Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: This study uses survey research to investigate predictor variables of sexual misconduct. Specifically, the purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between sexual permissiveness and rape myth acceptance, and the effects of other variables such as gender and religiosity on this relationship. The variables sexual permissiveness, rape myth acceptance, and religiosity were all operationalized by indexes. Bivariate analyses yield direct, significant relationships between the Sexual Permissiveness Index and both the Rape Myth Acceptance Index and the Religiosity Index. The bivariate relationship between the Religiosity Index and the RMA Index, on the other hand, is not significant. Multivariate regression shows that sexual permissiveness was a suppressor variable, concealing the relationship between the Religiosity Index and the Rape Myth Acceptance Index. Gender explains away the relationship between the SP Index and the RMA Index. In controlling for both gender and religiosity, the original relationship between sexual permissiveness and rape myth acceptance is still explained away, yet there is a difference between genders on the significance of religiosity in this model.

Supporting Publications:
Supporting Document

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: Throughout the European Union, public opinion in member states shifted against integration following the signing of the Maastricht Treaty. While political elites maintained positive views on the European Union and the direction in which it was headed, pu

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Existing research on compliance with international human rights agreements examines enforcement mechanisms on the international level. In this paper, however, I seek to explain if the domestic institutions that enforce international law--independent judiciaries, legislative checks on the executive, and electoral concerns--influence states' decisions to become party to international human rights treaties. Combining theories of compliance, human rights and domestic politics of IR, I generate three hypotheses about the relationship between states' membership in international human rights treaties and domestic enforcement. A times series cross-sectional analysis of seven core UN human rights agreements shows that domestic enforcement mechanisms of international law do matter but not in an unambiguous or expected way. Robust legislative constraints on the executive consistently encourage executives to sign human rights agreements, while independent judiciaries and electoral concerns have a deterrent effect, but only for certain issue areas.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Representative democracy requires active tracking of politicians and parties, but most people lack the necessary sophistication (or interest and time for that matter) to do this with regularity. This paper asks whether institutions can make a difference in ameliorating this apparent deficit. Recent research suggests that in larger party systems, citizens are better able to track parties in ideological space, in part, because there is added incentive there to gather more political information. This, however, may be only one part of the story. Given that partisans often tend to be biased in their placement of parties on the left-right scale, I ask whether left-right crowding in larger party systems may also increase spatial accuracy by limiting partisan error. Using data from 17 advanced democracies compiled by the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems, I find stronger support for this hypothesis. The apparent greater spatial accuracy of citizens in larger party systems seems to have less to do with added incentive for information gathering and more to do with a crowded party space, where alternative parties to the left or right of the major competitors adds perspective.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Studies on the European Union’s legitimacy generally ask what it would take for it to be (more) legitimate. This article in contrast provides a study of how competing ideas on the European construction and its legitimacy emerged, evolved, interacted, and became accepted as valid. It does so for the time usually described as the period of ‘permissive consensus’, exploring this supposed agreement’s discursive foundations as well as their early contesta-tions.