Publication Type: Paper (prepared oral presentation)
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: The concurrence of holding democratic political attitudes with low levels of conformity to their behavioral prescriptions is conceptualized in the present study as constituting an incongruity or discrepancy of the political-self. The general theoretical argument presented within this paper is that the failure to meet the citizen performance expectations imparted by ones own participatory political attitudes serves as a potential source of negative self-evaluation. The specific research question motivating the present study is whether attitudes toward external political objects, such as politicians, can be and are employed by citizens as a means of addressing a self-discrepancy and defending against negative self-evaluation. To assess this question empirically, the 2006 United States Citizenship, Involvement, Democracy (CID) Survey was utilized to test the hypothesis that incongruent citizens will hold more distrusting attitudes toward politicians than congruent citizens. The findings of the survey analysis were that incongruent citizens were more extreme in their level of trust toward politicians, but that the sign and significance of this effect is moderated by right-wing authoritarianism (RWA). Incongruent citizens who scored low on a measure of RWA were found to be significantly more trusting of politicians than congruent citizens while incongruent citizens scoring high on RWA were significantly less trusting of politicians than congruent citizens. The paper concludes with a discussion of “motivated attitude acquisition” as well as the plausibility of utilizing RWA as a proxy for individual differences in the tendency to engage in defensive motivated reasoning, self-justification, and blame externalization.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: In 2003, Hollywood actor Arnold Schwarzenegger successfully won his bid to become governor of California in a special election. The election and its candidates were criticized as a “media circus” and bemoaned as evidence of a general decay of American democracy. Using the pioneering work of Clifford Geertz, we offer an alternative account that normalizes the putative oddities of the California political system and the narrative of demise it evokes. This paper applies the politics-as-theatre perspective to the gubernatorial campaigns of Ronald Reagan and Arnold Schwarzenegger, which serve as illustrative cases of the much-maligned “celebrity politics.” We suggest that the performance of these two candidates mirrors the broader relationship between politics and cultural myths.

Publication Type: Paper (prepared oral presentation)
Abstract: The aim of this study was the identification of intellectual and personal affordances of successful Austrian members of parliament. For this purpose we analysed the interdisciplinary literature (philosophy, political science, psychology, sociology) and found 17 dimensions, which were postulated most relevant by various political researchers and philosophers (e.g. Plato, Weber, Machiavelli, Simonton, House, Spangler & Woycke,). A short description for each dimension was printed on a card for a q-sort-set.
Participants: 29 members (12 males, 17 females) of the Austrian parliament participated in the empirical study and sorted the 17 cards according to their impact on the political success.
Results: The affordances most relevant for successful political behaviour according to the members of parliament are: (1) Intelligence, (2) initiative, (3) invulnerability, (4) image of integrity and (5) ability to accept criticism.
Discussion: These results confirm the theory of Plato and therefore it seems that the prototypes of successful politicians have not changed since 2000 years. In a follow-up study these prototypes shall be checked on their validity.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: In this paper, we study members of the Italian parliament who were subject to investigation by the judiciary for suspected malfeasance over the eleven postwar legislatures spanning the years from 1948 to 1994. We find that charges of corruption reduce the probability that a deputy will be reelected by reducing the number of preference votes an incumbent receives. Nonetheless, most deputies are reelected during the postwar era, and there is no difference in reelection rates between those charged with corruption and those not charged.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: Although the movement for women’s voting rights in the United States has received attention from scholars across a number of disciplines, relatively few studies have focused on explaining outcomes, particularly at the state level. Much of the scholarship focuses on explaining movement activism, while the little existing work on outcomes has mostly only borrowed social movement frameworks that do not explicitly account for politicians’ incentives.In this paper I offer a theoretical framework for understanding the politics of suffrage adoption, one that focuses on the incentives of partisan politicians, and detail how the framework applies to the case of woman suffrage. Building in an account of legislative decision-making on the issue of suffrage extension reveals the ways in which suffrage coalitions, particularly alliances with third parties, structured the chances for adoption of woman suffrage in the American states.