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Comparative Politics
International Relations
Methodology
Comparative Politics
Comparative Politics
- Gregory Love, "Political Institutions, Candidate Quality, and the Consolidation of Democracy in Latin America"
- Gary Stradiotto, "Transitional Legacies on Democratic Outcomes"
- Gloria Walker, "Connections Matter: The Domestic Impact of Intergovernmental Organization Membership"
International Relations
- Leo Blanken, "Rational Empires: An Institutional Theory of Imperial Expansion"
- Nikolas Emmanuel, “Conditioning Relations: Appraising the Effectiveness of Political Conditionality”
- Molly Melin, "Strategic Peacemakers: A Study of the Occurrence and Effects of Third Party Conflict Management"
- Jennifer Ramos, "How Actions Affect Ideas: Military Intervention and Conceptions of Sovereignty."
- Belgin San, "Non-state Violence, Targets, and Sponsors: Why do States Ally with Non-state Armed Groups?"
Methodology
- Skyler Cranmer, "Essays in Political Methodology"
Comparative Politics
Gregory LoveMy dissertation research focuses on the role of political candidates in the transitional democracies of Latin America. The work argues that the rise and fall of dominate political groupings in several Latin American countries is in part the result of when, where, and with which party skilled candidates run for office. I develop a dynamic theory of candidate recruitment and political competition and test the theory with data collected during fieldwork in Mexico and Chile. In addition to my dissertation, I have a number of other projects examining the intersection of the political environment and individual actions. In several articles and manuscripts, I look at institutional causes of income inequality, a veto player theory of turnout, and racial context of vote choice. |
Dissertation: "Political Institutions, Candidate Quality, and the Consolidation of Democracy in Latin America" (PhD expected June 2008) Committee: Robert Jackman (chair), Josephine Andrews, Ethan Scheiner, Elizabeth Zechmeister CV E-mail: gjlove [at] ucdavis [dot] edu |
Gary Stradiotto I am a PhD Candidate in Comparative Politics. My research interests include democratization, political economy and East Asian politics, particularly Chinese Politics. My dissertation is titled: ‘Transitional Legacies on Democratic Outcomes,’ 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. 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. |
Dissertation: "Transitional Legacies on Democratic Outcomes" (PhD expected June 2008) Committee: Josephine Andrews (Chair), Jim Adams, Sujian Guo (San Francisco State University) CV E-mail: gstradiotto [at] ucdavis [dot] edu |
Gloria Walker completed her PhD in March 2006. Gloria’s research interests, which overlap domestic and international politics, include the role of international or supranational institutions in the domestic politics of member states, European politics (East, West, and European Union), political development, and factors affecting democratic consolidation and deepening in emerging democracies. Gloria’s dissertation, Connections Matter: The Domestic Impact of Intergovernmental Organization Membership, explores the ways in which external factors such as a state’s peer groups via its intergovernmental organization memberships influences its domestic politics, specifically, its level of freedom/democracy, level of corruption, and level of human rights abuse. Although this work employs quantitative methods, she also employs qualitative methods. Her current research, for example, uses case studies of specific intergovernmental organizations (Organization of American States and the European Union) and their member states to further elucidate the relationship between these organizations and member state political development. |
Dissertation: "Connections Matter: The Domestic Impact of Intergovernmental Organization Membership" (PhD 2006) Committee: Robert Jackman (chair), Josephine Andrews, Jeannette Money, Gabriella Montinola |
International Relations
Leo Blanken completed his PhD in June 2006. Leo’s research interests
include abstract international relations theory, such as exploring the
fundamental motivations and constraints for employing force and trade in
the anarchic international system, as well as security studies, such as
examining learning among terrorist groups and traditional military
organizations. Leo’s dissertation, Rational Empires: An Institutional
Theory of Imperial Expansion, uses formal modeling and qualitative case
studies to propose and test the conditions under which powerful states use
force to gain access to markets and resources. |
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Dissertation: "Rational Empires: An Institutional
Theory of Imperial Expansion" (PhD 2006) Committee: Scott Sigmund Gartner (Chair), Emily Goldman CV E-mail: ljblanken [at] ucdavis [dot] edu |
