Josephine Borich and Dr. Jeremy Pope, Department of Political Science My project focused on finding policy differences between male and female candidates in Utah’s 2010 Republican Convention. I hypothesized that there would be policy differences between the genders and that these differences in opinion had the possibility to swing elections. An essential part of my […]
Federalism Dataset
Nicole Taylor and Dr. Joel Selway, Department of Political Science Comparative politics, the study of government structures around the world, is a relatively new field, and the study of federalism is even more recent. Studies are typically conducted by selecting two or three countries and comparing their government structures using qualitative measures or by studying a large sample […]
Credibility and Accountability: The Effect of Publication on NGO Willingness to be Evaluated
Megan Spencer and Dr. Michael Findley, Department of Political Science Abstract In today’s NGO environment, evaluations are frequent, but NGOs rarely have outsider expectations on which to base their assessments. Thus, NGOs have strong incentives to make their evaluations strictly contextual. Consequently, NGO stakeholders—donors, beneficiaries, and local government officials—have little information as to the quality of a given organization […]
A Theory of Motivated Recall: Determinants of Recall of Political Information
Robert Richards and Dr. Christopher Karpowitz, Department of Political Science Background Research, Hypotheses A great deal of political research has analyzed how people form their opinions about candidates and issues. Two models, drawing heavily from cognitive psychology have emerged: the memory-based model (Zaller and Feldman 1992; Huckfeldt et al 1999) and the on-line model (Taber, […]
A Little Help for My Friends: Do Foreign Aid Donors Reject NGOs in Favor of their Blatantly Corrupt Allies?
Nicholas Jones and Dr. Darren Hawkins, Department of Political Science Our research examines whether donor countries care about the quality of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) when giving foreign aid to poor countries. When donor states give foreign aid to recipient states, such the US giving foreign aid to Uganda, the donor states must choose what is […]
Buzzwords without Borders: Three Field Experiments in Individual Donation Behavior
Scott Jackson and Dr. Joshua Gubler, Department of Political Science In 2009, the Pew Internet & American Life Project reported that over the preceding twelve months, 67% of Americans “contributed to a charity or non-profit organization other than their place of worship” (Smith et al., 2009). The study also found that 11% of Internet users […]
To Act and Not be Acted Upon: A Look at State-building in Bosnia
Kurt Hepler and Dr. Nicholas Wheeler, Department of Political Science Troubling Times in Bosnia and Herzegovina In the wake of the brutal wars between Serbs, Croats, and Bosniaks following the breakup of former Yugoslavia, many international organizations (IOs) and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) poured into Bosnia and Herzegovina. These organizations were tasked with helping the country […]
Rethinking FDI: China’s Geopolitical Move into Europe
John Harris and Dr. Wade Jacoby, Department of Political Science The magnitude of Chinese outward foreign direct investment (FDI) flows has skyrocketed in the past decade. In the wake of the Chinese “Going Out” policy, many high profile Chinese firms are buying up companies in all regions of the world. It is curious that Chinese […]
Mapping Civil Society: An Experiment in NGO Coordination
Madeleine Gleave and Dr. Daniel Nielson, Department of Political Science Overview of Research Our research took us to the red dirt and bustling streets of Uganda. There we sought to understand how non-governmental organizations behave. We were interested in understanding the coordination behavior of NGOs in Uganda and India. With the on-site mentorship of Professor […]
Authoritarianism and Immigration Attitudes
Jessica Biggs and Dr. Christopher Karpowitz, Department of Political Science The purpose of this project was to study whether exposing survey participants to information about immigration change will affect participants with high levels of authoritarianism. This project focused on whether individuals with high levels of authoritarianism will have higher levels of cognitive dissonance when presented […]