This thesis consists of three empirical papers on central bank institutional design.Chapter 1 contributes to the debate on the importance of central bank independence (CBI) in lowering inflation rates. It stresses the relevance of employing indices of central bank independence computed dynamically in two ways. First, it recomputes the evolution of the Grilli et al. (1991) index of CBI and shows that the timing of large legislative reforms is closely related to inflation rate dynamics. Using unit root tests with endogenous structural breaks, I find that reforms that modify the degree of CBI represent structural breaks in the inflation rate dynamics. Second, employing the dynamic Grilli et al. (1991) index of independence confirms the negative relationship between CBI and inflation in a sample of 10 advanced economies.Chapter 2 presents a new and comprehensive database of central bank institutional design for 65 countries over the period 1972--2014. This chapter describes in detail the sources of information and the coding rules used to create a new index of central bank independence. It also compares this new index with the classical measures of CBI and highlights the new aspects of central bank institutional design included in this database such as financial independence and accountability. An important innovation of this new index is its dynamic nature. This enables an investigation of the endogenous determination of the level of independence of central banks and suggests several instruments for the CBI index. Using an instrumental variable approach, this chapter provides strong support for a causal, negative CBI-inflation nexus.Chapter 3 uses a political economy framework to investigate the drivers of reforms in central bank institutional design. Using the new CBI index developed in Chapter 2, this Chapter investigates the determinants of central bank reforms in a sample of 65 countries over the period 1972--2014. The results obtained suggest that the incentives generated by initial reforms which increased the level of independence, as well as a regional convergence, represent important drivers of reforms in central bank design. At the same time, an external pressure to reform, such as obtaining an IMF loan or joining a monetary union, also increases the likelihood of reforms, while government changes or crises episodes have little impact. / This thesis consists of three empirical papers on central bank institutional design.Chapter 1 contributes to the debate on the importance of central bank independence (CBI) in lowering inflation rates. It stresses the relevance of employing indices of central bank independence computed dynamically in two ways. First, it recomputes the evolution of the Grilli et al. (1991) index of CBI and shows that the timing of large legislative reforms is closely related to inflation rate dynamics. Using unit root tests with endogenous structural breaks, I find that reforms that modify the degree of CBI represent structural breaks in the inflation rate dynamics. Second, employing the dynamic Grilli et al. (1991) index of independence confirms the negative relationship between CBI and inflation in a sample of 10 advanced economies.Chapter 2 presents a new and comprehensive database of central bank institutional design for 65 countries over the period 1972--2014. This chapter describes in detail the sources of information and the coding rules used to create a new index of central bank independence. It also compares this new index with the classical measures of CBI and highlights the new aspects of central bank institutional design included in this database such as financial independence and accountability. An important innovation of this new index is its dynamic nature. This enables an investigation of the endogenous determination of the level of independence of central banks and suggests several instruments for the CBI index. Using an instrumental variable approach, this chapter provides strong support for a causal, negative CBI-inflation nexus.Chapter 3 uses a political economy framework to investigate the drivers of reforms in central bank institutional design. Using the new CBI index developed in Chapter 2, this Chapter investigates the determinants of central bank reforms in a sample of 65 countries over the period 1972--2014. The results obtained suggest that the incentives generated by initial reforms which increased the level of independence, as well as a regional convergence, represent important drivers of reforms in central bank design. At the same time, an external pressure to reform, such as obtaining an IMF loan or joining a monetary union, also increases the likelihood of reforms, while government changes or crises episodes have little impact.

This thesis investigates two social movements in Turkey, the women&rsquo / s and LGBTT movements comparatively and in the light of available NSM theories. While brief histories of both movements are presented and all active LGBTT associations and groups in Turkey are introduced in the thesis, the main focus of the study is the LGBTT movement. Based on in depth interviews with 17 LGBTT activists, the evolution of this movement is traced and its current profile as well as its relationship to different branches of the women&rsquo / s movement are analysed in detail. The activities of the two movements during the legislative reforms in the 2000s are also examined. While findings of the thesis point to differences between the LGBTT and women&rsquo / s movements in Turkey, the interface of both movements with the state constitute a critical explanatory factor of their trajectories. The thesis also argues that the extent to which NSM theories can be used to explain these movements in the Turkish context is limited.

