Thesis (Ph.D.)--Indiana University, Dept. of Political Science, 2006. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 67-04, Section: A, page: 1519. Adviser: Edward G. Carmines. "Title from dissertation home page (viewed June 18, 2007)."

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Indiana University, Dept. of Political Science, 2006. / "Title from dissertation home page (viewed June 27, 2007)." Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 67-06, Section: A, page: 2305. Adviser: Michael D. McGinnis.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2008. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 69-05, Section: A, page: 1813. Adviser: Richard Schacht. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 262-271) Available on microfilm from Pro Quest Information and Learning.

This thesis examines the economic effects of mass political instability events, first of the Arab Spring on Tunisia from a macro and micro perspective, and then more broadly, how economies recover from such events. In addition to an introduction and conclusion, this thesis is composed of three self-contained empirical studies, which we term as chapters hereinafter. Chapter 2 uses the Synthetic Control Methodology to estimate the output loss in Tunisia as a result of the “Arab Spring”. Our results suggest that the loss was 5.5 percent, 5.1 percent, and 6.4 percent of GDP per capita in 2011, 2012, and 2013, respectively. These findings are robust to a series of tests, including placebo tests, and are consistent with those from an Autoregressive Distributed Lag model. Moreover, we find that investment was the main channel through which the economy was adversely impacted by the Arab Spring. Chapter 3 extends the analysis to a micro level and explores the impact of political instability that stemmed from the Arab Spring on Tunisian firms. Using a new dataset, we show that political instability was a major concern for small and exporting firms as well as for those that were operating in the tourism sector, those that have suffered from vandalism and those that were located in the interior region of Tunisia. Most importantly, we find that political instability was the most damaging constraint to firm growth after the Arab Spring. Finally, chapter 4 examines the economic implications of mass political instability events, defined as a political regime crisis accompanied by mass civil protest. Using the synthetic control methodology, it is shown that these events significantly reduce output in the short run, and even more so in the long run (up to five years later), although there is considerable heterogeneity across countries. This result was further supported by Difference-in-Difference regression estimates. In addition, we find that countries with increasing investment rates and lower previous income levels are associated with a fast recovery following mass political instability. On the other hand, democratization is found to impede recovery. These results are robust to using different sets of regressors and to the exclusion of potential outliers.

This thesis draws a picture of Kurdish diaspora politics, focusing on the community in London. Political activities carried out by the Kurds are contextualised within the framework of diasporas as transnational non-state actors, through their strong physical and psycho-social ties to their homeland, while they live in their ‘hostland.’ This work is in pursuit of understanding the attempts and strategies of the Kurds from Turkey in the UK to advance their interests as an ethno-national diaspora, and the extent to which these strategies and mechanisms provide the diaspora Kurds with necessary means to survive as a politically active group. The security concerns of the Kurdish activists have productive and destructive results for the Kurdish diaspora. The main negative outcome is the deepening of the already existing fear of politics that has been prevalent in Turkish society, including the Kurds, seemingly the most politicised segment of society since the 1980 military coup. The pressure of order-building through legal political activity and civic engagement pushed the Kurds into the pursuit of rights in various aspects of life that were conventionally seen as part of low politics; issues of secondary importance vis-a-vis national liberation, including gender equality, ecologism, social welfare, education, socialisation and cultural development, rather than issues of high politics, such as the PKK’s status, disarmament, political recognition, or autonomy. Local politics of the UK are perceived as positive, while its higher level policies and foreign policy are seen as mostly negative and "not Kurds-friendly". The diaspora Kurds emphasise negative dimensions of British state in relation to world politics and international relations. I argue that as a response to this negativity, the British Kurds pursue a survival strategy to beat “structure” with their "creative proactive agency" in the diasporan sphere, especially in local politics to which they attach more value and hope.

This thesis aims to contribute to a better understanding of the dynamics of media democratisation in post-authoritarian societies. Since the return to democracy across Latin America, research has yielded important insights into normative expectations of the media during democratisation, and country case studies have highlighted the diversity of contexts for analysis. Long-standing obstacles to media democracy in the region have not been overcome by democratisation. However, there has been little attention to exploring whether media access for civil society actors – and, so, internal plurality of the media – improves over the process of democratisation and what factors influence this. Based on a content analysis of newspaper coverage of major strategies of the campaign for transitional justice in Uruguay spanning from 1989 to 2012 and 16 interviews with journalists and civil society actors, this thesis draws three main conclusions. Firstly, it concludes that there is not a progressive increase in the quantity or quality of media access for civil society actors and this is principally due to the contingency of media access upon both journalistic routines and broader shifts associated with the process of democratisation including the return to “politics as usual” and increasing market competition. It further concludes that transitional justice campaigns face considerable obstacles in gaining media access to further their strategic ends, due to the way in which the media follows the mainstream political and public agenda during democratisation, and low levels of quality of access. Finally, it makes a methodological contribution in its mixed methods approach, which embraces the debate of de-Westernisation in media scholarship. This multi-faceted approach to researching media access reveals the way in which inequalities in media access cannot be divorced from wider power relations in society. Overall, the thesis argues that the lack of media access for civil society actors constitutes a significant and ongoing problem for the deepening of democracies in Latin America. To this end, the thesis supports a more radical account of media democratisation which incorporates a greater normative duty to represent civil society groups, particularly given the dominance of hegemonic, state-led narratives in pacted transitions. This should inform the way in which media policy is approached during democratic transitions and provide impetus for the current push for civil society-led media reform movements in the region. In addition to this, the thesis indicates the need for further and broader research into media coverage of transitional justice campaigns and mechanisms in different contexts and in comparison with other human rights issues.

