Schar School of Policy and Government

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This collection contains ETD documents from the School of Policy, Government, and International Affairs.

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Sovereign Citizens: What One Extremist Group Can Teach Us About Democratic States and Sovereignty
(2023) Biery, Piper Blotter; Miller, Char R
In this research I employ an ethnographic approach to better understand the Sovereign Citizens Movement (SCM), which is an extremist group that originated in the United States. The SCM is founded on conspiracy theories that claim the US is a corporation, and that citizens can reclaim their sovereignty from the corporation, making them exempt from government regulations. I address two questions: first, why are people attracted to the SCM? and second what are the implications for modern liberal states when citizens reject the sovereignty of the state? I found that people join the SCM because it provides pseudo-legal strategies—strategies they believe to be legitimate, but that are not recognized by the US government—to help them flee the state authority. I then argue that SCM exists because of tensions in the social contract that modern liberal states are founded on—as such, resolving these problems involves reconsidering the social contract and highlights the importance of reimagining the future of sovereignty.
Deal or No Deal: Explaining Congressional Restrictions on Arms Transfers
(2023) Cohen, Jordan; Hunzeker, Michael A.
Congress rarely legislates against the president’s ability to sell weapons as a tool of foreign policy. As a result, scholars have paid inadequate attention to under what conditions Congress finds it valuable to legislate against the president’s ability to weapons sales as a tool of foreign policy and why they even try. This dissertation proposes Congressional Arms Restraint Theory and argues that members of Congress are most likely to restrict the president’s ability to use arms transfers as a tool of foreign policy when an arms sales scandal makes weapons transfers salient, Congress sees electoral benefits to legislating, and there is divided government.
IDENTITY FRAMING: HOW INDIAN POLICY-MAKER IDENTITY AFFECTS THREAT PERCEPTION
(2023) Shearn, Benjamin; Rhodes, Edward
Social identity theory suggests that policy makers will perceive countries more similar to their own as less threatening, regardless of any power asymmetries. Furthermore, threat construction theory suggests that powerful countries will be less threatening when they are more similar. Using word embeddings, cosine similarity, and elastic net regression, I derived perceived similarity and threat perception scores from Indian foreign policy documents and speeches from 1948 to 2019. Based on regression analysis of these perception scores, I find that similar countries are actually more threatening to Indian policy makers, but increased similarity does reduce India’s threat perception of powerful countries.
Islam and Statecraft: Religious Soft Power in the Contemporary Middle East
(2023) Hoffman, Jonathan Alexander; Mandaville, Peter
This study seeks to flip the causal script by examining the ways in which political considerations impact how religion is marshaled as a tool of foreign policy. Instead of religion influencing political outcomes, this analysis examines how politics influences religious outcomes. Constructed herein is a formal framework for the notion of “religious soft power” capable of examining the varying ways in which states couple religion with their broader foreign policy conduct. This framework is applied to the Middle East and examines the period following the Arab Uprisings in order to demonstrate how specific religious narratives, identities, histories, and ideologies are constructed by political elites for the advancement of what are inherently political objectives, namely the imperatives of regime preservation and power projection.
Persistent Criminalization as a Protracted Crisis: Stigma and Rational Choice within the Sex Workers’ Rights Community
(2023) Dalesandry, Malia; Schintler, Laurie
The criminalization of sex work is a crisis. This research chronicles the trajectory of criminalization by considering incentives, presents themes identified in the literature to establish the crisis, contributes new data consisting of firsthand accounts of experiencing the crisis, and situates the sex workers’ rights movement’s dual goals of decriminalization and destigmatization within rational choice theory. Using methods from the natural disaster literature and reflexive thematic analysis, it employs semi-structured, open-ended interviews with a dozen current and former full-service sex workers. It concludes that the best way to reduce the negative conditions that sex workers experience is to decriminalize sex work.
