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What is our Civic Responsibility as Disaster/ Emergency Management Professionals when it comes to sharing critical and time sensitive disaster related information with civilians? To what extent does privacy and information protection play a role in our decision making process while mitigating, and responding to a crisis situation? I like to explore the ethical issues surrounding information and education in disasters. Our freedoms and rights Our social responsibility Role of Corporate Social Responsibility Contingency Planning Information relay Technical infrastructure to support our civic processes Documentation and record keeping Security and information [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper seeks to understand the Supreme Court's wartime jurisprudence. Previous work in political science has found that the Supreme Court curtails rights and liberties during war to rally support for the president (e.g. Epstein et al 2005). This project refines this work by evaluating the Supreme Court's decision-making during war as a function of public support for the president. Generally, the Court behaves strategically, keeping an eye toward public opinion, to ensure that the elected branches will enforce the decisions of the Court and maintain the legitimacy of the Court (e.g. Barnum 1985; Page and Shapiro 1983; Marshall 1989; McGuire and Stimson 2004). During conflict, the Court's legitimacy as it relates to the president is of even more importance. When the president is popular, the Court will support the president to avoid a conflict with the president. However, when the president and the conflict are not popular with the public, the Court will be more likely to vote against the president and limit the authority of the president. This allows the Supreme Court to curry favor with the public by breaking with an unpopular president. I test this theory using decisions made by the Supreme Court from 1941 to 2006. This shows that during war, as popularity for the president declines, the probability that the Supreme Court votes to curtail rights and liberties declines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Increasingly, scholars are utilizing behavioral models of decision making to explain state behavior. The initial stage of this research emphasized direct comparisons of rational and cognitive models in empirical disputes over the best explanation for specific cases. While useful, very little of this research attempts to resolve existing theoretical debates, nor have scholars developed frameworks amenable to large-n statistical testing. This paper offers an example of how prospect theory can be used to generate propositions of theoretical interest to those engaged in existing debates in international relations. Specifically, the intra-realist debate between offensive and defensive schools is examined within the context of economic sanctions in support of U.S. trade policy. The paper then offers a preliminary statistical examination of this framework, and a discussion on how to further this research program. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For half of a century, models of non-rational behavior have grown in popularity for explaining the behavior of administrative organizations. However, models of non-rational behavior are notoriously difficult to test because non-rational behavior is often difficult to separate from fully rational behavior. Recent research has suggested that particular types of non-rational processes should produce "punctuated" equilibria rather than "instantaneous" equilibria. In these non-rational processes, a decision-maker under responds to changes for a long period of time. Once pressure for change becomes overwhelming, the decision maker adopts a radical change. This is called "punctuation". The key to identifying this type of non-rationality of a processes' rationality is the comparative success of fitting the observed behavior to "punctuated" rather than "instantaneous" equilibria. True, Jones, and Baumgartner (1999) developed a method for comparing the distribution of decision outputs as a strategy for assessing the relative degree of "punctuation" in the decision processes. By assessing the kurtosis (or "peakedness") of the distribution of decision outputs, one can get a sense of the excess (compared to a standard, normal distribution) of low and high rates of change - a sign of punctuated equilibrium. This paper extends these recent developments by adapting the method to a comparative kurtosis framework. The results suggest that bureaucracy in K-12 schools serves to reduce (rather than amplify) the punctuations in budgeting processes. The paper concludes with a discussion of the potential extension of the empirical results and modifications to the testing procedure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, and subsequent actions by the Bush administration, remind us that the federal courts often are required to resolve questions of individual rights in lieu of foreign policy concerns. This paper explores judicial influences in foreign policy litigation across all three levels of the federal judiciary to determine whether judges systematically rule in favor of foreign affairs when confronted with civil liberties challenges. Using an original dataset of federal cases from 1946-2000, the paper provides evidence that the federal judiciary is extremely deferential to governmental authority in the conduct of foreign relations. While the federal judiciary is prone to support foreign policy interests, it is important to understand the conditions under which these judges will rule in favor of civil liberties claims. An important influence is the ideological preferences of judges. The empirical results indicate that more liberal judges -- as measured by partisan affiliations of the appointing president -- are more likely to render decisions in favor of civil liberties. This result holds for each level of the federal judiciary, although the results are more pronounced in the Supreme Court, less so for the Appeals Courts, and the weakest for District Courts. A second important influence involves the presence of a national security defense. The empirical data suggest that lower court judges are significantly affected by these situations; systematically ruling in favor of foreign affairs. However, Supreme Court justices do not respond in a similar fashion; the presence of a specific national security defense is not significantly related to judicial decisions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

