This project focuses on the aftermath of civil war. Leaving the Past Behind? A Study of the URNG and FMLN Transitions to Political Parties asks a fundamental question related to the transition of insurgent groups to political parties that has not yet been investigated. Namely, how can we account for the success or failure of former insurgent groups as political parties? I argue that certain insurgent groups are more likely to succeed as political parties as a result of a variety of organizational factors (size, prior political party experience, contacts with mass-based organizations, internal unity, control of territory, and minimal violence committed against civilians) and environmental conditions (electoral rules, other political parties, voters, economic crises, and social cleavages). To test these hypotheses, I combine qualitative and quantitative analyses of two Central American insurgent groups currently undergoing such transitions: the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN) in El Salvador and the Guatemalan National Revolutionary Unit (URNG) in Guatemala. First, I conduct a structured, focused comparison of the FMLN and URNG and their transitions to political parties. Second, I conduct a number of statistical analyses utilizing electoral results, political violence and socio-economic data to determine whether the explanations also hold for within nation analyses. Finally, I pursue the generalizability of the findings through a limited comparison of similar insurgent transitions in Mozambique and Colombia. Findings from my research suggest that the FMLN drew upon previous experience with electoral politics both prior to and during the war, an extensive urban and rural network of combatants, and a nationwide organization of noncombatants to succeed in postwar electoral politics. On the other hand, the URNG had no prior experience with electoral politics, a weak organizational structure with few noncombatant support personnel, and limited geographic scope. While institutional factors played a marginal role in effecting the electoral performance of each group, it was the FMLN's experience and organization as an insurgent group that explains its superior performance relative to the URNG. / A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Political Science in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Degree Awarded: Spring Semester, 2006. / Date of Defense: March 21, 2006. / Guatemala, URNG, FMLN, Political Parties, Insurgents, El Salvador / Includes bibliographical references. / Paul R. Hensel, Professor Directing Dissertation; Andrew Opel, Outside Committee Member; Damarys Canache, Committee Member; Will H. Moore, Committee Member; Jeffrey K. Staton, Committee Member.

In this dissertation, I assess the role of religious commitment in how individuals see the political information environment, learn about politics, and construct political opinions. While religiosity is an enormously complex concept, I argue that—at a fundamental level—people learn how to maintain religious beliefs in the face of potentially-hostile forces. These skills in belief-maintenance are then applied to politics, as religious individuals become adept at viewing the political world through a religious lens—incorporating information that supports their beliefs while rejecting or ignoring other types of information. This process will have an enormous effect on the type of political knowledge religious individuals possess, how they see objective and subjective political events, and how they react to elite cues. I argue that the role of religion in information acquisition will further play a vital part in democratic citizenship, namely in how individuals participate in politics. I examine these questions through a number of methods—using both experimental and cross-sectional data—and conclude that religion invokes a fundamental trade off in political participation. Rather than being an unambiguous democratic good or negative, religiosity's effect on political participation is complex and conditional. / A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Political Science in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Degree Awarded: Summer Semester, 2011. / Date of Defense: June 15, 2011. / Includes bibliographical references. / Jason Barabas, Professor Directing Dissertation; Laura Arpan, University Representative; Jennifer Jerit, Committee Member; Robert Jackson, Committee Member.

