Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Political Science, February 2007. / Includes bibliographical references (v. 2, leaves 275-312). / This dissertation examines the financial aspects of climate change relating to the private sector's capacity to manage climate risks and finance carbon neutral energy infrastructure. The dissertation examines (a) potential risks posed by climate change to private sector investment in critical infrastructure, (b) the potential effectiveness of standard private contractual methods for mitigating risks posed by climate change, (c) the capacity of private capital markets to finance carbon neutral energy infrastructure, and (d) the potential for market failure in developing carbon neutral energy infrastructure. The dissertation first identifies climate risks to infrastructure by examining scientific evidence concerning climate change from studies and atmospheric models. Based on this data, it modifies a framework widely used by practitioners in the finance field for purposes of evaluating financial risks in infrastructure projects. Using the modified risk assessment framework, the dissertation identifies financial risks posed by climate change to financing and developing infrastructure. The dissertation then assesses whether these climate risks can be mitigated and managed by employing private contractual methods typically used in infrastructure finance, such as insurance, derivatives, and carbon offsets. / (cont.) Each contract is evaluated based on the following six criteria: (a) scope of risk covered, (b) geographic coverage, (c) contract duration, (d) availability, (e) price, and (f) market capacity. Based on these criteria, the potential for these private contractual methods to address long-term climate change risks is assessed. The evaluation of climate risk and methods to address these risks are similar to the identification, allocation, and mitigation of risks that is commonly preformed by banks and project sponsors in order to evaluate the risks of an infrastructure investment. The conclusion of the dissertation's analysis is that climate risks will pose fundamental problems for infrastructure finance, including that no party may be best positioned to accept and mitigate climate risks, and that private contractual methods typically used by the private sector will be inadequate to address climate risks in a comprehensive and cost-effective manner. If this is true, climate risks should reduce the private sector's willingness or ability to invest in or develop infrastructure. The risk assessment analysis will be supplemented by three case studies focusing on different financial aspects of climate change in sectors of the economy that are critical to developing carbon neutral energy infrastructure: / (cont.) (i) the capacity of capital markets to supply adequate investment capital to develop a portfolio of carbon neutral electricity infrastructure providing 10-15 TW of power within a 50-year period, (ii) the financial effects of increasingly intense storms on the electric utility industry in the Eastern United States from 1990 to 2005, and (iii) the financial effects of the increasing frequency and intensity of natural catastrophic events on the insurance industry from the 1970's to 2005, especially in connection with underwriting risks for energy infrastructure. The research is supported by a survey of the insurance, derivatives, banking, and energy industries with respect to their use of private contractual risk management methods and an examination of the models used to price these contractual instruments. This dissertation is intended to contribute to economic and policy literature concerning climate change by providing an analysis of how the financial aspects of climate change might influence the capacity and willingness of the private sector to invest in carbon neutral energy infrastructure. / by Craig A. Hart. / Ph.D.

Thesis: Ph. D., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Political Science, 2014. / Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references (pages 286-304). / What are the conditions under which local actors are more likely to carry out policy innovations that produce environmental or social benefits in local China? Previous studies on "Chinese experimentalism" suggest that local innovations in contemporary China stem from its ability to couple reflexive central coordination and decentralized local policy experiments. The strength of this "closed" architecture of experimentalist governance lies on the underlying principal-agent distributive bargaining principles between the center and the local, i.e., career prospects, preferential policies, and so on. All of the major mechanisms, processes, and procedures are confined to the center-local dynamics in the political hierarchy. Building on more than two years of site-intensive fieldwork, this dissertation reveals a distinct architecture of experimentalist governance emerging in local China that does not exclusively depend on the requirements of central coordination and formal incentives in the hierarchy. In its basic form, certain local government actors are increasingly opening themselves up and constructing and immersing themselves in communities of practice with extra-local and non-state actors across different levels and sectors. But the uniqueness of this governance architecture lies not only on its form or ostensible structure, but also on its modalities and substance. In those communities, the protagonists enact a recursive process of joint goal-setting, interpretation of policy problems, search and discovery, and mutual learning. In the course of this process, they collectively set achievable provisional "frameworks" (kuangfia) or "platforms" (pingtai), which are continually recalibrated going forward. That is, the protagonists in this governance architecture continuously reflect on and revise their expectations and practices in light of what they learn about local conditions and respective capabilities. This emerging open architecture of experimentalist governance, which encompasses actors and processes beyond the immediate confines of the locality and the political hierarchy, is primarily responsible for particular policy innovations in local China, such as low-carbon cities and clean energy cities. In short, it is suggested that local innovation is more about creating a social space for joint deliberation, as opposed to "getting the incentives right." / by Kyoung Mun Shin. / Ph. D.