SOOTHING AND BAFFLING EXPEDIENTS: THE U.S. PRACTICE OF COERCIVE DIPLOMACY, 1990-2020
(2023) Outzen, Richard H; Mandaville, Peter
This dissertation examines the U.S. practice of Coercive Diplomacy (CD) from 1990-2020 with three primary goals in mind: to provide an empirical description of U.S. CD in a manner that integrates different coercive tools, to examine policy outcomes in light of variables derived from previous work on CD and on communications theory, and to examine the causes of success and failure in CD. The study employs a mixed methods approach, including statistical analysis, case studies, and expert interviews. A total of 122 major coercive episodes were identified and analyzed, and a number of trends in coercive performance and outcome emerged. The study offers a number of insights useful to practitioners and analysts of U.S. foreign policy in the developing era of Great Power Competition.
Sovereignty, Legitimacy, and the Bomb: A Framework for Explaining North Korea’s Nuclear Decisions and Strategies
(2023) Hutchinson , George; Rhodes, Edward
North Korea has come to be a de facto nuclear weapons state. Kim Jong Un continues to build and add to an increasingly formidable triad of air, land, and sea-based nuclear weaponry, the use of which is governed by a new doctrine of preemption and backed by Kim’s open declaration to never denuclearize. The attainment of Kim’s “treasured sword” caps a many-decades journey through which North Korea weathered mostly U.S.-led efforts initially meant to prevent, and then later, to dismantle its atomic weapons program. The limits to U.S. coercion vis-à-vis North Korea are generally well understood. Wanting to avoid the calamitous destruction of war on the Korean Peninsula, the U.S. has been unable to fully back coercive diplomacy with military force and no combination of carrots or sticks has been capable of inducing North Korean denuclearization. There is much less consensus, however, regarding the Kim dynasty’s nuclear motivations and the factors that have shaped them. While there is widespread scholarly agreement on defensive rationale, namely “regime survival” and “deterrence,” to explain North Korea’s nuclear motivations, many are reluctant to push beyond this. This dissertation posits that the defensive explanation is incomplete at best, and perilous at worst for South Korea. While the co-existence of two separate, sovereign Koreas has settled into normative acceptance within the current international system, the question over Korean legitimacy remains caught in a state-on-state rivalry where questions over survival and security remain trapped in a powder keg—the “Korea question” remains unresolved. Thus, to capture the full range of motivations, this dissertation looks through a Realist lens to address the particularities of North Korea’s pursuit of nuclear weapons. A novel conceptual framework is employed in a single case study to longitudinally trace major nuclear decisions and identify strategies used to advance North Korea’s nuclear program. Several hypotheses derived from the theoretical assumptions of Offensive Realism are tested against the causal chains developed in the case study. Results suggest that nuclear weapons do help to ensure the survival of the Kim regime through the security provided in the form of deterrence. However, North Korea’s layered deterrence—directed at the U.S. mainland, the region, and South Korea—not only shields it from attacks, but also provides the freedom to escalate or de-escalate and probe below the threshold of armed conflict. Nuclear weapons also give North Korea—a country that has struggled with legitimacy as a “rogue” in the current international system—de facto “nuclear state” status, optimizing its power within the region and arming it with the potential, should regional political, military, and economic conditions within the changing international system turn in its favor, to compel South Korea and allow it to gain total sovereign control as the hegemon of the Korean Peninsula—a very real possibility should the U.S. lose its footing in Northeast Asia. This would practically guarantee survival of the Kim regime. Based on the findings in this dissertation, the following recommendations are offered for policymakers, strategists, and other practitioners in the fields of foreign policy, defense policy, and nuclear proliferation to consider for incorporation or further study: (1) Recognize and appreciate the limitations of U.S. coercive policy; (2) avoid U.S.-DPRK “arms control talks”; (3) understand and appreciate North Korea’s true negotiating objectives; (4) thoroughly grasp North Korea’s increasingly offensive motives; and (5) study the possibility of supporting South Korean nuclear parity.
