Thesis advisor: Ronnie Sadka / In the first essay, In this paper, I examine how the connections between activist hedge funds and other institutional investors affect the activist campaigns. I identify a positive causal effect of long-term relationships with other investors on the short-run and long-run performance of activists' target companies. Overall, my results highlight that connections to other institutional investors benefit institutional asset managers. In the second essay, we show that firms in the same board-interlock networks tend to have similar corporate governance practices. We utilize a novel instrument based on staggered adoptions of universal demand laws across states to identify causal peer effects in firms' decisions to adopt various governance provisions. The impact of universal demand laws on the incentives faced by directors as they seek to maximize their career outcomes is a likely mechanism explaining these effects. In the third essay, I investigate whether hedge funds employ short sales to mask their exiting intention when they engage in shareholder activism. Using a hand-collected sample, I find that the probability of a spike in short interest before exit announcements is higher in firms targeted by activists who have a history of short interest increase in their previous targets. According to my findings, the hypothesis is that these hedge funds are more likely to use short sales since they are more concerned about locking their profit and not taking the risk of exit announcements. Overall, this paper provides new evidence of a possible exiting strategy: Silent Exiting via short selling. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2017. / Submitted to: Boston College. Carroll School of Management. / Discipline: Finance.

Thesis advisor: William A. Gamson / Thesis advisor: Zine Magubane / Alongside a burgeoning popular fascination with Africa, new forms of US activism have emerged that seek to address social problems experienced in Africa. Uncritically performed, this activism can have consequential implications in Africa and in the US where young Americans' understanding of Africa, global social problems, and strategies for social change are being shaped. This dissertation illuminates such phenomena through problematizing the US efforts to address the war in northern Uganda and juxtaposing it with the struggles of indigenous activists based in northern Uganda. Focusing upon US activism for northern Uganda, and the group Invisible Children in particular, I raise critical questions about what social change efforts look like in both the US and northern Uganda and why they take the shapes they do. Building on a long-term relationship with northern Uganda and utilizing the methods of ethnography, semi-structured interviews, and focus groups, I expose both overlaps and mismatches in the two contexts, and most importantly, lay the groundwork for building a dialogic between insider and outsider efforts for social change in northern Uganda, with lessons for those interested in social change throughout Africa. Beyond creating useful academic knowledge, this participatory action research infused project seeks to contribute to consciousness-raising in the US and Uganda and, ultimately, to more synergistic and fruitful efforts for social change. Ultimately, I argue that while grounded in a strong foundation of benevolent intentions alongside savvy and sophisticated mobilization tactics, the American activists have an inflated sense of themselves and their roles in responding to and ending the war in northern Uganda and the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA)-affected areas. Among other concerns, this tone of self-absorption translates into a continuity of patronizing victimhood as well as a lack of consciousness of the existence of indigenous social change agents from the region. Ugandans, on the other hand, are not overly alarmed or concerned with this US activism carried out on their behalf because its impact has been largely peripheral to their lives. While many Ugandans articulate some critiques of the young American activists advocating on their behalf, a thunderous anti-imperialist narrative from Ugandans is unlikely primarily because the Americans' impact is marginal. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2011. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Sociology.

Thesis advisor: Vyacheslav Fos / In the first essay, I examine the role of cross-listings in the digital token marketplace ecosystem. Using a unique set of publicly available and hand-collected data from 3,625 tokens traded in 108 marketplaces, I find significant increases in price and trading activity around the date of a token’s first cross-listing. Tokens earn a 49% raw cumulative return in the two weeks around the cross-listing date. Global token-trading volume is almost 50 times higher after cross-listing. Using the uniquely heterogeneous characteristics of token marketplaces, I am able to identify specific value-creation channels. I provide the first evidence supporting value creation through network externalities proposed by recent token-valuation models. Consistent with equity cross-listing theory, I find higher returns for cross-listings that reduce market segmentation and improve information production. In the second essay, we analyze a dataset of 4,003 executed and planned ICOs, which raised a total of $12 billion in capital, nearly all since January 2017. We find evidence of significant ICO underpricing, with average returns of 179% from the ICO price to the first day’s opening market price, over a holding period that averages just 16 days. After trading begins, tokens continue to appreciate in price, generating average buy-and-hold abnormal returns of 48% in the first 30 trading days. We also study the determinants of ICO underpricing and relate cryptocurrency prices to Twitter followers and activity. In the third essay, I examine reputation building by activist hedge funds and document two new findings with regard to hostile activism. First, there is evidence of a permanent reputation effect to hostile activism. Activist hedge funds that have engaged in hostile tactics, receive on average a 3% higher CAR [-10,+10] on their subsequent non-hostile campaigns, compared to hedge funds that have never engaged in hostile tactics. This abnormal return is positively correlated with the level of hostile reputation of the campaigning hedge fund. Second, I find that activist hedge funds with more hostile reputation modify their non-hostile activism style to engage “hostile-like” targets and pursue “hostile-like” objectives, but withhold the use of hostile tactics. These findings imply that hedge funds are able to build reputation using their past engagement tactics and that market participants value such reputation as evidenced by the higher announcement return observed in their targets. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2019. / Submitted to: Boston College. Carroll School of Management. / Discipline: Finance.

