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- Title
- THE ADJUDICATION OF PRESIDENTIAL POWER IN THE U.S. SUPREME COURT:A PREDICTIVE MODEL OF INDIVIDUAL JUSTICE VOTING.
- Creator
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Curry, Todd, Lanier, Drew, University of Central Florida
- Abstract / Description
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The interaction between the President and Congress is many times quite public and well documented (Cronin 1980; Covington et al. 1995; Fisher 1994; Schlesinger 2004). Similarly, relations between the Congress and the Supreme Court are well documented; Congress makes law and, if requested, the Court interprets it. The interaction between the president and the Court, however, is not nearly as well defined, and certainly not as public. Supreme Court cases involving the president directly are...
Show moreThe interaction between the President and Congress is many times quite public and well documented (Cronin 1980; Covington et al. 1995; Fisher 1994; Schlesinger 2004). Similarly, relations between the Congress and the Supreme Court are well documented; Congress makes law and, if requested, the Court interprets it. The interaction between the president and the Court, however, is not nearly as well defined, and certainly not as public. Supreme Court cases involving the president directly are fairly rare. King and Meernik (1995) identify 347 cases involving the foreign policy powers of the president, decided from 1790 to 1996, which is roughly 1.5 cases per calendar year. This study will examine the influence of attitudinal and extra-attitudinal factors on the individual level decision-making of the U.S. Supreme Court justices in cases involving presidential power. By using both attitudinal and extra-attitudinal factors, such as public opinion and armed conflict, this study will explore the limitations of a simple attitudinal model in complex and highly salient cases such as those that involve presidential power. The cases to be examined will be all presidential power cases decided from 1949 to 2005 (N = 38). The unit of analysis will, however, be the justice's individual-level vote (N = 337).
Show less - Date Issued
- 2006
- Identifier
- CFE0001202, ucf:46953
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0001202
- Title
- IDEOLOGICAL VOTING ON THE SUPREME COURT: AN ANALYSIS OF JUDICIAL ACTIVISM ON THE BURGER AND REHNQUIST COURTS, 1969-2004.
- Creator
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Larsen, Tiahna, Lanier, Drew, University of Central Florida
- Abstract / Description
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The influence of ideology and attitudes on the decision-making process of Supreme Court justices has been well documented, such that the attitudinal model has emerged as the dominant paradigm for understanding judicial behavior. When ideology and personal preferences seem to eclipse legal factors, such as adherence to precedent and deference to the democratically-elected branches, outcries of ÃÂ"judicial activismÃÂ" have occurred. Previous studies ...
Show moreThe influence of ideology and attitudes on the decision-making process of Supreme Court justices has been well documented, such that the attitudinal model has emerged as the dominant paradigm for understanding judicial behavior. When ideology and personal preferences seem to eclipse legal factors, such as adherence to precedent and deference to the democratically-elected branches, outcries of ÃÂ"judicial activismÃÂ" have occurred. Previous studies (Lindquist and Cross 2009) have operationalized judicial activism and have provided measures for studying behavior that may be considered activist (as opposed to restrainist), further supporting the premise that ideology trumps other extra-attitudinal and legal factors in the judicial decision-making process. While the attitudinal model indicates that ideology is the strongest predictor of judicial decision-making, this research will include a number of legal variables that have significantly influenced justicesÃÂ' votes. As previous studies have demonstrated, an integrated model that combines a number of critical variables can have more explanatory power than one that relies on attitudinal reasons alone (Banks 1999; Hurwitz and Stefko 2004; Mishler and Sheehan 1996). As such, the purpose of this research is to examine individual level decision-making of the most ideological justices on the Burger and Rehnquist Courts (1969-2004) in regards to their activist behavior to overrule legal precedents and invalidate federal statutes. This research will employ multivariate regression analysis to assess the effects of attitudinal, legal and extra-attitudinal factors in the judicial decision-making process.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2010
- Identifier
- CFE0003287, ucf:48531
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0003287
- Title
- Reexamining the Relationship Between Divided Government and Voter Turnout.
- Creator
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Beck, Heidi, Knuckey, Jonathan, Jewett, Aubrey, Lanier, Drew, University of Central Florida
- Abstract / Description
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This thesis reexamines the effect of divided government on voter turnout originally posited byFranklin and Hirczy de Mi(&)#241;o (1998), which suggested that each year of exposure to dividedgovernment resulted in a cumulative negative effect on voters leading to alienation and lowerturnout. It reconsiders this argument using more recent data, given that voter turnout in U.S.presidential elections (as measured by the Voting Eligible Population) has increased since 2000,even though divided...