By bundling issues together in identifiable packages, left-right ideologies theoretically can simplify the political arena and efficiently guide citizens toward comparatively more programmatic voting decisions (e.g., Downs 1957). Yet, the extent to which the mass public in Latin America possesses coherent ideological schema, relates these to left-right semantics, and uses these ideological heuristics to make vote choices varies significantly across countries within the region. Two objectives are central to this paper: first, the paper uses national survey data from 18 Latin American countries to take stock of the comparative ideological richness of politics in Latin America; second, the paper assesses two potential determinants of variation in ideological structuration: the presence of comparatively well-defined leftist administrations (brought in as part of the pink tide) and the level of programmatic party structuration developed within countries over time. As the analyses show, the latter is a better predictor of ideological richness at the national level in Latin America than the former. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The decision-making process of contemporary elites, specifically with regard to the nomination of presidential candidates, has escaped consistent scholarly attention. This is due, in part, to the power structure of the process, where the bulk of authority lies with rank-and-file party identifiers in the electorate, rather than with those who occupy the organizational strata of the parties. However, the institution of a special class of unpledged delegate, comprised of party leaders and elected officials (a.k.a. "superdelegates"), coupled with rare primary elections where the behavior of these delegates are consequential to the outcome, afford scholars the opportunity to learn about elite decision-making in an internal organizational context. The 2008 nomination contest was one of those rare occasions. Drawing upon a unique primary source survey of superdelegates to the 2008 Democratic National Convention, this paper explores the nexus between the time of publicly announcing a preference for Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton, and the aggregate and individual level factors that went into the decision about whom to support. We focus on the electoral connection between superdelegate officeholders and their constituents, who may express (or have already expressed) a different candidate preference. We find that both constituent and individual ideological factors played a role in the decision-making process of the superdelegates. The paper concludes with broader implications and considerations for candidate selection in the American political context. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

On November 4, 1979 the United States Embassy in Iran was stormed by over 3,000 militant Iranian students. 55 hostages would be held for 444 days throughout the rest of Jimmy Carter's term as president. The hostages were not ignored by the United States government for those 444 days. Negotiations, economic sanctions, and even a rescue mission were attempted. This paper discusses the decision to undertake that rescue mission. The decision to undertake the rescue mission was made after three consecutive meetings on March 22, April 11 and April 15, 1980. It was a decision made by President Carter and his advisers. It was a deadly decision that resulted, not in the release of the hostages, but rather in the death of eight military personnel. Why was the decision made? Was the decision made using a cost-benefit analysis, standard routines, or was the final decision made because of bureaucratic infighting and competition between President Carter's advisers? There are several different decision making models that are used to explain why the decision to go into the desert was made. These models are: the Rational Actor Model, the Organizational Processes Model, and the Bureaucratic Politics Model. Each of these models are individually reviewed, explored, and tested in this paper. The question of why the United States made the decision to go into the desert that fateful day in April will be answered. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One view of American politics many scholars share is that of government divided along partisan and ideological lines. In question is the extent of the division, as well as the cause and the degree to which it interferes with efficient decision making. Amidst the divided government literature the concept of polarization has arisen to describe what is perceived to be extreme partisan or ideological division. Polarization conjures up images of individuals or groups in diametrical opposition or antagonistic situations, a state that should be of interest to anyone concerned about effective decision making and governance. Although much of the research on divided government and polarization examines Congress and the executive, some effort is made to extend the argument to the judicial branch. This paper examines the effort and applies empirical tests to determine whether claims of polarization on the Supreme Court can be further supported. