Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2001. / Typescript. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 206-223). Also available on the Internet.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2001. / Typescript. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 206-223). Also available on the Internet.

Drawing insights from liability of foreignness, the punctuated equilibrium model and the resource-based view, this dissertation develops an integrated model to identify the successful strategies and characteristics of both domestic and foreign firms operating in emerging markets, affected by regulatory punctuations. Accordingly, three research questions are addressed: Why are some foreign firms more likely to survive than other foreign firms? Why are some domestic firms more likely to survive than other domestic firms? Are there any similarities between successful foreign firms and successful domestic firms? Using event-history methodologies and the Mexican banking industry as the unit of analysis, this dissertation shows the following results: Foreign firms (banks) from countries with stronger commercial ties to Mexico (the focal emerging market), were less likely to exit the banking industry. Also, the likelihood of exiting the industry, by a foreign firm, was negatively related to domestic firm (bank) acquisitions. For the domestic firms (banks), there was a positive relationship between international diversification and firm survival and a negative relationship between aggressive (loan) growth and firm survival. Also, marginal support was found about the positive relationship between “grupo” affiliation and firm survival. This research contributes to the extant literature by extending current theories when considering the effect of radical change. For instance, while punctuated equilibrium provides a good “environmental” explanation about a firm’s need to adapt to radical change, it does not suggest how firms should adapt to this change. However, by providing an explanation on how firms suppose to adapt to this radical change, this dissertation had expanded the theoretical implication of the punctuated equilibrium model. Similarly, the present dissertation provides a theoretical extension to liability of foreignness by finding that not all foreign firms face the same liability of foreignness. Lastly, the resource-based view is also extended by this dissertation research, as it is found to have implications for emerging markets firms that are different from foreign developed market firms.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2001. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (p. 206-223). Also available on the Internet.

Year in year out, hundreds of diplomats and civil society representatives partake in a seemingly endless stream of meetings on nuclear disarmament. These meetings seldom produce materially significant agreements. In fact, no nuclear warhead has ever been dismantled as a direct result of multilateral negotiations. And yet the web of institutions that make up the 'multilateral nuclear disarmament framework' continues to expand. Why? In this thesis, I identify three waves of institutional expansion in the multilateral nuclear disarmament framework (1975-1978; 1991-1999; 2013-2017), linking them to crises of legitimacy in the nuclear order. Institutional expansion, I argue, has been driven by 'struggles for recognition' by non-nuclear powers loath to accept permanent legal subordination. Institutional contestation has allowed non-nuclear powers to exercise symbolic resistance to the frozen nuclear hierarchy enshrined by the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and its distinction between nuclear 'haves' and 'have-nots'. But the relegitimising function of institutional contestation reveals an irony: By solving recurrent crises of legitimacy in the nuclear order, the expansion of the disarmament framework has served to stabilise nuclear inequality in the long term. However, the 2017 adoption of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) may signal an end to this cyclical pattern of de- and relegitimisation. After half a century of contestation within the hierarchical NPT framework, the TPNW represents a legal negation of nuclear hierarchy as such.