This study seeks to address the question of what explains variation in the effectiveness of the EU’s actions towards Iran. To do so, it conducts a longitudinal analysis – spanning from 1992 to 2015 – focusing primarily on the nuclear dispute, in which the EU, for many unexpectedly, played a crucial role, particularly in the final period leading to the 2015 landmark agreement. In answering the central research question, this study expands on the concept of effectiveness so far used by scholars interested in the EU’s behaviour in multilateral contexts and applying it to a single country. Moreover, this study unpacks the concept of effectiveness and explores the link between internal effectiveness – that is, whether the EU manages to act cohesively and purposefully – and external effectiveness – that is, whether the EU is able to reach the goals it sets for itself in the international arena. In doing so, the aim is that of contributing to debates on whether and how EU internal effectiveness influences EU external effectiveness and the extent to which the external context helps explain variation in the EU’s ability to reach its stated goals. By revisiting the long journey leading to the normalisation of relations between Iran and the international community, this study demonstrates that internal effectiveness is necessary, but insufficient to explain EU external effectiveness, which in fact is also contingent upon the external context in which the EU operates. In particular, the empirical findings covering three distinct periods have demonstrated that focusing only on the position of the US (and related transatlantic cooperation) cannot always provide us with a full explanation of why the EU is (un)able to reach its objectives vis-à-vis third countries. Importantly, the behaviour of the ‘target country’ and the negotiating style used by the EU must be taken into account to explain why the EU’s effectiveness towards Iran has varied across time. As for internal effectiveness, it has been argued that the EU is effective as a global actor when it is able to act autonomously, coherently and is recognised by other actors, including the target country. The level of legal competence in shaping the EU’s capacity to act coherently and effectively in world politics is less important than what has been claimed by the existing literature. Importantly, when the EU is able to articulate determinate common positions and the Member States stick to what they decide jointly, the likelihood for the EU of being externally effective is significantly enhanced, regardless of decision-making rules.

This thesis examines the political theory of deliberative democracy, as elucidated by Habermas, through a case study of the electoral reform process in Prince Edward Island. For deliberative democrats like Habermas, public debate ideally possesses an epistemic, or truth-tracking, dimension. After a through discussion of the reform process in that jurisdiction, complemented by interviews with important actors in that process, the public debate on electoral reform in PEI is evaluated in terms of its correspondence with the idealistic presuppositions of deliberative democracy. It is argued that, due to low levels of public knowledge and problematic media coverage of the issue, the PEI electoral reform process provides little empirical support for the theory of deliberative democracy. Examining the dynamics of this case of public deliberation allows us to identify the factors that impede reasoned public deliberation in contemporary society.

Cette thèse est une tentative de réfléchir sur la présence du Législateur dans l'oeuvre politique de Jean-Jacques Rousseau. En nous appuyant principalement sur le Discours sur l'inégalité et sur le Contrat social, nous retraçons la place de cette figure dans la théorie de la fondation politique tout en réfléchissant sur la place de la contingence et de la nécessité dans cette théorie. La recherche compare Rousseau avec les grands auteurs contractualistes mail s'appuie également sur une lecture de Platon, Bonnie Honig et Hannah Arendt pour étoffer la compréhension de la théorie rousseauiste. Dans la dernière partie, nous proposons une critique, qui met en évidence la contingence de la figure du Législateur et la difficulté de l'appel au divin.

Dans Banal nationalism, Michael Billig amène un concept original, le "nationalisme ordinaire" (banal nationalism), qui correspond au nationalisme des États-nation bien établis. Il le distingue du "nationalisme revendicateur" (hot nationalism), soit le nationalisme plus vocal, visible et "dérangeant" des nations minoritaires. La présente thèse utilise ces deux concepts pour analyser le nationalisme linguistique d'une nation minoritaire, à savoir la nation québécoise. Plus précisement, elle analyse les transformations du nationalisme linguistique québécois à travers l'évolution des politiques linguistiques du gouvernement du Québec depuis les années 1970. Elle vise à démontrer que la politique linguistique du Québec et le nationalisme linguistique qui en émane sont certes essentiellement "revendicateurs" dans les années 1970 (avec la loi 22 et la loi 101), mais que, à l'instar de ce qui se produit avec le temps dans les États-nation bien établis, ils deviennent caractérisés principalement par l'"ordinarité" à partir des années 1990 (avec la loi 86 et le Rapport Larose). Ces deux décennies correspondent respectivement à une période de construction et à une periode de consolidation de la politique linguistique québécoise. Entre ces deux phases s'est écoulée une période de transition dans les années 1980, pendant laquelle il y a eu un grand chevauchement entre les deux types de nationalisme linguistique. Cette période de transition, négligée par Billig, correspond à ce que la thèse désigne comme un "nationalisme linguistique transitoire".