<p> My dissertation, <i>Indigenous Rights and Constitutional Change in Ecuador,</i> is motivated by a question that has inspired a rich discussion in the political theory literature: how should democracies accommodate indigenous groups? I focus on this question in the context of indigenous participation in the 2008 Ecuadorian constitutional convention. Ecuador is an interesting case in that the constitutional convention represented an opportunity for indigenous and non-indigenous groups to discuss the very topics that concern political theorists: the ideal relationship between indigenous and non-indigenous communities, the formal recognition of indigenous groups, indigenous rights, the fair economic distribution of resources, and the nature of citizenship. However, despite the fact that indigenous groups focused on constitutional change as a vehicle for indigenous empowerment, the political theory literature is largely silent on how constitutional change can affect minority groups. This silence is indicative of a larger failure on the part of political theorists to fully consider how institutions shape the normative goals of a society. Similarly, the literature on constitutional design does not examine indigenous groups as a separate case study and, therefore, provides little guidance as to how institutions can be used to empower indigenous groups. </p><p> During the constitutional convention, indigenous people in Ecuador presented their own plan for constitutional change: plurinationalism. This paradigm combined the idea of indigenous group rights with a call for alternative means of economic development, radical environmentalism, and recognition of an intercultural Ecuadorian identity. In so doing, plurinationalism moved beyond the general parameters of group rights and/or power-sharing arrangements discussed by political theorists and constitutional design scholars. In this dissertation, therefore, I examine the underlying tenets of plurinationalism, how plurinationalism was interpreted by non-indigenous people and incorporated into the 2008 constitution, and the future constitutional implications of plurinationalism. I argue that the Ecuadorian case has implications for both the political theory and constitutional design literatures: it allows political theorists to move beyond the language of indigenous rights to consider other institutional avenues for indigenous empowerment and points to value for design scholars in considering indigenous people as a separate case study, reframing assumptions about constitution-making in divided societies.</p>

<p> Mexico is home to almost 2.9 million square kilometers of land and water surface area that is affected by water pollution and environmental degradation. While geographically more prevalent to pollution threats as well as one of the most biodiverse countries in the world, it is important to coordinate the management and regulation of coastal zones effectively to safeguard these ecosystem from degradation. However, because of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, nations view the problem of living resources and their management as a national priority instead of an international cooperation initiative. Mexico's fragmented, overlapping, and sometimes corrupt domestic institutions for environmental policy yield ineffective and inadequate pollution control, a result of which is a high level of marine debris presence on the coasts, as evidenced by a recent study in Veracruz, Veracruz. This marine debris, the most abundant of which is composed of plastics, is detrimental to marine life, leading to death, starvation, debilitation, reduced quality of life and lowered reproductive performance. While several avenues are being explored to mitigate marine debris in the environment, such as decreasing knowledge gaps, increasing pollution prevention measures, and education, degradation issues have compounded globally, revealing a clear picture of inadequate international regulation and convention. A stricter Mexican national regulatory system that incorporates private and public waste management organizations to incentivize and facilitate waste cleanup is needed to improve the health of the global ocean.</p>

<p> This dissertation addresses the problem of racial stratification of the Latino community in the United States from the theoretical position of critical race theory. Racial stratification for Latino residents and Latino immigrants is possible in the everyday through a series of practices that allow for persons of the community to contribute to the proliferation of race in American society by rendering race very difficult to address politically. The theoretical analysis of friendship as a form of moral aesthetics in the works of Aristotle, Kant, and Rousseau allows for a theory of race that addresses the invisibility and the transcendence of race constitutive of American society and, therefore, constitutive of the racial stratification of the Latino community in the United States. In this theoretical development, race is thought as an aesthetic of both the citizen and the immigrant subjects or, in other words, as a race-aesthetics. McKnight's (2010) theory of the conditionality of race, Hall's (New Ethnicities 1996, Race, Articulation, and Societies Structured in Dominance 1996) theories of cultural representation and hegemonic domination, Gilroy's (1995) theory of Black Atlantic counterculture, and Mills' (1997) theory of the hegemony of the racial contract are critically engaged and expanded with the theory of the race-aesthetic.</p>

