1:30-3:00 pm in 300 Wallace Hall

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Religious Framing and Citizen Evaluation of Courts

Anna Houk

Existing research recognizes how religiosity can impact how individuals view the importance of social justice, but how does this religious value shape what citizens think of legal systems that integrate religious elements into otherwise non-religious courts? In the case of Jordan, while civil and criminal courts are non-religious, the civil code and institutional factors like judicial education are designed to ensure that rulings are not inconsistent with religious law. Building on existing research, I propose a survey experiment designed to test how exposure to religious texts on the value of justice, and a framing of the courts as an instrument for religious justice affect citizen confidence in the courts. 

Probing Educational Stratification, historical memory and attitudes in Contemporary Tunisia<

Hani Warith

How do legacies of anti-colonial struggle and economic marginalization impact political attitudes in the present day? Having identified macro-level relationships between late-colonial contention, subsequent political development, and political behavior in the present in Tunisia in prior dissertation chapters this survey seeks to concretely identify the mechanisms through which history impacts psychology.1,200 respondents in Tunisia will be administered an extensive face-to-face survey probing attitudes concerning status, political attitudes, and histories of political involvement and repression. Respondents are selectively sampled, to compare citizens from marginalized areas with a history of opposing the regime to those from favored bastions of regime support. In each region, randomly selected individuals are exposed to an experimental treatment simulating the process of electoral mobilization by political entrepreneurs. The study hypothesizes that treated individuals will more strongly identify with co-citizens from their region and express animosity against out-group members. In the wake of Tunisia’s Jasmine Revolution, mobilization of this kind had damning consequences for the nation’s democratic experiment.

Channels of Influence: Examining Digital Media's Impact on Politician-Voter Relations

Emre Ceyhun

The literature suggests that the rise of digital media has allowed politicians to establish direct communication channels with voters, creating new opportunities for influencing the public. Although digital media has provided politicians with more affordable means to reach the voting public, we have limited knowledge of which types of political activities most effectively sway voter opinion. Drawing on scholarship in distributive politics and political psychology, this study proposes a series of online experiments to examine politician-society relations in the digital age. The first experiment will assess whether the sheer size of a politician’s follower base generates a bandwagon effect among voters. The second experiment will test whether voters respond differently to social assistance programs distributed through digital channels as compared to conventional political institutions. The final experiment will investigate the informational effects of social influence that politicians establish on digital media, specifically testing whether voters are more likely to remember the content of a post when it receives higher engagement on digital platforms. Overall, these experiments will shed light on how the emergence of new communication technologies change micro-level interactions between politicians and citizens.