This thesis explores questions of politics and public space through an examination of the experiences of people involved in Occupy protest camps and local officials who were tasked with managing the protests in Eugene, OR and Madison, WI. Using assemblage as an organizing theoretical framework, this work identifies the actors involved in the production of Occupy protest camps and traces the trajectories of two Occupy protests from their beginnings to eviction day. It highlights the role of space in the protests, the ways in which protesters negotiated with local authorities for long-term use of public spaces previously prohibited by law, and some of the factors that contributed to the eviction of the protest camps. Finally, it seeks to reframe the debate on public space and conceptualizes public space as an assemblage that is continually made, unmade, and remade through the interactions of diverse, heterogeneous actors. / 10000-01-01

Le vent de démocratisation qui a soufflé en Afrique en 1990 a entraîné une ouverture démocratique au Congo-Brazzaville. L’une de ses conséquences fut la relative liberté retrouvée dans le monde de la presse qui connut alors une explosion des titres. Ce fut une période de grande effervescence politique caractérisée par : la conférence nationale souveraine (1990-1991), la période de transition (1991-1992) suivie de la période post-conférence (1992-1997). Cette grande effervescence politique qui a caractérisé cette période (1990-1997), souvent qualifiée de deuxième expérience démocratique après celle que le Congo a connue entre 1957 et 1963, avait entraîné à son tour un grand activisme médiatique dans la presse écrite congolaise. Les différents journaux existants ou qui ont vu le jour à la faveur de l’ouverture démocratique, ont accompagné cette période en submergeant le public congolais d’articles plus ou moins partisans sur l’information politique. Cependant, selon les observateurs de cette presse, La semaine Africaine, objet de notre étude, est le seul journal à s’être comporté de manière non partisane. La thèse que nous soutenons consiste à dire que La Semaine Africaine a affiché un comportement non partisan dans le traitement des informations politiques. En d’autres termes il s’agit de montrer à travers les approches quantitatives et qualitatives, le comportement non partisan dont elle a fait montre dans le traitement des informations politiques au Congo entre 1990 et 1997. / The wind of democratisation which blew in Africa in 1990 involved a democratic opening in Congo-Brazzaville. One of its consequences was the relative freedom found in the world of the press which knew an explosion of the titles then. It was one period of great political effervescence characterized by: the sovereign national conference (1990-1991), the period of transition (1991-1992) followed by the period post-conference (1992-1997). This great political effervescence which characterized this period (1990-1997), often qualified of second democratic experiment after that Congo knew between 1957 and 1963, had involved in its turn a great media activism in the Congolese written press. The various existing newspapers or which came out owing to the democratic opening, accompanied this period by submerging the Congolese public by articles more or less in favour on political information. However, according to the observers of this press, the African week, object of our study, is the only newspaper to be itself comprised in manner not well-wisher. The thesis that we support consists in saying that the African Week displayed a behavior nonin favour in the political data processing. In other words it is a question of showing through the quantitative and qualitative approaches, the behavior nonin favour of which it made watch in the political data processing in Congo between 1990 and 1997.

Esta pesquisa se fundamenta na hipótese de que ao longo da redemocratização foi desenvolvido um novo tipo de ativismo artístico, o ativismo institucional. O qual, por ter efetivamente impactado no processo de reformulação institucional e nas políticas voltadas para as artes visuais, se diferencia das estratégias de ativismo comumente associadas ao período da ditadura militar, o frentismo - quando um grupo de artistas se unem para problematizar e/ou se opor a uma dada situação - e o ativismo da obra, quando o trabalho artístico é indissociável de seu vínculo com o político. Desse modo, essa estratégia de intervenção artística está diretamente conectada a três questões: a relação das artes visuais com o estado autoritário no pós-1974; o processo de institucionalização das artes visuais ao longo da redemocratização e o desenvolvimento de um horizonte de inteligibilidade para arte contemporânea no Brasil. / This research is based on the hypothesis that during the re-democratization a new type of artistic activism was developed, institutional activism. Which, by having an effective impact in the process of institutional reformulation and in the policies for the visual arts, differs from the activism strategies commonly associated with the period of the military dictatorship, the frentismo - when a group of artists unite to problematize and / or oppose to a given situation - and the activism of the work, when the artistic work is inseparable from its link with the politician. Thus, this strategy of artistic intervention is directly connected to three questions: the relation of the visual arts to the authoritarian state in post-1974; the process of institutionalization of the visual arts along the redemocratization and the development of a horizon of intelligibility for contemporary art in Brazil.