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Political Science, 2004. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 430-468). / This dissertation explores the origins of interstate reconciliation after traumatic conflicts, mainly through the comparative study of postwar Sino-Japanese and (West) German-Polish relations. While Germany and Poland have basically achieved deep reconciliation, the Sino-Japanese relationship is still dominated by mistrust and simmering animosity. I test and compare two competing theories to explain the different reconciliation outcomes. Realist theory argues that common security interests solely drive post-conflict reconciliation. I develop the second theory, historical mythmaking theory, which suggests that elite mythmaking of the conflict history for instrumental purposes will obstruct long-term reconciliation. Because national myths glorify and whitewash the action of their own nations and belittle others, they can cause the memories of former adversary states to clash. Such mutually divergent narratives will provoke negative emotions and perception of each other's hostile intention, both mechanisms contributing to bilateral conflict. The case studies show the relative strength of historical mythmaking theory. The Cold War structural pressure initially blocked reconciliation in both dyads. At that time Chinese and Japanese war memories actually converged on a common myth that blames only a small handful of Japanese militarists for the war. It is because China tried to win the hearts and minds of the Japanese people in order to obtain Japanese official recognition of the Communist regime. Since the Sino-U.S. rapprochement and East-West detente in the 1970s, however, structural conditions turned favorable to reconciliation. But China and Japan only brushed aside historical legacy to make way for diplomatic normalization. A / (cont.) honeymoon quickly disintegrated in the early 1980s when the changing domestic context prompted elites to create new national myths and escalate bilateral historiographic disputes. Since then, the history problem has aggravated mutual threat perception and popular hostility, seriously straining bilateral relations. In contrast, from the early 1970s West Germany and Poland narrowed their memory divergence through restitution measures and textbook cooperation. These efforts created a strong sense of closeness and trust, paving the way for the eventual reconciliation in the 1990s. / by Yinan He. / Ph.D.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Political Science, 2008. / Includes bibliographical references. / Two puzzles dominate the study of organizational learning and counterinsurgency. First, militaries often struggle to develop effective strategies to address the problem of counterinsurgency. Second, their strategic performance seldom improves over successive counterinsurgency campaigns. This study offers a theoretical explanation for these dominant patterns of learning dysfunction. It argues that a set of closely held, professional beliefs - the military operational code - and bureaucratic preferences distort the organizations' initial response, subsequent adaptation and interwar retention. The military operational code leads militaries to misunderstand counterinsurgency in a systematic and debilitating fashion; bureaucratic interests lead them to reject the most effective strategies once they have been uncovered. When militaries manage to break with this dysfunctional pattern, it because their professional judgment is constrained; high civilian participation and/or resource scarcity force often force militaries to adopt political strategies that are less congenial but more effective in restoring state authority. This study tests the theory against six empirical cases: Indochina, the Indochina-Algeria interlude, Algeria, British Palestine, Malaya, and Thailand. These cases strongly suggest that the dysfunctional learning patterns are the product of broadly shared, professional beliefs and bureaucratic interests rather than the common, alternative explanations based on experience, culture or normative and material constraints. / by Colin F. Jackson. / Ph.D.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Political Science, 2001. / Includes bibliographical references. / This dissertation seeks to identify the causes of genocide and mass killing. Many of the most widely accepted explanations of genocide and mass killing seek the causes of these events in the social structure, system of government or the collective psychology of the societies in which they take place. Although the factors highlighted by these explanations play an important role in many cases of mass killing, I find that society at large plays a smaller role in this kind of violence than is commonly assumed. Mass killing is rarely a popular enterprise in which neighbor turns against neighbor. I argue that the causes of mass killing are best understood when the phenomenon is studied from a "strategic" perspective. The strategic approach suggests that the impetus for mass killing usually originates from a relatively small group of powerful political or military leaders and is often carried out without the active support of broader society. Mass killing is most accurately viewed as a goal-oriented policy -- a brutal strategy designed to accomplish leaders' most important objectives, counter their most dangerous threats, and solve their most difficult problems. In order to understand and predict mass killing, therefore, this dissertation seeks to identify the specific factors and conditions that contribute to leaders' decisions to launch mass killing. Cases of mass killing in the Soviet Union, China, Cambodia, Armenia, Nazi Germany, Rwanda, Guatemala and Afghanistan are examined. / by Benjamin Andrew Valentino. / Ph.D.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Political Science, 1993. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 225-232). / by Christopher Heye. / Ph.D.