UCLA Political Science

Macro Shifts in Civil War: Government Expansion, Rebel Deployment, and Civilian Displacement in the Vietnam War
2018-11-16 00:00 (America/Los_Angeles)
Macro Shifts in Civil War: Government Expansion, Rebel Deployment, and Civilian Displacement in the Vietnam War
DateNovember 15, 2013
Time7:00am to 8:30am
Location
11377 Bunche Hall
Contact
How a civil war unfolds depends on the key questions of whether rebels can find permanent sanctuary, where the government can maintain authority, and where civilians choose to live. How are these three macro factors related, and how can we rigorously track them over time? I investigate the interaction and trend of these forces in an empirically important and contentious case of counterinsurgency in the later part of the Vietnam War (1966-1972). I introduce a variety of novel measures developed from wartime intelligence estimates, a large scale panel survey that rates conditions across communities, and geospatial measures of human activity. Rather than a static quagmire, trends in rebel base locations, government reach into the countryside, and population movements all point to a highly dynamic and shifting strategic situation. Despite U.S. withdrawal, the evidence points toward a country-wide consolidation of government power, consistent with government victory. The results provide insight into the contemporary optimism about Vietnamization of the war and the strategic necessity rebel groups face to escalate an irregular conflict to a conventional conflict.
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International Law/IR Workshop with Christopher Whytock
2018-11-16 00:00
International Law/IR Workshop with Christopher Whytock
DateNovember 14, 2014
Time2:00pm to 3:30pm
Location
4357 Bunche Hall
Contact
Presenter:Christopher A. Whytock (UC Irvine, School of Law)Title: “From International Law and International Relations to Law and World Politics”Abstract:International relations (IR) scholars now widely agree that law matters in world politics. But so far they have focused almost exclusively on one type of law—public international law—and primarily on one aspect of world politics—international relations. I argue that by doing so IR scholars are missing types of law that are equally if not more important to international relations than public international law. Moreover, by neglecting types of law that are important to transnational relations—that is, the cross-border activity of private actors—IR scholarship on international law is behind the more general trend in IR scholarship away from state-centric approaches toward more holistic analyses of world politics. I therefore advocate a move from the study of international law and international relations (IL/IR) to a research agenda on law and world politics (L/WP). As a step in that direction, this paper focuses on two fields of law that are largely missing in IR research—foreign relations law and private international law—and explains how they matter in world politics and how a better understanding of them will help IR scholars advance knowledge of international cooperation, international conflict, and global governance.Paper: Click here to download.
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REP Reading Group
2018-11-16 00:00
REP Reading Group
DateNovember 13, 2015
Time4:00pm
Location
4280 Bunche Hall
Contact
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REP Workshop - Edwina Barrosa
2018-11-16 00:00
REP Workshop – Edwina Barrosa
DateNovember 13, 2015
Time4:00pm to 6:00pm
Location
4357 Bunche Hall
Contact
Offering an interdisciplinary analysis of US public engagement on LGBT issues, Edwina Barvosa proposes that the rapid evolution in public support for LGBT civil rights has taken place through large-scale deliberative systems assembled by Americans themselves through existing social networks. This publicly driven democratization required three types of deliberative catalysts—each helping to circumvent anti-gay bias, including conscious and unconscious bias. Lessons drawn from the LGBT case further suggest that these three deliberative catalysts could foster transformative public deliberation on racial bias, especially bias that contributes to violence.
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American Politics Workshop with John Bullock
2018-11-19 00:00
American Politics Workshop with John Bullock
DateNovember 17, 2014
Time3:00pm
Location
4357 Bunche Hall
Contact
Presenter:John Bullock, Yale UniversityTitle: “Education and Attitudes toward Redistribution in the United States.”Abstract:Americans increasingly favor education as a solution to the problem of income inequality. But little attention has been paid to the effects of education on attitudes toward inequality and redistribution. This paper examines those effects. It presents results based on longitudinal and repeated cross-sectional data which suggest that, on average, secondary education makes Americans more accepting of economic inequality and less favorable toward redistribution. There is thus an irony to the popularity of education as a remedy for inequality: even as education reduces inequality in some ways, it may promote inequality by promoting opposition to major redistributive programs.Click here to download the paper.