Esta pesquisa se fundamenta na hipótese de que ao longo da redemocratização foi desenvolvido um novo tipo de ativismo artístico, o ativismo institucional. O qual, por ter efetivamente impactado no processo de reformulação institucional e nas políticas voltadas para as artes visuais, se diferencia das estratégias de ativismo comumente associadas ao período da ditadura militar, o frentismo - quando um grupo de artistas se unem para problematizar e/ou se opor a uma dada situação - e o ativismo da obra, quando o trabalho artístico é indissociável de seu vínculo com o político. Desse modo, essa estratégia de intervenção artística está diretamente conectada a três questões: a relação das artes visuais com o estado autoritário no pós-1974; o processo de institucionalização das artes visuais ao longo da redemocratização e o desenvolvimento de um horizonte de inteligibilidade para arte contemporânea no Brasil. / This research is based on the hypothesis that during the re-democratization a new type of artistic activism was developed, institutional activism. Which, by having an effective impact in the process of institutional reformulation and in the policies for the visual arts, differs from the activism strategies commonly associated with the period of the military dictatorship, the frentismo - when a group of artists unite to problematize and / or oppose to a given situation - and the activism of the work, when the artistic work is inseparable from its link with the politician. Thus, this strategy of artistic intervention is directly connected to three questions: the relation of the visual arts to the authoritarian state in post-1974; the process of institutionalization of the visual arts along the redemocratization and the development of a horizon of intelligibility for contemporary art in Brazil.

A rede de ativismo político contemporâneo tem orientado suas ações em direção a um campo híbrido que desconsidera fronteiras entre ativismo e arte . Dentre a variedade de práticas desta rede, o prank é um exemplo da desconsideração destas fronteiras. Um prank é um golpe, uma ruptura jocosa da ordem, da hierarquia, da autoridade. Como prática, o prank é abordado ao longo deste trabalho como uma opção performativa para o ativismo político, uma vez que reúne características lúdicas, críticas, vivenciais e multiplicadoras. Os ativistas que adotam o prank como opção se relacionam com a história recente da rede de ativismo político contemporâneo, que resiste a um novo modelo de organização do capitalismo. De 1994 a 2003, esta rede estabeleceu um panorama de macroações (em especial, os Dias de Ação Global) festivas e insurgentes. O ativismo difuso, diluído no cotidiano com ações em menor escala, também tem adotado a mesma orientação irreverente. Isto é especialmente verificável na reivindicação pelo espaço, entendido de maneira ampla, tanto como espaço urbano erodido pela invasão do capital, quanto como espaço da comunicação, da ideologia e das trocas simbólicas. As modalidades de pranks adotadas neste contexto são examinadas a partir de categorias como a teatralidade e a performatividade, conforme entendidas por Josette Féral. Estas ferramentas contribuem na conclusão de que n a performance atravessada pelo prank não existem mediadores, ela é autônoma, orientada pelo princípio político do faça você mesmo. / The current network of political activism has pursued a hybrid field, ignoring the borders between activism and art. Amongst the various genres of this network, the prank illustrates how such borders are blurred. A prank is a blow, a whimsical breaking of order, of hierarchy, and of authority. This thesis addresses prank as a practice, a performance option for political activism, provided that it merges experiences of play, criticism, liveness and dissemination. Activists who have chosen the prank are related with a recent history of the contemporary network of political mobilization, which resists to a new capitalist pattern of organization. From 1994 through 2003, this network established a scenario of celebrations and radical macro-actions (particularly the Days of Global Action). The spread out activism that is blended in daily life also features a similar invasive attitude. This is especially true in their claims for space, broadly understood both as urban space that has been contaminated by the invasion of capital, and as a space of communication, ideology and symbolic exchange. I have examined the various prank genres within this context on the basis of categories such as theatricality and performativity, according to Josette Férals stance. These considerations have led me to the conclusion that there are no mediators when prank merges with performance, since it is autonomous and draws on the do it yourself political principle.

