Providing energy security and diversifying the energy production in India align with the country’s rising power ambitions and policy goals to industrialize. Renewable energy provides a useful tool for the state to meet these policy goals without producing more air pollution and additional environmental degradation. The Central Government has international ambitions of with becoming a rising responsible power; these aspirations have created new resources, incentives, and policy ideas for the subnational states in India. The purpose of this thesis is to map out the motivations, interests, and incentives of subnational elites in devising policies to promote renewable energy development in Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Gujarat, and Rajasthan. I develop an analytical framework based on four variables: 1) state-level party politics, 2) financial space/ indebtedness of state distribution companies, 3) institutional knowledge in state-level nodal renewable energy agencies, and 4) state-level linkages with the private sector to examine different modes of vertical alignment that subnational actors employ to develop renewable energy policies. I find that environmental concerns weren’t the primary driver of renewable energy development; instead, environmental benefits were an unintended outcome of private sector actors and state elites coordinating with the Central Government to address the pressing needs of ensuring reliable energy for industry leaders. In particular, Kerala demonstrates that even when active environmental movements and popular support exists for renewable energy, unless there are active private sector linkages, renewable energy development will remain slow. These findings may be very helpful for central government officials in India and state-level bureaucrats trying to devise climate change mitigation policies on the subnational level. Moreover, international climate change negotiators could use these findings to engage with India more to accelerate renewable energy development to slow anthropogenic climate change.

This thesis examines Dayak identity constructions and how they have been and are currently being used to assert customary land rights in forested areas of West Kalimantan, Indonesia. The Indonesian state has required that customary land claims include proof that communities have maintained their indigenous institutions. Drawing from government and NGO reports, academic research, and Indonesian law, a few questions thus are explored: What aspects of identity must be maintained in order to be sufficient to claim customary land rights under Indonesian law? How has recent Dayak mobilization fed into a resurgence in Dayak identity and pride, and vice versa? What opportunities does this hold for conservation and development? This thesis emphasizes the necessity of the subsequent transfer of ownership following the recognition of customary rights, which would protect indigenous land more permanently, increase Dayak community involvement and self-perceptions as active agents in forestry, and in doing so, aid in improving security of indigenous livelihoods and protecting biodiversity in Indonesia’s forests.

This thesis is the result of a comparative study utilizing qualitative evidence regarding the democratization process and history in Ghana and Nigeria. As a whole, this thesis seeks to exemplify some of the potential outcomes of democratization since independence in sub-Saharan African states. I analyze the strength and condition of democracy and the democratization process through the electoral histories of Ghana and Nigeria. In my argument, neopatrimonialism encapsulates corruption via patronage, clientelism, and godfatherism. These three theories are the primary areas of concern within this study regarding neopatrimonialism. I assert that democracy is measured in this region as a reflection of the quality of free and fair elections, a key (but not sole) determinant of democratization. The quality or maturation of democracy is measured through the degree to which neopatrimonialism has impacted the integrity of the electoral process. Thus, instances elite clientelism through predatory prebendalism and violent corruption by political elite represent a very troubled democracy under which power structures serve the personal interests of the political elite. Comparatively, evidence of a more distributive form of neopatrimonialism indicates a stronger democratic regime, and is indicated by mass clientelism in the electoral systems of the state.

In this dissertation, I investigate two key questions: 1) What are the specific conditions under which economic inequality undermines democratic legitimacy; and 2) How does inequality map onto individuals’ perceptions of fairness and subsequently affect satisfaction with democracy and trust in political institutions? I first argue that individuals’ perceptions of distributive unfairness are key factors whereby economic inequality undermines democratic legitimacy. Inequality - and subsequent perceptions that the economic distribution is unfair - undermine political support by signaling that the democratic process is not functioning properly and by challenging people’s normative expectations about what democracy should do in practice. I next draw from a diverse literature on social and political psychology, as well as governance quality, to derive new hypotheses about how people form their fairness judgments and use them to evaluate democracy. Right-leaning and upper-class individuals should be less upset with inequality in the first place, but even when these individuals perceive distributive unfairness, they should be less likely to express political dissatisfaction as a result. Additionally, the context in which individuals form their fairness perceptions should condition the relationship between fairness judgments and political support. In a context of good governance, individuals should be less likely to perceive inequality as unfair, and subsequently less likely to express political dissatisfaction for any perceived distributive unfairness in society. Governance quality provides alternative evidence that democracy is in fact functioning properly and should allay citizens’ concerns about inequality and distributive unfairness, at least when it comes to evaluating democratic legitimacy. To test my theory and hypotheses, I take a mixed-methods approach that combines large-N analysis of public opinion data and original survey experiments. To contextualize my quantitative results, I draw on motivating examples from original open-ended surveys, newspapers, and elite interviews. In the first empirical chapter, I conduct a multilevel analysis of data from 18 Latin American and show that perceptions of distributive unfairness are negatively correlated with trust in government and satisfaction with democracy, yet good governance significantly mitigates this negative relationship. In the second empirical chapter, I use original survey experiments in Argentina, Mexico, and the US to show that perceptions of distributive unfairness are key causal factors linking inequality to political dissatisfaction. In the third empirical chapter, I use a second set of survey experiments to investigate how governance quality moderates the relationship between inequality and political support. When individuals are presented with information about declining corruption, they are less likely to perceive their country’s income distribution as unfair, and less likely to link inequality to political dissatisfaction.