Show moreThis thesis reexamines the effect of divided government on voter turnout originally posited byFranklin and Hirczy de Mi(&)#241;o (1998), which suggested that each year of exposure to dividedgovernment resulted in a cumulative negative effect on voters leading to alienation and lowerturnout. It reconsiders this argument using more recent data, given that voter turnout in U.S.presidential elections (as measured by the Voting Eligible Population) has increased since 2000,even though divided government has occurred during this period.This thesis also uses new data and methods to address concerns about the original aggregatelevelresearch design. The research question is tested at the individual-level of analysis todetermine if divided government does interact with political trust to lower turnout. Previousresearch assumed this relationship since there is no aggregate-level proxy for political trust. Byusing survey data from the American National Election Studies it is now possible to test the fulltheory.The aggregate-level models show that misspecifications in the research design of Franklinand Hirczy de Mi(&)#241;o resulting in multicollinearity, and in two instances autocorrelation, whichresulted in a failure to reject the null hypothesis. The individual-level models show that dividedgovernment interacts with low levels of political trust to increase voter turnout, falsifying theargument about the effect of divided government on turnout. Overall, the thesis suggests that theimplications of an aspect of the American political system that renders it distinguishable frommost other advanced-industrial democracies(-)divided party control of the executive andlegislative branches(-)should be reassessed. More generally, the thesis demonstrates theimportance of reevaluating hypotheses in political science with the most recent data and morerobust methods in order to establish whether those original hypotheses are still supported
Show less - Date Issued
- 2019
- Identifier
- CFE0007783, ucf:52363
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0007783
- Title
- An Empirical Analysis of the Association Between Types of Interventions and Civil War Onset.
- Creator
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Mellott, Melinda, Mirilovic, Nikola, Lanier, Drew, Sadri, Houman, University of Central Florida
- Abstract / Description
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Quantitative studies have focused on economics, social structures, and lack of political freedoms as being elemental factors for civil war onset. However, these studies have neglected the possibility of a civil war being an unintended consequence of international military intervention. I conduct an empirical analysis of the association between military intervention and civil war onset by collecting data for twenty countries within the Middle East/North African regions from 1980 to 2000. Using...
Show moreQuantitative studies have focused on economics, social structures, and lack of political freedoms as being elemental factors for civil war onset. However, these studies have neglected the possibility of a civil war being an unintended consequence of international military intervention. I conduct an empirical analysis of the association between military intervention and civil war onset by collecting data for twenty countries within the Middle East/North African regions from 1980 to 2000. Using the International Military Intervention data set, I categorized (")international intervention(") into nine different types, all of which were regressed with intrastate war data derived from the Correlates of War project. Two logit regression analyses were used to obtain the results, one of which analyzes civil war at time t and the independent variables at t-1. Additionally, marginal effects were computed to reflect accurate estimates. Overall, the data revealed that certain types of interventions are conducive to civil war onset, such as those pursuing terrorists or rebel groups across the border, gaining or retaining territory, and humanitarian interventions. Other types of interventions, such as those for social protection purposes, taking sides in a domestic dispute, and for the purpose of affecting policies of the target country, has a negative association with civil war onset. Two case studies, the 1953 U.S. intervention into Iran and the 1979 Soviet Union intervention into Afghanistan, reflects the observed findings of the two regression models. The occurrences of international military interventions and civil wars have increased dramatically since the end of World War II; therefore, it is important to have a better understanding of the association between the two events. To my knowledge, this is the first study that has categorized different types of interventions under which results indicate that the purpose of a military intervention does effect the likelihood of civil war onset. Scholars may develop this study further with the goal of establishing a better understanding of both phenomena so that we can find more efficient ways of preventing them.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2015
- Identifier
- CFE0006042, ucf:50974
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0006042
- Title
- A Reassesment of the Presidential Use of Executive Orders, 1953-2008.
- Creator
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Romich, Graham, Knuckey, Jonathan, Lanier, Drew, Ilderton, Nathan, University of Central Florida
- Abstract / Description
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Quantitative studies of the presidential use of executive orders have attempted to determine whether presidents are more prone to resort to unilateral action when faced with legislative opposition. To date, the results have been mixed however, with studies demonstrating that the type of executive order is an important factor in understanding the conditions under which presidents will resort to unilateral action. Despite this advancement in theory, there has been little consensus regarding the...
