Placement Candidates

Primary Field: Political Theory
Secondary Fields: Comparative Politics and International Relations

What binds citizens together into a community? How are individuals transformed into citizens? My dissertation returns to the origins of liberal thought to examine these questions, particularly focusing on religion as the element that binds individuals. I examine John Locke's political theory, analyzing both the founding principles of the theory and its concluding institutional relationship between religion and the state. I conclude that, while he ultimately builds his argument on non-religious grounds, religion is an integral component of the Lockean state, countering human nature''s tendency toward self-interest. Locke's carefully designed argument resolves the problem of rights-based political systems by merging community interest with self-interest while being built on the foundation of individual consent.

Dissertation:"Creating Community: Locke's Secular Theory of the Non-Secular State"

Dissertation Committee Composition
John T. Scott (chair), Robert S. Taylor, Josephine T. Andrews
PhD. expected in June 2010

CV
E-mail: ebalzate [at] ucdavis [dot] edu

Primary Field: Comparative Politics
Secondary: Research Methods and International Relations

My research and teaching interests include environmental politics and policy, democratization, comparative political institutions, Latin American politics and research methods. In my dissertation, titled, "Uncovering Mechanisms: Democracy, Information and the Environment," I argue that national environmental performance increases when the public has access to information about environmental problems. Although democracies tend to be more transparent than nondemocracies, democracy alone will not lead to better environmental protection in all areas. Rather, I argue that democracy has a positive effect on the provision of environmental public goods that are highly visible to the public, for which politicians can easily claim credit. The effect of democracy on the provision of less visible environmental public goods is conditional on the presence of information vehicles, such as a free media, high media circulation, active advocacy groups and an educated public; these variables decrease the costs to politicians of providing less visible public goods, and therefore increase the payoff of doing so.

Dissertation:"Uncovering Mechanisms: Democracy, Information and the Environment"

Dissertation Committee Composition
Josephine Andrews (Chair), James Adams, Brad Jones, Mark Lubell, Liz Zechmeister (Vanderbilt University)
PhD. expected in June 2010

CV
E-mail: alduwel [at] ucdavis [dot] edu

Primary Field: American Politics (Political Psychology and Public Opinion)
Secondary: Methodology

When political rhetoric becomes increasingly group centric, how does public opinion respond? My dissertation research develops and tests a theory of group association which examines how social groups become linked to issues and the implications of such ties for opinion. To this end, I analyze both over-time survey data and data from a series of experiments. The survey analysis finds that changes in the salience of group-based appeals affects the impact of group considerations on opinion. The experiments find that when issues are strongly tied to particular groups in society, even subtle group appeals have a lasting influence on opinion. Conversely, for issues lacking well-defined linkages to groups, rhetoric invoking groups influences opinion, but only among some. These findings suggest that social groups are not only important ingredients of public opinion, but that existing associations between issues and groups are ripe for exploitation by political elites. My future research seeks to build upon these findings by looking more closely at the processes which shape individual identity and perceptions of others, and how these characteristics shape perceptions of political rhetoric and public opinion.

Dissertation:"The Interaction of Political Rhetoric and Social Group Perceptions in Shaping Public Opinion"

Dissertation Committee Composition
Robert Huckfeldt (Chair), Cindy Kam (Vanderbilt University), Benjamin Highton, Walter Stone
PhD. expected in June 2010

CV
E-mail: clpalmer [at] ucdavis [dot] edu

Website: http://clpalmer.web.officelive.com

Primary Field: American Politics

My dissertation explores the unique effect a vibrant campaign context has on citizens in democratic politics. Specifically, I am interested in examining how campaigns and social networks alter individual attitudes and, in turn, subsequent political behavior. I seek to extend insights and measurement from psychology to large-sample survey data to help students of political behavior better understand the cognitive changes that underlie campaign effects. Ultimately, my dissertation research seeks to understand the way the campaign context changes the way people think about politics. The empirical work in the dissertation places citizens in different contexts. The first chapter examines citizens in the intense national context of the 1996 Presidential campaign. Using data from the 2002 congressional elections, the following chapter situates citizens in their political world, focusing on party contacting and the intensity of the congressional district in which they reside. The final empirical chapter locates citizens in their social context by exploring the influence of patterns of political discussion on engagement and participation.

Dissertation:"Putting Voters in Context:  Social and Cognitive Activation in Political Campaigns"

Dissertation Committee Composition
Robert Huckfeldt (Chair), Walter Stone, and Benjamin Highton

PhD. expected January 2010

CV

E-mail: rdpeterson [at] ucdavis [dot] edu

Website: http://rdpeterson.web.officelive.com

Primary Field: Political Theory

In the Renaissance and Enlightenment, political philosophers wrote about travel because it is a powerful way of searching for human nature. The individual might engage in "philosophical travel" via the Montaignean method, wherein the individual travels in order to experience an alienation that thereby enables him to parse out nature and custom in himself, or the Baconian method, wherein the traveler collects empirical data regarding human behavior throughout the world and may ultimately engage in a collective project to discover human nature through induction. My dissertation then examines these two methods as they manifest in The Tempest and Gulliver’s Travels.