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REP Workshop - Tianna Paschel, UC Berkeley
2018-11-19 00:00
REP Workshop – Tianna Paschel, UC Berkeley
DateNovember 14, 2016
Time3:00pm to 4:30pm
Location
4357 Bunche Hall
Contact
Abstract:After decades of denying racism and underplaying cultural diversity, Latin American states began adopting transformative ethno-racial legislation in the late 1980s. In addition to symbolic recognition of indigenous peoples and black populations, governments in the region created a more pluralistic model of citizenship and made significant reforms in the areas of land, health, education, and development policy. Becoming Black Political Subjects explores this shift from color blindness to ethno-racial legislation in two of the most important cases in the region: Colombia and Brazil. Drawing on archival and ethnographic research, Tianna Paschel shows how, over a short period, black movements and their claims went from being marginalized to become institutionalized into the law, state bureaucracies, and mainstream politics. The strategic actions of a small group of black activists—working in the context of domestic unrest and the international community’s growing interest in ethno-racial issues—successfully brought about change. Paschel also examines the consequences of these reforms, including the institutionalization of certain ideas of blackness, the reconfiguration of black movement organizations, and the unmaking of black rights in the face of reactionary movements.Introduction can be found here
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Michael Albertus
2018-11-19 00:00
Michael Albertus
DateNovember 13, 2017
Time12:00pm to 1:30pm
Location
4357 Bunche Hall
Contact
Contact Information
Belinda SunnuPhone 3102067558bsunnu@polisci.ucla.edu
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CP Workshop - Daniela Campello
2018-11-20 00:00
CP Workshop – Daniela Campello
DateNovember 17, 2015
Time12:30pm
Location
4357 Bunche Hall
Contact
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CMED Seminar Honoring Prof. Emeritus Leonard
2018-11-21 00:00
CMED Seminar Honoring Prof. Emeritus Leonard
DateNovember 19, 2014
Time1:30pm to 4:00pm
Location
Sequoia Room, UCLA Faculty Center
Contact
Presenter:Steven Spiegel, Chris Erickson, Lisa Blaydes, Lawrence Rubin, Abdulkader Sinno, Heidi Lane, Robert Bianchi, Amanda Rizkallah, Jerrold Green, Richard Anderson, John Zaller, Yvette Hovsepian- Bearce, Jeff Lewis, Leonard BinderTitle: “Five Decades of Middle East Studies”Honoring Professor Leonard BinderDescription:Leading specialists discuss: “Iran’s Changing Role in the Region,” “The Power of Weak States,” and “The Future of the Middle East,” followed by “Tribute to Professor Leonard Binder” – featuring his former students and colleagues.This event is a part of the Center for Middle Eastern Development Seminar Series, co-sponsored with UCLA’s Political Science Department, International Institute, and the Center for Near Eastern Studies.For more information and RSVP information on the event, click here.
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Pieces of the Craft
2018-11-21 00:00
Pieces of the Craft
DateNovember 18, 2015
Time12:00pm
Location
4276 Bunche Hall
Contact
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Felony Status, Participation, and Political Reintegration: Results from a field experiment
2018-11-22 00:00
Felony Status, Participation, and Political Reintegration: Results from a field experiment
DateNovember 21, 2013
Time4:00am to 5:30am
Location
4357 Bunche Hall
Contact
How does American’s high rate of incarceration shape political participation? Few studies have examined the direct effects of incarceration on patterns of political engagement. Answering this question is particularly relevant for the 93% of formerly incarcerated individuals who are eligible to vote. Drawing on new administrative data from Connecticut, we show that felons vote at much lower rates than comparable non-felons prior to being incarcerated. From this low baseline, incarceration substantially reduces post-release registration rates and has small and ambiguous effects on post-release voting. Building on these observational findings, we present evidence from a field experiment showing that a simple informational outreach campaign to released felons can recover a large proportion of the reduction in participation observed following incarceration. The treatment effect estimates imply that efforts to reintegrate released felons into the political process can substantially reduce the participatory consequences of incarceration.
