Submitted by Geandra Rodrigues (geandrar@gmail.com) on 2018-01-24T16:54:28Z No. of bitstreams: 1 franklinsoldati.pdf: 7235853 bytes, checksum: a45406f3c1c69de8622ee4ea97bb08d7 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Adriana Oliveira (adriana.oliveira@ufjf.edu.br) on 2018-01-25T10:37:59Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 franklinsoldati.pdf: 7235853 bytes, checksum: a45406f3c1c69de8622ee4ea97bb08d7 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2018-01-25T10:37:59Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 franklinsoldati.pdf: 7235853 bytes, checksum: a45406f3c1c69de8622ee4ea97bb08d7 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2016-08-11 / CAPES - Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / O estudo propõe o conceito de uma Ontossociologia a partir da análise comparada do comportamento eleitoral na cidade de Juiz de Fora e de outros importantes municípios, nas eleições para o executivo no Brasil no período 1996-2014. Nele pretendeu-se comprovar que o comportamento eleitoral do juizforano pode ser lido sob quaisquer variáveis componentes do ato eleitoral. Como objetivo demonstrar que Comparecer às urnas de votação, de alguma forma, tende a indicar que o eleitor acata o sistema político eleitoral por se sentir incluído nos benefícios societários. “Abster-se“, por outro lado, tende a representar que o eleitor sente-se excluído das benesses sociais produzidas pela sociedade. ”Votar Válido” representaria concordar de algum modo com as listas eleitorais. “Votar Nulo” é discordar das mesmas listas, enquanto “Votar em Branco“ é o medo de realizar escolhas eleitorais. Como consequência desses resultados a proposição do conceito de uma Ontossociologia. Por isto, após uma revisão da literatura da área, e de seguir as pistas de uma tradição de estudos político eleitorais, o sentido da tese rumou à proposta de resignificar o conceito de engajamento eleitoral ao adicionar à ideia de “Alienação Eleitoral“, sua contraparte, a de uma “Efetividade Eleitoral“. A pesquisa ainda propiciou rearranjar o conceito de Comportamento Eleitoral. Assim, “Comparecer“ e “Votar Válido“ ou “Votar Nulo“ pode ser entendido como “Aceitação das Listas Eleitorais”, pois de alguma forma o eleitor é beneficiário dos dividendos produzidos pela sociedade, situação em que o eleitorado concorda com o sistema político eleitoral. De outra parte ”Abster-se” ou ”Votar em Branco” demonstraria ”Rejeição às Listas Eleitorais”, pois representa a exclusão social desse tipo de eleitor, em que o eleitor nega o modelo adotado. O estudo ainda permitiu incluir a ideia de um continuum entre sofisticação política e indigência social. O primeiro polo representaria o cidadão ativo, capaz de pensar e de viver a política ativamente enquanto o segundo polo é representado pelo sujeito que por algum motivo não somente se abstém dos processos eleitorais mas foi abandonado / abandonou os laços sociais comunitários e perambula. Tudo redunda na possibilidade que o alcance dos índices eleitorais propostos interfira na análise da fragmentação parlamentar e em consequente análise da estabilidade política do país dada a atual configuração do sistema político eleitoral, com representação proporcional específica. A construção de modelos ideal típicos denominados de Grupos Políticos Primários e Grupos Políticos Secundários, pensados para conter as motivações políticas primevas, determina o “conceito” e conclui a tese. / The study proposes the idea of an Onto-Sociology concept starting from the compared analysis of the electoral behavior in the city of Juiz de Fora and of other important municipal districts, in the elections for the Executive branch in Brazil in the period of years 1996 – 2014. Such study intended to prove that the electoral behavior of the “Juizforano” can be examined under any of the variable components of the electoral action. The purpose is to demonstrate that: “To Appear to Vote,” in some way might indicate that a voter accepts the electoral political system, since he/she feels included in the societal benefits. "To Abstain”, on the other hand, might indicate that such voter feels excluded from the benefits provided by the society of which he/she is included. "To Validly Vote" would represent to agree in some shape or form with the electoral lists. "To Null Vote" might indicate he/she disagrees with the same lists, while “To Cast a Blank Vote" could be due to fear of making an electoral choice. Thus the proposition of the concept of an Onto-Sociology due to the aforementioned results. Upon researching the literature and following the trends of socio-political studies, the thesis ultimately steered toward proposing a new concept, expanding on from "Electoral Alienation", but along with, that of "Electoral Effectiveness," hence reshaping the idea of electoral engagement. The research still provided the opportunity to redefine the concept of voting behavior. Therefore, to "Appear to Vote" and to "Validly Vote" or to "Null Vote" can be understood as "Acceptance of the Electoral Lists", because in some way the voter is a beneficiary of the dividends produced by society, situation in which the electorate agrees with the electoral political system. On the other hand, to "Abstain” or to "To Cast a Blank Vote" would demonstrate "Rejection to the Electoral Lists", because it represents the social exclusion of that voter profile, in that the voter denies the adopted model. The study still proposes the idea of a continuum that sprawls across between political sophistication and social destitution. The first pole would represent the active, inquisitive citizen, thus politically active, while the second pole is represented by the citizen that for some reason not only refrains from the electoral processes but has potentially abandoned / been abandoned by the community social ties and therefore wanders along without any kind of civic participation. The result is the possibility that the reach of the proposed electoral indexes might interfere with the analysis of the parliamentary fragmentation and in the consequent analysis of the political stability of the country, given the current configuration of the political-electoral system, with specific proportional representation. The construction of ideal-typical models of Primary Political Groups and Secondary Political Groups, thought to contain the primeval political motivations, thus determines the "concept" and it concludes the thesis.