Thesis: S.M., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Political Science, February 2017. / "September 2016." Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references (pages 68-73). / This master thesis examines the impact of the New Cooperative Medical Scheme (NCMS) on rural residents' out-of-pocket medical expenses (OOP) in China. The thesis first uses quantitative methods to identify the statistical relationships between NCMS and rural OOP and finds that enrolling in NCMS is associated with higher OOP. Then, using the 2009 reform, also known as Healthy China 2020, as a starting point, the thesis further explores the factors behind the resistance to the reform efforts to cut down OOP. By utilizing two political science theories - institutional layering and policy feedback - the thesis finds that the 2009 reform has so far failed to achieve noticeable reductions in OOP because, on the one hand, fierce institutional competitions has transformed NCMS into a fragmented program with too many veto players; on the other hand, policy feedback effects, under which previous policies continue to influence the trajectory of future policy-making decisions, strengthen particular interest groups and force the reform to make compromises. / by Shourou Li. / S.M.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Political Science, 2000. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 237-258). / This dissertation examines the process through which distinct national market structures and competitive dynamics could endure in the telecom industry, even as telecom markets were liberalized throughout the Europe Union. The opening of national markets and the international expansion of the telecom operators led many industry observers to predict that a single global market characterized by fierce competition among a few giant firms would emerge beyond the reach of national governments. In the European Union, the initiatives to create a common market for telecommunications posed a further challenge to the national governments' ability to maintain barriers to competition and influence market outcomes in the telecom industry. Finally, the convergence of telecoms, computing and broadcasting stimulated the rapid growth of the internet and a myriad of new on-line services that crossed borders indiscriminately and were very difficult for governments to control. Calling into question the strong predictions of globalization in the telecom industry, this dissertation explores how differences in national regulation, industrial policy and market shape the development of competition in the national telecom markets of France, Germany and the United Kingdom. In each national context policy makers and firms responded differently to the challenges of market liberalization and technological change. First, within the broad European regulatory framework, the national governments adopted different regulatory regimes to oversee the development of competition and the provision of universal service in the liberalized markets. Second, the national governments introduced distinct industrial policy initiatives and regulations to promote investment and innovation in new internet technologies. Third, the new entrants in the liberalized markets were politically powerful national players with very different core businesses and entry strategies. When the European telecom markets were opened to competition, these diverse policy choices and strategic responses created very different frameworks within which competition would develop and new markets for the internet and on-line services would grow. / by Rebecca Endicott Birdseye Weil. / Ph.D.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Political Science. Thesis. 1968. Ph.D. / Two unnumbered leaves inserted. / Bibliography: v. 3, leaves 618-657. / Ph.D.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Political Science, 1999. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 379-404). / This research investigates the growth of product market regulation in France and Germany from 1970 to 1990. It finds that these countries have pursued divergent strategies for regulating their domestic product markets. France has treated consumers as citizens, granting them special political protections against product risk. Germany has treated consumers as producers, emphasizing consumer information as a means of combatting market failure. This policy divergence resulted from the different institutional contexts in which the issues of consumer policy were first raised and resolved. As a consequence of these broad institutional differences, France and Germany have put in place divergent national consumption regimes, in which different sets of consumer and producer interests are systematically emphasized in government regulation. Such national divergence in consumption regimes is important because it will increasingly influence consumer and producer decisions about product choice, and these choices in turn set the terms of national variations of capitalism. / by Johnathan Gunnar Trumbull. / Ph.D.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Political Science, 1993. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 367-371). / by Annamaria Seleny. / Ph.D.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Political Science, 2004. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 367-402). / This work contributes to the study of comparative political economy by examining the impact of financial deregulation on corporate governance in the two main continental European economies, France and Germany. It investigates the process of transformation of the systems of corporate governance of these two countries toward a greater shareholder value orientation. It analyses the divergent responses of large companies in these two countries to the same set of changes in the international economy. Despite similarities in terms of ownership concentration, inactive securities markets, financial opacity, and closed market for hostile takeovers, large firms reacted differently to the new external environment - with dramatically diverging consequences for employees. In France, the majority of large companies have substantially changed their business strategy through a focus on a single business activity. German firms, in contrast, have responded to the new environment with greater financial transparency. The evolution of corporate governance in the two countries does