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The doctrine of stare decisis, or the principle that judicial decisions ought to conform to previous case law, remains central to the functioning of the legal system of the United States. Decisions grounded upon prior precedent provide both stability and legitimacy to the development of case law by the judiciary. Despite the centrality of the concept of stare decisis to legal accounts of judicial decision making, modern scholars have questioned the regularity with which courts adhere to the dictates of the doctrine in practice. With respect to the United States Supreme Court, in particular, attitudinal scholarship has argued that the justices pursue ideologically-motivated decisions because they are largely unfettered in both their selection of cases and in rendering their final decisions. This research project seeks to evaluate the level of adherence to stare decisis evidenced by the voting decisions of the Supreme Court. Part II of this paper consists of an exploration of the existing literature on judicial decision making, situating this project within the legal-attitudinal debate. Part III presents a description of the research design and methodology utilized in the evaluation of Supreme Court voting conducted here. Part IV specifically defines the variables used to explain variations in the decisions of justices to vote in accordance with preference or precedent. Part V details the logistic regression model. Part VI presents conclusions, outlining the findings of the research and the results of the logistic regression model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

If rational legislators consider the rules of their legislature when deciding whether or not to leave the body, those decisions will affect the composition of the legislature, as those who the rules most favor stay, and their less-favored colleagues go. The current paper explores this phenomenon using an evolutionary game theoretic model to show that rules that favor legislators who are more ideologically proximate to their parties will result in a legislature with more loyal legislators. I test the theoretical model using a competing risks duration model to show that, as the evolutionary model predicts, legislators who represent districts that are more ideologically proximate to their parties and who vote more like their party are most likely to receive committee chairs, while those whose districts are further from the party are more likely to leave the House to run for a higher office. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we examine whether a state's party context influences the incentives for involvement, the norms of party decision-making, and the specific campaign commitments expressed by a select group of party activists -- delegates to both parties' 2000 national conventions. We look specifically at the rules for delegate selection (e.g. open primary, closed caucus, etc.), the institutional capacity of state parties, and the electoral competitiveness between the two parties at the state level. Using data from a survey of the 2000 national convention delegates, we find some evidence that norms and campaign commitments respond to state party contexts, but little evidence that incentives do. We conclude with a discussion of the implications of our findings and some directions for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In explaining the disjointed and episodic pattern of US policymaking, Jones and Baumgartner (2005) argue that institutional constraints and limits on human decisionmaking combine to create friction in the policy process. They suggest that new information is able to stimulate 'positive feedback' in the attention of political actors that can overcome friction and enable policy change. While this feedback (otherwise known as a cascade, fad, or bandwagon) plays an important role in the theory, subsequent research focuses on institutional characteristics and treats the mechanism as a black box. In this paper, I argue that the methods of computational social science enable us to look inside the box and, through agent-based simulation, determine how the interdependence of political actors may shape the dynamics of policy agendas. I present a computational, network-oriented model of agenda-setting activity as well as report preliminary results from model simulations and a comparison to Senate press release data. I find that model outputs follow an expected 'stick-slip' pattern, that results are stable over various parameter settings, and that the stylized model appears to capture an underlying bandwagon process within agenda dynamics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the major issues in predicting state failure is the relatively rare occurrence of event onset. This class skew problem can cause difficulties in both estimating a model and selecting a decision boundary. Since the publication of King and Zeng's (2001a) study, scholars have utilized case-control methods to address this issue. This paper re-analyzes the landmark research of the Political Instability Task Force (Goldstone et al. 2010), comparing the case-control approach to several other methods from the machine learning field and original to this study. In out-of-sample prediction, case-control methods are outperformed by almost all of the alternatives. A multilevel model on the raw data performs best. The article also introduces cost sensitive methods for determining a decision boundary. This explication reveals problems in the Task Force's formulation of a decision boundary and suggests methods for making useful predictions for policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 1974 Richard Johnson published his seminal Managing the White House, which examined the management styles of presidents Franklin Roosevelt through Richard Nixon. Johnson identified three dominant management approaches - the "competitive", the "collegial" and the "formalistic"- and argued that because each had their own strengths and weaknesses, none could be considered superior. Since Johnson published his book, however, most presidents have adopted variants of the formalistic approach, and scholars now describe it as the "standard" method for managing the presidency. The competitive and collegial models have been relegated to historical curiosities. In this paper we reexamine Johnson's typology. By identifying the underlying structural attributes that differentiate the three management models, we make two important points. First, the models in their ideal form differ significantly in how they channel information to the president and, potentially, in their impact on presidential decisionmaking. Second, the historical evolution of the management approaches, from FDR's competitive model to the now dominant formalistic model, can be understood as an implicit tradeoff, in which presidents opt to limit the choices flowing to them