The morphologic variability of a fossil assemblage is of interest in many paleontological studies. However, many fossil assemblages are time-averaged; that is, many generations of non-contemporaneous organisms are mixed into the same fossil bed. Assemblages of robust mollusk shells deposited in nearshore marine environments are often time-averaged over 100's to 1000's of years. Mixing many generations of a taxon can increase measured morphologic variability over that of a single generation if morphology is changing during the interval of time-averaging. If morphology is changing, time-averaging can also alter observed correlations between morphologic variables, as well as allometric growth patterns. If morphology is static, then time-averaging will not increase variability or otherwise obscure patterns of morphologic variability. Testing the effects of time-averaging on morphology will help determine the reliability of information derived from the fossil record. In this study, morphologic variability was compared between 6 standing crop, living populations of Mercenaria campechiensis (Bivalvia) and two fossil assemblages of M. campechiensis and M. permagna. One fossil sample was collected as a series of superposed units that could be analyzed individually or in aggregate. The x,y coordinates of 13 landmarks and pseudolandmarks were recorded on over 600 valves, and variability was calculated using Least Squares Procrustes Analysis. Once corrections were made for allometry, the variabilities of the samples drawn from single time-averaged fossil beds were indistinguishable from the variabilities of the recent samples. For this data set, the variabilities of the fossil samples could be used without reservation to estimate the variability of the standing crop populations from which they formed. Morphology was quite stable over the 100's to 1000's of years that likely passed as the assemblages accumulated. A small amount of analytical time-averaging of the samples increases variability slightly, but additional analytical time-averaging causes no further increase. Very slight morphologic fluctuations are evident at time spans exceeding 100's to 1000's of years. Lumping geographically separated samples and samples of different species also increases variability. Morphologic stasis is evident in Mercenaria over 100's to 1000's of years, but previous studies have indicated that evolutionary rates over this time frame are typically high. These studies are based on colonization events, however, and are biased towards high rates. Data gathered here and in previous studies suggest that local populations may evolve rapidly at their founding, but that stasis follows this initial burst of change. This model describes a pattern similar to Punctuated Equilibrium at a lower level of the genealogical hierarchy, and is here termed "Punctuated Equilibrium, Jr." This model can be further tested in empirical studies and should aid in determining the causes of species-level evolutionary patterns. / Master of Science

The theory of “punctuated equilibrium” suggests that species evolve rapidly during or immediately upon speciation, “punctuating” long periods of little or no morphological evolution. Here I confirm that body size differences within clades of birds and mammals are best explained using a model of punctuated evolution. This allows me to suggest that rates of speciation and extinction are responsible for why there are more small mammals than large, as large mammals likely speciate and go extinct at a higher rate than small mammals, and hence undergo cladogenetic change more often. Likewise, mammals appear to evolve at a higher rate than birds, because mammals, as a whole, speciate and go extinct at a higher rate than birds. Furthermore I show that mass extinctions and competition, i.e. forms of natural selection, do not seem to explain differences in body size between species on a macroevolutionary scale. Taken together, these findings not only contradict the idea that apparently different rates of evolution are due to differential selection intensities, and emphasize the importance of the speciation process in evolution, but raise the intriguing question as to what limits evolution in established species. Here I suggest that phenotypic traits, dependent on one another for development and/or function may constrain evolution by exerting stabilizing selection from within the organism, as opposed to external environmental selection, which has been the main focus of evolutionary studies thus far. / Teorin om "punkterad jämvikt" säger att arter utvecklas snabbt under och omedelbart efter artbildning, vilket "punkterar" långa perioder med lite eller ingen morfologisk föränding. I den här avhandlingen visar jag att skillnader i kroppsstorlek inom klader (grupp med gemensam förfader) hos fåglar och däggdjur förklaras bäst när man använder en modell med punkterad evolution. Detta gör i sin tur att jag kan föreslå att hastigheten var med artbildning och utdöende sker, förklarar varför det finns fler små däggdjur än stora, eftersom stora däggdjur sannolikt bildar nya arter och dör ut med en högre hastighet än små däggdjur. Likaså förefaller däggdjur i sin helhet att evolvera med en högre hastighet än fåglar, detta eftersom däggdjur bildar nya arter och dör ut med en högre hastighet än fåglar. Dessutom visar jag att massutdöenden och konkurrens (naturlig selektion) inte verkar förklara skillnader mellan arter över makroevolutionära skalor (över geologisk tid). Sammantaget motsäger dessa resultat inte bara idén om att skenbart olika hastighet på evolution främst beror på skillnader i selektionstryck utan understryker också vikten av artbildningsprocessen som en viktig faktor som styr evolutionens hastighet. Dessutom leder dessa resultat till frågan om vad som begränsar evolutionen hos redan etablerade arter. Här föreslår jag att fenotypiska karaktärsdrag som är beroende av varandra för sin funktion och utveckling kan begränsa evolutionen genom att utöva stabiliserande selektion inifrån organismen, i motsats till selektion från den omgivande miljön vilket har varit fokus för de flesta evolutionära studier hittills.

