Publication Type: Poster
Abstract: This study attempts to fill a gap in the literature on the relationship of the traditional police sub-culture to domestic violence within police families. Using authoritarianism and isolationism as predictors of traditional police sub-culture this study will attempt to answer two research questions:
Are officers who subscribe to the traditional police sub-culture more likely to engage
in domestic violence and,
Does the likelihood of engaging in domestic violence vary by gender?
The data for this study came from Gershon’s (2000) study on police stress and domestic violence in police families in Baltimore. Approximately 1100 sworn law enforcement officers were surveyed from 1997-1999. Individual estimates revealed that gender, race, “feel uncaring about the public”, and “feel like I need to control people” were significant predictors of hitting one’s spouse.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: In 2000 the National Annenberg Election Survey conducted an opinion poll of 58,373 randomly selected Americans, making it the largest study ever conducted of opinions on government and politics. The size of the sample enables conclusions to be drawn with some confidence about population groups too small to be captured in traditional cross sectional studies. This study examined the political attitudes and activities of Native Americans, Asians, and Sub-groups of Hispanics. Results indicate that while Native Americans are less likely to register to vote than non-Native Americans they are as likely as other groups to say they follow government and public affairs. Asian Americans, even when controlling for citizenship and voter registration, are less likely to vote than other Americans. We also found that there is a wide diversity of opinions among sub-cultures within the category “Hispanic.” Those from Puerto Rico, Mexico, Central America, and Cuba often had different attitudes and demonstrated differing levels of political engagement.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: In tying together general issues of subnational comparative analysis and the study of specific empirical phenomena in China, this paper examines: 1) which aspects of subnational comparative analysis used elsewhere can usefully inform the study of Chinese politics in general; 2) how one particular form of subnational comparison can help us understand the unfolding dynamics of Chinese state sector lay-offs; and 3) how this form of subnational comparative analysis might usefully be extended back into other areas of the wider field of comparative politics in a way that refines and sharpens the practice of subnational comparison elsewhere.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: Scholarship in both comparative politics and communication has increasingly focused on exploring the national contexts in which political communication occurs, linking micro and macro levels of analysis (see for example Gunther and Mughan, 2000; Hallin and Mancini, 2004). This explication of how political, media, and socioeconomic systems jointly shape information sources and communication processes is key to understanding how such sources and processes in turn mobilize individuals and influence political attitudes. Unfortunately, most previous models of political communication have focused on advanced industrial democracies rather than developing democracies. The “third wave” of democratization expanded the scope of the research slightly to include Eastern Europe and Asia, but rarely to Africa or Latin America. Since the early 1990s, political and media systems within Sub-Saharan Africa have been in a state of ongoing evolution and transition. However, few attempts have been made to systematically and quantifiable explicate the characteristics of and relationships between these evolving systems in order to develop useful comparative models of political communication within a Sub-Saharan context.

This paper endeavors to outline an initial methodology and framework for developing models of political communication combined with types of mass media infrastructure within Sub-Saharan Africa. Previous efforts to build integrated models of political communication in other areas have exhibited two main weaknesses. The first is that models of media and politics developed in 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s were normatively driven and applied universally without due regard for regional, cultural, and national variances. A second weakness of previous theoretical modeling has been a general disconnect between abstract model characteristics and quantifiable or measurable indicators of relationships or dimensions within the model. This disconnection has inhibited the development and empirical testing of hypothetical relationships at the macro level of analysis or explicating macro-micro level linkages.

Recognizing these weaknesses, we base our examination of political communication systems within Sub-Saharan Africa on quantifiable measures of political regime and state characteristics, media systems, and socio-economic conditions. The goal of our model development is to create a set of useful heuristic tools for categorizing, describing, and theorizing about the evolving state of political communication within the region, rather than reifying specific models of Sub-Saharan African political communication. The models and data presented in this paper are useful for developing and testing hypotheses regarding macro-micro relationships and linkages in the areas of political behavior and opinion formation, or testing macro level relationships between political, media, state, and socio-economic arenas.

We start by briefly reviewing some key historical and contemporary trends in African media and communication systems relevant to our model development. Turning directly to our model development, we then examine the range and characteristics of political regimes that have emerged within the region since the wave of political liberalization that occurred in the early 1990s. We integrate our typology of political systems with a typology of media systems based on upon political, legal, and economic press freedom to formulate categories of political communication systems within the region that characterize both the political role of the mass media and influences on message creation and content. Next, we then turn to an examination of mass media infrastructure across the region in order explicate an understanding of the different means by which media messages are distributed and received within our models of political communication. Furthermore, we also examine the socio-economic correlates of both political communication systems and media infrastructure. Lastly, we develop some directions for further model development and research, as well as some initial hypotheses for testing macro-micro linkages with our models of political communication.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: The conventional discourse relating climate change to conflict focuses on long-term trends in temperature and precipitation that define ecosystems and their subsequent impact on access to renewable natural resources. Because these changes occur over long time periods, existing operationalizations of resource scarcity, such as measures of land degradation and desertification, are mostly stationary and perform poorly in capturing the proximate factors that may "trigger" conflict. We argue that this conventional discourse overlooks one of the key findings emanating from the global climate models on which these predictions are based: increased variance around mean temperatures and precipitation. We approach this question from two perspectives. First, we estimate the impact of both long-term trends in climate (operationalized as climate zones and land degradation) and short-term climatic variance (operationalized as change in annual rainfall) on civil conflict onset in Sub-Saharan Africa. We find that both operationalizations have a significant impact on conflict onset. More temperate, fertile climates are associated with a decreased likelihood of conflict. Moreover, negative changes in rainfall are associated with an increased likelihood of conflict in the following year. Second, we assess the outlook for the future based on our analysis of predicted changes in precipitation means and variance over the period 1980-2059. We find that total annual precipitation shows a positive linear trend, whereas no statistically significant trend is found in intra-annual or interannual variance, suggesting that monsoon patterns in Africa are unlikely to be affected by expected changes in climate. We conclude that strategies for avoiding conflict must focus on breaking the direct dependence of subsistence agriculturalists on rainfall as a source of crop water, even as the variability of access to this resource is not predicted to increase in the future.