Placement Candidates

Primary Field: International Relations

To what extent does it matter for the United States if the world loves or hates America?  Although scholars have begun to address the sources of anti-Americanism, a lacuna exists in understanding its consequences, which my dissertation addresses.  Using data from the Pew Global Attitudes Project and an original data set collected from the National Archives, I examine the relationship between cross-national variation in favorable opinion toward the U.S. and: (1) voting alignment with the U.S. within the United Nations General Assembly from 1985 to 2007; (2) global consumption of iconic U.S. brand-name products, in addition to cross-national purchases of U.S. securities from 1995 to 2007; and (3) political, financial, and troop support for the 2003 U.S.-led war in Iraq. The results of this study not only contribute to an ongoing debate between realists and liberals regarding the extent to which public opinion is a useful predictor a given state's foreign policy, but also provide substantial policy implications for the U.S. national interest.

I am also interested in U.S.-North Korea relations, nuclear weapons nonproliferation issues, the U.S.-EU Transatlantic gap, and the sources and consequences of human trafficking.

Dissertation: The Macro Politics of Anti-Americanism: Consequences for the U.S. National Interest.

Dissertation Committee Composition
Miroslav Nincic (Chair), Larry Berman, Emily Goldman, Giacomo Chiozza

CV
Web Site
E-mail: mndatta [at] ucdavis [dot] edu

Primary Field: American Politics

My dissertation explores the unique effect a vibrant campaign context has on citizens in democratic politics. Specifically, I am interested in examining how campaigns and social networks alter individual attitudes and, in turn, subsequent political behavior. I seek to extend insights and measurement from psychology to large-sample survey data to help students of political behavior better understand the cognitive changes that underlie campaign effects. Ultimately, my dissertation research seeks to understand the way the campaign context changes the way people think about politics.

Dissertation:“Information, Communication and Political Learning”

Dissertation Committee Composition
Robert Huckfeldt (Chair), Walter Stone, and Benjamin Highton
PhD. expected in June 2009

CV
E-mail: rdpeterson [at] ucdavis [dot] edu

Primary Field: American Politics

John B. Ryan’s research and teaching interests focus on political behavior – specifically, voting, elections, public opinion, poilitical communications and, the effects of context on political behavior – and quantitative research methods. His dissertation examines the factors that promote and inhibit the learning of factual political information through social communication. This dissertation is centered on three questions about how individuals use political discussion to make decisions. First, how do individuals evaluate which of their discussion partners are credible sources? Second, to what extent do individuals learn factual information from their discussion partners? Third, do uninformed individuals with expert discussion partners vote the same way that informed individuals vote? To answer these questions, John uses a national survey, a survey with a snowball sample and a small group experiment. John has earned a National Science Foundation Dissertation Improvement Grant and the American Political Science Association’s Political Communication section awarded him their best paper award, an honor he shared with his co-authors T.K. Ahn and Robert Huckfeldt.

Dissertation:“Information, Communication and Political Learning”

Dissertation Committee Composition
Robert Huckfeldt (Chair), Benjamin Highton, Walter Stone, Mark Lubell (Department of Environmental Science and Policy)
PhD. expected in June 2009.

CV
E-mail: jbrryan [at] ucdavis [dot] edu

Primary Field: International Relations
Second Field: Comparative Politics and Methodology

Belgin San-Akca’s research focuses on non-state violence, its targets and supporters. Her dissertation explores the domestic and international determinants of states’ use of non-state armed groups (NAGs) as a foreign policy instrument. She argues that state support of NAGs is led by the mutual selection of supporters and NAGs. Two main theoretical models, leaders’ selection and NAGs’ selection, are developed in order to address the following questions: Why do states choose to ally with NAGs despite the fact that it might lead to a backlash from the targets of NAGs? Why do NAGs choose to ally with states despite facing a risk to their autonomous decision-making and operations? Collecting new data on NAGs and their supporters, the empirical chapters test whether states and NAGs are driven by strategic or ideational considerations in allying with each other. Belgin San-Akca’s other research interests include minor states and their counterinsurgency policies, the influence of state support on NAGs’ survival, influence of rivalries on state support of NAGs, and the conditions under which supporters cease their support of NAGs.

