjecting the finding to the verification test established by Waltz.
Date: December 1987
Creator: Ogundele, Ayodeji O. (Ayodeji Olusesi)
System: The UNT Digital Library
Modernization and Political Instability: a Theoretical and Empirical Exploration (open access)

Modernization and Political Instability: a Theoretical and Empirical Exploration

The present study is an effort to examine and understand the relationship between modernization and political instability. The following chapters focus on the effects of modernization on political instability. Data on twenty-four African nations are analyzed to test empirically the validity of the hypothesis. Chapter IV concludes the thesis by offering a general summary and conclusions.
Date: December 1986
Creator: Umezulike, Bedford Nwabueze
System: The UNT Digital Library
Lebanese Internal Divisions and Palestinian Guerrilla Activity, 1967-1976 (open access)

Lebanese Internal Divisions and Palestinian Guerrilla Activity, 1967-1976

This study presents the thesis that religious cleavages in Lebanon have been the major factor behind most of the country's problems since the achievement of independence in 1943. The coming of the Palestinians in 1948 and in the 1970s upset Lebanon's delicate sociopolitical balance between Christians and Muslims in favor of the latter. The study's four chapters describe the origins of Lebanon's religious groups, the arrival of the Palestinians, Lebanon's emergence as the sole Palestinian guerrilla base, and the outbreak and aftermath of the Lebanese civil war of 1975-1976. Finally, suggestions are made for the resolution of the continuing Christian-Muslim conflict, notably the alternatives of federalism and confederalism as possible future political arrangements for Lebanon.
Date: December 1983
Creator: Sayah, Edward
System: The UNT Digital Library
Mechanistic Assumptions and the East-West Conflict: a Critique (open access)

Mechanistic Assumptions and the East-West Conflict: a Critique

This paper addresses the influence of a mechanistic world view of East-West relations. The "classic" model of mechanism orders reality into a relationship akin to a simple clock or pump. In the model, discrete and unmodifiable parts, with no natural functional relationship to each other, are balanced and engineered into functional unity. This study shows how "environmental" conditions at the international level (ambiguity, complexity, and prolonged conflict) limit the ability of policy makers to define objective limits to containment, influencing them instead to follow the universal application of the "logic" of mechanism--that any imbalance must be checked by the container.
Date: December 1983
Creator: Ebers, Scott Allen
System: The UNT Digital Library
Canadian Supreme Court Decision-Making: The Personal Attribute Model in Explaining Justices' Patterns of Decision-Making, 1949-1980 (open access)

Canadian Supreme Court Decision-Making: The Personal Attribute Model in Explaining Justices' Patterns of Decision-Making, 1949-1980

This study has two purposes: first, to test the validity of the personal attribute model in explaining judicial voting behavior outside its original cultural context; second, to explain the variation in justice's voting behavior in the Canadian Supreme Court. For the most part, the result arrived in this study supports the validity of the model in cross-cultural analysis. The result of multiple regression analysis shows that four variables, region, judicial experience prior to appointment, political party of appointing Prime Minister, and tenure account for 60 percent of the variations in justice's voting behavior. This result, hence, provides an empirical finding to the development of the personal attribute model in explaining justices' voting behavior.
Date: December 1985
Creator: Sittiwong, Panu
System: The UNT Digital Library
Politics and Monetary Policy: A Cross-National and Time Series Analysis (open access)

Politics and Monetary Policy: A Cross-National and Time Series Analysis

This research proposes that monetary policy is more than a technical economic policy. Since it is politically controlled, political variables should affect it. In this analysis, the monetary policies of France, Italy, the United Kingdom, and West Germany are described in detail. Political variables potentially affecting this policy are reviewed. Political variables, such as political party in power, electoral competition, electoral cycles, and political instability, are employed in a time series regression analysis of monetary aggregates. Various economic variables are also included to aid model specification. While cross-national variations occur in monetary policy determination, this research shows that political parties follow ideologies in monetary policy-making. Other political variables are not strongly related to monetary aggregates.
Date: December 1981
Creator: Williams, John Taylor
System: The UNT Digital Library