Why do women protest? Why do women protest “as women”? Why do some women participate in protests but not others? In the wake of the Women’s March of 2017, perhaps the largest single day protest event in history, these questions are particularly timely and deserve scholarly attention. One important but understudied and undertheorized motivation for women’s protests is state sanctioned violence, particularly repression. This dissertation explicitly theorizes about how state perpetration of violence, particularly state use of repression, both motivates and shapes women’s protests on a global scale. In this dissertation, I argue that one key motivation for women’s protest is repression by the state, and I theorize that women will protest more frequently when the state uses repression. Repression negatively impacts members of the population, particularly relatives, friends, and communities of those targeted by the state, and this motivates those people to protest. However, I argue that the type of repression, and more specifically how gendered the state practices repression, matters. The more that gender plays a role in determining who states target with repression, the more gender matters in the societal response to repression. In particular, I examine the use of forced disappearances. Based on historical and contemporary accounts, I show that forced disappearance largely targets males, and thus motivates women’s protests but has no effect on protests by other groups. When the state makes use of forced disappearances, some women are motivated to protest due to their connections to victims of repression. Furthermore, opportunities to protest in these circumstances are more available to women than to men, due to their relatively lower likelihood of being targeted, as well as women’s distinctive positions in society and their ability to organize themselves as women. Not only do women have additional space relative to men to protest when the state is repressive, but individual women recognize that their gender can serve as a resource in such contexts. Thus, individual women are more likely to participate in protests themselves when the state uses repression, closing the gender gap in protest participation between men and women. I test my theory of women’s protest using two unique approaches. First, utilizing unique new data on women’s protests that is globally comprehensive for all countries from 1990-2009, I show that women’s protests are more frequent when the state is repressive, and that forced disappearances in particular motivate women’s protests, specifically, but do not have an observable effect on general protests. Second, I utilize regionally comprehensive data on citizens in Latin America from 2006 and 2008 to show that women are more likely to participate in protests when the state uses forced disappearances, but that men are not more likely to participate in protests in repressive contexts.

The work is a descriptive and comparative study of the British program for economically lagging regions of the country. The author's special interest was local participation in the central Government activity. Secondary sources of information on local aspects were in short supply, and the writer relied upon interviews and unpublished documents obtained on a visit to England to supplement published material. His extensive experience in the American development program also was utilized. The study offers a classification of elements in the programs of the two countries and identifies comparable trends which have carried further in the British experience. The study of these trends can therefore be of use in evaluation of the direction and alternatives in the American approach. Dramatic unemployment in declining basic industries concentrated in Northern England, Scotland, and Wales resulted in pressure on the British Government to create jobs in depressed regions during the 1930’s. The author calls this the “Job Development Era.” The program feature was the creation of central Government trading estates, or industrial parks. Firms were' encouraged to move to suffering regions by the provision of factory sites on advantageous terms, by loans and grants to finance expansion, by loans and grants to local government for needed public improvements, and by retraining programs to prepare indigenous workers to take new employment. The “Resource Development Era” followed in both countries. In the U. K. it featured the creation of regional development policies, establishment of new towns as favored sites for both industry and workers, resource development grants in the lagging regions, grants to reclaim derelict land, and especially the initiation of a national system of controls on the location of industry and large offices. The U. S. has not adopted location controls, but in other ways is currently in the "Resource Development Era," in which a depressed region is treated as a whole, rather than concentrating program assistance on particularly severe unemployment pockets. The chief characteristic of the third and present British stage, the “Balanced Growth Era,” is recognition of the need to restructure regional economies in order to enable them to generate their own growth without further special assistance. Britain utilizes regional councils and government boards to plan the restructuring process, but only in the late 1960’s has major new financing supported implementation. Neither the resources nor the policy commitment has been made in the U. S. to attempt to alter the regional balance of the country. The author made several forecasts from his comparative study, chief among them being (1) that the U.S. will inevitably but reluctantly move into the “Balanced Growth” period in its programming, and (2) that industrial location controls will not be adopted in the Same way in the U. S. as in the U. K., but may come as environmental preservation measures. A key premise at the initiation of the study was that there must be some community and citizen participation in the British program, despite the paucity of printed information on these subjects. After a thorough search of the literature, and interviewing in England, the study did disclose an effective but little known role played by the local authorities. However, the author proved himself wrong in the supposition that the British citizenry and local community organizations have any noticeable impact on the program. In this way it is significantly different than the American experience.

