Winter 2006 RAP
Directors:
Harwood McClerking
Dean Lacy
Kira Sanbonmatsu
Presentation Schedule:
Wed. Jan. 18, 12:00 - 1:30 pm
Professors David Jacobs and Zhenchao Qian, Department of Sociology
"Who Survives on Death Row? An Individual and Contextual Analysis"
Abstract: What are the relationships between offender attributes, social arrangements, and decisions about executions? Partly because public officials decide appeals and clemency, theorists view this punishment as highly political. The literature has focused on offender attributes that lead to death sentences, but the largely overlooked post sentencing stage of this process is at least as important. Death penalty states differ sharply in their willingness to execute after this sentence. For this and other reasons, only less than 10% of those given this sentence are executed. This study uses survival analyses to assess the individual and contextual factors that shape execution probabilities. The findings show that minority death row inmates convicted of killing whites are less likely to avoid execution than other capital offenders. Theoretically interesting state level contextual factors with explanatory power include minority presence, ideology, and votes for Republican presidential candidates. Because there is little systematic research on the conditions that influence execution probabilities, these findings fill an important void in the literature.
Wed. Feb. 1, 12:00 - 1:30 pm
Professor Alan Wiseman, Department of Political Science
Wed. Feb. 8, 12:00 - 1:30pm
Samuel Decanio and Corwin Smidt
"Prelude to Populism: Economic Conflict and Electoral Support for Agrarian Third Parties"
Abstract: Existing studies of agrarian third parties have come to contradictory conclusions regarding why voters supported these organizations. Although historians and political scientists argue voters supported third parties as a response to deteriorating economic conditions, economists have found economic conditions are often not correlated with levels of third party support. Using an underutilized source of individual-level data, we examine who supported two of the earliest agrarian third parties, the Grange and the Greenback Party. We find these parties attracted voters lacking strong ethnocultural identification with either dominant party who were hence susceptible to electoral mobilization on economic divisions. Additionally we find existing studies overstate the support these third parties received from impoverished agrarians.
Wed. Feb. 15, 12:00 - 1:30 pm
Professor Robert Scharff, Department of Consumer Services
Wed. March 8, 12:00 - 1:30 pm
Professor Michael Neblo, Department of Political Science
"Connecting to Congress: A Design for Electronically Mediated Citizen-Representative Deliberation"
