Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2023, Political Science

Politics take shape in communications. As communication technologies have evolved, and taken on new forms online, so too have politics. Social media platforms and the algorithms that govern them, contribute to the evolution of communication and mass politics. These new technologies also offer a trove of text, network, sensor, and metadata that can advance political methodologies for studying communications and how politicians, interest groups, and political elites connect. This dissertation advances these lines of research. Chapter 2 introduces a novel type of theoretical actor, the interest actor. I describe interest actors and their importance in our political ecology and introduce a classification method that makes the theoretical definition of interest actors operational on social media. Chapter 3 considers how interest groups utilize social media and provides evidence of their social and informational networked behavior and online activities. Chapter 4 introduces a novel application of Directed Information influence networks for political research. These networks conceptually evaluate the content of communications shared between actors as a network. Estimating directed information allows us to evaluate the impact and effects that actors have on one another through their interactions or communications, and uncover the latent network structure of influences or interactions.

Committee: Janet Box-Steffensmeier (Advisor); Michael Neblo (Committee Member); William Minozzi (Committee Member); Bruce Desmarais (Committee Member) Subjects: Political Science

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2023, Political Science

A large body of research points to evidence that the U.S. is in an era of strong party government, characterized by internally homogenous and externally heterogeneous parties. In a three article dissertation, I find that parties are not invariably strong and polarized. The first chapter finds evidence of surprising patterns of bipartisanship in state legislatures. The second chapter develops a methodology and produces a data set of scores reflecting members' influence in their party's constituent communication. The third chapter uses those scores to test whether party influence extends beyond formal legislative activities.

Committee: William Minozzi (Committee Chair); Skyler Cranmer (Committee Member); Janet Box-Stefensmeier (Committee Chair) Subjects: Political Science

Master of Arts, Miami University, 2019, Economics

Medicare and Medicaid are U.S. Federal health insurance programs established in 1965 as an amendment to the Social Security Act of 1935. They provide coverage to the aged population (65+), low-income individuals, and to other subsets of the U.S. population. After reviewing the foundations of Medicare/Medicaid, I analyze the political economy of Members of Congress vote choices on the original 1965 Medicare/Medicaid law. I find evidence that the number of doctors per 100,000 individuals in a state is a strong predictor of vote choice and there is statistically significant interaction between percentage of Black Americans and the South. Moreover, there is evidence to suggest that party alignment of constituencies and geographic region played roles in persuading Republicans in party-contested states to defect. The behavior of these defectors is dependent on their party alignment and the party alignment of the majority in Congress. To assess the strength of the model across time and legislation, I run a fully interacted, pooled OLS regression on both the 1965 legislation, and the Medicare Modernization Act of 2003. I find the effects of hospitals do not hold across time. However, I find evidence target populations remain insignificant in both datasets, suggesting they are not strong influencers of vote choice.

Committee: Melissa Thomasson (Advisor); Gregory Niemesh (Committee Member); Deborah Fletcher (Committee Member) Subjects: Economic History; Economics; Health Care; Political Science; Public Policy

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2019, Public Health

In 2016, Congress enacted the Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act (CARA), legislation addressing the opioid crisis. CARA evidences a health-oriented definition of problem drug use, one that differs from narratives of deviancy used to describe past drug crises in the U.S. It was also accompanied by legislators proclamation that addiction was a public health issue. While the factors that contributed to this definition are likely many, scholarly research has demonstrated that legislators' consider the positions of organized interest groups and administrative agencies (pressure groups) when deciding how to approach a policy problem. One way in which pressure groups communicate their positions to legislators is through their testimony at congressional hearings. In doing so, they often use policy narratives that contain causal stories that support their preferred policy proposals. This dissertation examines pressure group use of policy narratives within the congressional hearing testimony from 2014-2016 on the opioid crisis to answer the following overarching questions: (1) How did pressure groups define the opioid crisis prior to CARA's enactment? (2) How did such a definition and its aligning solutions differ by the type of group testifying? The overall goals of this dissertation are to understand (1) how pressure groups may have influenced the definition of the opioid crisis as a health problem prior to CARA's enactment, (2) to characterize the types of narratives used to support such a re-definition, and (3) to explore how varying groups' interests may have contributed to the differing problem definitions. The results of this dissertation suggest that pressure groups defined the opioid crisis as both a supply and demand problem, but a problem which was best addressed by the healthcare system. Further, the results demonstrate that although a select few law enforcement groups clung to archaic narratives of strict deviancy, the majority of law enforcement actors (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Sandra Tanenbaum PhD (Committee Chair); Micah Berman JD (Committee Member); Thomas Wickizer PhD (Committee Member); Paul DeBoeck PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: Health; Health Care; Health Sciences; Public Health

Master of Science, The Ohio State University, 2015, Environment and Natural Resources

