Publication Type: Proceeding
Abstract: Between 1914 and 1932 the Bureau of Reclamation underwent a transformation from a widely criticized and discredited agency to one with a significantly improved reputation and important influence over reclamation policy. By mid-century it was one of the largest and most influential of the natural resource bureaus. Prominent theories of bureaucratic power and success in the administrative state might explain this transformation as either a function of state’s increasing capacity for pursuing reclamation policy or as a function strategic choices by bureaucratic actors designed to build alliances of supporters and improve the agency’s reputation. Alternatively, this study suggests that it was the combination of these factors that facilitated the Bureau’s rise to prominence as bureaucratic actors were able to strategically capitalize on capacity building changes in the statutory environment in order to win allies, build a positive reputation, and ultimately to influence policy. In other words, the study argues that the case of the Bureau of Reclamation offers an opportunity to see how deterministic and strategic theories can be reconciled in the study of bureaucratic power.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Print news stories about genetics convey information to the public that is relevant to their assumptions about their own genetic predispositions. The objectives of this study are to assess the effects of two types of information in news stories about genetics: deterministic and probabilistic frames and efficacy information. The context is genetic susceptibility to smoking addiction and efficacy to assist during quitting attempts. Outcomes include inference of genetic susceptibility to addiction, personal efficacy to quit, control over smoking, and intentions to quit. Subjects were 201 young adult smokers recruited in a national random-digit-dialing sample. They were surveyed on the telephone in a randomized experiment embedded in a survey about cigarette smoking practices. In the framing condition, respondents heard either deterministic or probabilistic frames for genetic influence. Crossed with these is an efficacy or no-efficacy condition. Framing and efficacy interacted in their impact on inference of genetic susceptibility such that the no efficacy condition is associated with stronger inferences in the deterministic frame. The inference of genetic susceptibility mediates personal efficacy, control over smoking which in turn are associated with the intention to quit.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: Can Cultural Determinists in the field of strategic culture provide anything useful to our understanding of the Iraq War, and what does the Iraq War say about this approach to strategic culture? The treatment of strategic culture as a deterministic variable is a common, important, and controversial approach. This study offers a new way of studying strategic culture by explaining how Cultural Determinists would apply their arguments on methodology, what constitutes strategic culture, and its effects on strategic behavior to the Iraq War. This results in two groups, with the first being Originalists who argue that socially learned ideas and behaviors among elites drives the production of strategic culture and strategic behavior. The second group are Grand Theorists who argue that culture is the basis and context for all political behavior, and thus all decisions relating to the use of force are culturally determined. This lays the foundation for further research comparing the relative explanatory power of this approach to strategic culture with others that treat strategic culture as a supplementary, independent, conditional, or instrumental variable. This approach is necessary because it serves as a palliative to the traditional approach that papers over differences within the paradigm and treats strategic culture as monolithically opposed to interest-based theories such as Waltzian neorealism. The Iraq War provides an ideal contemporary case for such a study.