2008 Conference Program - Midwest Political Science Association

Saturday, April 5-10:00 am
Saturday, April 5-10:00 am
2-10 COMPARATIVE MACROPOLITICS
Room Red Lacquer on the 4th Floor, Sat at 10:00 am
Chair Guy D. Whitten, Texas A&M University
whitten@politics.tamu.edu
Paper The U.S. Macro Polity, 1997-2008
This paper extends some of the analysis found in The Macro Polity
(Erikson et. al., 2002) to data from 1997 forward.
Robert Erikson, Columbia University
rse14@columbia.edu
Michael B. MacKuen, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
mackuen@email.unc.edu
Paper The Evolution of Public Preferences in the U.S. and Britain,
1950-2005
This paper will compare the evolution of public preferences (“the
policy mood”) in both the U.S. and Britain in the post-war period.
John Bartle, Essex University
jbartl@essex.ac.uk
Sebastian Dellepiane, Essex University
sdelle@essex.ac.uk
James A. Stimson, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
jstimson@email.unc.edu
Paper Public Preferences and Policy in Comparative Perspective
We develop a theoretical model implying differences in
representation across countries owing to differences in government
institutions.
Stuart Soroka, McGill University
stuart.soroka@mcgill.ca
Christopher Wlezien, Temple University
wlezien@temple.edu
Paper Party Policy Shifts and the Dynamics of Subconstituency
Support: Evidence from Twelve Postwar Democracies
We analyze how parties’ policy shifts influence their support
among various electoral subconstituencies (defined in terms of
sociodemographic characteristics and ideological positions) in ten
Western European democracies.
James Adams, University of California, Davis
jfadams@ucdavis.edu
Lawrence Ezrow, University of Essex
ezrow@essex.ac.uk
Zeynep Somer-Topcu, University of California, Davis
zsomer@ucdavis.edu
Disc. Guy D. Whitten, Texas A&M University
whitten@politics.tamu.edu
3-12 POLITICAL MOBILIZATION IN COMPARATIVE
CONTEXT
Room PDR 4 on the 3rd Floor, Sat at 10:00 am
Chair Elizabeth A. Stein, University of California, Los Angeles
eastein@ucla.edu
Paper Persuasion vs. Mobilization: When Do Clientelist Parties Buy
Votes or Turnout
When do clientelist parties buy votes or instead buy turnout And
to what types of voters do they target benefits The paper uses
a formal model to analyze the factors that make persuasion or
mobilization relatively attractive electoral strategies.
Thad Dunning, Yale University
thad.dunning@yale.edu
Susan Stokes, Yale University
susan.stokes@yale.edu
Paper Counting Heads and Votes: Authoritarian and Democratic
Strategies of Electoral Mobilization in Argentina
This paper examines brokers’ strategies to mobilize clients in
political rallies and primary elections in Argentina.
Mariela Szwarcberg, University of Chicago
marielas@uchicago.edu
Disc.
Marcia Grimes, Goteborg University
mfgrimes@hotmail.com
4-12 CIVIL SOCIETY'S ROLE IN DEMOCRATIC
TRANSITIONS
Room Suite 14-150 on the 14th Floor, Sat at 10:00 am
Chair Elizaveta Valerievna Zheganina, Kansas State University
lizaveta@ksu.edu
Paper Back Door Democratization Apolitical Associations in the
Middle East
This paper examines the impact of voluntary associations on
democratization in the Middle East. It analyzes the role of
professional associations and labor unions in fostering democratic
ideals and virtues in Jordan and Egypt.
Sarah E. Yerkes, Georgetown University
sey6@georgetown.edu
Paper Civil Society and Democratic Citizenship in Latin America
Using the 2005 Latinobarometer I test the contention that contextual
factors-rule of law, economic inequality, and connection to
global civil society-shape the micro-level relationship between
associational involvement and democratic citizenship.
Alix Ann van Sickle, University of California, Irvine
avansick@uci.edu
Paper Civil Society Impact on the Spanish Transition to Democracy: A
Reassessment
Reassesses the impact of political civil society organizations in
kick-starting regime change and achieving new Constitution.
Critiques elite settlement and social mobilization approaches.
Reinterprets the Spanish case, to attribute credit where due.
Monica Threlfall, Loughborough University
M.Threlfall@lboro.ac.uk
Paper Democracy, Exclusion and Informal Institutions in Nepal
The paper investigates the role of informal institutions in the
political exclusion of marginalized groups in a new democracy
Nepal during 1990-2002.
Mahendra Lawoti, Western Michigan University
mahendra.lawoti@wmich.edu
Disc. Elizaveta Valerievna Zheganina, Kansas State University
lizaveta@ksu.edu
4-19 PROTESTS AND REVOLUTIONS
Room Suite 13-150 on the 13th Floor, Sat at 10:00 am
Chair Jose A. Aleman, Fordham University
aleman@fordham.edu
Paper Elections, Revolution And Democracy in the Post-Cold War Era
We analyze the relationship between elections, protest and sudden
liberalization in a cross-national sample of non-democracies in the
post-Cold War period.
Grigore Pop-Eleches, Princeton University
gpop@princeton.edu
Graeme B. Robertson, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
graeme@email.unc.edu
Paper The Role of West German Media in the Fall of the Berlin Wall
We make use of a unique natural experiment in communist East
Germany to analyze the role of Western media in coordinating
protest behavior in authoritarian regimes.
Holger Lutz Kern, Dartmouth College
holger.kern@dartmouth.edu
Paper Migration, Participation and Taxation in Rural China
When do people in authoritarian countries like China take political
action against the state I present a game-theoretic model in which
I extend Hirschman's EXIT, VOICE, AND LOYALTY argument to
examine the state-society relationship in rural China.
Hiroki Takeuchi, Stanford University
hirokit1@stanford.edu
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