Nikolas Emmanuel Nikolas Emmanuel is currently a Visiting Instructor in Government at Connecticut College. He is also completing his PhD in political science at the University of California, Davis (expected December 2007). His dissertation, entitled “Conditioning Relations: Appraising the Effectiveness of Political Conditionality”, investigates to what extent can donors use foreign aid to leverage democratic reform in developing countries. Nikolas has a B.A. in political science from the University of California, San Diego and an M.Phil. in political science and African studies from the Institut d’Études Politiques and the Centre d'Études d'Afrique Noire in Bordeaux, France. His recent publications include: “Economic Aid and Peace Implementation: The African Experience”, with Donald Rothchild in Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding, (2007), "The Impact of Economic Assistance in Africa’s Peace Processes” with Donald Rothchild in Africa Contemporary Record (2006), “U.S. Intervention in Africa’s Ethnic Conflicts: The Scope for Action” with Donald Rothchild in Edmond Keller and Donald Rothchild, New Patterns of Strategic Encounter: U.S.-Africa Relations in the Era of Globalization (2006), “United States: The Process of Decision-Making on Africa” with Donald Rothchild, in Ulf Engel and Gorm Olsen, Africa and the North: Between Globalization and Marginalization (2005). |
Dissertation: “Conditioning Relations: Appraising the Effectiveness of Political Conditionality” (PhD expected December 2007) Committee: Miroslav Nincic (chair), Emily Goldman, Jack Goldstone CV |
Molly Melin My research focuses on how the international community responds to militarized conflicts. My dissertation examines variation in third party efforts to end disputes, such as the mediation in Yugoslavia that resulted in the Dayton Peace Accords. I examine differences in the occurrence, identity, and method of outside involvement across conflicts and the results of this variation on the effectiveness of management efforts within disputes. I have 4 additional projects beyond my thesis. First, I examine a third party’s choice to join a conflict as an additional disputant in a paper under review. In another manuscript under review, I examine the choice of third parties to offer to mediate a conflict. Third, I examine variation in the timing of management efforts. Finally, I examine the durability of peace agreements in a forthcoming paper. |
Dissertation: "Strategic Peacemakers: A Study of the Occurrence and Effects of Third Party Conflict Management" (PhD expected June 2008) Committee: Scott Sigmund Gartner (chair), Zeev Maoz, Josephine Andrews CV E-mail: mmmelin [at] ucdavis [dot] edu |
Jennifer Ramos International crises around the world have led to much discussion about the rights and obligations of states and the international community. In particular, military intervention has garnered heated debates between those advocating respect for state sovereignty and others who lobby for the international community to protect citizens around the world when their own government is unwilling or unable to do so. In the context of these debates, my dissertation examines state sovereignty as it intersects with several issues: global terrorism, human rights abuses and weapons of mass destruction. I employ a social psychological theory, cognitive dissonance, to develop specific expectations about how changes in understandings of sovereignty change. My research interests include International Norms; International Organizations; International Relations Theory; Human Rights; European Union Politics; Political Psychology. |
Dissertation: "How Actions Affect Ideas: Military Intervention and Conceptions of Sovereignty." (PhD expected June 2008) Committee: Miroslav Nincic (chair), Emily O. Goldman, Larry Berman CV E-mail: jmramos [at] ucdavis [dot] edu |
Belgin San Akca Belgin San Akca’s research focuses on non-state violence, its targets and sponsors. Her dissertation explores the domestic and international determinants of states’ use of non-state armed groups (NAGs) as a foreign policy instrument. She constructs a data set bringing together the main components of non-state armed groups (NAGs), their targets, and sponsors and develops a strategic interaction theory to understand the impact of target-sponsor interactions on sponsor’s assistance to a NAG. While engaging in building a data set to test the general implications of her theory, another section of her dissertation analyzes the relationship between elite fragmentation and states’ resort to NAGs using case studies. Her other research interests include external actors and their impact on democratization, authoritarian states and their responses to external threats, and democracies and political support of NAGs. |
Dissertation: "Non-state Violence, Targets, and Sponsors: Why do States Ally with Non-state Armed Groups?" (PhD expected June 2008) Committee: Miroslav Nincic (chair), Zeev Maoz, Josephine Andrews CV E-mail: bsan [at] ucdavis [dot] edu |
Methodology
Skyler CranmerSkyler Cranmer completed his Ph.D. in June of 2007. Skyler's research interests include political methodology and international relations. In methodology, Skyler has focused on missing data problems, measurement issues, the graphical presentation of statistical results and statistical computing. Skyler has several papers on new statistical methods and is developing several R packages to implement the methods suggested in his papers. Skyler's area of primary substantive interest is international conflict where he uses both formal and empirical methods to examine the dynamics of terrorism. |
Dissertation: "Essays in Political Methodology" (PhD 2007) Essay 1: "Multiple Hot Deck Imputation: A Non-Parametric Alternative to Multiple Imputation"Committee: Jeff Gill (Chair), Randolph Siverson, James Fowler CV E-mail: scranmer [at] iq [dot] harvard [dot] edu Homepage: http://people.iq.harvard.edu/~scranmer |