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Recruitment Job Talk with Brandon Stewart
2018-11-22 00:00
Recruitment Job Talk with Brandon Stewart
DateNovember 20, 2014
Time12:00pm to 1:30pm
Location
4357 Bunche Hall
Contact
Presenter:Brandon Stewart, Harvard University*** Joint Recruitment Search with UCLA Department of Statistics ***Title: “Modeling Social Science Heterogeneity with Latent Factor Regressions”Abstract:In this work, I present a general framework for regression in the presence of complex dependence structures between units such as in time-series cross-sectional data, relational/network data, and spatial data. These types of data are challenging for standard multilevel models because they involve multiple types of structure (e.g. temporal effects and cross-sectional effects) which are interactive. I show that interactive latent factor models provide a powerful modeling alternative that can address a wide range of data types. Although related models have previously been proposed in several different fields, inference is typically cumbersome and slow. I introduce a class of fast variational inference algorithms that allows for models to be fit quickly and accurately.
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GSC Meeting
2018-11-22 00:00
GSC Meeting
DateNovember 19, 2015
Time3:30pm
Location
4280 Bunche Hall
Contact
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Electoral Geography, Strategic Mobilization, and Implications for Voter Turnout
2018-11-23 00:00
Electoral Geography, Strategic Mobilization, and Implications for Voter Turnout
DateNovember 22, 2013
Time6:00am to 7:30am
Location
4357 Bunche Hall
Contact
When will parties mobilize the electoral support of low-income voters? This discussion presents evidence that rates of turnout among low-income citizens reflect legislators’ and parties’ electoral incentives to be responsive to the poor, and that these electoral incentives are determined by electoral geography – the joint geographic distribution of legislative seats and low-income voters across electoral districts. Further, this discussion demonstrates that under SMD electoral rules, low-income voters are more likely to vote in those electoral districts in which they are likely to be pivotal. By presenting a strategic mobilization account of voter turnout, this discussion breaks with current accounts of voter turnout that emphasize facilitative and motivational individual- and system-level factors. Instead, this discussion argues that low-income voters’ turnout decisions, in fact, reflect parties’ electoral incentives to cultivate and mobilize a low-income constituency.
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International Law/IR Workshop with Wayne Sandoltz
2018-11-23 00:00
International Law/IR Workshop with Wayne Sandoltz
DateNovember 21, 2014
Time2:00pm to 3:30pm
Location
4357 Bunche Hall
Contact
Presenter:Wayne Sandoltz, University of Southern CaliforniaTitle: “Law and Politics in a Trustee Court: Amnesty Laws and the Inter-American System”Abstract:In a series of decisions starting in 2001, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACtHR) has ruled that amnesty laws that create impunity for serious violations of human rights violate the American Convention on Human Rights and other treaties. In addition, the IACtHR has, in some of its decisions, taken the extraordinary step of nullifying national amnesty laws. We argue that the work of the Inter-American Court and its partner institution, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, can be understood as that of trustees. Our central claim is that the Commission and the Court will try to expand the fulfillment of human rights in the Americas but that they modulate their decisions in light of the domestic politico-legal context in respondent states. The Commission controls the timing of when cases arrive at the Court, and the Court controls the scope of final decisions. We offer a set of propositions regarding the timing of decisions, the scope of decisions (narrow versus expansive), and the degree to which decisions follow the Court’s existing jurisprudence. The analysis of all fourteen of the Court’s amnesty decisions is generally consistent with our propositions.Paper: Click here to download.
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Recruitment Job Talk with Marko Klasnja
2018-11-23 00:00
Recruitment Job Talk with Marko Klasnja
DateNovember 21, 2014
Time12:00pm to 1:30pm
Location
4357 Bunche Hall
Contact
Presenter:Marko Klasnja, New York UniversityTitle: “Corruption and the Incumbency Disadvantage: Theory and Evidence”Abstract:Incumbents in many developing democracies face significant disadvantages when seeking reelection, in stark contrast to the well-known incumbency advantage that exists in the U.S. and other mature democracies. Here I propose and test a new explanation for this incumbency disadvantage: corruption. Formally, I show that incumbents become more disadvantaged as the cost of committing corruption decreases, as the quality of the pool of candidates for office deteriorates, and when gains to corruption increase with time spent in office. I test these hypotheses by developing innovative measures of local corruption in Romania. Identification comes from two discontinuities: (1) national rules tying mayoral salaries to thresholds in town populations that cause jumps in the opportunity cost of corruption and thus its incidence, and (2) close elections that assign incumbency status to candidates in an as-if random fashion. This strategy provides strong evidence that the large incumbency disadvantage found in Romanian local elections is caused by the incidence of corruption and the large seniority premium to corruption exploited by Romanian mayors.