Interest organizations endeavor to influence government in ways that are beneficial for their stakeholders making their activities significant for both theoretical and practical reasons. This research examined the structure of the contemporary agricultural interest group community to explore theoretical questions about whether pluralism exists in agricultural policy making processes and whether agricultural interest groups create policy engagement niches. From a practical perspective, the project examined the contemporary federal agricultural interest group community to assess what groups participate and how. Lobbying disclosure data from the 112th U.S. Congress was analyzed using descriptive statistics and cluster analysis, complemented by organizational interviews. Analysis indicated a few key findings: 1) agricultural policy encompassed a variety of issues but the domain had a strong focus on agricultural production and the environment; 2) the federal agricultural interest group community encompasses a large and diverse set of actors across a variety of interests and the majority of these groups were not considered farm organizations; 3) most of the organizations that engage federal agricultural policy are more specialized than general, but generalist groups are the most active of all organizations types; 4) the vast majority of interests engage in a limited fashion in the domain, which is simultaneously characterized by policy bandwagons and issue niches; 5) patterns of engagement by the overwhelming majority of interest groups in the agricultural domain were similar, while a few of the 1,235 organizations in the community exhibited unique lobbying patterns carving out policy engagement niches; 6) interview responses indicated mixed results for the existence of niche partitioning behavior in the federal agriculture domain, aligning with patterns of lobbying in which a portion of organizations carved out unique niches, but the vast majority did not. These findi (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Jeff Sharp PhD (Advisor); Neal Hooker PhD (Committee Member); Kerry Ard PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: Agriculture; Political Science; Sociology

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2012, Political Science

In this dissertation I develop a theory of interest group influence that centers on the idea of groups subsidizing congressional work through legislative committees. The theory predicts that the amount of leverage groups holds over policy is a function of whether or not they agree with Congress that policy needs to be reformed, the level of cooperation groups have with the relevant committees, and the amount of competition between groups. An extension of the theory that allows the level of group-committee cooperation to be a choice by Congress shows it will alter the structure of committees to increase cooperation over time in response to growing interest group competitiveness. I test the first set of predictions on bills in the U.S. House of Representatives from the 109th through the 111th Congresses lobbied by either the U.S. Chamber of Commerce (USCC) or the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO), and find some support for the theory. I also test the long-run prediction about committee structure using data from the 101st through the 111th Congresses, and find further support.

Committee: Greg Caldeira PhD (Committee Chair); Craig Volden PhD (Committee Member); Luke Keele PhD (Committee Member); William Minozzi PhD (Committee Member); Alex Thompson PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: Political Science

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2007, Political Science

In the past 15 years, the post-communist countries have attempted to rebuild state society relations. Central to this process has been the formation of business associations. Existing literature often treats business associations as marginal players. This dissertation demonstrates that they are important organizations that have a profound effect on the political and economic life of post-communist countries. Moreover, while scholars have examined the behavior and influence of interest groups, the actual causes of group formation remain underdeveloped. This dissertation examines the creation of business associations and their subsequent development across countries and economic sectors. Based on a cross-national survey of firms in 25 countries as well as a comparative analysis of business interest representation in Russia, Ukraine, Croatia, and Kazakhstan, it finds that low-level bureaucratic corruption and excessive state regulations facilitate the formation of business associations. It argues that increasing bureaucratic pressure on businesses stimulates collective action to combat corruption. Another empirical finding is that firms in different sectors of the economy are unequally represented by business associations. Contrary to prevailing theoretical arguments, firms in the service sector are most likely to join business associations, while firms in mining and heavy industry are least likely to join. This is consistent with the previous argument because firms in service sectors are more vulnerable to invasive regulations. Analysis suggests that the nature of state regulatory institutions affects business association formation. When corruption and regulations by bureaucrats are rampant, businesses have greater incentives to join associations providing legitimate means to counter bureaucratic pressure. Thus, business associations arise as a defensive mechanism to protect business against corruption and extensive regulation. This contributes to the debates about th (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Timothy Frye (Advisor) Subjects: Political Science, General

PHD, Kent State University, 2012, College of Arts and Sciences / Department of Political Science

State Medicaid programs transfer over $100 billion to private firms to manage the health care needs of beneficiaries every year. As a result of state policy choices, there is a great deal of variation among the states in the scope and use of managed care organizations to serve state Medicaid populations. This research answers questions about what factors help to explain the variations among states; with a specific emphasis on both the role of interest group populations and bureaucratic capacity. The questions posed are answered utilizing pooled, cross-sectional time series analysis from 1997 to 2007 to test the relationship between Medicaid managed care policy choices and a variety of political, economic, demographic and governmental control variables. In addition, a four state case study analysis was conducted with similar policy players in each state that utilizes content analysis software to examine transcribed interview response variations about state Medicaid privatization efforts. The findings from the quantitative models suggest that interest groups play an important role in explaining why states choose to use commercial for-profit managed care arrangements. The models also find that states with higher levels of bureaucratic capacity tend to rely less on the use of all forms of managed care in Medicaid contracting, and that state specific managed care markets are positively related to state managed care policy choices. The four state qualitative interviews confirm the accuracy of the statistical analysis and further provide a narrative explaining why states favor one type of Medicaid managed care use. In addition, the interviews clarify how strong interest group communities and diminished bureaucratic capacity explain a state's policy choices. The findings contribute to the state policy and politics literature and health policy making about the role of bureaucracy and interest groups and are generalizable to other state policy venues.

Committee: Renee Johnson J (Committee Chair); Daniel Hawes (Committee Member); Christopher Banks (Committee Member); Stephen Parente T (Committee Member); Susan Roxburgh (Committee Member) Subjects: Health Care; Health Care Management; Political Science; Public Administration; Public Health; Public Policy