Dissertation Research: The Contentious Politics of Reproductive Policy in Comparative and Historical Perspective, 1950-2000

美国、加拿大和英国都在20世纪60年代末和70年代初放开了堕胎法，但在这个过程中，这些国家制定了截然不同的堕胎政策。尽管这些政策随着时间的推移而发生了变化，但分歧依然存在。美国各州的堕胎政策也有很大不同。这篇博士论文研究项目将考察堕胎政策的性质和时机的决定因素。这包括对这三个国家和美国各州的差异进行分析。这些分析是基于跨国社会政策文献中突出的理论模型和概念方案。提供了一个综合模型，该模型表明政治行为者强烈地受到其政体宪法结构的约束。本文将采用多种比较和定量的策略对理论模型进行评价。首先，该项目将包括对美国、加拿大和英国的主要国家一级政策事件的比较历史分析。其次，它将包含对美国四个州的州级堕胎政策制定的比较历史分析。第三，它将包含对美国50个州堕胎政策的量化和事件历史分析。最后，将利用定性比较分析(QCA)对组合论点进行评价。

The United States, Canada and Great Britain all liberalized their abortion laws in the late 1960s and early 1970s, but, in the process, these countries established markedly different abortion policies. Though these policies have changed over time, the differences have persisted. Abortion policies have also varied markedly among American states. This doctoral dissertation research project will examine the determinants of the character and timing of abortion policies. This includes an analysis of variation across the three nations and across American states. The analyses are based on theoretical models and conceptual schemes prominent in the cross-national literature on social policy. A synthetic model is offered which suggests that political actors are strongly bounded by the constitutional structures of their polity. Several comparative and quantitative strategies will be employed to appraise the theoretical models. First, the project will include comparative historical analyses of major national-level policy episodes in the United States, Canada and Great Britain. Second, it will contain comparative historical analyses of state-level abortion policy-making in four American states. Third, it will contain quantitative and event history analyses of abortion policies in the fifty American states. Finally, it will utilize Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) to appraise combinational arguments.