Dissertation:“Modern Man and the Itinerant Spirit"

Dissertation Committee Composition
John T. Scott (Chair), Robert S. Taylor, Daniel R. Brunstetter (UC Irvine)
PhD. expected in June 2010

CV

Gary Stradiotto
Primary Field: Comparative Politics
Secondary Fields: International Relations, Methodology
PhD Awarded 2009

My research interests include democratization, political economy and East Asian politics. My dissertation is titled: 'The Democratic Revolution,' where I explore the impact of transition type on democratic success. My research is motivated by the following question: do transitional modes impact democratic quality and longevity? First, I develop a parsimonious categorization of transition types from which to classify transitioning states. Next, I construct a theory of transitions and argue that cooperative transitions (negotiations away from authoritarianism) associate with higher levels of democracy and last longer than other types of transitions (such as Revolution or Foreign Intervention). To test the theory, I construct an original dataset of transitioning states since 1900, which covers approximately 150 countries. The results strongly suggest that negotiated transitions to democracy are associated with higher levels of democracy and last longer when compared to other transition types. My dissertation is an original contribution to the transitions literature through the use of cross-national statistical analysis, followed by case studies. This research has been presented at the MPSA, and has generated many additional questions which will serve as the basis for a future research agenda. I am currently a fellow at the National Endowment for Democracy in Washington, DC where I am working on turning my dissertation into an academic book.

Dissertation: "The Democratic Revolution"

Dissertation Committee Composition
Josephine Andrews (Chair), Jim Adams, Sujian Guo (San Francisco State University)

CV

E-mail: gstradiotto [at] ucdavis [dot] edu

Primary Field: International Relations
Secondary Fields: Methods and Comparative Politics

My dissertation research examines the interactive relationship between civil and international conflict, identifying the conditions under which civil wars lead to international conflict, as well as the conditions under which international conflict leads to the outbreak of civil war. I develop a triadic approach that examines the relationship between the civil war state, its domestic opposition, and outside states. I argue that outbreak of international conflict or the outbreak of civil war is a function of the level of affinity, rivalry, and power within this triad. I employ a cross-sectional time-series analysis in order to investigate these two conflict relationships. I find that religious affinity, strategic rivalry, and power all significantly influence the relationships between civil and international conflict. These results should be a cautionary tale for states in these situations; states with a weaker strategic rival (e.g. Iraq and Kuwait) have the greatest potential for future conflict. My future research will examine how involvement in international conflict affects the termination, outcome and recurrence of civil wars.

Dissertation: "Cuts Both Ways: The Interactive Effects of Civil and International Conflict."

Dissertation Committee Composition
Scott S. Gartner (Chair), Zeev Maoz, Randolph Siverson
PhD. expected in June 2010.

CV

E-mail: aatannehill [at] ucdavis [dot] edu

Website: http://aatannehill.web.officelive.com

Primary Field: Political Theory

I am a Ph.D candidate in political theory. My research centers on the psychological sources of human connectedness and their relationship to processes of political and social decline. My dissertation investigates the psychological foundations of human sociability as they are treated in the work of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and argues that Rousseau ultimately provides a pessimistic or tragic teaching concerning the nature and scope of human connectedness. In the course of making this argument, I identify three related but distinct forms of association's sexual love, friendship, and civil or political association's systematically examine how these associational types recur in Rousseau's work, and demonstrate that none of them, whether examined individually or together in sum, provide a satisfactory resolution to the problem of human dividedness that is located at the center of Rousseaus thought.

Dissertation:"Squaring the Social Circle: Tragedy and Human Connectedness in Rousseau"

Dissertation Committee Composition
John T. Scott (chair), Christopher J. Kelly (Boston College), Robert S. Taylor
PhD expected in June 2010

CV
E-mail: jmwarner [at] ucdavis [dot] edu

Primary Field: Comparative Politics
Secondary Field: American Politics and Methods

In thinking about politics, do people care more about receiving a desired outcome or how political processes are conducted? My dissertation explores the relative effects of these factors on perceptions of fairness and attitudes toward government in the context of elections. Through experiments conducted in China and the United States, I explore procedural fairness, and the alternative outcomes-based explanation, across two starkly different political contexts. In line with my theoretical expectations, I find that procedural characteristics are more important than outcomes in shaping perceptions of fairness, and procedures and outcomes matter equally for attitudes toward government, across both cases. These findings suggest optimism with regard to political reform in China; individuals pay attention to and care about the process of politics to a greater degree than Chinese officials and scholarship on the topic appear to expect. My research interests include political behavior, political psychology, democratization, and the politics of economic development. My regional focus is East Asia, with an emphasis on China.

Dissertation:"Winning, Losing, or How You Play the Game? Procedural Fairness and Outcomes in the United States and China"

Dissertation Committee Composition
Robert Jackman (co-chair), Ethan Scheiner (co-chair), Robert Huckfeldt, and Elizabeth Zechmeister

CV
E-mail: jrwilking [at] ucdavis [dot] edu

Primary Field: Political Theory

My dissertation highlights the emergence of modern constitutionalism—and especially its most visible manifestation, the written constitution—as an important companion to the increasing influence of the natural rights political philosophy during the 18th century.  My research agenda more broadly is organized around two themes: (1) the problems and possibilities of liberalism and (2) theories of constitutionalism, especially within the Anglo-American tradition of political theory and constitutional development.  I have approached these themes from a variety of angles, including research on contemporary theorists such as John Rawls, past thinkers such as James Wilson, and empirical research on the Supreme Court.

Dissertation:“Constituting a People: Modern Constitutionalism and the Possibility of Community in a Natural Rights Republic”

Dissertation Committee Composition
John T. Scott, Robert S. Taylor, Michael P. Zuckert

CV
E-mail: jrzink [at] ucdavis [dot] edu