Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Political Science, 1997. / Includes bibliographical references (v. 2, leaves 335-360). / by John Griffin. / Ph.D.

Thesis: Ph. D., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Political Science, 2018. / 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 (pages 135-145). / This dissertation examines the ways in which housing markets shape and are shaped by the political decisions that citizens make, as well as the political beliefs that they hold. It contributes to theoretical knowledge on the political economy of urban development and housing by revisiting existing debates through a behavioralist lens. The first paper develops the theory that a noticeable change in the built environment serves as a reminder to vote when housing issues are salient. I analyze turnout in the 2015 San Francisco municipal election, and show that voters who lived in the neighborhood of infill development projects that began construction just before the election were 3 to 4 percentage points more likely to vote than those who lived near projects that began construction after the election. The second paper explores how localism, the belief that the interests of established members of the local community trump those of newcomers and outsiders, and liberalism, a preference for egalitarian norms, jointly shape attitudes toward housing growth. I use a novel survey instrument and rich observational data on land use ballot measures in San Francisco to measure these two dimensions of political ideology, and document that localism is negatively associated with support for development projects, whereas the correlation between liberalism and support for development is moderated by features of the development. The third paper proposes the status quo bias hypothesis, which predicts that housing wealth increases preference for status quo arrangements with respect to Social Security. The hypothesis is tested using a survey experiment that induces different home price expectations among respondents, as well as data from the 2000-2004 American national Election Studies panel. / by Weihuang Wong. / 1. Infill and Turnout: Development-in-my-backyard as a Noticeable Reminder to Vote -- 2. Our Town: Support for Housing Growth When Localism Meets Liberalism -- 3. The American Dream and Support for the Social Safety Net: Evidence from Experiment and Survey Data -- Supporting Materials. / Ph. D.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Political Science, 1999. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 298-312). / The dissertation is a comparative study of three multilateral development banks (MDBs)-the World Bank, European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), and European Investment Bank (EIB)-and their struggles to operationalize and implement relatively new environmental mandates. MDBs are increasingly being relied upon to address environmental issues in their activities, while at the same time facing criticism for allegedly promoting serious environmental degradation in borrowing countries. The dissertation focuses on the activities of these banks in Central and Eastern Europe, where the fall of the Iron Curtain revealed the most polluted countries in Europe, and where these MDBs are among the top donors. There is significant variation in the degree to which these MDBs have incorporated environmental goals into their work. The World Bank has played an important role in providing policy support for environmental reform in the region, while financing the largest scope of "green" projects of the three banks. The EIB has responded to its environmental goals in minimal ways, and the EBRD has an intermediate position between the other two. I argue that external pressure from major shareholder countries, usually supported or pushed by NGOs, is a key factor determining the depth of an MDB's commitment to new mandates, such as the environment. However, shareholder commitment is a necessary but not sufficient condition in explaining the banks' environmental behavior. Governance structures for all three banks are diffuse, and, as a result, institutional design and incentive systems play critical roles in how environmental objectives are translated into activities. In all three cases, the banks' internal incentive systems are poorly aligned with their environmental goals, and even where institutional variables are structured to promote greater awareness of environmental issues within the banks, they do not always work as envisioned. Theoretically, the dissertation argues that different causal variables matter at different stages of the policy process. Neorealist approaches have the most explanatory power in accounting for how environmental ideas are brought to the MDBs, but are insufficient in explaining outcomes. Approaches drawn from institutionalist and organizational theories, in turn, provide guidance in analyzing the mechanisms by which environmental objectives are translated into practice. The argument calls for a better integration of international relations theories emphasizing the importance of shareholder politics with theories that focus on how institutional arrangements shape behavior. / by Tamar L. Gutner. / Ph.D.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Political Science. Thesis. 1974. Ph.D. / MICROFICHE COPY ALSO AVAILABLE IN DEWEY LIBRARY. / Bibliography: leaves 316-332. / Ph.D.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Political Science, 2004. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 183-222). / This dissertation assesses the international security implications of biological weapons and the strategic consequences of their proliferation. It examines the impact of biological weapons on four key areas of concern for international security: proliferation, deterrence, civil-military relations, and threat assessment. The dissertation draws upon a range of theories from the field of security studies and a wealth of newly available information regarding the biological weapons programs of Iraq, the former Soviet Union, the United States, United Kingdom, and South Africa. My analysis yields four major findings. First, it is extremely difficult to prevent the spread of biological warfare capabilities to actors that want them and these actors tend to be motivated by a desire to challenge the status quo. Contrary to conventional wisdom, biological weapons have utility across the spectrum of conflict and are well suited to supporting asymmetric strategies against stronger opponents. Second, biological weapons do not confer the deterrent benefits associated with nuclear weapons and will undermine reliance on deterrence as a security strategy. Biological weapons are not suitable as strategic deterrents due to the uncertainty regarding their effects, the availability of defenses and the reliance of these weapons on secrecy and surprise for their effectiveness. The accessibility of these weapons to a diverse range of actors, including terrorists, and the ease of clandestine attacks undermines the effectiveness of deterrence as a security strategy. Third, civilian oversight of biological warfare programs is hindered by the intense secrecy that shrouds these programs. This lack of supervision leads to abuse and corruption by / (cont.) program managers, impedes adherence to international agreements, and increases the risk of such programs becoming the source of materials for terrorists. Fourth, states tend to have flawed assessments of their opponent's biological warfare capabilities and intentions. The result of such flawed assessments may be worst-case planning and overreaction to a perceived threat or complacency and continued vulnerability to attack. Biological. weapons will continue to exert a destabilizing influence on international security until defenses against these weapons are improved, governments can reliably detect biological weapons activities, the proliferation of biological weapons materials and expertise is staunched, and the norms against their possession and use are strengthened. / by Gregory D. Koblentz. / Ph.D.