not entail convergence - but different patterns of change with substantial differentiation in some areas, less in others. The argument presented deals with the dynamics of economic adjustment. Why do changes in the structure of corporate governance move in different directions in France and Germany? The power of management, especially relative to labor, given by existing industrial structures, accounts to a substantial extent for the different patterns by which shareholder value practices have been introduced in the two countries. / (cont.) The institutional framework conditions both what managers are likely to want to do (some forms of reorganization will be more attractive where workplace organization and worker power takes the form it does in France and others more attractive where the workforce has continuing power as in Germany) and what they can do. The power of German workers induces management to compromise on measures on which both can agree (greater transparency, continuing cross-subsidies). The power of French management allows them to pursue strategies strongly in their interest. In short, all capitalist economies are adjusting to pressures for change in corporate governance but the dynamic of adjustment is deeply affected by the relative power of management and labor. / by Michel Goyer. / Ph.D.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Political Science, 2009. / Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 352-380). / National skills systems have historically imposed significant constraints on production strategies. This dissertation investigates the impact of the home economy skill base on firms' off-shoring and out-sourcing decisions, asking: how are globalization pressures mediated and shaped by politically constructed institutions? Chapters One and Two review the literatures on 'varieties of capitalism' and national skill profiles, examining the relationship between skills and production strategies in the US (general skills and Fordism), Germany (industry-specific skills and diversified quality production) and Italy (tacit skills and industrial district production). Despite considerable differences, politicians and business leaders in all three countries have embraced remarkably similar skill-building rhetoric. The dissertation then examines globalization as a de-stabilizing agent for skill-building systems, focusing on the textiles and apparel industries. Chapter Three argues that domestic education and training institutions in the United States facilitated offshoring, and that upgrades in management skills were rarely accompanied by more robustly skilled workers on the production floor. Chapter Four argues that recent changes in Italian industry structure attempted to ensure a steady supply of a vital input -workers with lots of tacit skill - but an over-reliance on tacit knowledge could ultimately undermine competitiveness in the industry. Chapter Five finds that Germany's edge in production, rooted on strong, industry-based skills institutions , gave firms a clear advantage in the period of intense globalization. But given recent transfer of skills from German firms to Central European suppliers, how enduring Germany's skills advantage will be remains unclear. Chapter Six examines the impact of new, global technologies on national skill-building systems, looking at the advent of information technology skill certifications. Despite important national variations in adoption, IT skill certificates came to define skill sets at the international level, underscoring the importance of a new set of global, often for profit actors in previously domestic arena of training and education. Chapter Seven concludes with a discussion of the skills workers and employers need to be competitive in the global economy, arguing that reform of formal education institutions may be necessary but insufficient. Policy makers and employers would do well to focus more attention on fostering tacit skills. / by Sara Jane McCaffrey. / Ph.D.

Includes bibliographical references (p. 111-118). / Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Political Science, 2004. / (cont.) effort that eventually paid off in 1999. Interest group politics also factors into the actions of the national security establishment as they also lobby the Presidency and Congress to maintain restrictive encryption regulations. The study uses organizational culture to explain the motivations and some of the actions of the NSA, particularly with regard to its preference for secrecy, its placement of national security above other values, and its efforts to maintain control over all cryptology, whether government or civilian. / This thesis seeks to explain why the U.S. government export controls on encryption technologies instituted during the 1970s remained in place until 1999 even though the widespread availability of similar products internationally had rendered the regulations largely without national security benefit by the late 1980s and early 1990s. The second part of the thesis explores the processes and reasons behind the eventual liberalization of encryption policies in 1999. Underlying the study is a values tradeoff between national security, economic interests, and civil liberties for which the relative gains and losses to each value shift through the three decades of the study as a result of technological advances in commercial and civilian cryptography, the growing popularity of electronic communications, the rise of the computer software industry, and the end of the Cold War. The explanation rests upon a combination of political science and organization theories. Structural obstacles to adaptation within the legislative process and interest group politics help account for some of the inertia in the policy adaptation process. In particular, regulatory capture of the Presidency and critical Congressional committees by the National Security Agency helped lock in the NSA's preferred policies even after technological advancements in the commercial sector began to cut into the national security benefits resulting from export controls. Interest group politics also helps explain the rise and eventual success of the lobby for liberalization of encryption regulations. A combination of the software industry and civil liberties activists intent on preserving the right to privacy and First Amendment allied to lobby Congress to change encryption regulations, an / by Shirley K. Hung. / S.M.