Political Science (Theses and Dissertations)
Recent Submissions
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Affecting State Legitimacy From Abroad: The Effects of Travel Policies on Citizens' Willingness to Obey Their State
(Trinity College Dublin. School of Social Sciences & Philosophy. Discipline of Political Science, 2024)This dissertation aims to examine the effects of restrictive travel policies implemented by foreign countries on citizens' evaluations of state legitimacy in electoral autocracies. This question matters because restrictive ... -
A theory of international strategic judicial dialogue: Convergence and Divergence between the Court of Justice of the European Union and the European Court of Human Rights
(Trinity College Dublin. School of Social Sciences & Philosophy. Discipline of Political Science, 2024)International Courts interact with each other, especially by referring to each other's rulings, and the consequences of these interactions often assumed to be a progressive and stable convergence of their respective ... -
The role of environmental issues in European elections. Assessing whether European elections establish an electoral connection based on these issues
(Trinity College Dublin. School of Social Sciences & Philosophy. Discipline of Political Science, 2023)This thesis investigates whether European elections establish an electoral connection based on the environment, a relevant EU-policy issue, at three different stages: the electoral campaign, election day, MEPs' vote in the ... -
The Exit Option: How ethnopolitical exclusion influences emigration desire from sub-Saharan Africa
(Trinity College Dublin. School of Social Sciences & Philosophy. Discipline of Political Science, 2023)To what extent and in what ways does politicized ethnicity drive migration desire in sub-Saharan Africa? This question matters because migration from Africa has received much attention in the media and by policy makers, ... -
Promoting peace or inciting violence? Explaining how decentralisation systematically affects the propensity of regional ethnic conflict
(Trinity College Dublin. School of Social Sciences & Philosophy. Discipline of Political Science, 2023)This thesis investigates the varying effects of decentralisation on ethnic conflict. It seeks to offer a unified theory explaining why the outcomes of decentralisation reforms differ. More specifically it studies how these ... -
Fossil Fuel Interests in Environmental and Climate Policy: Evidence of Influence and Institutionalised Participation
(Trinity College Dublin. School of Social Sciences & Philosophy. Discipline of Political Science, 2023)Do fossil fuel interest groups and companies engage in systematic participation in institutions of state-society relations such as public consultations in pursuit of policy influence in the area of environment and climate? ... -
The Effect of Group Identity on Support for Political Violence: Evidence from Northern Ireland
(Trinity College Dublin. School of Social Sciences & Philosophy. Discipline of Political Science, 2023)Why do people support political violence in peaceful contemporary democracies? In recent years scholars have increasingly sought to understand what drives individuals to adopt radical attitudes in societies where there is ... -
Explaining and predicting the adoption, timing and location of terrorism in civil conflicts
This thesis examines the adoption, timing and location of terrorism in civil conflicts. It analyzes the effect of territorial advances on the timing and location of state-based and one-sided violence, the effect of battlefield ... -
Choose Your Target Wisely: How the EU Shapes Nationalism in Contemporary Europe
(Trinity College Dublin. School of Social Sciences & Philosophy. Discipline of Political Science, 2022)Nationalism has experienced a resurgence across Europe since 1980, and one common explanation for this resurgence is that the backlash to European integration aids radical right parties, which prioritise nativism in the ... -
Start Spreading the (fake) News: The Role of Fear and Anger in the Formation and Dissemination of Conspiratorial Beliefs
(Trinity College Dublin. School of Social Sciences & Philosophy. Discipline of Political Science, 2022)Why do some people believe in political conspiracy theories and others do not? Why, for instance, do 60 percent of Americans believe that the CIA killed President John F. Kennedy while 25 percent believe that Barack Obama ... -
Europeanising Healthcare: The Effects of European Integration on Domestic Systems
(Trinity College Dublin. School of Social Sciences & Philosophy. Discipline of Political Science, 2022)Over recent decades, the structure and role of the European Union has developed and evolved. Scholars claim that EU jurisdiction and policy have expanded in many areas, such as agriculture, monetary, and competition policy, ... -
Explaining the variation in rebels violence in civil conflict: a collection of essays on reactive violence, synthetic events, and counterinsurgency practices
(Trinity College Dublin. School of Social Sciences & Philosophy. Discipline of Political Science, 2022)This dissertation substantiates in a collection of essays that examine the variation of rebels and insurgents violence in civil conflict. Building on the literature on the micro-foundations of civil war, we examine the ... -
Essays on Forced Migration and Civil Conflict
(Trinity College Dublin. School of Social Sciences & Philosophy. Discipline of Political Science, 2021)This thesis examines the effect of conflict dynamics and rebel groups on forced migration. More specifically, it analyzes how insurgent groups impact displacement flows, decisions to flee, and attitudes toward refugees. ... -
Just Peace and Presumptive Benefit: Using Fair Play Theory to Explain Political Obligation to Provisional Authority Arrangements
(Trinity College Dublin. School of Social Sciences & Philosophy. Discipline of Political Science, 2021)In March 2003, a coalition of western military powers invaded Iraq. By 9 April 2003, the government of Iraq, led by Saddam Hussein, had been deposed. As a result, from April 2003 through June 2004, Iraq was not a truly ... -
Costly Concessions: The Effect of Fragmentation of Self-Determination Movements on State Repression
(Trinity College Dublin. School of Social Sciences & Philosophy. Discipline of Political Science, 2021)There is a great variation in the way governments respond to dissent. Governments responses to internal challengers vary from peaceful accommodation to various forms of repression. This variation has important implications ... -
State-business relations and the politics of state aid in the European Union: a multi-method approach to explaining aid allocations among member states
(Trinity College Dublin. School of Social Sciences & Philosophy. Discipline of Political Science, 2021)This thesis investigates state aid allocations in the European Union (EU) member states to answer two key research questions about the political management of a market economy. Today, government officials cannot be indifferent ... -
The Impact of Anocracy on Terrorism: A Mixed-Method Approach
(Trinity College Dublin. School of Social Sciences & Philosophy. Discipline of Political Science, 2020)In this dissertation, the impact of anocracy on terrorism is examined. Intuitively, anocratic states or states with mixed regime features have been associated with greater terrorism, indicating that regime type has an ... -
Authoritarian diffusion at a distance? China's impact on levels of and on citizens' support for liberal-democracy in Sub-Saharan African states
(Trinity College Dublin. School of Social Sciences & Philosophy. Discipline of Political Science, 2020)The recent emergence of authoritarian countries, such as China, as leading economic powers, increasingly engaged in the developing world, has coincided with a 'democratic recession' in certain developing countries. Are ... -
Electoral Incentives to Cultivate a Personal Vote and Political Particularism: a Text Analysis Approach
(Trinity College Dublin. School of Social Sciences & Philosophy. Discipline of Political Science, 2020)In this dissertation, I examine the impact of electoral rules on political particularism. I study the legislative behaviour of Italian members of parliament (MPs) as a case study of how this causal mechanism works. To ... -
Campaign Spending and Electoral Integrity: Assessing the Plausibility of the Challenger Spending Efficacy Advantage in Irish & British Elections
(Trinity College Dublin. School of Social Sciences & Philosophy. Discipline of Political Science, 2020)Do incumbents lose ground to challengers even when their spending is evenly matched? Much of the literature points to a spending efficacy advantage for challengers (i.e. non-incumbents glean more from spending than ...