in order to achieve greater decisionmaking efficiency, but at the cost of making less informed decisions. We conclude by arguing that scholars, when advising presidents on how best to organize the presidential staff, pay more attention to the costs of using the standard model, and the potential benefits of competitive staffing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Inherently governmental activity is recognized by public administration scholars as critical space to be preserved within contemporary governance frameworks. This paper examines the relationship between the political ideology of an agency and its personnel classifications. I hypothesize that an agency with a more conservative ideological score will have more personnel functions classified as "commercial," while those agencies with more liberal scores will have a higher incidence of inherently governmental functions. Previous research suggests that the makeup of an agency itself may impact how the definition of inherently governmental is translated (Joaquin & Greitens, 2009; Snavely & Desai, 2010). Annual FAIR Act inventory submissions from FY 2003-2008 are analyzed. The results show a lack of consistency between personnel classifications and ideology at the agency level, and call for further research to expose those conditions that influence these decisions within agencies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What accounts for activism on high courts? Under traditional democratic theory, courts are supposed to act as an important check on governmental excesses or abuses. Yet, most theory regarding the development of court systems recommends that young courts refrain from challenging the decisions of government. In this paper, I explore the avenues through which constitutional courts assert judicial power within developing democracies. Using a unique database of abstract review decisions from the Polish, Latvian, and Slovenian constitutional courts, I find evidence that institutional incentives contribute in several ways to instances of court activism. Specifically, I find that judicial panels are much more likely to overturn laws when there is an ideological divergence between the court and the law under review. At the same time, the propensity of courts to overturn laws is also greater when government monitoring and oversight agencies refer laws to these courts. Both findings have potentially important implications for the ways in which courts operate, particularly in developing democracies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that new voters will be less knowledgeable and attached to the political system than returning voters. It is also claimed that it is easier for voters to understand social policies than economic policies. These two arguments lead to the prediction that economic preferences will influence the decisions of returning voters but not new voters and that social preferences will influences voters of both types. The hypotheses are testing using ANES data from every presidential election from 1988-2008. The data provide strong support for the hypotheses. If campaigns are attempting to mobilize new voters, they should focus on social issues because they are accessible to all voters. However, if campaigns are attempting to turnout established supporters, economic appeals may be more effective. [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]

How public managers make decisions under different structural arrangements, incentives, and types of information is an often studied topic in the field of Public Management. However, despite recent advances in fields such as behavioral psychology, many public management scholars still rely on the traditional assumptions of the rational man model to formulate their theories about the decision-making processes of public managers. The purpose of this paper is to introduce Prospect Theory and the corresponding cognitive biases to the field of Public Management and examine the possible implications of this theory for public managers. Furthermore, Herbert Simon did provide public management scholars with a cohesive theory about decision-making within organizations in the form of "bounded rationality," which has been a vast improvement over the traditional rational man model. I postulate, however, that while Simon's theory was indeed a vast improvement over the rational man model, it also remains incomplete with its treatment of decision-making within organizations, particularly when these decisions have components of risk or uncertainty. Prospect Theory provides a more nuanced framework for when decisions have risk or uncertainty components. Prospect Theory and the resulting cognitive biases thus provide a framework by which public managers can recognize the errors in their judgment and attempt to improve the decisions they make. Finally, it is important that public management scholars give serious treatment to the decision-making processes of public managers. The decisions made by public managers have a direct impact on both organizational effectiveness and policy outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we seek to offer an adapted theoretical framework that will help to provide useful and predictive insights into the development and management of public organizations. Buchanan and Tullock (1963) provided a theory of constitutional choice from a "costs" approach. We build off of this theory using modified definitions of their two major costs: (1) external costs, and (2) decision-making costs. We define external costs are as costs organizations would expect to bear from their external environment (i.e external stakeholders, political environment, and public values); decision-making costs are defined as the expenditure of resources, time, effort, and opportunities used in the decision making process. We consider how varying "bundles" of these costs help explain different levels in the proportion of decision-makers within an organization. We further elaborate on this "costs" approach to help explain behavior at the agency level, and apply it in a practical fashion to several issues within public administration. We believe that this costs approach can help to explain various issues within public