Since the 1970s, the number and variety of states providing bilateral aid has grown. In 1973, 16 states provided aid; in 2013, 31 provided aid. This growth may not appear substantial, but it greatly outstrips growth in the number of states in the international system over the same time period (~46% versus 94%). Given states commit aid for a variety of reasons – prominently, including their own geopolitical self-interests – this growth in the bilateral aid donor community suggests donors are likely to encounter increased competition for any given recipient’s foreign policy cooperation. In the face of this increased competition, this dissertation asks: under what conditions will some bilateral aid donors experience greater foreign policy cooperation as a result of their aid efforts than other donors? To answer this question, this dissertation develops and contributes a framework for better understanding when bilateral donors – in the context of a competitive aid-for-policy "marketplace" – will experience greater geopolitical gain. The donor-recipient aid and cooperation framework suggests each component of the aid-for-policy exchange – the donor, the recipient, and the aid itself – is likely to influence the success any given donor experiences utilizing aid to promote foreign policy cooperation. At its core, the framework argues any given donor’s ability to use aid to promote foreign policy cooperation is a function of their own decision-making and policy process; in particular, their abilities to interpret information and adjust policies. This function, however, is likely to be conditioned by the recipient’s set of donor relationships, the donor's ability to overcome friction and resistance in their policy process, and the on-the-ground experience of the aid’s consumers. In developing this argument, the donor-recipient aid and cooperation framework draws upon a variety of theories from international relations, foreign policy decision-making, public policy, and organization theory. Overall, I find elements related to the donor and the recipient condition the success any given donor experiences utilizing aid to promote foreign policy cooperation. The results indicate that donors who possess dependence-based power advantages, or higher levels of mutual dependence, with their recipients are likely to experience improved foreign policy cooperation, but this experience substantively varies across different levels of aid giving. Additionally, some donors – due to their power status, regime type, or organizational memberships and normative adherences – are likely to experience more cooperation than others as a result of lower decision costs and institutional costs in their policy processes. The third element of the donor-recipient aid and cooperation framework, the aid itself, remains untested and is left for analysis in future work.

No description available.

Seit Mitte 1950er Jahre hatten Bundesregierungen immer wieder betont, dass die Bundesrepublik „kein „Einwanderungsland“ sei. Das Bekenntnis der Rot-Grünen Koalition zum „Einwanderungsland“ und die Reformen im Bereich des Staatsbürgerschaftsrechts (1999), des Arbeitsrechts (2000) und der Zuwanderung (2004) markierte daher für viele Experten einen Paradigmawandel in der deutschen Immigrations- und Integrationspolitik. Dieser Wandel ist nie systematisch untersucht worden. Für den Zeitraum von 1981 bis 2005 geht die Arbeit auf der Basis einer stichwortbasierten Inhaltsanalyse und eines Gesetzgebungsindexes deshalb den Fragen nach, (1) inwieweit sich Veränderungen in der politischen Zuwanderungsdiskussion in Deutschland am Beispiel des Deutschen Bundestags nachweisen lassen (Diskursebene), (2) inwiefern die gesetzliche Steuerung und Regulierung von Immigration und Integration in dieser Periode von Liberalisierungstendenzen gekennzeichnet war (Policyebene), und (3) in welchem Verhältnis Diskurs und Policy zueinander stehen. Politische, ökonomische und gesellschaftliche Rahmenbedingungen werden dabei berücksichtigt. Theoretisch basiert die Arbeit auf den Annahmen der Punctuated Equilibrium Theory, die etwas ausführlicher dargestellt und mit den Konzepten Paradigma, Frame und Policywandel verbunden wird. / The paper deals with parliamentary discourse and public policy in the realm of immigration and integration in the Federal Republic of Germany between 1981 and 2005. All federal governments until the late 1990s had publically denied that Germany was a “country of immigration”. After the coalition under Chancellor Gerhard Schröder took office in 1998 this traditional “anti-immigrant” rhetoric seemed to change and reforms of long held policy strongholds in the areas of citizenship, work, immigration and integration were initiated. Some experts interpreted these changes as a fundamental policy “paradigm shift”. The paper sets out to examine this diagnosis as it has never been systematically tested. At the theoretical level, the author links the Punctuated Equilibrium Approach with related concepts of paradigms, frames and policy change. Methodologically, he combines a keyword-based content analysis for analyzing parliamentary debates on “foreigners” with an index approach that helps tracing liberalization tendencies in federal policies on immigration and integration over time.