<p> This thesis analyzes the political genesis of Brazil&rsquo;s recent reform of its upper-secondary education system, the Novo Ensino M&eacute;dio Reform. This latest reform has been highly controversial and linked by many to the government of President Michel Temer. However, this argues that the reform is much larger than the Temer administration that produced it. This reform, that creates a seven-hour school day and allows upper-secondary students to choose an area of specialization, is a continuation of a history of incremental reform that has taken place against the backdrop of shifting educational priorities. This reform coincided with a shift towards a human capital centric ideology that is heavily influenced by international organizations, such as the World Bank. Furthermore, the reform is also largely the result of a bipartisan commission whose work preceded the Temer administration. The impeachment of Dilma Rousseff brought President Temer to power and allowed for the construction of a new majority. The new administration in turn adopted the already existing proposal for reform of upper-secondary education and modified it to fit their agenda of market friendliness and public burden reduction. The new majority was largely supportive of the reform but the reform also found support amongst the opposition who saw the reform as the logical next step in Brazil&rsquo;s long march towards universalization of upper-secondary education.</p><p>

<p> The so called price control policies have traditionally been understood in terms of concerns about (a) the role and size of the bureaucracy implied (Taussig, 1919, Grayson and Neeb, 1974; Clinard, 1969; Rockoff, 1984; Galbraith, 1941 and 1946); (b) the (potential) short term effectiveness and medium/long term ineffectiveness of controls (Rockoff, 1984, Grayson and Neeb, 1974; Bienen and Gersovitz, 1986, FIEL, 1990); (c) the tax evasion and creation of black markets (Clinard, 1969); (d) the eventual emerging violence following the dismantling of controls or subsidies on consumer goods (Bienen and Gersovitz, 1986; van Wijnberger, 1992); (e) the potential impact on the government coalition (Ag&eacute;ndor and Asilis, 1997); (f) the levels of delivery, fill rates or even any breaks in supply chains (Grayson and Neeb, 1974; Clinard, 1969); (g) the incentives/distortions in the distribution of resources, as a result of the alteration of the price system (Galbraith, 1941, 1946, 1951, 2001; Friedman, 1990; Colander, 1984; Dunn and Pressman, 2005); (h) the search for focused or selftargeted alternatives in order to optimize the use of limited resources and prevent freeriding (Adams, s / f; Alderman, 2002; Gutner, 2002); and (k) its historical development as a political response to rising prices (Schuettinger and Butler, 1978). </p><p> However, little has been studied its contribution to the development of state capacities as well as the role of entrepreneurship in the acceptance of price controls. </p><p> In this sense, this thesis analyzes the first year of the "Precios Cuidados" program in force in Argentina since January 2014, in order to address two interrelated questions: (a) To what extent the &ldquo;Precios Cuidados&rdquo; Program, as a particular and specific form of joint coordination between public and private sector, favored the development and expansion of state capacities? (b) If it is true, as it will be argued, that this new form of joint articulation between the public and private sector contributes to expand state capacities, why did the retail community agree to take part of a voluntary agreement to freeze prices and markups that in the end would help to increase the relative powers of the agencies by which they are controlled without effective guarantees of limits to its exercise? A public policy, in a word, that will give us the unique opportunity to analyze the link between state, market and society and its effect on market regulation and the improvement of state capacities. </p>

<p> This thesis explores perspectives of 30 women hosting international students in a rural, coastal town in Costa Rica through an International Studies lens &mdash; interdisciplinary, critical, and bridging theory and practice. Analysis of 30 semi-structured interview sessions, which included 2 questionnaires, conducted over 10 weeks living with 3 host mothers contributes to understanding the impact of study abroad on host families. Hosting is discussed as a preferred form of paid care work in that it is flexible and enjoyable. Women host for the income as well as for the joy of mothering students. Host perspectives are shared regarding benefits and challenges of and lessons learned from hosting. Recommendations are made for homestay program administrators and international educators, including recommendations for addressing power dynamics to ensure reciprocal exchanges.</p>

<p> This dissertation explores the obstacles for US formal military bases in Latin America. While in the past, the United States managed to establish bases in several countries in the region, despite Washington's efforts every negotiation to open new bases has failed since 2000, and older bases have been terminated, as in the case of Ecuador. Using evidence from Ecuador, Colombia, El Salvador, and other countries in the region, the dissertation finds that shifts in government preferences do not explain this failure. Instead, domestic challenges to host governments in Latin America systematically appear as blocking mechanisms that impede the establishment of foreign military bases, even when leaders support them. </p><p> The dissertation builds on the work of Alexander Cooley and others and develops a model of base politics to explain how domestic political calculations affect foreign basing negotiations. Furthermore, the dissertation finds that when formal bases have not succeeded, interested governments have worked around domestic constrains to establish alternative and informal arrangements that allow US military presence and operations in their countries. These alternative arrangements, or quasi-bases, have advanced US security interests in Latin America even in the absence of formal base leases, while at the same time their secrecy and informality protects Latin American leaders from domestic contestation.</p>