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Political Science, February 2007. / Includes bibliographical references (p. [234]-[252]). / This dissertation develops and demonstrates a theory to account for the outbreak of mass mobilization in authoritarian settings. Two conditions make the expansion of protest across community boundaries more likely: (1) low levels of public goods, coupled with (2) economic opportunities that allow elites autonomous from the state to earn revenue. Under regimes where the rule of law is weak, non-state elites have an incentive to protect their assets from state predation by developing a social support base. They do this by making symbolic gestures and providing surrogate public goods to communities. If the regime threatens to harm this relationship, by restricting elites' freedoms or denying them access to resources, top-down mobilization is one of the few means available to advance or defend their position. Elites base their appeal on shared local identity and the material benefit that people derive from elite charity. The ultimate scale of mobilization is determined by the number and geographic dispersion of elites who mobilize locally and then unite their protests. / (cont.) Three mechanisms may be activated to expand mobilization beyond the local level: demonstration, in which people receive information of an event through an impersonal medium and emulate other people's actions by analogy to their own situation; diffusion, or direct contact between actors connected by strong social ties; and brokerage, or mediation between groups by a small number of well-connected individuals. I argue that only if diffusion and brokerage are activated in concert can an incipient movement overcome gaps between (1) elites and masses and (2) different communities (or regions). I demonstrate my theory by comparing Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan, then analyzing two cases of mass mobilization within Kyrgyzstan-one of regional scale and one national. In both cases, I illustrate the centrality of vertical networks in bringing about mobilization, and trace how both brokerage and diffusion were activated to expand mobilization from local to regional or national scale. I then test the theory on cases outside the region. The dissertation contributes to the comparative politics literature on contentious politics, the breakdown of authoritarian regimes, and the effect of Soviet legacies on state and society. / by Scott Radnitz. / Ph.D.

Thesis: Ph. D., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Political Science, 2016. / Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references (pages 265-291). / How do states change their foreign policies when they acquire nuclear weapons? This question is central to both academic and policy debates about the consequences of nuclear proliferation, and the lengths that the United States and other states should go to to prevent proliferation. Despite this importance to scholars and practitioners, existing literature has largely avoided answering this question. This dissertation aims to fill this gap. In answering this question, I first offer a typology of conceptually distinct and empirically distinguishable foreign policy behaviors that nuclear weapons may facilitate. Specifically, I distinguish between aggression, expansion, independence, bolstering, steadfastness, and compromise. The typology allows scholars and practitioners to move beyond catch-all terms such as "emboldenment" when thinking about how states may change their foreign policies after nuclear acquisition. Second, I offer a theory for why different states use nuclear weapons to facilitate different combinations of these behaviors. I argue that states in different geopolitical circumstances have different political priorities. Different states therefore find different combinations of foreign policy behaviors attractive, and thus use nuclear weapons to facilitate different foreign policy behaviors. The theory uses a sequence of three variables-the existence of severe territorial threats or an ongoing war, the presence of senior allies, and the state's power trajectory-to predict the combinations of foreign policy behaviors states will use nuclear weapons to facilitate. Third, I test the theory using case studies of the United Kingdom, South Africa, and the United States, each drawing on interviews and multi-archival research. In each case, I look for discontinuities in the state's foreign policy behaviors that occur at the point of nuclear acquisition and use process tracing to assess whether nuclear weapons caused the changes observed. The dissertation makes several contributions. It provides an answer to a foundational question about the nuclear revolution: how do states use nuclear weapons to facilitate their goals in international politics? It offers a new dependent variable and theory with potentially broader applicability to other questions about comparative foreign policy. Finally, it offers policy-relevant insights into how new nuclear states might behave in the future. / by Mark Stephen Bell. / Ph. D.

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Political Science, 2005. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 81-87). / I evaluate the practical utility of psychological bias theory by examining two historical cases - the US decision to cross the 38th parallel in 1950 and the British policy of appeasement towards Germany in the 1930s - asking in each of these whether the theory could have helped policymakers to make better decisions. Drawing from the lessons of these two cases, I argue that psychological bias theory can help foreign-policymakers to improve their decisionmaking capabilities and hence increase their chances of achieving favorable outcomes in international politics. However, even if the prescriptions of the theory are adopted, there is no guarantee that positive outcomes will obtain in every case because outcomes are affected by at least two other factors that one largely cannot control: the availability of information and the misperceptions suffered by one's opponent. I also discuss other research methods that could be used to investigate the utility of the theory: examining how useful its prescriptions have been; looking at whether people can actually correct their psychological biases; and considering whether policymakers should attempt to rectify their biases. / by Wilson Leung. / S.M.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Political Science, 1983. / MICROFICHE COPY AVAILABLE IN ARCHIVES AND DEWEY / Bibliography: leaves 363-380. / by Antônio Octávio Cintra. / Ph.D.