Quantum spin liquids represent a novel phase of magnetic matter where quantum fluctuations are large enough to suppress the formation of local order parameters, even down to zero temperature. Quantum spin liquid states can emerge from frustrated quantum magnets. These states show several peculiar properties, such as topological order, fractional excitations, and long-range entanglement. The Kitaev spin model on the honeycomb lattice is one of the few models proposed which can exactly show the existence of a $\mathbb{Z}_2$ quantum spin liquid. The model describes spins featuring frustrated compass interactions, and it exhibits a quantum spin liquid ground state. The model's ground state can be found exactly by representing spins in terms of Majorana fermions. It turns out that spin excitations fractionalize into two degrees of freedom: spinless matter fermions and flux excitations of the emergent $\mathbb{Z}_2$ gauge theory. Recently, possible solid-state realizations of Kitaev quantum spin liquids have been proposed in a class of frustrated Mott insulators. Unfortunately, experiments can not unambiguously identify quantum spin liquids, due to their elusive nature. Nevertheless, indirect observations on a spin liquid state can be done by looking at its excitations. Along this line, thermal transport investigations provide for an option to study heat-carrying excitations, and thus the properties of the related spin liquid state. In this doctoral thesis work, I performed a study of longitudinal thermal transport properties in the two-dimensional Kitaev spin model. This study aims to advance the understanding of transport in prototypical frustrated quantum magnets that might harbor Kitaev physics, and in particular quantum spin liquid states. For this purpose, I explored the model for varying exchange coupling regimes $-$ to underline the impact of anisotropy on transport $-$ and I studied transport over a wide range of temperatures. Transport properties have been explored within the formalism of the linear response theory. Based on the latter, thermal transport coefficients can be evaluated by calculating dynamical energy-current auto-correlation functions. First, I performed an analytical study of the uniform gauge sector of the model $-$ where excitations of gauge degrees of freedom are neglected. Analytical findings for the energy-current correlations, and their related transport coefficients, imply a finite-temperature ballistic heat conductor in terms of free matter fermion excitations $-$ independent of exchange couplings. Second, thermal transport has been studied at finite temperatures, considering thermal gauge excitations off the uniform gauge sector. For this purpose, I made use of two complementary numerical methods able to treat finite-temperature systems. On the one hand, I resorted on the exact diagonalization of the Kitaev Hamiltonian given in terms of fermions and a real-space dependent $\mathbb{Z}_2$ gauge potential, to study relatively small systems. On the other hand, I used an approximate method based on a mean-field treatment of thermal gauge fluctuations. The method allowed to extend the study of thermal transport to systems with up to $\sim\mathcal{O}(10^4)$ spinful sites. It made possible the computation of correlation functions by reducing the exact trace over all gauge states to an average over dominant gauge states suited to a given temperature range. The reliability of the method has been checked by comparing to numerically exact thermodynamics of systems. Based on the thermodynamic analysis, the method has been restricted to a temperature range where the mean-field treatment of gauge fluctuations is acceptable. Within such temperature range, the method succeeded in well reproducing exact results. The prime advantage of this method is its capability to reveal important features in the energy-current correlation spectra, not captured by the exact diagonalization approach because of finite-size effects. I found that the energy-current correlation spectra, in the presence of thermal gauge excitations, show clear signatures of spin fractionalization. In particular, the low-energy part of spectra displays features arising from a temperature-dependent matter-fermion density relaxation off an emergent thermal gauge disorder. This static gauge disorder also leads to the appearance of a pseudogap in the zero-frequency limit, which closes in the thermodynamic limit. The extracted dc heat conductivity is consequently influenced by this interplay between matter fermions and gauge degrees of freedom. The anisotropy in the exchange couplings moves Kitaev systems through gapless and gapped phases of the matter fermion sector. Effects of anisotropy are visible in the dc conductivities which display a low-temperature dependence crossing over from power-law to exponentially activated behavior upon entering the gapped phase. Therefore, I found that in the thermodynamic limit, two-dimensional Kitaev systems feature dissipative transport, regardless of exchange couplings. This finding is in contrast to the ballistic transport found discarding gauge excitations in the uniform gauge sector, which underlines the relevance of gauge degrees of freedom in thermal transport properties of Kitaev systems.

Social conflict, as opposed to armed conflict, has received less attention in the field of quantitative research. This paper investigates the structural causes of political violence in 35 African states using data from the Social Conflict in Africa dataset and the Beck and Katz panel corrected standard errors time series regression model. Theoretically, a closed political opportunity structure, combined with a weak state unable to provide public goods, should together produce high levels of social conflict. The independent variables attempt to operationalize these concepts from four different angles. In this analysis Access to Education and Infrastructure (AEI), Ethno Linguistic Fractionalization (ELF), Freedom in the World Political Rights (FIW), and National Material Capabilities (NMC) were all significant predictors of social conflict. This study found that as the level of ethnic fractionalization and material capabilities within states rose, the frequency of social conflict events also increased. However, as access to infrastructure and political rights declined, the number of social conflict events increased. Wald chi-square and R-square values suggest that the model is complete and has substantial explanatory power.

This thesis deals with the problematic question of aid as a helping hand to states that are in the process of developing democracy. It focuses on the Sub Saharan African region as a critical case, and furthermore upon the aid contributions made by the European Union during the time period of 1996-2006. The main ambition is to explore the real effect of aid on the democratic process, but also to explore other variables that might have effect. The method used is regression analysing of a database called The Quality of Government database Cross – Section Time-Series May 2008. The database has later been modified to suit my specific needs and aid has been recoded. This thesis is meant to be a theory testing study, and the theories tested will be related to the independent variables such as aid as a democratic helping hand as well as theories of corruption, political participation and military rule in the search for democracy.

No description available.