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Political Science, 2007. / Includes bibliographical references (v. 2, leaves 398-434). / Group identifications - in particular, those based on ethnicity and class - are central to political mobilization during elections. This dissertation asks: when and why does the salience of ethnic and class categories vary across elections in emerging democracies? It argues that which categories are politicized has less to do with which categories are most salient to voters and more to do with which are most useful to politicians. The strategies of politicians, however, are contrained in a particular ways, by opportunity, which is provided by party system crises, and by the political space, which is given by the structure of existing social identity categories, particularly their sizes and degrees of overlap with traditionally-politicized categories. Given the institutional rules, size and overlap affect which identity groups have the numbers to win and which describe similar constituencies that could be switched between for political expediency. The project nests the theory within an explanatory framework describing four key factors that drive variation in identification: voter preferences, political institutions, party institutions, and elite manipulation. The dissertation presents data from three sources: a fieldwork-based study of Bolivian party politics, focusing on the democratic period from 1982 to 2005; data from the "Constructivist Dataset on Ethnicity and Institutions (CDEI)" on political parties and elections in Latin America in the early 1990s; and four shadow cases from the Andean region (Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Venezuela). These data are used to map variation in identification across countries and over time; to illustrate the plausibility of the argument and to test it against predictions drawn from alternative hypotheses; and to explore the generalizability of the argument. / by Rachel Miyoshi Gisselquist. / Ph.D.

Thesis: S.M., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Political Science, 2018. / Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references (pages 31-37). / Much ink has been spilled on the way justifications for and patterns of military intervention have changed, particularly since the end of the Cold War. One aspect of intervention that has not been well explored in this literature, however, is jurisdictional allocation, or which country should try service members who commit crimes while deployed overseas. The sending country normally seeks to retain jurisdiction to protect their service members from criminal systems that may expose them to human rights abuses or lower legal standards than they would enjoy at home. Host countries, on the other hand, often argue against this violation of their sovereignty, which undercuts their legal institutions and ability to regulate internal order. What have been the trends in jurisdictional allocation over time? Has it been consistently allocated to host countries or sending countries, and how has this been justified? What could explain these trends? I explore this question using two cases. The first case focuses on the allocation of jurisdiction in UN peacekeeping Status of Forces Agreements (SOFAs) from 1948-2013, and debates in the 2000s over reforming jurisdictional allocation in the UN's model SOFA and Memorandum of Understanding in light of allegations of rape committed by UN peacekeepers on mission. The second case looks at negotiations surrounding the US-Iraq SOFA in 2008 and 2011. Overall, I argue that patterns of SOFA jurisdictional allocation have consistently favoured the sending country. This is better explained by state interests, or sometimes a mix of interests and norms, rather than norms alone. This paper ultimately points to the need to take a more nuanced look at the dynamics of interventions, which may follow different patterns over time. In other words, not all aspects of intervention may be evolving in the same way. / by Kelly Elizabeth O'Connor / S.M.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Political Science, 1987. / Bibliography: leaves 345-354. / by Stephen John Anderson. / Ph.D.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Political Science, 1991. / Includes bibliographical references (v. 3, leaves 908-949). / by Seyyed Vali Reza Nasr. / Ph.D.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Political Science, February 2010. / Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references (p. [219]-244). / The objective of this dissertation is to systematize the existing hypotheses in the electoral engineering literature and to test them in a set of selected case studies in order to answer a central question: does the electoral system affect the structure of political parties in ethnically divided societies and if so how? The academic debate on electoral design for divided societies has focused on the impact of institutional choices on ultimate conflict outcomes. The findings of previous studies have been generally inconclusive, while the lack of sub-national data on ethnic composition and voting patterns has made it difficult to examine mechanisms regarding the role of demographics. To approach the problem from a different angle, I propose a research design focusing on the intermediate link from electoral institutions to the ethnic structure of the party system. For the empirical portion of my work, I chose to conduct a structured historical comparison of four societies which implemented major electoral reforms: Turkey, Northern Ireland, Guyana, and Sri Lanka. Based on the study of these cases, I am arguing that politicians and voters have not responded to electoral incentives in the ways predicted by existent theories, and that no clear relationship can be observed between the electoral system's proportionality, the heterogeneity of electoral constituencies, and the number of parties or the types of ethnic appeals they make to voters. These findings indicate that the hopes placed in electoral system design for divided societies are unwarranted and that attention among political scientists and policymakers should shift to other peace-building approaches. / by Evangelos Liaras. / Ph.D.