The Short-Term and Long-Term Effects of Passenger Hub Airport Abandonment by Legacy US Carriers
(2023) McCormick, Michael Joseph; Gifford, Jonathan L
Since the United States' 1978 Airline Deregulation Act, the legacy commercial air transport industry followed two significant and interdependent trends: a shift to hub-and-spoke network operations and air carrier consolidation. However, as airlines merge operations through consolidation, they rationalize routes, aircraft fleet and facilities to maximize efficiency and reduce costs. This includes abandoning redundant hub airports.Research on airlines and airports demonstrate the overall positive impact of aviation deregulation including reduced airfares and greater accessibility. As a result, United States national policy makers review airline consolidation proposals through the lens of competition and market concentration. Available literature regarding the impact of hub abandonment through consolidation is very limited. This dissertation addresses that gap in the literature.
Out of the Shadows: EU Security Strategies and the Emergence of Intelligence Sharing
(2022) Hartman, Anna; Dinan, Desmond
Security coordination and intelligence sharing among European Union (EU) Member States have evolved organically, albeit sometimes haphazardly, since the early 2000s. This dissertation aims to offer accounts and explanations for the emergence of security coordination as an EU policy field, and in so doing illuminate the various actors and activities surrounding the adoption of two key strategies: the 2003 European Security Strategy and 2016 Global Strategy. Content analysis as well as subject matter expert interviews indicate that coordination is increasingly intergovernmental, nevertheless, supranational institutions and their leaders play an integral role in cultivating an environment for coordination.
The Securitization of United States Foreign Assistance
(2022) Parker, Emma E; Pfiffner, James P
A body of existing research argues that, following 9/11, U.S. national security priorities and the Department of Defense (DoD) began to have an expanded role in directing foreign assistance. This dissertation identifies policy changes that have indeed deepened national security considerations in foreign assistance giving and increased DoD’s authority to administer assistance to countries without ongoing U.S. military operations. However, examining data on DoD foreign assistance spending to countries without active military engagement reveals only a slight increase in select humanitarian-focused foreign assistance. Overall DoD foreign assistance spending has generally remained below civilian foreign assistance giving-agencies. Further, a review of foreign assistance spending to countries without active U.S. military engagement indicates that national security priorities have been a consistent driver of assistance allocation since WWII. Through subject matter expert interviews, this research finds that DoD’s resources in manpower, logistics, and funding have likely contributed to the role of DoD in foreign assistance and security priorities in directing foreign assistance.
Leading Others to Join: Influencing Nonprofit Sector Policy through Moral and Fact-based Messages
(2024) Grayson, Allison; Abramson, Alan
Although the nonprofit sector serves as the cornerstone of American democracy, sector advocates often struggle to successfully influence public policy. Political psychology literature finds people make most of their political decisions based on their emotions and values, but nonprofits often highlight only facts in advocacy messages. This research examines the how moral and fact-based messages influence public support for nonprofit sector-wide issues. Findings show moral messages are more persuasive than fact-based messages, but the extent to which the values match those of the target audience influence the outcome. Unique contribution of research is application of theory to unfamiliar, nonpartisan policy issues and impact of different message designs on outcomes.
The Long-Run Effects of a Colonial Institution on Development and Political Economic Preferences: Evidence from Indonesia
(2024) Anggara, Lutfi; Root, Hilton L.
Taking advantage of a within-country variation that occurred in Indonesia during the country’s colonization by the Dutch, namely the development of a post road in Java in the early 19th century, this dissertation analyzes whether people who live nearer to the post road tend to have a higher level of economic development and stronger preferences for democracy and market economy compared to people who live in farther away areas. This dissertation finds that cities/regencies that are located closer to the post road tend to have higher development levels, but the people who live there do not show stronger preference for democracy although they do show a significantly stronger preference for market economy compared to people who live farther away from the road. The post road’s original purposes of improving Java’s transportation and communication networks for the Dutch military plausibly initiated the growths of trading and urbanization which eventually led to the increased welfare of societies near the road which then gradually spread into communities farther away. Having more opportunities of benefiting economically from the road may be the reason that people in areas nearer to the post road tend to show more acceptance toward market economy values. This dissertation also finds that regardless of their proximities to the road, democracy is highly preferred by majority of people across Java. However, further inspection shows that the people also generally have high preference for traditionalism values which are used as proxies for a feudalistic culture and generally are incompatible with democracy. This may be a reason to suspect that democracy in Indonesia is still vulnerable. This dissertation calls for more thorough investigations toward the role of enduring cultural traits and their effects on a society’s political economic preferences and suggests some follow-up research ideas building on its findings and elaborations.
