Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Political Science, 2010. / Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 73-74). / The 20th century witnessed the steady decline of the ability of states, particularly great powers, to defeat insurgencies. During the same period, the world has become both more populous and more urban. As people have taken to the cities, so too have insurgents increasingly made battlefields out of urban areas. This study has sought to determine the impact of urbanization on insurgency outcomes using a post-war dataset of insurgencies. It has predicted that urbanized insurgencies favor the insurgent by facilitating concealment and cover, nullifying the relatively power differential enjoyed by states, and providing them with an abundance of soft targets useful for undermining the counterinsurgent's legitimacy. Although constrained by a number of data limitations, the results demonstrated that more urbanized insurgencies were a significant challenge to counter insurgents. By partitioning the dataset by insurgency type, the study was able to determine unique predictors of conflict outcome for each type. Urbanized insurgencies are particularly hard to defeat when the counterinsurgent is a foreign occupier, more democratic, and the insurgency has external support. Rural insurgencies become more difficult to defeat the more linguistically diverse the population. Furthermore, by increasing the number of conflict casualties, rural insurgents can particularly benefit from rough terrain. / by Nicholas T. Calluzzo. / S.M.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Political Science, 2005. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 373-390). / With the advent of economic globalization, the terms of debate over the political and social conditions necessary to foster development in the Global South have shifted. Examining technological development, one important aspect of economic development, in China, I explore the prospects for and conditions conducive to development under globalization. My main finding is that the developing world has significant opportunities for development through combining the institutions of global capital, defined here as the financial institutions of the advanced economies, with co-ethnic technologists returning from abroad. Global capital serves to ameliorate the inefficiencies of China's financial sector. The co-ethnic technologists establish hybrid firms that possess foreign finance and a strategic commitment to develop core technological activities in China, a strategic orientation commonly associated with domestic firms and not foreign ones. I call this developmental path the global hybrid model. Using two case studies from China's IT industry, I demonstrate that the hybrid firms outperform both other foreign-invested enterprises and domestic firms in technological upgrading. / (cont.) The domestic firms underperform the foreign-invested firms because the Chinese financial system severely misallocates credit. Credit misallocation undermines incentives for technological development among domestic firms. The hybrids and the other foreign-invested firms rely on the institutions of global capital to allocate capital more efficiently, but the hybrids contribute more to local technological development due to their strategic commitment to China. The shared ethnic identity between the hybrids' owners and the local economy provide these firms with the ideas and interests that motivate them to pursue this strategic commitment to China. The global hybrid path provides several insights on the problem of development under globalization. By importing foreign financial institutions, the global hybrid model lowers the institutional bar for development because developing countries need not have highly capable states or well-functioning markets to develop. Yet, global capital alone is not sufficient to achieve development because global capital has no serious commitment to host country development. / (cont.) In place of the previously proposed solution of state discipline of foreign firms to create commitment, co-ethnic technologists provide the motivation for hybrid firms to contribute significantly to developing host economies. / by Douglas B. Fuller. / Ph.D.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Political Science, 2006. / "February 2006." / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 253-260). / The dissertation examines how concerns about the demands of realism should be addressed in political theories of justice. It asks whether the demands of realism should affect the construction of principles of justice and, if so, how principles should respond to those demands. To address the problems posed by the demands of realism, the dissertation focuses on two specific realist concerns - namely, a concern about the motivational demands of justice and a concern about moral and religious pluralism - and asks what role, if any, these concerns should play in the articulation of principles of justice. Through a critical interrogation of the theories of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, John Rawls, and Jurgen Habermas, the author argues that a conception of justice should be attentive to citizens' motivational capacities and reasonable moral and religious worldviews but should not automatically accommodate their determinate preferences, opinions, and beliefs which may be objectionable. Endorsing an ideal of deliberative democracy and a conception of deliberative citizenship, the author argues that institutional arrangements which encourage democratic deliberation can help citizens to be more reflective about their determinate motives and beliefs and help them to acquire the desire and reason necessary to support just principles and institutions. / (cont.) At the same time, however, the author holds that appropriate institutions will be stable only when citizens acquire the necessary motivation and reason which leads to the defense of a dynamic model of justice, motivation, and reasonable pluralism in which just institutions and a just social ethos are regarded as mutually reinforcing. The author concludes that theorizing about justice should be limited not by what is given by the social and political status quo, but instead by the limits fixed by political hope. / by Daniel K. Munro. / Ph.D.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Political Science, 2006. / This electronic version was submitted by the student author. The certified thesis is available in the Institute Archives and Special Collections. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 75-82). / Why are some countries more technologically innovative than others? The dominant explanation amongst political-economists is that domestic institutions determine national innovation rates. However, after decades of research, the empirical evidence for this relationship remains equivocal. There are simply many countries with "good" institutions that do not innovate at the technological frontier, and many countries with "bad" institutions that have nonetheless built impressive records of technological progress. Therefore, in this dissertation, in order to probe the sources of variance in national innovation rates, I analyze quantitative data on innovation, various domestic institutions, and four types of international relationships. First, I review the National Innovation Systems literature. Second, I test the Varieties of Capitalism theory of innovation. Third, I ask whether decentralized states are better at technological innovation than centralized states. In each case, I find that there exists little empirical evidence for an aggregate relationship between domestic institutions and technological innovation. That is, although a specific domestic institution or policy might appear to explain a particular instance of innovation, they fail to explain national innovation rates across time and space. / (cont.) However, the empirical evidence does suggest that a country's international relationships may be the missing piece to the national innovation rate puzzle. More specifically, the evidence presented in this dissertation suggests that certain kinds of international relationships (e.g. capital goods imports, foreign direct investment, educational exchanges) do affect national innovation rates in the aggregate. And countries which have these kinds of relationships with the lead innovating nations tend to become more innovative than states which do not, almost regardless of their domestic institutions. In other words, explaining national innovation rates may not be so much a domestic institutions story as it is an international story. My empirical evidence includes data on simple patent counts, patents weighted by forward citations, science and engineering publications (both simple counts and citations-weighted), and high-technology exports. / by Mark Zachary Taylor. / Ph.D.