A tese discute a transformação dos discursos político-criminais sobre a pena de prisão no Brasil, no período que compreende os debates para a elaboração da Parte Geral do Código Penal e da Lei de Execução Penal, que reformaram o sistema penal em 1984, e os dispositivos penais e processuais penais discutidos na Assembleia Nacional Constituinte e contemplados na Constituição de 1988. Utilizando conceitos da literatura político-criminal anglo-saxã, as teorias tradicionais da pena e analisando os debates legislativos dos principais marcos legais do período escolhido, pretendeu-se verificar se o processo de superencarceramento brasileiro está inserido no contexto ocidental de valorização da prisão no final do século XX, ou se as peculiaridades do caso nacional indicam tratar-se de um fenômeno com causas endógenas. O trabalho parte da hipótese de que a virada punitiva brasileira está ligada ao processo de redemocratização, que atribuiu ao sistema de justiça criminal o papel de instrumento de resolução de problemas sociais complexos. Em um curto período, partiu-se de uma concepção de pena criminal como ultima ratio, instrumento de um sistema mais amplo de ressocialização e inclusão social, para um direito penal essencialmente punitivo. Nesse processo, a pena criminal foi revalorizada tanto por setores conservadores que se aproveitaram da utilidade eleitoral da política criminal para construir a narrativa da pena como instrumento de exclusão dos indesejáveis, em detrimento dos direitos humanos dos condenados quanto por setores progressistas que viram no potencial simbólico da prisão uma forma de assegurar pautas e de buscar direitos sociais. Assim, de maneira paradoxal, a pena de prisão assumiu o papel de síntese das demandas contraditórias que se apresentaram durante as disputas políticas nos anos 1980. Ao final, conclui-se que a prática contemporânea do sistema penal brasileiro está ligada à função atribuída à pena de prisão a partir da abertura política. O recurso a penas cada vez mais altas, o perene apelo a restrições processuais penais e a indiferença quanto à situação dos cárceres (agora concebidos como meros instrumentos de exclusão) refletem a lógica de colonização do sistema de justiça pelo aparato de segurança pública, característica constitutiva do antimodernismo penal no país. / The thesis presents a discussion about the transformation of criminal policy discourses on imprisonment in Brazil, from the 1984 criminal justice reform laws to the debates on the constitutional framework of the criminal justice system during the National Constituent Assembly, in 1988. Using concepts developed in the Anglo-Saxon criminology and the traditional justifications for criminal sanctions, the work analyses the legislative debates in order to verify if Brazilian overincarceration is part of the punitive turn wave which took place in the Western world in the late 20th century, or if its peculiarities should rather be explained by endogenous causes. It goes to illustrate how, in few years, Brazilian punitive turn departed from a welfare penal agenda to one essentially based on punitive sanctions. The hypothesis investigated along the work is that this phenomenon has direct links to the democratization process which attributed to the criminal justice system the role of solving complex social problems. Both conservatives, who discovered the electoral potential of penal populism, and new social movements, who relied on the symbolic nature of criminal law to support and organize civil rights demands, reinvigorated imprisonment. Paradoxically, prison became a synthesis of contradictory political forces and demands raised at the decline of military regime. The work concludes that contemporary practices of Brazilian criminal justice system are determined by the role assigned to imprisonment since democratization. Ever-higher prison sentences, limits on procedural rights for the accused and indifference towards inhumane prisons (now merely defined as a neutralization tool) reflects colonization of the criminal justice system by crime control apparatus, which is a constitutive feature of penal late modernism in Brazil.

A tese discute a transformação dos discursos político-criminais sobre a pena de prisão no Brasil, no período que compreende os debates para a elaboração da Parte Geral do Código Penal e da Lei de Execução Penal, que reformaram o sistema penal em 1984, e os dispositivos penais e processuais penais discutidos na Assembleia Nacional Constituinte e contemplados na Constituição de 1988. Utilizando conceitos da literatura político-criminal anglo-saxã, as teorias tradicionais da pena e analisando os debates legislativos dos principais marcos legais do período escolhido, pretendeu-se verificar se o processo de superencarceramento brasileiro está inserido no contexto ocidental de valorização da prisão no final do século XX, ou se as peculiaridades do caso nacional indicam tratar-se de um fenômeno com causas endógenas. O trabalho parte da hipótese de que a virada punitiva brasileira está ligada ao processo de redemocratização, que atribuiu ao sistema de justiça criminal o papel de instrumento de resolução de problemas sociais complexos. Em um curto período, partiu-se de uma concepção de pena criminal como ultima ratio, instrumento de um sistema mais amplo de ressocialização e inclusão social, para um direito penal essencialmente punitivo. Nesse processo, a pena criminal foi revalorizada tanto por setores conservadores que se aproveitaram da utilidade eleitoral da política criminal para construir a narrativa da pena como instrumento de exclusão dos indesejáveis, em detrimento dos direitos humanos dos condenados quanto por setores progressistas que viram no potencial simbólico da prisão uma forma de assegurar pautas e de buscar direitos sociais. Assim, de maneira paradoxal, a pena de prisão assumiu o papel de síntese das demandas contraditórias que se apresentaram durante as disputas políticas nos anos 1980. Ao final, conclui-se que a prática contemporânea do sistema penal brasileiro está ligada à função atribuída à pena de prisão a partir da abertura política. O recurso a penas cada vez mais altas, o perene apelo a restrições processuais penais e a indiferença quanto à situação dos cárceres (agora concebidos como meros instrumentos de exclusão) refletem a lógica de colonização do sistema de justiça pelo aparato de segurança pública, característica constitutiva do antimodernismo penal no país. / The thesis presents a discussion about the transformation of criminal policy discourses on imprisonment in Brazil, from the 1984 criminal justice reform laws to the debates on the constitutional framework of the criminal justice system during the National Constituent Assembly, in 1988. Using concepts developed in the Anglo-Saxon criminology and the traditional justifications for criminal sanctions, the work analyses the legislative debates in order to verify if Brazilian overincarceration is part of the punitive turn wave which took place in the Western world in the late 20th century, or if its peculiarities should rather be explained by endogenous causes. It goes to illustrate how, in few years, Brazilian punitive turn departed from a welfare penal agenda to one essentially based on punitive sanctions. The hypothesis investigated along the work is that this phenomenon has direct links to the democratization process which attributed to the criminal justice system the role of solving complex social problems. Both conservatives, who discovered the electoral potential of penal populism, and new social movements, who relied on the symbolic nature of criminal law to support and organize civil rights demands, reinvigorated imprisonment. Paradoxically, prison became a synthesis of contradictory political forces and demands raised at the decline of military regime. The work concludes that contemporary practices of Brazilian criminal justice system are determined by the role assigned to imprisonment since democratization. Ever-higher prison sentences, limits on procedural rights for the accused and indifference towards inhumane prisons (now merely defined as a neutralization tool) reflects colonization of the criminal justice system by crime control apparatus, which is a constitutive feature of penal late modernism in Brazil.