Browsing by Author "Alford, John R"

Now showing 1 - 2 of 2
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Genetic Links among Ideology, Cognitive Style, Big Five Personality, and Executive Functions
    (2015-04-21) Ksiazkiewicz, Aleksander Jan; Alford, John R; Wilson, Rick K; Stevenson, Randolph T; Martin, Randi C; Krueger, Robert F
    This dissertation provides novel insights into the role of genes in political attitudes and behaviors by examining the role of genes in political traits over time and by uncovering two novel sets of potential mediators between genes and politics. Chapter 1 provides an exhaustive review of the biopolitics literature, lays out a theoretical framework for the study of biopolitics, and reviews twin study methodology. Chapters 2 and 3 report results from twin study analyses that rely on an original survey of twins that was conducted in the fall of 2012 in cooperation with the Minnesota Center for Twin and Family Research. Chapter 2 conducts one of the first genetically-informative panel studies of political traits. It finds that genetic factors are the primary contributors to trait stability over a four year period in mid-life, but that only environmental factors contribute to trait change over the same period. Chapter 3 conducts the first ever behavioral genetic analysis of three measures of cognitive style—the need for cognition, the need for cognitive closure, and the need to evaluate. It then shows that the correlations between cognitive style and political traits are driven, in most cases, primarily by genetic factors. This finding suggests that cognitive style variables may mediate the role of genes in politics, a possibility that is left open for future research. Chapter 4 utilizes an original online panel, collected via Amazon Mechanical Turk, to examine whether individual differences in executive functions are related to political traits. The results suggest that updating, a form of executive function, is related to several political traits. Moreover, because individual differences in executive functions are highly heritable, updating may mediate the genetic effect on politics. Chapter 5 summarizes the main contributions of this research, which include evidence of the role of genes in political trait stability in mid-life, the heritability of widely-studied cognitive style measures, and the possibility that cognitive style and executive functions mediate the role of genes in politics. The final chapter also lays out a research agenda for the biopolitics field. In short, this dissertation strongly supports integrating genes into political science theory.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Win the Battleground to Win the Battle: Essays on Punctuated Equilibrium Theory and Interest Group Venue Shopping
    (2015-03-23) McNeese, Marvin R.; Stein, Robert M; Hamm, Keith E; Schuler, Douglas A; Alford, John R; Wilson, Rick K
    Campaign finance research examines how interest groups advocate for policy using money, while punctuated equilibrium theory focuses on their informational appeals. Yet all of this activity happens in the context of the multiple political venues of the U.S. government. This dissertation asks what independent affect do political venues have relative to one another on an interest group’s policy success, and whether interest groups strategically choose venues accordingly. The dissertation argues for a more precise definition of political venue as “single, autonomous a single, autonomous, political institution imbued with sufficient legal authority to direct the coercive power of government to distinguish between actors who are determine policy enactments from those who only influence them. It theorizes that the systematic variation in legal supremacy (i.e. authority), barriers to access, and information and bargaining costs (i.e. transaction costs) arrays U.S. political venues in an hierarchical order in terms of their utility to interest groups petitioning for their preferred policy alternatives. It uses a well-received dataset of interest group lobbying activity on a random set of issues at the Federal level from 1999-2002 to find support for its prediction that interest groups are most likely to petition the next higher venue when seeking to change the status quo policy. Tests on that same dataset reveal that the shift of policymaking to a higher political venue changes the outlook for policy success most and negatively for groups defending the status quo and otherwise makes it most likely that interest groups will win all or nothing of their preferred policies. The final analysis follows the debate on hydraulic fracturing through coverage in 20 national and regional newspapers from January 2007 through June 2013 to predict that a punctuated change in policy is not likely without the various stakeholders arriving at a grand compromise later codified by policymakers. This sets the stage for later analysis examining policymaking observed during the period can be explained by which political venues produced the enactment.