Political Science
Permanent URI for this communityhttps://scholarworks.montana.edu/handle/1/53
Political Science faculty's diverse research, teaching and outreach activities engage our students and the community in issues of ethics, power, identity, globalization governance, citizenship and representation. Our faculty are active scholars with recent awards for their publications, outreach, service and teaching.
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Item Personalism and the politics of central bank independence under authoritarianism(Taylor & Francis, 2022-11) Redwood, Susanne M.This paper provides a domestic explanation for variation in de jure central bank independence (CBI) in nondemocracies. I argue that there is a nonlinear relationship between personalism and CBI: regimes with very low and very high levels of personalism tend to have lower CBI compared to states with intermediate personalism. Where personalization is low, autocrats face greater constraints and more frequent political challenges, leading to increased contestation over political institutions. In these states, leaders choose lower CBI to signal their control over monetary policymaking and prevent dissent over economic policy. In contrast, in strongly personalist regimes, leaders face few risks associated with CBI, but they discount the benefits of CBI and thus prefer not to implement costly central bank reforms. Nondemocracies with intermediate levels of personalism tend to have the highest levels of CBI. I support these arguments using recent data on CBI from 1970–2012.Item Advancing food democracy: The potential and limits of food policy positions in local government(Lyson Center for Civic Agriculture and Food Systems, 2021-10) Berglund, Erika; Hassanein, Neva; Lachapelle, Paul; Stephens, CarolineFor several decades, food policy councils (FPCs) have led the effort to place food on local government policy agendas. While FPCs are making progress in supporting local food systems, they also face institutional and organizational challenges. In recent years, a handful of cities and counties have endeavored to further food system reform with the establishment of full-time government staff positions focused on food policy. As of spring 2020, there were 19 confirmed food policy positions housed in local governments across the United States. While there is considerable literature on FPCs, little research has been published regarding food policy staffing in local governments. Accordingly, this study uses original in-depth interviews with 11 individuals in municipal or county food policy positions to understand the purpose and function of governmental food policy staff positions and their impact on local food systems. Our findings suggest that these positions help to coordinate and nurture local food programs and policies and have the potential to facilitate meaningful participation of individuals and groups in the community in food system reform. We discuss the potential benefits and challenges for governmental food policy positions to support food democracy, and provide the following recommendations for communities interested in establishing or strengthening similar positions: (1) identify and coordinate existing opportunities and assets, (2) foster and maintain leadership support, (3) root the work in community, (4) connect with other food policy professionals, and (5) develop a food system vision.Item Bounded Stories(Wiley, 2018-11) Shanahan, Elizabeth A.; Raile, Eric D.; French, Kate A.; McEvoy, JamieNarrative Policy Framework (NPF) and framing scholars share an interest in how the construction of policy arguments influences opinions and policy decisions. However, conceptual clarification is needed. This study advances the NPF by clarifying the meaning and function of frames and narrative, as well as their respective roles in creating policy realities. We explore sociological and psychological roots of framing scholarship and map these onto NPF’s science of narratives philosophy, suggesting that narratives can reveal internally held cognitive schemas. We focus on issue categorization frames as boundaries for narrative construction. Within these bounds, narrative settings further focalize the audience by specifying where action toward a solution takes place. Based on 26 interviews with floodplain decision makers in Montana, we capture internally held cognitions through the assemblage of issue categorization frames and narrative elements. We find that settings can traverse issue categorization frames and policy solutions, with actions of characters that unfold within the setting being key. Similarly, we find that a single issue categorization frame can contain multiple different narratives and that individuals may simultaneously hold multiple different narratives internally. Overall, this study contributes to policy process research through establishment of connections among narratives, issue categorization frames, and cognitive schemas.Item Characters matter: How narratives shape affective responses to risk communication(Public Library of Science, 2019-12) Shanahan, Elizabeth A.; Reinhold, Ann Marie; Raile, Eric D.; Poole, Geoffrey C.; Ready, Richard C.; Izurieta, Clemente; McEvoy, Jamie; Bergmann, Nicolas T.; King, HenryIntroduction. Whereas scientists depend on the language of probability to relay information about hazards, risk