Microeconomic Studies of Economic Development in Vietnam
(2024) Nguyen, Dinh; Earle, John S.
This dissertation presents three microeconomic studies on economic development in Vietnam. The first essay, How does business regulation affect firms? Evidence from Vietnam, examines the impacts of business regulations on the entry rate, size, labor productivity for entrant firms, and size, labor productivity and profit for incumbent firms. I leverage a large-scale business deregulation policy in Vietnam, which initiated in October 2017 and varied across industries in the manufacturing and service sectors. I use the Vietnam Enterprise Census from 2011 to 2020 and the Difference-in-differences and the Event-study approaches to examine the average and dynamic effects of the reform on the interested outcomes. The findings reveal that business deregulation facilitates the entry of firms; entrant firms are smaller in terms of size and labor productivity. These findings are consistent with the prediction of theories of firm dynamics. Importantly, the regulatory reform proves instrumental in fostering job creation. Furthermore, the reform also benefits incumbent firms. Following the reform, incumbent firms show higher performances in terms of size, revenue and productivity. In the second essay, I (jointly with Anh Pham) examine how a drastic change in the tax rate in 2013–2014 at the industry and regional levels affects household businesses in Vietnam, which are small businesses. First, we note that the average compliance rate is about 11 to 25 percent. Specifically, a one percentage point increase in statutory tax rates is associated with an average increase of 0.11 to 0.25 percentage points in effective tax rates. Second, at the industry-regional level, a one percentage point increase in the tax rate is associated with a decrease of approximately 31 in the number of unregistered firms. This effect is not symmetric: a decrease in tax rate increases the number of unregistered firms, while there is no evidence for the opposite effect. Conversely, we do not observe effects on the number of registered firms. Third, at the individual firm level, surprisingly, we observe an increase in firm revenue as the result of a tax increase. We also note a negative effect of tax changes on whether businesses have paid workers but this impact is negligible in the linear impact evaluation. However, there is no evidence of changes in employment, fixed assets or reported tax liabilities. The impact on business registration depends on the specifications. In the third essay, The impacts of ride-hailing platforms on platform drivers: Evidence from Vietnam, we, along with Duong Le, Daisuke Fukuzawa, Hieu Nguyen examine the effects of ride-hailing platforms on income, work hours and hourly wage of platform drivers in Lam Dong and Quang Ninh provinces in Vietnam. Using data from the Labor Force Survey spanning 2015 to 2019, we use difference-in-differences approach to estimate the intent-to-treat effect of ride-hailing platforms. We find that the income and work hours of platform drivers experience an approximate increase of 10 and 5 percentage points, respectively, following the introduction of ride-hailing platforms. However, we do not observe any impacts on hourly wage of platform drivers due to ride-hailing platforms.
CMS Pay for Performance Programs and Associated Hospital Characteristics
(2024) Baxter, Patrick; Koizumi, Naoru
The three largest Pay for Performance (P4P) Center for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) programs - the Hospital Value-Based Purchasing Program (HVBP), Hospital-Acquired Condition Reduction Program (HACRP), and Hospital Readmission Reduction Program (HRRP) - have collectively improved patient care and safety. However, all three programs have also been criticized for disproportionately penalizing certain kinds of hospitals. Evidence suggests large, teaching hospitals serving poorer populations are more likely to incur fines compared to other program participating hospitals. Few studies have looked at multi-policy penalization patterns amongst subjected hospitals. No studies have yet accounted for non-CMS patients while studying these programs, nor controlled for the presence of a transplant center within a given hospital. This study directly fills these literature gaps primarily in two ways. First, P4P program correlations estimate how these three programs interact with one another. Second, a series of regressions estimate what hospital characteristics associate to each P4P program penalization, which include novel introductions of non-CMS patients and transplant centers. The analysis utilizes 2016 data from New York hospitals, sourced from the CMS, American Hospital Association (AHA), and Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project State Inpatient Databases (HCUP-SID). In total, 144 of the 172 New York hospitals included in this study participate in at least one P4P program. Spearman correlations confirm speculation of significant penalization overlaps between the HVBP, HACRP, and HRRP programs. Regression analysis reveal hospitals admitting more minority patients or housing a transplant center are less likely to enroll in any of the three programs. A higher volume of African American patients significantly correlates with worse HACRP and HRRP outcomes. More Hispanic and Asian or Pacific Islander patients also associate with higher HRRP excess readmission rates. Teaching hospitals significantly score worse in the HVBP, HACRP, and HRRP programs. Transplant centers are more likely to report reduced/expected readmissions rates once participating in the HRRP. These findings indicate that while improvements to the policies' evaluation methodologies are necessary, additional research is paramount to precisely determine the required changes.