This dissertation offers a single case in-depth analysis of factors precluding civil society from democratizing African polities. Synthesizing existing literature on Rwanda, I first undertake an historical search to trace the origins and qualities of civil society in the colonial era. This effort shows, however, that the central authority—commencing before the inception of the Republic in 1962—consistently organized civil society to buttress its activities, not to challenge them. Next, using ethnographic research, I challenge conventional economic and institutional accounts of civil society’s role in democratization. I show that institutional change and the economic clout of organized groups are marginal and transient in effect, and hence possess considerable limitations to democratize state and non-state-groups relations. I argue that the Genocide and its historical materials, social and economic precariousness, and neo-patrimonial power configurations have erected a prevailing political culture that still conditions how Rwanda’s state-society relations are imagined, realized, and challenged. Conversely, just as that political culture has lengthened the reach of the state into society, limiting the potential autonomy of civil society, it has also been the basis for rebuilding the society, restoring the state’s authority, and enacting major state-building oriented reforms. Consequently, for CSOs to induce a liberal democratic order in domestic politics, subsequent activism will require long-term strategic and organic investment of actors into the dispersed, parochial strands of democracy first, not into ongoing confrontational, yet fruitless, political warfare that hinders social capital formation and that civil society is not yet equipped to win.

Alors que la littérature académique sur les politiques de l’emploi se concentre sur les variables nationales du changement, cette recherche s’intéresse à la perméabilité des frontières nationales de l’action publique dans un contexte européanisé. En adoptant une approche interactionniste de l’européanisation, elle explique d’abord comment les institutions européennes ont défini un modèle, celui de la flexicurité, qui articule deux dimensions que les experts et les acteurs politiques ont longtemps considérées comme incompatibles : la flexibilité des marchés du travail et la sécurité des travailleurs. La recherche se penche ensuite sur la comparaison de deux cas nationaux, dont les systèmes de protection sociale étaient traditionnellement éloignés des cadres de la flexicurité, mais qui ont pourtant mis en œuvre des réformes qui vont dans le sens prescrit par les institutions européennes : la France et le Portugal. In fine, la thèse montre que les frontières nationales sont remises en cause mais n’ont pas disparu. Même s’il devient difficile d’agir de manière indépendante, les acteurs politiques nationaux mettent en œuvre des stratégies destinées à préserver leur autonomie. / The literature on employment policies has mainly focused on national variables in order to explain change. This research studies the degree of openness of national boundaries in a European context. By adopting an interactionist approach of Europeanization, it first explains how European institutions have defined a model of flexicurity that combines flexibility on the labor markets and security for the workers, whereas these two characteristics have long been considered incompatible. Then the research compares the recent evolution of two social protection systems that did not fit with the flexicurity framework and have nevertheless implemented employment policy reforms in line with European requirements. To explain the link between European demands and national reforms, this research underlines two mechanisms. First, it shows that national spheres are embedded in a broader context that strengthens the competition between welfare models but has a different impact on national spheres (the “national delay issue” in Portugal and the “specificities of the French model” in France). Then, in both cases, the political and administrative actors have tried to depoliticize policy reforms by mobilizing academic expertise. The different modalities of expert interventions crucially influence trade unions’ capacities to participate in the framing of national reforms. All in all, the thesis shows that national boundaries are challenged but have not disappeared. Even though it becomes difficult for them to act independently, national political leaders tend to develop strategies to preserve their autonomy.