communication may be more effective when embedding scientific information in narratives. The persuasive power of narratives is theorized to reside, in part, in narrative transportation. Purpose. This study seeks to advance the science of stories in risk communication by measuring real-time affective responses as a proxy indicator for narrative transportation during science messages that present scientific information in the context of narrative. Methods. This study employed a within-subjects design in which participants (n = 90) were exposed to eight science messages regarding flood risk. Conventional science messages using probability and certainty language represented two conditions. The remaining six conditions were narrative science messages that embedded the two conventional science messages within three story forms that manipulated the narrative mechanism of character selection. Informed by the Narrative Policy Framework, the characters portrayed in the narrative science messages were hero, victim, and victim-to-hero. Natural language processing techniques were applied to identify and rank hero and victim vocabularies from 45 resident interviews conducted in the study area; the resulting classified vocabulary was used to build each of the three story types. Affective response data were collected over 12 group sessions across three flood-prone communities in Montana. Dial response technology was used to capture continuous, second-by-second recording of participants’ affective responses while listening to each of the eight science messages. Message order was randomized across sessions. ANOVA and three linear mixed-effects models were estimated to test our predictions. Results. First, both probabilistic and certainty science language evoked negative affective responses with no statistical differences between them. Second, narrative science messages were associated with greater variance in affective responses than conventional science messages. Third, when characters are in action, variation in the narrative mechanism of character selection leads to significantly different affective responses. Hero and victim-to-hero characters elicit positive affective responses, while victim characters produce a slightly negative response. Conclusions// In risk communication, characters matter in audience experience of narrative transportation as measured by affective responses.Item Questioning scrutiny: the effect of Prime Minister’s Questions on citizen efficacy and trust in parliament(Informa UK Limited, 2020-12) Convery, Alan; Haines, Pavielle; Mitchell, James; Parker, David C. W.In most democratic regimes, the public often dislikes and distrusts parliamentarians. This should not surprise: the public likes neither compromise nor conflict, both of which are legislative hallmarks. One of the most famous examples of parliamentary conflict is Prime Minister’s Questions (PMQs) in the British House of Commons. It is the most viewed and commented upon part of the parliamentary week, but attracts strong criticism as a noisy charade promoting a poor image of politics. Does PMQs undermine individual levels of political efficacy and trust in Parliament, as some commentators suggest? We use an experimental design to answer this question and find evidence to suggest that, contrary to its negative reputation, PMQs does not adversely affect most citizens’ perceptions.Item Rethinking the heuristic traps paradigm in avalanche education: Past, present and future(2020-08) Johnson, Jerry; Mannberg, Andrea; Hendrikx, Jordy; Hetland, Audun; Stephensen, MatthewThis paper will review the emergence and adoption of decision heuristics as a conceptual framework within the avalanche research and education community and demonstrate how this emphasis on the heuristic decision framework has anchored and was critical in redefining the discussion around avalanche accidents. This paradigm has been a critical and meaningful step in recognizing the importance of decision making in avalanche accidents. However, in an attempt to reduce the incidence of fatal accidents, the adoption of these ideas within the wider avalanche community has overlooked some clearly stated limitations within the foundational work of the heuristic decision frame. With respect to the concept of heuristic traps in conventional avalanche education, the concepts are poorly operationalized to the extent that they are vague about what exactly they describe. The result is that as presently framed, they are of negligible value to avalanche education that seeks its basis on the best available information. We end with a discussion, and a call to action to the avalanche research community, of how we could move towards resolution of these weaknesses and add value to prior work on human factor research. Our aim is not to disparage the seminal, paradigm shifting work by McCammon, but rather draw attention to how it has been operationalized and how the industry needs to move beyond this paradigm to see further gains in our understanding of avalanche fatalities.Item The stories groups tell: campaign finance reform and the narrative networks of cultural cognition(2019-05) Smith-Walter, Aaron; Jones, Michael D.; Shanahan, Elizabeth A.; Peterson, HollyThe purpose of this study is to test whether groups with different cultural cognition orientations construct different stories about the same