Reading into the Rise of China
(2024) Seng-White, Erica Lauren; Wan, Ming
Collective and individual reactions to the rise of China vary across nation-states within East and Southeast Asia. While political scientists have investigated changes in China’s relative power from many distinct levels of analysis and theoretical perspectives, they have focused less on its impact on public sentiments. The complexity of public sentiment formation becomes more apparent when exploring different sentiment trends in Japan, Vietnam, the Philippines, and Malaysia. These distinct national publics espouse various levels of trepidation towards China, despite facing similar challenges and opportunities from the increasingly powerful People’s Republic of China (PRC). While I do not dispute the fact that there are many causal forces shaping public sentiments, I contend that national media sentiment framing China is a necessary force in understanding its formation and evolution. I perform multiple tests using national corpuses of online newspaper articles and public opinion polls to explore the relationship between media sentiments and public sentiments. Drawing from the unique insights of Social Identity Theory (SIT), Self-Categorization Theory (SCT), and Media Effects, I model the role of nationalism, the cohesion of the nation-state, and the relevance of history in the formation of public perceptions towards China. I find media sentiments to be reliable predictors of public sentiment towards China, both collectively and individually.
FROM ‘HYBRID’ TOWARDS ‘FULL’ AUTHORITARIANISM? REGIME TRANSITIONS IN TURKEY AFTER 2011
(2024) Tanca, Dersu Ekim; McGlinchey, Eric M.
With the erosion of liberal principles especially after the third electoral victory of AKP in 2011, Turkey evolved into a competitive authoritarian regime during the snap elections in 2015. After the failed coup attempt in 2016, AKP further intensified the regime’s evolution toward authoritarianism with the imposition of a two-year-long state of emergency and the establishment of an executive presidential system. This dissertation examines political polarization, international conditions, and the rise of personalism to understand the factors that resulted in Turkey’s shift to an authoritarian regime to better comprehend the sources of authoritarian stability and resilience.
DELEGATE OR ABDICATE: HOW PUBLIC OPINION INFLUENCES CONGRESSIONAL AND EXECUTIVE BEHAVIOR
(2023) Smith, Jason Scott; Victor, Jennifer N.
When referring policy to the executive branch, how does the US Congress determine whether to delegate or abdicate policymaking authority? This research investigates the important role of public attitudes over policy in congressional decisions to abdicate or delegate to the executive branch in the modern legislative era, 1973 - 2020. I operationalize congressional delegation or abdication by measuring oversight activity and developing a ratio of proactive to passive activities across 21 policy areas. My theory posits that congressional interactions with the executive are dependent on public attitudes over the most important problems in the country. I expect congressional action to depend on levels of public attitudes over policy, and for Congress to empower the executive to take unitary action in policy areas where Congress abdicates. The research uses the Comparative Agendas Project, Government Accountability Office, and Federal Register data to determine congressional and executive activity by policy area. I establish a baseline of congressional and executive activity to discern fluctuations in attention across policy topics, and this baseline is utilized to identify instances of delegation or abdication. The research employs a panel data statistical approach to test expectations, evaluating the relationship between the public's valuation of a policy topic and congressional decisions to delegate or abdicate. The results support that there is a significant relationship between public attitudes and congressional decisions to delegate or abdicate. Furthermore, the results indicate that Congress has increasingly abdicated to the executive over the past two decades.
What Creates A Village?-- The Socio-Economic Factors Supporting“The Village Movement.”