Dans cette thèse, nous proposons d’évaluer la représentation politique en Europe, tout en insistant sur la nécessité de considérer le point de vue individuel du citoyen. Nous développons ainsi une perspective nouvelle et originale sur la congruence entre les citoyens et les partis politiques. De plus, nous analysons la manière dont le système partisan affecte cette congruence au niveau micro et macro et, par conséquent, la manière dont celle-ci influence la satisfaction des citoyens envers le système politique. Nous nous appuyons tout d’abord sur le concept de représentation chez Pitkin, ainsi que les théories récentes sur le rôle des représentants. Ce faisant, l’importance des partis politiques, en particulier dans le contexte européen, est rappelée. Nous abordons ensuite la recherche sur l’opinion publique et la façon dont cette dernière analyse la relation entre les citoyens et l’Etat. Dans un troisième temps, nous revenons sur les approches qui combinent la recherche sur les partis politiques et l’opinion publique, en nous concentrant en particulier sur le concept de congruence. Toutefois, ces recherches présentent des lacunes, auxquelles nous proposons de remédier en développant une nouvelle approche de la relation entre les citoyens et les partis politiques. A partir d’une compréhension normative différenciée de la qualité de la représentation, des nouvelles normes pour juger la représentation du point de vue des citoyens sont présentées et de nouveaux concepts de congruence au niveau micro sont développés. Ce faisant, nous élaborons une typologie innovante de la congruence entre les citoyens et les partis politiques, reposant sur neuf concepts différents, introduits à travers (1) l'identification des critères d'évaluation de la représentation et (2) la formulation des normes pour l'évaluation de la représentation. Ces normes sont alors concrétisées en des indicateurs empiriques. Nous commençons par décrire, dans une optique comparative, la congruence entre les États membres de l'UE pour l'année 2014. Nous explorons ensuite la relation entre le système partisan et la congruence au niveau micro et macro, mettant ainsi en lumière l’impact du système partisan sur la congruence en fonction des divers concepts utilisés. Au niveau micro, l’analyse montre que la relation entre un concept de la congruence et le système partisan est stable et ne diffère pas, quel que soit l’enjeu. Au niveau macro, en revanche, les effets ne sont pas systématiques, mais varient en fonction des enjeux. Ces résultats éclairent sous un nouveau jour la relation entre le système partisan et la représentation, et contribuent ainsi à sa meilleure compréhension. Enfin, les effets de la congruence sont analysés à l'aide de modèles multi-niveaux, de façon à démontrer comment la congruence influence les jugements des citoyens sur la représentation politique. Il est démontré qu’au niveau micro, cette influence est systématique ; toutefois, l’intensité de cet effet varie selon l’enjeu. De ce point de vue, les enjeux qui importent le plus sont l’intégration européenne, la redistribution et la politique fiscale. En conclusion, notre recherche enrichit le débat théorique sur les partis politiques ; nos résultats permettent une meilleure compréhension de la représentation et expliquent la présumée « crise de la représentation », ouvrant de nouvelles pistes de recherches pour le futur. / The thesis aims at evaluating representation in Europe while emphasizing the need to consider the individual citizen’s perspective. It develops a new and original perspective on how congruence between citizens and parties affects systemic satisfaction. It draws on Pitkin’s theory on representation and the most recent theoretical advancements which focus mainly on representatives. The thesis highlights the important role of political parties, especially in the European context. After elaborating the “supply” side of the representational link (political parties), it demonstrates how the relation of citizens and the state is analyzed in public opinion research – the “demand”-side. In a next step, the dissertation refers to approaches which combine the supply and the demand-side of the representational link. In particular, it focuses on the concept of congruence. Building up on these lines in research, the thesis reveals gaps in existing research and develops an innovative insight into the representational link. Based on a differentiated normative understanding of “good” representation, the dissertation develops new standards for judging representation from citizens’ perspective. It develops new conceptualizations of congruence on the micro-level and suggests a typology of congruence between citizens and parliamentary parties, including micro- and macro-measures, resulting in nine different conceptualizations. The new concepts are introduced through (1) identifying the criteria for evaluating representation that every perspective suggests and (2) the formulation of the implicit standard for evaluating representation. These standards are transformed into empirical indicators. Based on this new, nuanced understanding of “good” representation, the dissertation explains how the characteristics of party-systems impact on different types of congruence. Further, the thesis contributes to the explanation of citizens’ political attitudes. It formulates nuanced assumptions about the relation between congruence and perceived responsiveness, yet highlighting the need to distinguish between an aggregate and an individual perspective on representation. The empirical analysis is based on an own original dataset which integrates EES-and CHES-data. First, the descriptive part of the empirical analysis compares congruence within the EU-member-states for the year 2014. We explore congruence on the micro- and on the macro-level with reference to multiple issue-dimensions that relate to societal cleavages or dimensions on which parties compete. The empirical analysis reveals a differentiated judgment about the functioning of representation in the EU- member-states, depending on the respective understanding of “good” representation. Second, we explain the relation of party-systems and congruence and provide greater insight into the relation of context and the quality of representation. The study refers – again – to multiple issue-dimensions and systematically compares the results of the dissertation with findings offered by the conventional macro-perspective on congruence. Third, the thesis tests how congruence influences citizens’ representational judgments via multi-level models. The analysis accounts for the nuanced conceptualization of congruence and is conducted for multiple issue-dimensions. The results provide new insights into the relevance of different standards for evaluating representation for citizen’s attitudes and accounts for differences between issue-dimensions. Concluding, the thesis illustrates how these results impact on our understanding of good representation, relates the findings to the presumed “crisis of representation” and highlights how this dissertation might inspire future research.