policy issue given the same information. We employed a focus group methodology to assemble participants with similar cultural dispositions and used the Narrative Policy Framework to examine the policy narratives that groups form about campaign finance. Our analyses indicate that the stories these homogeneous cultural groups tell associate political process concerns related to campaign finance to their core cultural values. Even when provided with the same information, the stories that the groups produced varied along theoretically consistent cultural dimensions. Our findings show the narrative cores displayed similar attribution of the problem to intentional human action; however we observed variation in the manner in which certain characters were assigned blame, and significant differences in the density of several of the narrative networks. We found that differences in presence of victims emerged along the grid dimension of cultural cognition with egalitarian narratives cores possessing victims, whereas hierarchist narratives did not. A difference that emerged along the group dimension of cultural cognition was the core narrative of individualist groups generated policy solutions, while communitarian narrative cores did not.Item The logic of parliamentary action: Brexit, Early Day Motions, and bolstering the personal vote(Taylor & Francis, 2020-11) Parker, David C. W.; Caltabiano, IanMore than 300 Members of Parliament (MPs) found themselves in an awkward position after the vote on Britain’s membership in the EU: They had taken a public stance on Brexit in opposition to their constituents. We investigate whether MPs attempted to bolster their personal vote in response and if this provided electoral protection. Using Early Day Motions (EDMs), we find that MPs supporting Leave in Remain constituencies sponsored more EDMs after Brexit but were also more likely to lose re-election in 2017. Remain supporting MPs in Leave constituencies switched their position on Brexit when voting to trigger Article 50, but did not sponsor more EDMs post-Brexit and did not lose disproportionately compared to Brexit-aligned MPs. We conclude by considering whether the value of the personal vote and incumbency may have declined as affective polarization (Mason, 2018) among the British electorate may be on the rise during the era of Brexit.Item Absent autonomy: Relational competence and gendered paths to faculty self-determination in the promotion and tenure process(2018-09) Skewes, Monica C.; Shanahan, Elizabeth A.; Smith, Jessi L.; Honea, Joy C.; Belou, Rebecca M.; Rushing, Sara; Intemann, Kristen; Handley, Ian M.This research examines ways in which men and women university faculty sought self-determination in the promotion and tenure (P&T) process. Self-Determination Theory (SDT; Deci & Ryan, 2012) research tends to view autonomy as the central factor in self-determination, taking priority over other psychological needs of relatedness and competence. The P&T process occurs within a context that inherently limits autonomy, providing a unique opportunity to examine experiences of relatedness and competence when autonomy is constrained. We used a qualitative research strategy with a matched case study design to explore how individuals experience the constructs of SDT (i.e., autonomy, competence, and relatedness) within the P&T process. Our project focuses on faculty in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) departments undergoing P&T review at one university. Women faculty in STEM were compared with men faculty at the same rank and in similar departments concurrently going through P&T review. Findings showed that men reported experiencing self-determination via informational competence whereas women approached self-determination through relational competence. Creating a level playing field for faculty navigating the P&T process requires being attuned to different paths to self-determination, fostering relationships between faculty, and clarifying policies and procedures.Item Agriculture in Shifting Climates: The Configuration and Ripeness of Problem Understandings in Uganda and Senegal(2018-03) Raile, Eric D.; Young, Linda M.; Bonabana-Wabbi, Jackline; Kirinya, Julian; Mbaye, Samba; Wooldridge, Lena; Raile, Amber N. W.; Post, Lori AnnThe international community has advocated the adoption of climate‐smart agriculture (CSA) as lower‐income countries deal with the negative consequences of climate change. Scaling up such policies, practices, and programs successfully will require support from a variety of local stakeholders. Such support requires alignment between CSA solutions and the problem understandings of stakeholders. However, problem understandings can differ across individuals, stakeholder groups, and geographic areas. Consequently, we examine understandings of climate problems and socioeconomic and infrastructure problems related to agriculture among different stakeholder groups in Uganda and Senegal. We operationalized and measured these problem understandings following the detailed guidance of the political will and public will approach for analyzing social change. Semistructured interviews elicited stakeholder‐generated lists of problems for each group. Limited quantification of problem understandings and their relative importance or “ripeness” demonstrates how contexts might shape opportunities for CSA.