(2023) Chiu, Yi-ting; Goldstone, Jack A
As the aging population grows, “aging in place” is crucial since most people would not choose to move somewhere else when getting old. Using mixed methods, this research is the first in-depth study that explores the socioeconomic factors contributing to the emergence and growth of the “Villages” in the US. “Village” is a type of community organization that has become a promising model for aging in place in the last two decades. It is found that Villages are the product of older residents in their communities taking the initiative, reestablishing the community social networks that have been lost during the process of urbanization and modernization, and then helping to address the challenges brought by the increasing older population and decreasing local social networks. The uniqueness of Villages is to establish community social networks and provide social participation opportunities, helping older people satisfy the higher levels of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. Some local factors could encourage the Village establishment: higher human capital and income of the residents, governmental activism, and other Villages existing in nearby areas. A certain level of social connection could help the formation of Villages; yet, very strong bonding ties would make residents have little incentives to establish Villages. The flexibility of Villages as well as their ability to work with other organizations are the key for Villages to become sustainable.
THE IMPACT OF ADDRESSING SOCIAL DETERMINANTS ON HEALTH OUTCOMES AMONG MEDICAID PATIENTS
(2023) Johnson, Jr., Maurice C.; Listokin, Siona
The United States spends significantly more per person on healthcare than most other countries in the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), yet has some of the worst health outcomes. A leading reason for the inefficiency in US healthcare spending is that it concentrates its resources on treating clinical conditions that could have been prevented rather than addressing upstream factors that impact population health. Research has shown that social determinants of health have a substantial role in the health outcomes of individuals. To explore the impact of policies encouraging health systems to address social determinants, this study analyzed the impact of a Medicaid 1115 waiver, the Delivery System Reform Incentive Payment (DSRIP) program. The study used a quasi-experimental design, applying difference in difference and comparative interrupted time series regressions to assess whether the program improved all-cause readmission rates and preventable emergency department visit (PEV) rates. The study findings indicated that after accounting for temporal trends in outcomes between participating and non-participating hospitals, the DSRIP program did not impact readmission or PEV rates. This study underscores the importance of accounting for a control group when evaluating public policies. The study was also unable to confirm that investments in initiatives addressing social determinants of health will lead to better outcomes when compared to health delivery models that solely address clinical care. Further research is needed to directly associate social determinant interventions to health outcomes to ascertain whether such interventions will improve population health.
Examining Structural Disparities in Domestic and International Counterterrorism Policy in the US and Their Consequences
(2023) Campbell, Kristy; Gest, Justin
Prior to the January 6, 2021 storming of the US Capitol, most of the literature and public discourse surrounding the terrorist threat within the United States was almost exclusively focused on Salafi jihadist extremism, while largely ignoring the resurgence of other forms of domestic extremism perpetrated by violent antigovernment and hate-oriented individuals and groups. This dissertation research takes a historical institutionalist approach to understand this disparity using process tracing and qualitative interviews with former US government personnel to examine how key counterterrorism policy decisions were made from World War I to the September 11, 2001 attacks and how these policies were subsequently implemented through investigations and prosecutions of terrorist groups and individuals across the ideological spectrum. While there are legal and structural limitations to investigating and prosecuting domestic terrorism primarily due to fears of government overreach against US citizens similar to what occurred during the J. Edgar Hoover era of FBI leadership, qualitative interview findings also suggest that the US government essentially “dropped the ball” on the domestic terrorism threat after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Due to the gravity and concern of the threat posed by international terrorism in the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks this strategy made sense in the short term, but eventually, the emphasis should have shifted back to combating the domestic terrorism threat, however, it did not. Reasons for this are largely due to legal and structural limitations, but also because personnel working against the Salafi jihadist threat found it easier to be taken seriously and advance in their careers when investigating and prosecuting the “other;” which culminated in the Trump Administration’s outright refusal to respond to missed opportunities to counter the rising domestic terror threat. Opportunities exist to better counter the domestic terrorism threat legally and at the agency level but are unlikely to be implemented because of the current political climate and Congress’s inability to take meaningful action.

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