Neste trabalho discutimos sobre internet e verdade. Especificamente, tentamos defender que há modos singulares de produção do discurso verdadeiro, e a internet implica configurações particulares destes modos. Entendemos que as formas por meio das quais podemos lidar com a verdade são reconfiguradas por elementos que a rede faz funcionar, tais como o acesso generalizado à produção de texto, a reprodução massiva de informação, a imensa capacidade de acúmulo e distribuição de conteúdos. Por isso, afirmamos que a internet não é um meio pelo qual é transmitida uma verdade incondicional; tampouco é o meio pelo qual se perverte o verdadeiro na forma do erro. Entendemos que há diferentes modulações de discursos pretendidos como verdadeiros, cada um dos quais relativo a possibilidades inerentes às diversas plataformas na rede. Para levar a efeito tal discussão, primeiramente consideramos alguns problemas teóricos selecionados da tradição acadêmica que investigou os meios de comunicação. Posteriormente, debatemos acerca de uma noção de verdade mais adequada a nosso âmbito de problemas, de onde é derivada uma discussão a partir de textos de Friedrich Nietzsche e Michel Foucault. Advém daí o entendimento de que a verdade é um efeito de disputas, o que a inscreve no problema geral do poder. Uma vez que o ativismo em rede se apresenta como modo de produção de discurso com pretensão de verdade, propomos a discussão acerca de casos específicos em que ocorre. Sendo a educação ambiente sensível aos problemas que tocam a verdade, a política e o uso de tecnologias de informação e comunicação, a pesquisa almeja contribuir com o debate atual concernente a esta área de estudos. / In this work we discuss about the internet and truth. Specifically, we try to argue that there are singular modes of producing true discourse, and the internet implies unique configurations of these modes. We understand that the ways in which we can deal with truth are reconfigured by elements that the network makes work, such as generalized access to the word, massive reproduction of content, immense capacity for accumulation and distribution of information. Therefore, we affirm that the internet is not a means by which an unconditional truth is transmitted; nor is it the means by which the true is perverted in the form of error. We understand that there are different modulations of speeches intended as true, each of which related to possibilities inherent to the various platforms on the network. To carry out such a discussion, we first consider some theoretical problems selected from the academic tradition that investigated the media. Later, we debate about a notion of truth more adequate to our scope of problems, for this we derive a discussion from the texts of Friedrich Nietzsche and Michel Foucault. There emerges the understanding that truth is an effect of disputes, which inscribes it in the general problem of power. Since network activism presents itself as a mode of discourse production with a pretension of truth, we propose to discuss specific cases in which it occurs. Since education is sensitive to problems that touch on truth, politics and the use of information and communication technologies, the research aims to contribute to the current debate concerning this area of study.

Através do trabalho de campo e de análise bibliográfica e documental durante os anos de 2010 a 2014, esta pesquisa teve por objetivo compreender a produção das categorias travesti, transexual, trans e transgênero a partir das relações entre saberes e ativismos. Tomei como fio condutor os debates em torno das regulações das transformações corporais do sexo, argumentando que estas discussões são uma importante porta de entrada para o entendimento das relações entre movimentos sociais e especialistas, assim como da circulação transnacional e possíveis particularidades construídas acerca dessas categorias no Brasil. Na análise dos especialistas apresentei tensões entre os saberes biomédicos e os saberes sociais. Argumentei como os especialistas constroem suas versões de sujeito que orientam sua prática profissional a partir métodos e teorias diferentes, produzindo efeitos políticos e relações entre noções de (des)patologização, autonomia e sofrimento. Na análise dos ativistas apresentei como o uso do termo trans é polissêmico, sobretudo se pensarmos suas possíveis articulações com as categorias de travesti, transexual, homens, mulheres e pessoas. Discuti o surgimento de um culturalismo travesti como uma forma de politizar certa noção de cultura como núcleo da identidade travesti. Este culturalismo travesti produz a possibilidade de se constituir uma identidade com orgulho, conjuntamente com noções de nação brasileira, constituindo-se como uma contraposição e interlocução ao que chamei de transglobalização, um processo de espraiamento global das categorias transexual, trans e transgênero. / Based on fieldwork and bibliographical and documentary analysis during the years of 2010 to 2014, this research aims to comprehend the production of travesti, transsexual, trans and transgender categories throughout the relations between acknowledgments and activisms. I took the debates around the regulation of body sex changes as a conductor thread, arguing that these discussions are an important entrance door for the understanding of the relations between social movement and specialists, as well as the transnational movement and possible particularities built around these categories in Brazil. About the specialists analysis, I presented tensions between the biomedical and social acknowledgments. I argued about how the specialists build their own versions of subject that guide their professional practice on different methods and theories, producing political effects and relations between notions of (de)pathologization, autonomy and suffering. About the activists analysis, I presented how polissemic the use of the trans term is, mostly if we think its possible articulations with the categories of travesti, transsexual, women and people. I discussed the appereance of a travesti culturalism as a way to politicize a certain notions of culture as the center of travesti identity. This travesti culturalism produces a possibility to constitute an identity with pride, together with the notions of brazilian nation, constituting itself as a contraposition and interlocution to what I called transglobalisation, a global spreading process of the transsexual, trans and transgender categories.