Show moreQuantitative studies of the presidential use of executive orders have attempted to determine whether presidents are more prone to resort to unilateral action when faced with legislative opposition. To date, the results have been mixed however, with studies demonstrating that the type of executive order is an important factor in understanding the conditions under which presidents will resort to unilateral action. Despite this advancement in theory, there has been little consensus regarding the actual conditions under which presidents will issue the different types of executive orders that have been identified in the literature.This thesis addresses this puzzle through an empirical analysis that engages the "Two Presidencies Thesis," which argues that presidential decision-making, action and success is conditioned by policy area (foreign and domestic) and executive order type (major, routine, or symbolic). An original dataset was constructed by coding all executive orders issued between 1953 and 2008 as related to either foreign or domestic policy. Thus, an analysis is undertaken of major executive orders, minor executive orders, foreign policy-based executive orders, domestic policy-based executive orders, and major and minor categories of each policy area.A multivariate analysis is completed using negative binomial regression given that the dependent variables are overdispersed count variables. The effects of divided government and ideological distance are the primary independent variables examined. The ideological distance variable consists of the absolute distance between the president's ideology and the ideology of the median member of the Senate. Various other control variables are included, including presidential party, election year, and approval ratings. The findings indicate that executive order type does matter in predicting presidential use of executive orders and that the prevailing political climate does influence the president's use of executive orders.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2015
- Identifier
- CFE0005992, ucf:50765
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0005992
- Title
- Public Opinion and the President's Use of Executive Orders: Aggregate- and Individual-Level Analyses Across Time.
- Creator
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Jones, Brett, Lanier, Drew, Knuckey, Jonathan, Ilderton, Nathan, University of Central Florida
- Abstract / Description
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Presidential approval ratings are a political resource that presidents and their advisors hope to influence through strategic action in order to achieve their policy goals (McAvoy 2008, 284). Through 1999, scholarly literature had largely ignored the president's use of unilateral powers. Since Moe and Howell (1999a, 1999b), however, the literature on the unilateral presidency has expanded rapidly. Despite the rapid growth of literature examining the unilateral presidency, and 45 years of...
Show morePresidential approval ratings are a political resource that presidents and their advisors hope to influence through strategic action in order to achieve their policy goals (McAvoy 2008, 284). Through 1999, scholarly literature had largely ignored the president's use of unilateral powers. Since Moe and Howell (1999a, 1999b), however, the literature on the unilateral presidency has expanded rapidly. Despite the rapid growth of literature examining the unilateral presidency, and 45 years of presidential approval ratings literature, literature examining the link between the president's use of unilateral powers and subsequent presidential approval ratings is virtually nonexistent. Existing research has not statistically examined what effect, if any, the president's issuing executive orders has on subsequent job approval ratings. This thesis seeks to address that research gap. By modeling aggregate and individual-level presidential approval ratings, using fixed-effect models, OLS regression, and binary logistic regression, this thesis finds evidence indicating the president's issuing of executive orders has a negative impact on the subsequent presidential job approval ratings that individuals report. If an executive order is salient to the public, presidents receive lower presidential approval ratings from persons of all political parties; however, if the executive order is non-salient then presidents only receive lower presidential approval ratings from members of their own political party. Members of the opposition party report higher presidential approval ratings when the president issued non-salient executive orders. Thus, this thesis concludes that the president's issuing of executive orders has significant effects on subsequent presidential job approval ratings, and future research should be conducted to explore this relationship further.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2016
- Identifier
- CFE0006123, ucf:51164
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0006123
- Title
- Institutional vs. Non-Institutional Sources of Presidential Influence: Explaining Congressional-Presidential Relations in the Age of Polarization.
- Creator
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Culp, Derek, Ilderton, Nathan, Lanier, Drew, Houghton, David, University of Central Florida
- Abstract / Description
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This thesis examines the determinants of presidential success with Congress. Seven essential sources of presidential power in the current era of party polarization were derived from the extant literature, and these factors were delineated into the institutional (formal) and non-institutional (informal) policymaking tools of the presidency. Variables that explain presidential legislative success include: intraparty support in Congress, the use of veto bargaining, executive orders and signing...