During the 1920s and 30s, Mexican artists, teachers and state officials collaborated to stage educational plays in working class neighborhoods and rural communities in an effort to foster revolutionary citizens. The authors of live-action drama and hand-puppetry, known as teatro guiñol, infused their comedies and morality plays with the lessons of Mexico's revolution, endeavoring to improve rural life, strengthen class-consciousness and promote artistry among spectators young and old. In support of these initiatives, the Ministry of Education constructed thousands of open-air stages throughout rural Mexico, trained teachers to operate puppet theaters and disseminated scripts in its biweekly magazine. Many of the initiators of these projects viewed the role of theater in contradictory terms; it was a means both to elevate the standards of national culture as well as to nurture the folkloric artistry that was to be fountain of a "cosmic race." However, subsequent officials would manage theater as part and parcel of the state's adoption of socialist education, resulting in an important role for didactic theater in the state's repertoire of civic festival. Moreover, communist activists and avant-garde artists penned works of popular and puppet-theater inspired by the pedagogical practices of Russia's 1917 revolution and sought to further advance Mexico's social transformation. Engaging with literary critics, historians, and scholars of cultural studies, my study adds the role of lesser-known artists and intellectuals back into the mix to understand the multi-stranded, negotiated process that took place within the realm of post-revolutionary cultural politics. I examine play scripts written by teachers and artists, policy directives from mid-level ministry officials and reports filed by rural teachers. In this way I identify explicit and implicit moralizing messages in the plays, paying close attention to overlapping and colliding projects as well as narrative strategies and stylistic elements that relate to specific political agendas. Through an exploration of the context in which plays were produced and performed, my study shows how teachers and artists facilitated state projects even as they attempted to fashion didactic theater to suit their pragmatic needs, artistic sensibilities or more radical agendas.

This dissertation is a study of the dynamics of place and people in a rural municipality in southeastern Bolivia. A study of the dialectical relations between knowledge, ecology, and culture that are manifest through the daily life of the municipality, it is an ethnography that illuminates the multiple discourses of colonialism, nationalism, modernity and decolonization that overlay one another. The contradictions and tensions produced through these intersecting discourses represent major obstacles to the project of "decolonization" and the formation of viable and equitable "intercultural" relationships, as promoted by the indigenous leadership which is the governing party of the Bolivian state since 2006. This yearlong ethnography of everyday life, conducted together with semi-annual follow up visits, reveals how people within the municipality negotiate differing and conflicting life worlds: one sustained by traditional practices of barter and local knowledge about farming, food, health and ecology); and the other governed by bureaucratic agencies and professional expertise. These life worlds signify contrasting notions about development and well-being, culture, and politics; and how between both of these it enables an equivalence that moves us closer toward the decolonizing imperative. Taking a postcolonial approach, I argue that knowledge and the systems of education in which knowledge is largely disseminated (schools, health facilities, NGOs, municipal venues, television, Internet, etc.) are crucial places for moving toward critical reflections, social change, and justice. I also intertwine an analysis of food not only as an agricultural product, but as an integral component of communal livelihoods, interactions with others, and nutritional well-being (physical, mental, and spiritual). Using concepts of border crossings and analyses to perceive and interpret local knowledge occurring in and from the margins of development, ecology, and "well-being," I advocate for the need to disrupt systems of geopolitical values, racial configurations, and hierarchical structures of meaning and knowledge in order to see and validate multiple ways of thinking, knowing and doing. Therefore, rural localities such as this one are essential "places" to learn from and learn with, and to include in the critical discussions and debates on decolonization, inter/intra-culturality, development, and well-being.^

<p> The purpose of this qualitative phenomenological research study was to explore the experiences of 15 international executives with families following a postrelocation assignment in Latin America. The existing literature supported the themes that emerged from the results. The three themes were (a) overall good opportunity, (b) positive influence on family experience, and (c) concerns and challenges for the family. Of the three primary themes, other subthemes surfaced from the data. The results of the study indicated that international assignments have an overall positive influence on families, and the challenges and concerns can represent a potential threat for recruiters if they are not addressed to diminish them. The results indicated that even with minor challenges during the adjustment process, the gain of the experience extends beyond the relocation experience. Challenges and minor inconveniences that the executives and their families face are well compensated by the experience and knowledge obtained in a different culture. The majority of the studies identified the family relationship as the most important factor because spouse and children can have a direct influence on the decision to accept an international assignment. Career is another important factor because some expatriates accept the international assignment with the promise that they will have a better position in the future, while compensation is one of the less important factors. Managers should develop policies to support the expatriate in the transition and relocation process to ensure that they develop the appropriate policies to attract the required workforce.</p>