Dissertation:“Non-State Violence, Supporters, and Targets: State Support of Non-State Armed Groups as a Selection Process”

Dissertation Committee Composition
Miroslav Nincic (chair), Zeev Maoz, Josephine Andrews, Benjamin Highton

CV
E-mail: bsan [at] ucdavis [dot] edu

Primary Field: Comparative Politics
Second Field: Methods and International Relations

I am a Ph.D. candidate in Comparative Politics and Political Methodology and my research and teaching interests include political parties, elections and political behavior in established and developing democracies (with a focus on the member countries of the European Union). My dissertation, “Responsible Agents? Public Opinion, Uncertainty and Party Policy Change,” examines whether and how political parties in twenty-four established democracies respond to changes in public opinion, with implications for spatial modeling, political parties, and representation literatures. My empirical findings are based on estimates of party policy positions derived from codings of party manifestos, fieldwork interviews with party elites (in Germany, the Netherlands, and Austria), and an original expert survey of scholars in twenty-four countries. The first chapter of my dissertation, “Timely Decisions: The Effects of Past National Elections on Party Policy,” is forthcoming in the January 2009 issue of the Journal of Politics. In addition to my dissertation research, I have been actively involved in other research projects with James Adams, Josephine Andrews, Robert Jackman, Zeev Maoz, and Robert Harmel on the effects of party policy shifts on public opinion, cabinet durations and election outcomes, and on the inter-relationship between European and national level politics. I am the recipient of the UC Davis Office of Graduate Studies Dissertation Fellowship for the 2008-2009 academic year. Currently I am finishing my dissertation as a visiting researcher at California Institute of Technology.

Dissertation:“Responsible Agents? Public Opinion, Uncertainty and Party Policy Change.”

Dissertation Committee Composition
James Adams (chair), Zeev Maoz, Josephine Andrews, Ethan Scheiner.

CV
Web Site
E-mail: zsomer [at] ucdavis [dot] edu

Gary Stradiotto
Primary Field: Comparative Politics

I am a PhD Candidate in Comparative Politics. My research interests include democratization, political economy and East Asian politics, particularly Chinese Politics. My dissertation is titled: 'The Democratic Revolution,' where I explore the impact of transition type on democratic success. My research is motivated by the following question: do transitional modes impact democratic quality and longevity? First, I develop a parsimonious categorization of transition types from which to classify transitioning states. Next, I construct a theory of transitions and argue that cooperative transitions (negotiations away from authoritarianism) associate with higher levels of democracy and last longer than other types of transitions (such as Revolution or Foreign Intervention). To test the theory, I construct an original dataset of transitioning states since 1900, which covers approximately 150 countries. My dissertation is an original contribution to the transitions literature through the use of cross-national statistical analysis, followed by case studies. This research has been presented at the MPSA, and has generated many additional questions which will serve as the basis for a future research agenda.

Dissertation: "The Democratic Revolution" (PhD expected Dec 2008)

Dissertation Committee Composition
Josephine Andrews (Chair), Jim Adams, Sujian Guo (San Francisco State University)
PhD. expected in June 2009.
CV
E-mail: gstradiotto [at] ucdavis [dot] edu

Primary Field: Comparative Politics
Secondary Field: American Politics and Methods

In thinking about politics, do people care more about receiving a desired outcome or how political processes are conducted? My dissertation explores the relative effects of these factors on perceptions of fairness and attitudes toward government in the context of elections. Through experiments conducted in China and the United States, I explore procedural fairness, and the alternative outcomes-based explanation, across two starkly different political contexts. In line with my theoretical expectations, I find that procedural characteristics are more important than outcomes in shaping perceptions of fairness, and procedures and outcomes matter equally for attitudes toward government, across both cases. These findings suggest optimism with regard to political reform in China; individuals pay attention to and care about the process of politics to a greater degree than Chinese officials and scholarship on the topic appear to expect. My research interests include political behavior, political psychology, democratization, and the politics of economic development. My regional focus is East Asia, with an emphasis on China.

Dissertation:“Winning, Losing, or How You Play the Game? Procedural Fairness and Outcomes in the United States and China”

Dissertation Committee Composition
Robert Jackman (Chair), Robert Huckfeldt, Ethan Scheiner, and Elizabeth Zechmeister

CV
E-mail: jrwilking [at] ucdavis [dot] edu

Primary Field: Political Theory

My dissertation highlights the emergence of modern constitutionalism—and especially its most visible manifestation, the written constitution—as an important companion to the increasing influence of the natural rights political philosophy during the 18th century.  My research agenda more broadly is organized around two themes: (1) the problems and possibilities of liberalism and (2) theories of constitutionalism, especially within the Anglo-American tradition of political theory and constitutional development.  I have approached these themes from a variety of angles, including research on contemporary theorists such as John Rawls, past thinkers such as James Wilson, and empirical research on the Supreme Court.

Dissertation:“Constituting a People: Modern Constitutionalism and the Possibility of Community in a Natural Rights Republic”

Dissertation Committee Composition
John T. Scott, Robert S. Taylor, Michael P. Zuckert

CV
E-mail: jrzink [at] ucdavis [dot] edu