Cette thèse vise à interroger les enjeux et les modalités de la construction d’une majorité politique en Russie à partir des années 2000, après une décennie marquée par la faiblesse de l’exécutif central et l’éclatement de l’offre politique. Créé en 2001 pour soutenir Vladimir Poutine, la situation du parti politique Russie unie dans le paysage politique peut sembler paradoxale. Dominant à tous les échelons du pouvoir depuis 2003, il demeure néanmoins un instrument entre les mains des dirigeants de l’exécutif, sans réelle autonomie ou influence. Fort officiellement de 2 millions d’adhérents, Russie unie est peu ancré dans la société russe et compte très peu de militants. L’analyse de la tension créée entre la dynamique d’institutionnalisation du parti et, en même temps, son maintien sous le contrôle de l’Etat se présente comme un point d’entrée privilégié pour envisager, dans une perspective comparative, la production des mécanismes d’assujettissement d’une partie du personnel politique russe. Cela implique de s’intéresser à la mise en place et aux modalités concrètes de fonctionnement de Russie unie, d’observer les pratiques des acteurs engagés dans ces activités et de s’interroger sur les significations qu’ils leur donnent. Cette démarche suggère alors de montrer comment l’étude de ce processus spécifique de fabrication partisane est susceptible de nourrir une réflexion plus générale et comparative sur la façon dont les dynamiques de différenciation ou de rapprochement entre les partis et l’Etat contribuent à produire différentes formes d’investissements politiques. Pour cela l’étude des partis en tant qu’institution ainsi que de la sociologie historique comparative permet de montrer les tensions créées par le processus de différenciation sous contrôle de Russie unie et la façon dont celui-ci accompagne la mise en place de nouveaux mécanismes de domination. / This thesis aims to examine the issues and modalities of building a political majority in Russia from the 2000s, after a decade marked by the weakness of the Central Executive and party system fragmentation. Created in 2001 to support Vladimir Putin, the situation of the political party United Russia in the political landscape may seem paradoxical. Dominant at all levels of power since 2003, it still remains a tool in the hands of leaders of the Executive, without any real autonomy or influence. United Russia, including officially 2 million members, is not rooted in Russian society and has very few militants. The analysis of the tension between the dynamics of the party’s institutionalization and, at the same time, its maintaining under control of the State appears as a privileged entry point for analyzing, in a comparative perspective, the production of mechanisms of subjections of Russian elected officials. This implies to study the establishment of United Russia and its concrete functioning, the practices of the actors involved in these activities and the meaning they give to these practices. Thus this approach suggests to show how the study of this specific process of party construction is likely to feed a more general and comparative reflection on how the dynamics of differentiation or reconciliation between parties and the State contribute to produce various forms of political investments. For this purpose, studying the party as an institution as well as the comparative historical sociology can show the tensions created by the process of differentiation under the control of United Russia and also how it supports the establishment of new domination mechanisms.