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Political Science, 1992. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 407-419). / by Katherine Magraw. / Ph.D.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Political Science, 1991. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 555-565). / by William Deane Stanley. / Ph.D.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Political Science, 2012. / This electronic version was submitted by the student author. The certified thesis is available in the Institute Archives and Special Collections. / Cataloged from student-submitted PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references. / This dissertation advances and tests an explanation for the spread of violent civil conflict from one state to another. The fear of such "substate conflict contagion" is frequently invoked by American policymakers as a justification for military intervention in ongoing substate conflicts -- the argument these policymakers often make is that conflicts left uncontained now will spread and become a more pertinent security threat later. My State Action Explanation is that substate conflict contagion is not the sole product of nonstate factors such as transnational rebel networks and arms flows, nor of the structural factors such as poverty that make internal conflict more likely in general. Rather, at least one of three deliberate state government actions is generally required for a conflict to spread, making substate conflict contagion both less common and more state-driven -- and hence more preventable -- than is often believed. These state actions include Evangelization, the deliberate encouragement of conflict abroad by former rebel groups that have taken over their home government; Expulsion, the deliberate movement of combatants across borders by state governments in conflict; and Meddling with Overt Partiality, the deliberate interference in another state's conflict by a state government that subsequently leads to conflict in the interfering state. After introducing this State Action Explanation, I probe its empirical plausibility by identifying 84 cases of substate conflict contagion between 1946 and 2007, and showing that at least one of these three state actions was present and involved in most of these 84 cases. I then conduct two regional tests of the explanation, in Central America (1978-1996) and Southeast Asia (1959-1980). I argue that state actions appear to have been necessary for most of the contagion cases in both of these regions, and that the absence of state actions appears to best explain the cases in which conflicts did not spread. / by Nathan Wolcott Black. / Ph.D.

Thesis (S.M. and S.B.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Political Science, 2006. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 63-65). / Although there have been several attempts to tabulate civilian casualties in the Iraq War, the effect of these casualties on the Iraqi population and insurgent organizations has not been thoroughly examined. From the literature of the motives and mechanisms behind the formation and expansion of insurgencies, as well as the culture and values of Iraqi society, it is expected that increased civilian casualties will create grievance among the population, causing support for insurgents and increased attacks on coalition forces. This paper statistically analyzes data on Iraqi civilian and coalition force casualties to determine if there is a causal relationship between the two variables. It also recognizes the limitations and potential biases of the available data. Control variables are included in the statistical analysis to compare the influence of civilian casualties to competing theories of insurgency formation. Analysis demonstrates that while civilian casualties and coalition casualties have a positive relationship, significant causality between the two variables cannot be established. Alternative hypotheses examine unique factors in Anbar and Baghdad provinces and the role of focus events in insurgent activity. The paper concludes with recommendations for further study. / by Jessica Eve Karnis. / S.M.and S.B.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Political Science, 1993. / Includes bibliographical references. / by Steven M. Flank. / Ph.D.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Political Science, February 2005. / Vita. / Includes bibliographical references (p. [367]-405). / Nations, because of their different strategic situations, histories, and military cultures can have dramatically different beliefs about the nature of effective military doctrine, strategy, and capabilities. This dissertation argues that when such doctrines-or "theories of victory"-differ across states, misperceptions and false optimism are likely to occur. In turn, these can impede international diplomacy and statecraft by making communication and common assessments of the balance of power more difficult. When states are engaged in strategic coercion--either deterrence or compellence--these problems can lead to escalation and war. To develop this unique explanation for the pernicious problem of false optimism, this dissertation draws on scholarship on the sources of doctrine, strategic culture, misperception, strategic coercion, and deterrence theory. It assesses the argument through case studies of attempts at strategic coercion in early Cold War Sino- American conflicts in Korea and the Taiwan Strait. The dissertation also tests the proposed theory against the conventional approach of deterrence theory that focuses on the "objective" quality of the signaling. The cases rely on process tracing using both primary and secondary sources from each side, and they support the dissertation's proposed theory in broad terms as well as in their details. The two attempts of deterrence surrounding the Korean War failed. There, the signaling between the two great powers depended heavily on each side's own doctrinal theory of victory. / (cont.) These different doctrinal lenses further impeded the conduct of diplomacy between the two by blurring the interpretation of those signals as well as the overall assessment of the balance of power. In the third case (deterring conflict in the Taiwan Strait), the two sides had much more similar theories of victory, and misperception and conflict were avoided. By providing a unique analytic perspective on military capability, this dissertation suggests policymakers need to carefully consider the perceptual framework regarding military doctrine of those they are trying to influence. / by Christopher P. Twomey. / Ph.D.