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IR Reading Group
2018-11-23 00:00
IR Reading Group
DateNovember 20, 2015
Time3:00pm
Location
4276 Bunche Hall
Contact
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PT Workshop - Jennifer London
2018-11-23 00:00
PT Workshop – Jennifer London
DateNovember 20, 2015
Time4:00pm
Location
4357 Bunche Hall
Contact
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REP Reading
2018-11-23 00:00
REP Reading
DateNovember 20, 2015
Time4:00pm
Location
4280 Bunche Hall
Contact
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PT Workshop - Sharon Krause, Brown University
2018-11-23 00:00
PT Workshop – Sharon Krause, Brown University
DateNovember 18, 2016
Time4:00pm to 6:00pm
Location
4357 Bunche Hall
Contact
The password-protected paper can be found here
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Gayil Talshir
2018-11-23 00:00
Gayil Talshir
DateNovember 17, 2017
Time4:00pm
Location
4357 Bunche Hall
Contact
Contact Information
Belinda SunnuPhone 3102067558bsunnu@polisci.ucla.edu
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AP Workshop - Rocio Titiunik
2018-11-26 00:00
AP Workshop – Rocio Titiunik
DateNovember 23, 2015
Time3:00pm
Location
4357 Bunche Hall
Contact
The widespread availability of voter files has changed the study of participation in American politics. However, many studies calculate voter turnout among registrants, which may lead to invalid causal inferences if registration rates differ between treatment and control groups. We introduce a sensitivity analysis approach that can be used to assess the potential bias induced by this problem, which we call differential registration bias, and illustrate its use with two empirical studies of the effects of voting eligibility on subsequent turnout among young voters. In both cases, we find that eligibility decreases turnout as a proportion of total registration. However, these negative effects are highly sensitive to differential registration bias and, in one study, change signs when we instead calculate turnout as a proportion of the population. These results suggest the need for scholars to provide rigorous sensitivity analysis as part of any study of voter file data.Paper: PDF
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AP Workshop - Ariel White, MIT
2018-11-26 00:00
AP Workshop – Ariel White, MIT
DateNovember 21, 2016
Time12:30pm to 2:00pm
Location
4357 Bunche Hall
Contact
Abstract:This paper presents new causal estimates of incarceration’s effect on voting, using administrative data on criminal sentencing and voter turnout. I use the random case assignment process of a major county court system as a source of exogenous variation in the sentencing of misdemeanor cases. Focusing on misdemeanor defendants allows for generalization to a large pool of people, as such cases are extremely common. Among first-time misdemeanor defendants, I find evidence that receiving a short jail sentence decreases voting in the next election by several percentage points. Results differ starkly by race. White defendants show no demobilization, while Black defendants show a turnout decrease of about 13 percentage points due to jail time. Evidence from pre-arrest voter histories suggest that this difference could be due to racial differences in who is arrested. These results paint a picture of large-scale, racially-disparate voter demobilization in the wake of incarceration.Full paper can be found here
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Pieces of the Craft
2018-11-28 00:00
Pieces of the Craft
DateNovember 25, 2015
Time12:00pm
Location
4276 Bunche Hall
Contact
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REP Reading Group
2018-11-30 00:00
REP Reading Group
DateNovember 27, 2015
Time4:00pm
Location
4280 Bunche Hall
Contact
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Comparative Politics Job Talk with Emily Sellars
2018-12-03 00:00
Comparative Politics Job Talk with Emily Sellars
DateDecember 1, 2014
Time12:00pm to 1:30pm
Location
4357 Bunche Hall
Contact
Contact Information
Belinda SunnuPhone bsunnu@polisci.ucla.edu
Presenter:Emily Sellars, University of Wisconsin–MadisonTitle: “Does Emigration Inhibit Political Reform? Evidence from the Mexican Agrarian Movement, 1916–1945″Abstract:Does emigration encourage or inhibit political reform? I investigate this question using data from a critical period in Mexican history. Following the Revolution in 1910, the Mexican government implemented a major redistributive land reform program. The program began during a period of high emigration from Mexico, but migration patterns were halted and reversed following the Stock Market Crash of 1929. Using a research design similar to a difference-in-differences approach, I demonstrate that there was a significant acceleration in land redistribution in high- relative to low-emigration states after the shock to emigration opportunities. Drawing on an original formal model and on archival research on the agrarian movement, I trace this outcome to the role of emigration in reducing political pressure on the government during the 1920s and to the importance of repatriates in the agrarian movement after 1930. These findings have important implications for understanding the political impacts of emigration and their development consequences.