administration such as: consequences of organizational design, differences in organizational size for different types of public organizations, and some differences found between public organizations and private organizations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presented at the annual meeting of the Southern Political Science Association, Orlando Florida, January 3-5 2013. We would like to thank Lotte Bøgh Andersen, Simon Calmar Andersen, Rhys Andrews, Erik Godwin, David Lewis, Martin Lodge, Steve Martin, Poul Aaes Nielsen, Laurence J. O'Toole, Hal G. Rainey, James Rogers, Amanda Rutherford, Camilla Denager Staniok, Andrew Whitford, Søren Winter and seminar participants at the Danish Institute for Social Research, the Cardiff School of Business, the London School of Economics, and the LBJ School of Public Affairs for comments on previous versions of this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the impact of the loss of majority party status on the decision to retire. We hypothesize that members who move from the majority to the minority are more likely to retire because the benefits of serving would decline due to the loss of their ability to exert influence and make public policy. Using data on every member in the 79th - 111th Congresses, we find that losing majority party status has a significant impact on the decision to retire as the probability of retiring, ceteris paribus, is over 63%. During the Conservative Coalition Congresses (1945-64), we also find that conservative Democrats are more likely to retire when their party loses the majority. In the partisan Congresses (1994-2010), we find that members in seats that favor their party are more likely to retire immediately after losing majority party status but party leaders are able to keep members from seats that favor the other party from retiring until after the initial shock of losing the majority wears off. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper reveals the characteristics of moderate judicial behavior and seeks to determine the conditions under which moderate decision-making occurs on the Burger Court. The data in the study was derived from the Justice-Centered Burger Court Database (1969-1986). Both the New York Times and Congressional Quarterly measures were used to determine the level of salience for each case (high or low.) The findings reveal that Justice Powell best fits the model's parameters of consistent moderate voting behavior. The results of the study contribute to the dialogue whether institutional norms and external factors have a somewhat greater affect on moderate decision-making than on the ideologically bloc justices on the Supreme Court. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the years, several influential studies have provided extensive theories and analyses that examine community power and shed considerable light on the seminal question: "Who governs?" These studies have demonstrated that the decision-making coalitions directing development are composed of various public and private actors that possess different resources and interests, which makes the governance of local economic development more complex. The overall dissertation integrates urban regime theory with the policy process literature to develop a conceptual framework that explains the governance of local policymaking. It is theorized that the complexity of local economic development decision-making coalitions, including the actors and interests involved, as well as the size and density of the coalition, influence the policies that local governments choose to adopt. This paper focuses on understanding the independent variable of primary interests, structure of decision-making coalitions. Data provided by the International City/County Management Association's (ICMA) 1999, 2004, and 2009 Economic Development Surveys is examined. Two-step cluster analysis was performed to identify the distinct types of local economic development decision-making networks. Social network analysis was utilized to create a map of the actors involved in decision-making process, which provides a visualization of the characteristics for each governing network type. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the past year, independent expenditures have been at the forefront of the debate over campaign finance, particularly with respect to judicial elections, though our understanding of this practice is relatively limited. In this paper, I examine and seek to explain the prevalence of independent expenditures in races for state courts of last resort using an original set of campaign finance data collected directly from state records. I find that independent expenditures are not necessarily as widespread as usually thought, but concentrated among a handful of candidates in only a few states. Based on the aggregate data, groups' decisions to engage in independent expenditures appear to be based on both candidate- and state-level factors. I also find preliminary support for my argument that election regulations intended to reduce the role of money in campaigns, such as contribution limits, may instead encourage higher levels of independent spending. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we propose and test explanations for why parties and members de- cide to put themselves \on record" in the 110th Congress. We argue that this decision is largely the product of three interacting factors. First, as Mayhew (1974) argues, members frequently use the roll call record as a means of position-taking for their up-coming elections by recording votes for important and popular bills. Second, requesting a recorded roll call vote can be part of a broader partisan \branding" strategy. Specifically, members call for recorded roll call votes with the idea of using them against members of the opposing party in the upcoming election (Smith 1989). Finally, we argue that members are less likely to request recorded roll call votes on unimportant measures and on measures considered late in the legislative session in an effort to better promote effciency on the chamberoor. We examine this theory with data on public laws passed during the 110th Congress. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper assesses how the presence of a female state supreme court justice on a judicial panel affects the voting behavior of other females on a particular panel. Judicial research on the effect of female judges on judicial decision making have found mixed results as to whether female judges decide cases differently than their male colleagues, or whether female judges affect the decision making calculus of their male colleagues in any particular way. Little attention is given to how female judges influence other female judges and whether the presence of multiple females on a panel can ultimately lead to judicial policy outcomes that are female friendly. This analysis of state obscenity cases from 1982 to 2006 reveals that females differ significantly in their voting behavior based on whether or not there is another female judge on the same panel. This research gives credence to the concept of the "token justice" and sheds light on how many female judges may be necessary to significantly influence policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research develops an integrated model of trial court decision-making utilizing an original data set comprised of all civil trial verdicts decided in the states of Alabama, Hawaii, Indiana, Kentucky, and Tennessee in 2009. The paper then descriptively examines the variables associated with jury verdicts in the five states in terms of winners and losers, awards, docket composition, institutional variation, litigants, and alleged injuries. I uncover considerable variation across the states on each indicator. This research improves our knowledge of trial court decision-making by creating a comprehensive data set of civil jury verdicts, providing a concrete comparison of variation across states, and by contributing a theoretical model of decisionmaking in civil trial courts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the paper highlighting role of knowledge in making decisions related with foreign policy issue. It reflects on the poll conducted in the U.S. in 2007 to demonstrate public opinion on Iraq war and according to the poll 50 percent of the population considers the decision to be wrong, only 39 percent agreed with government's decision. The article further discusses level of knowledge among public of the U.S. on Iraq conflict.

Many social scientists emphasize the role of private property rights in providing the foundation for economic growth, but they typically expect these institutions to emerge only when sociopolitical conditions provide incentives for economic elites to demand these rights from the state. As such, we know less about the conditions under which the poor demand private rights. This paper addresses this gap in the literature on private property rights by analyzing the PROCEDE program in Mexico-a land reform initiative designed to induce small farmers (ejidatarios) to voluntarily convert formerly state owned lands into privately owned parcels. I present the results of interview and data from three ejidos in the Bajío region of Mexico, in which I test hypotheses derived from the New Institutional Economics, state-society relations, and moral economy approaches. While each approach captures some aspect of the decision-making process, ejidatarios most commonly cite quarrels among family members when explaining their reasons for acquiring private rights. In light of these findings, I conclude by suggesting that family size and the norms that govern household-level "survival strategies," including inheritance norms, may be omitted variables that explain intra-regional variations in ejidatario responses to PROCEDE. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent war termination studies have done much to explain war termination processes. However, recent studies largely assume belligerents to be unitary actors. Moreover, even analyses relaxing the unitary actor assumption in order to investigate how regime-type variations affect belligerents' behavior mostly treat belligerents' governments as unitary actors. This paper argues that fuller explanations of war termination processes require an accounting of the contingent nature of belligerents' decision-making processes. Specifically, via a case study of the Philippine-American War, this study proposes that the positioning and relative influence of hard-liners and moderates within belligerents is a crucial factor in wartime decision-making and war termination. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Deliberative theories of democracy hold that decisions are only legitimate when they are made in a free and open deliberation where reasons are offered to and by those affected by government policy (Gutmann and Thompson 1996, Cohen 1989). Deliberation is also supposed to lead to better public policy by increasing public knowledge about the moral and practical issues at stake and making citizens aware of the perspectives of socially disadvantaged groups. Democratic theorists pin these claims on the way deliberation promotes information sharing, exposing citizens to new facts and perspectives.But will people share information in deliberation? If they share information, will others treat it seriously? Little empirical work has examined the willingness of deliberators to meet the normative standards laid out by theorists. Two literatures suggest that information sharing in deliberation may be incomplete in ways that bias outcomes. In Psychology, "common knowledge effect" literature demonstrates that groups tend to make decisions based on information that is commonly known before discussion begins, even if other information is more relevant. In game theory, the literature on strategic information transmission suggests that information will not be shared when the underlying preferences of deliberators are dissimilar.In this paper I combine a game-theoretic model of strategic information transmission with psychological theories about information sharing in small group discussion to create a theoretical account of when information will be shared in deliberation. I test these theories using an experimental design that combines the methodologies of social psychology and experimental economics. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Democracy promotion has often been presented by policymakers as an important goal for US foreign aid, especially after the end of the Cold War. However, existing studies have produced conflicting results concerning the effects of democracy on the amount of aid that states receive. This paper adds to this discussion by critiquing conventional assumptions about how aid is used to encourage political reform and suggesting that democracy is likely to have a greater bearing on aid cessation, an aid policy decision that has yet to be thoroughly explored. This argument is tested using a hazard model with time-varying covariates and data on all recipients of US military and economic aid for the years 1946-2000. It is found that sharp decreases in the level of recipient democracy dramatically increase the probability of aid cessation, even when controlling for measures of US strategic and economic interests. These results suggest that democracy does have an impact on aid policy and that the aid cessation decision needs to be investigated further. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While we know a great deal about the ideological positions and strategic considerations of the justices, little is known about their personalities and cognitive thought process. Simultaneously, much of the literature on judicial decision making neglects the rich content in written opinions, where policy is established, and little work has examined the public speeches and spoken words of the justices. In this paper I address these disconnects by using the content analysis program Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC) to analyze the U.S. Supreme Court justices written opinions from the 2003-2007 terms, recent personal speeches and public statements, and statements made at oral argument. LIWC is uniquely designed to measure the emotional, cognitive, and structural components of verbal and written speech. I use this data to answer one main question: to what extent are justices consistent in their cognitive thought process across different situations? I answer this question by examining several circumstances: do justices display the same level of cognitive sophistication across majority, concurring, and dissenting opinions? Do justices display the same level of cognition in public speeches, at oral argument, and in written opinions? Do justices display more cognitive consistency in salient versus non-salient cases? In value laden issue areas (e.g., civil rights and liberties) versus mundane issue areas (e.g., economics and federalism)? After summarizing the evidence for whether cognition shows promise as an individual difference variable, I finish by focusing on how different levels of cognitive engagement may affect Supreme Court decision making. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we link political ambition and policy learning literatures to answer a simple question: Do members of Congress with state legislative experience bring their state policy experience to bear in a positive way in their policy activities in Washington? We hypothesize that they do. More specifically we hypothesize that Members of Congress with state legislative experience will be more likely to sponsor legislation that is state-friendly than those without that experience. Further, we hypothesize that Members representing states that have been policy innovators will be more likely to sponsor federal legislation in areas where state policy innovations have occurred. We test these hypotheses using data on House members serving on the four primary health committees between 1992 and 2006. The dependent variable is sponsorship of intergovernmental health legislation during that time period. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Building upon previous work that has analyzed the impact state political culture has on a state's decision to move its primary or caucus to an earlier date (Carman and Barker 2005), this paper seeks to examine the within and across cycle movement of presidential delegate selection events as a function of policy innovation and diffusion from 2000-2008. It is hypothesized that states bordering other states that have moved are more likely to shift their primaries and caucuses to earlier dates. A duration model will be employed to track when a state finalizes its frontloading move in relation to the last presidential election date and how that is affected by the movement of neighboring states. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Partisanship is a non-legal factor that could wield considerable influence over the judicial decision-making process of state court judges. This paper considers the effects of partisanship on judicial decision-making by examining Ralph Nader's ballot access litigation in the 2004 presidential election. Specifically, this study analyzes 109 votes cast by state trial, appellate, and supreme court judges from fifteen states regarding the question of whether Nader should be granted ballot access. I hypothesize that Democratic judges would be less likely to rule in Nader's favor compared to Republican judges. After controlling for several factors that could influence judicial decision-making, the preliminary probit analysis suggests that partisanship is not a significant factor that predicts a judge's ruling. Instead, state judges were more likely to defer to the initial ballot access decision of the state election authority when ruling in these cases. Thus, even in a highly partisan electoral environment, it appears that judges did not allow partisanship to influence their legal decisions. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers the effect of ex post Congressional oversight on bureaucratic incentives with regard to agency policy making. Generally, the possibility of ex post oversight reduces a bureaucratÂ’s incentive to invest costly effort in policy making, since the effort will be commensurately less pivotal in the determination of the final policy outcome. Accordingly, if ex post oversight is not always possible but this reality is only revealed after policy has been made by the agency, then Congress may have an incentive to restrict (in an ex ante sense) its ability to perform such oversight. The model is tentatively applied to some related considerations, including administrative procedures, norms of deference to agency decisions, and the matching of oversight jurisdictions to Congressional committees. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is the general consensus that foreign policy is often a reflection of the interplay of both domestic players and governmental leaders. Policymakers are regularly forced to respond to forces coming from various domestic constituencies in the formulation of foreign policies. Robert Putnam defined this process as a two-level game that each national political leader has to play. The European Union provides an interesting test for Putnam’s hypothesis. The formation of the EU is due to increase economic ties accompanied by a shift in the perception of European leaders’ constituencies. Arguably, these constituencies change to encompass a wider European identity. Integration creates an intermediary – or third – level of analysis, which is indispensable to the very process. Putnam’s “two tables” metaphor can therefore be expanded into a more complex process and the new model splits the world into three tables: Putnam’s domestic and international tables, and an intermediary level which is represented by a supra-national, integrating actor. This paper examines the evolution of the German leadership’s perception of its constituency since 1996. It argues that as integration increased, the German leadership has steadily begun to perceive all of Europe as a secondary domestic constituency. Subsequently, in making foreign policy decisions it is increasingly taking into consideration the wider European public opinion in addition to the views of the German public. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents research which assessed the Solicitor General's amicus curiae strategies in the U.S. Supreme Court. Factors that contributed to the decision of a Solicitor General to participate as amicus curiae in the Supreme Court; Analysis of the influence of Solicitor General on justices' decision making.

Seeks to conduct a preliminary examination of the effect of threatening information on levels of adherence to the ideals of political tolerance. Exploration of the existing literature on political tolerance; Regression models useful in understanding the relationship between information and tolerance decisions; Role of the probability of power considerations in individual tolerance judgments.

Examines the impact of political change on natural resource policies in Botswana. Implication of the delay in implementation of the fencing policy; Explanations for differences in the pace of policy implementation; Influence of political party competition on policy implementation.

Focuses on the creation of theoretical predictions about how economic conditions should affect presidential speechmaking in the U.S. incorporating theories drawn from Ragsdale's election timing literature. Differences between election timing decision and speechmaking; Factors that influence the decision making of right-wing and left-wing governments on whether to call elections early; Findings on the role of economic factors when a president decides to deliver a public address.

Investigates decision making by the U.S. Supreme Court as an institution in constitutional cases. Explanation on various constraints that the court faces in its decision making; Impact of the U.S. Congress on the areas of civil rights and individual liberties; Information on the continuation of doctrinal construction.

Assesses the influence of gender on the voting behavior of the U.S. Supreme Court in gender-based claims. Perceptions about women public officials; Definition of gender-based claims; Factors that measure the extent to which gender influences the decision making process of the court; Difference of the voting behavior of male justices and female justices.

Presents the findings of a study on a testing prospect theory in a divide-the-dollar game. Examination of the framing and design of the game; Use of the model of bounded rationality in understanding the complexities of decision making revealed by the divide-the-dollar experiments; Discussion of the theories of behavioral finance.

We report results of an experiment that tests the effect of different information on the role of electability and policy considerations in voters' candidate evaluations. We find that both substance and electability affect candidate evaluations. More sophisticated respondents were affected by the traditional Democratic issue of social security, while less sophisticated respondents were more affected by the issue of reviving the economy. Both groups were affected by positive electability information given with poll numbers. We find evidence of strategic considerations in voters' decision-making processes. Presidential primary candidates' electability and issue emphases both matter. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Offers a look at the factors that influence congressional campaign crises in the U.S. Notions about the role of political parties in campaign crises; Views of political professionals on congressional campaign decision making; Theoretical principle underlying crisis management in congressional campaigns.

I examine career choice in state legislatures, employing multinomial logit to model simultaneously reelection, retirement, and higher office seeking decisions in eighteen state upper chambers from 1986-2002. There are several notable preliminary findings. First, salary influences career decisions, with legislators less likely to retire as salary increases. This is a new finding, as Congress studies omit salary due to lack of variation. Second, majority status has little influence on careers decisions. Third, career decisions are highly sensitive to the relative probability of victory. In particular, redistricting substantially increases the probability of retirement and seeking higher office, especially where courts and nonpartisan commissions control redistricting. Fourth, progressive ambition is remarkably strong, with legislators responsive to the opportunities provided by open seats in Congress and in statewide offices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]