2007 Conference Program - Midwest Political Science Association

Paper Anticipating or Reacting? USAID Allocation and Civil War
Onset
Ellen Cutrone, Binghamton University
Overview: Have U.S. policy makers tried to anticipate the
possibility of civil war when making their decisions about foreign
aid? This study investigates this question by examining USAID
allocations to Africa and Latin America between 1945 and 2004.
Paper Humanitarian or Political?: U.S.'s AIDS Funding to Sub
Saharan Africa
Youngsoo Kim, Purdue University
Overview: Despite its significant contribution, U.S. has been
criticized for not observing a humanitarian principle in its AIDS
funding to sub-Saharan Africa. I attempt to figure out the U.S.’s
criteria in its AIDS funding decisions through a regression
analysis.
Disc. Julie Lantrip, Georgetown University
18-4 MILITARY FORCE AND FOREIGN POLICY
Room Parlor B, 6 th Floor, Fri at 8:00 am
Chair Bradley R. Gitz, Lyon College
Paper Instructing Soldiers for Their States: U.S. and International
Military Training
Martin J. Kifer, University of Minnesota
Overview: This project explains allocation strategies for U.S.
training assistance to foreign militaries from the Cold War to the
current policy era.
Paper Casualty Avoidance and the Use of American Military Force
Bradley R. Gitz, Lyon College
Overview: The proposed paper will assess the increasingly
infuential argument that aversion to suffering casualties hampers
the use of American military force.
Paper Cross-Cultural Effects of Casualties on Foreign Policy
Decision Making
Nam Tae Park, Texas A&M University, College Station
Nehemia Geva, Texas A&M University, College Station
Overview: In this study, I will examine the different perceptions
and impacts of casualites on foreign policy decision-making in
both South Korea and the U.S. Cross-national experimental
design in South Korea and the U.S. will be employed.
Disc. Donald D.A. Schaefer, Tulane University
Martin J. Kifer, University of Minnesota
19-4 COMMITMENT, MONITORING, AND
ENFORCEMENT
Room Clark 10, 7 th Floor, Fri at 8:00 am
Chair Susan Hannah Allen, Texas Tech University
Paper Nonverifiability and the Choice of International Institutions
Brett V. Benson, Vanderbilt University
David Soskice, Duke University
Overview: Why do states resist membership in some international
organizations? We develop a framework that demonstrates the
choice of institutions for resolving international cooperation
problems depends upon the verifiability of players’ actions.
Paper Delegation of Informational Capacity to International
Organizations
Hyeran Jo, University of Michigan
Overview: I offer a model that specifies the conditions under
which states delegate different levels of informational capacity to
international institutions.
Paper Why Do States Commit to Human Rights Treaties?
International Condemnation of Norm Violations Among
Signatory States
Nikolay Marinov, Yale University
Overview: While the ineffectiveness of international human rights
treaties is widely held, a key assumption - that there are no
international costs to committing to a treaty and then violating it -
has gone untested.
Page | 136
Paper Legal Systems and Variance in the Design of Commitments to
the International Court of Justice
Emilia J. Powell, Georgia Southern University
Sara McLaughlin Mitchell, University of Iowa
Overview: This paper explores the link existing between domestic
legal systems and the design of commitments to the World Court.
Disc. Susan Hannah Allen, Texas Tech University
21-1 EMOTION AND POLICY ATTITUDES
Room Salon 12, 3 rd Floor, Fri at 8:00 am
Chair Nadia Khatib, University of Arizona
Paper Emotions’ Role on How People Reason about Political Events
and Public Policy
Cengiz Erisen, SUNY, Stony Brook
Milton Lodge, SUNY, Stony Brook
Charles S. Taber, SUNY, Stony Brook
Overview: This paper focuses on a consequentialist model of
decision making which posits that individuals make causal
inferences when forming judgments. While testing this approach,
we integrate emotion into the evaluation of anticipated
consequences.
Paper Fear Unchecked: How Democracies Curtail Civil Liberties
after Terrorist Attacks
Gabriel Rubin, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Overview: In this paper, I ask, 'What determines how the
governments react with regard to civil liberties after terrorist
attacks?' In response, I forward a theory of how executive threatshaping,
constrained by mass fears, yields civil liberty
abridgements.
Paper Emotion, Attribution, and Attitudes Towards Crime
Erin C. Cassese, Stony Brook University
Christopher R. Weber, Stony Brook University
Milt Lodge, Stony Brook University
Charles Taber, Stony Brook University
Overview: In this paper, we examine the way emotions influence
attributions for criminal behavior and attitudes toward the criminal
justice system.
Paper Fear in the Illegal Immigration Debate: Where Do Anxious
Citizens Get News?
Shana K. Gadarian, Princeton University
Bethany Albertson, University of Washington
Overview: Experimental subjects see campaign appeals about
immigration. They have a chance to search for more information
in a website that we designed. We predict that anxious citizens
will seek information but will be attracted by threatening
presentations.
Disc. Tereza Capelos, Leiden University
22-4 CONGRESSIONAL ELECTIONS (Co-sponsored with
Legislative Politics: Campaigns and Elections, see 40-
10)
Room Salon 8, 3 rd Floor, Fri at 8:00 am
Chair Thomas L. Brunell, University of Texas, Dallas
Paper Constituency Knowledge of Roll Calls and its Electoral
Consequences
Joshua D. Clinton, Princeton University
Jeff Tessin, Princeton University
Overview: We study possible mechanisms of constituency
awareness regarding representative position-taking in the House of
Representatives and their electoral consequences using a new
survey of over 13,000 respondents.
Paper Voting and Valence: Senators' Characteristics and Citizen
Vote Choice
Christian R. Grose, Vanderbilt University
Suzanne Globetti, Vanderbilt University
Overview: I show that (1) the spatial distance between legislator
and constituent and (2) a legislator's non-policy valence attributes
affect a citizen's vote choice. However, this effect is conditional
upon the voter's position along the ideological dimension.