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Pieces of the Craft
2018-12-05 00:00
Pieces of the Craft
DateDecember 2, 2015
Time12:00pm
Location
4276 Bunche Hall
Contact
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Methods Workshop with Branislav Slantchev
2018-12-06 00:00
Methods Workshop with Branislav Slantchev
DateDecember 4, 2014
Time2:00pm
Location
4357 Bunche Hall
Contact
Contact Information
Belinda SunnuPhone bsunnu@polisci.ucla.edu
Presenter:Branislav Slantchev, UC San DiegoTitle: “Rich Subjects, Poor Kings: Rebellion Relief and the Ratchet Effect in Taxation”Abstract:Rulers face serious difficulties in their efforts to extract wealth from society through taxation. Historically, taxation was often not very high and attempts to increase it frequently caused revolts. Over time, however, taxation has increased dramatically while violent resistance has virtually disappeared. We present a model that shows how these patterns can be understood as arising from the Crown’s desire to maximize its income from taxation in a context where it is institutionally unconstrained but does not have very good information about the wealth of the subjects it is trying to tax. In this setting, high tax demands can push poor subjects into violent resistance, which might provide the Crown with evidence that it needs to lower the tax to acceptable levels (provide tax relief). This possibility, however, provides an incentive to the rich subject to join the revolt to take advantage of tax relief and avoid an increase of taxation that willingness to accept might entail in the future (ratchet effect). This interaction is resolved in the Crown settling for taxation that, depending on its information about the subjects’ wealth, can be low but peaceful, moderate but provoking occasional revolts by the poor, and high but risking that even the rich would join a revolt. As the Crown’s ability to better assess the wealth of its subjects grows, taxation will increase while violent resistance will decrease even in the absence of an increase in the Crown’s coercive capabilities or its public goods provision. The growth of the state can be understood as a direct consequence of administrative improvements rather than centralization of power, monopolization of violence, or provision of public goods.Paper: Click here to download.
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GSC Meeting
2018-12-06 00:00
GSC Meeting
DateDecember 3, 2015
Time3:30pm
Location
4280 Bunche Hall
Contact
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Dramatizing Democracy: Crisis, Civic Education, and the Common Good
2018-12-07 00:00
Dramatizing Democracy: Crisis, Civic Education, and the Common Good
DateDecember 6, 2013
Time8:00am to 9:30am
Location
4357 Bunche Hall
Contact
After 9/11, hope arose that democracy in America would be revitalized. Crisis, it was said, “represents an opportunity” for social and political reformation, and the American people will “come together and rise to the occasion.” I examine the philosophical underpinnings of this familiar rhetoric and the belief that crisis may be good for democracy, a belief which runs against traditional views that popular governments cannot cope with crises. What is revealed about our understanding of democracy when we dramatize the state of insecurity as its born-again moment? Crisis-based democracy is compelling because it reframes republican civic virtue, and radical collective action, in ways compatible with modern society and liberal democracy. This formulation, I argue, signifies a transformation of the participatory ideal, from common people arguing together to the heroic transcendence of partisanship. To analyze the crisis/democracy linkage I consider the surprisingly similar democratic theories of Bruce Ackerman and Sheldon Wolin.
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