Show moreThis thesis examines the determinants of presidential success with Congress. Seven essential sources of presidential power in the current era of party polarization were derived from the extant literature, and these factors were delineated into the institutional (formal) and non-institutional (informal) policymaking tools of the presidency. Variables that explain presidential legislative success include: intraparty support in Congress, the use of veto bargaining, executive orders and signing statements (institutional factors); as well as public approval, 'going public,' and strategic lobbying of Congress (non-institutional factors). Case studies of the presidencies of Bill Clinton and George W. Bush analyze the role of these policymaking tools in four key legislative battles of each presidency. Regression models were constructed to test the effect of these variables on presidential legislative success. The case studies elucidate the relationship between non-institutional factors and their subsequent impact on key presidential policy priorities, particularly the interaction between public approval and going public. Findings indicate a positive relationship between a president's strategic bargaining ability with Congress and subsequent legislative success. Findings also show no significant relationship between intraparty support and presidential success when focusing on only key legislative battles between the executive and legislative branches, contrary to the findings of prior research. Future research might examine the various relationships between these policymaking tools and how they affect the nature of presidential power in the current era of heightened party polarization and ideological homogeneity.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2013
- Identifier
- CFE0004832, ucf:49705
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0004832
- Title
- The President's Party at the Midterm: An Aggregate and Individual-Level Analysis of Seat Loss and Vote Choice in U.S. House Elections.
- Creator
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Macdonald, David, Knuckey, Jonathan, Ilderton, Nathan, Lanier, Drew, University of Central Florida
- Abstract / Description
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This thesis provides a comprehensive analysis of midterm U.S. House elections using a multi-level research design. At the aggregate-level, multiple regression analysis is used to examine the variables that affect seat loss for the president's party. This integrates, updates and extends the extant literature of the topic, and offers a means of explaining and predicting seat losses by the president's party in the U.S. House. To further probe the findings at the aggregate-level, the thesis...
Show moreThis thesis provides a comprehensive analysis of midterm U.S. House elections using a multi-level research design. At the aggregate-level, multiple regression analysis is used to examine the variables that affect seat loss for the president's party. This integrates, updates and extends the extant literature of the topic, and offers a means of explaining and predicting seat losses by the president's party in the U.S. House. To further probe the findings at the aggregate-level, the thesis develops a pooled cross-sectional model of individual-level vote choice in midterm U.S. House elections using data from the American National Election Studies (1982-2002) and the Cooperative Congressional Election Study for the 2006 and 2010 midterm elections. Findings suggest that variables measuring the performance of the economy and realignment of the South toward the Republican Party affect seat loss at the aggregate level. However, at the individual level, economic evaluations exerted little influence on vote choice, above and beyond party identification, although perceptions of the national economy did appear to influence vote choice in the 2006 and 2010 elections. Future research might incorporate the strategic politician thesis into the explanatory scheme and move the analysis to elections for other political offices, such as U.S. Senate elections as well as state legislative and gubernatorial elections.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2013
- Identifier
- CFE0004883, ucf:49655
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0004883
- Title
- The Pre-Emptive Election: How the Mass Media Determine Winners and Losers in Presidential Primaries, 1988-2012.
- Creator
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Stewart, Josh, Pollock, Philip, Holsenbeck, Daniel, Lanier, Drew, University of Central Florida
- Abstract / Description
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The function of the mass media in the democratic process is crucial to an informed public and vital to a democratic system. One primary role of the media is that of gatekeeper between political candidates and the public. The influence the media has on the electorate is heightened during the primary process of presidential elections and even more so in the pre-primary season when a large majority of potential voters have yet to form opinions of candidates. The effects of the media in the pre...
Show moreThe function of the mass media in the democratic process is crucial to an informed public and vital to a democratic system. One primary role of the media is that of gatekeeper between political candidates and the public. The influence the media has on the electorate is heightened during the primary process of presidential elections and even more so in the pre-primary season when a large majority of potential voters have yet to form opinions of candidates. The effects of the media in the pre-primary season of politics play out in significant relationships where media coverage results in measurable increases in campaign contributions to the candidates included in this research, while the tone of content has no measurable influence. Although models that tested the ability to predict success in primaries failed to reach statistically significant levels, the raw data show high correlations between media coverage and candidate success.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2014
- Identifier
- CFE0005423, ucf:50407
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0005423