United Nations peacekeeping has been distinguished as a bringer of peace and stability to countries plagued by war and insecurity. However, reports since the 1990s of sexual exploitations by peacekeeping personnel have tainted these accomplishments. At the same time as these reports started to surface there was an internal development within the UN where the security discourse went from being state focused to being focused on securing the population’s security and health. This new trend was established in the United Nations Development Programme in 1994 as Human Security and laid the ground for the structure of the peacekeeping operations. This study asks the question how these exploits can occur in a discursive context where the population’s welfare and health is the reference of intervention. By examining the following representative cases: the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and the Central African Republic (CAR), it can be seen how human security expresses a discursive reproduction of two different kinds of power: biopower and sovereign power. Through an analysis of the discourse in documents relating to the interventions it can be seen how these expressions of power creates a contextual environment where the sexual exploitations can take place.

The first part of this dissertation examines the presence of the financial contagion across European stock markets with respect to the Greece sovereign debt crisis by estimating the time-varying conditional correlations of stock returns between Greece and other European countries over 2001 to 2012. We find that the correlations vary over time and reach the peaks in the late 2008 during theU.S.subprime crisis, and in the beginning of 2010 of the height of European debt crisis. Further, the correlations between stock index returns of Greece and Spain, France, Ireland, Netherlands are significantly increased by Greek sovereign credit rating downgrade announcements. The second part of this dissertation examines the correlations of gold, dollar and U.S. stock returns over 2001 to 2012 using ADCC-GARCH model. The conditional correlations of gold-dollar returns are negative during all sub-sample periods and significantly increase in magnitude during both subprime crisis and sovereign debt crisis. The conditional correlations of gold-stock returns are positive on average over time. However, gold-stock correlation falls below zero during subprime crisis and sovereign debt crisis. Gold-stock correlation is significantly negatively affected by positive CPI announcements. And gold-dollar correlation is significantly negatively affected by negative GDP announcements and positive unemployment announcements. The effects of macroeconomic announcements are stronger during economic recessions.

O objetivo desta dissertação é avaliar o impacto de mudanças de rating soberano sobre a taxa de câmbio de países emergentes. Embora a literatura relacionada já tenha estudado o impacto de mudanças de rating soberano sobre ações, títulos e até fluxo de capital, nada foi feito sobre taxas de câmbio. Todavia, taxas de câmbio devem responder de maneira interessante a mudanças de rating, pois além de serem ativos financeiros, as moedas desempenham a função de intermediar o investimento estrangeiro nos demais ativos domésticos. Empregamos a metodologia de estudo de evento acrescentando a ela uma modificação que nos permite controlar a análise por efeitos agregados. Utilizando uma base de dados diária de taxas de câmbio de 23 países emergentes encontramos, grosso modo, evidências de que downgrades estão associados a depreciações da moeda doméstica, ao passo que, upgrades não provocam nenhuma reação significativa na taxa de câmbio. Este resultado vai ao encontro da literatura que estuda o impacto de mudanças de rating em ações, títulos e fluxo de capitais. Além disso, dentre ainda outros resultados, encontramos evidências de que o mercado antecipa o evento relevante e que não há efeitos defasados. / The purpose of this dissertation is to examine the impact of sovereign rating changes on the exchange rate of emerging markets. Although the related literature has studied the impact of sovereign rating changes on stocks, bonds and even capital flows, nothing has been done on exchange rates. However, exchange rates should respond in an interesting way to rating changes because the currency is a financial asset and has a role in intermediating foreign investment in other domestic assets. We employ the event study methodology by adding to it an amendment that allows us to control the analysis by aggregate effects. Using a database of daily exchange rates of 23 developing countries, we found evidence that downgrades are associated with depreciations of the domestic currency, whereas, upgrades do not cause any significant reaction in the exchange rate. This result is consistent with the literature that studies the impact of rating changes on stocks, bonds and capital flows. Moreover, even among other results, we find evidence that the market anticipates the relevant event and there is no lagged effects on the market.

Esta dissertação apresenta um modelo de equilíbrio geral dinâmico, com serviço contingente da dívida soberana, construído para analisar os impactos dos impostos sobre o bem-estar. Neste modelo, variações na estrutura tributária (oriundas de reformas) afetam o bem-estar dos agentes de forma direta, em decorrência de distorções alocativas, e também por meio de seus efeitos indiretos sobre o risco de default da dívida soberana. Avalia-se, quantitativamente, para o caso brasileiro, os custos de bem-estar associados a cada tipo de imposto. Obtém-se que a perda total de bem-estar devida aos impostos vigentes no Brasil é próxima de 19% do consumo de longo-prazo. O ranking dos tipos de imposto mostra-se robusto, seja em termos de custos de bem-estar por unidade de receita arrecadada (sob a tributação vigente), seja em termos de custos de bem-estar adicionais por unidade de receita adicional. Do mais eficiente para o menos eficiente: imposto sobre consumo, imposto sobre a remuneração do trabalho, imposto sobre a remuneração do capital. Observa-se que um aumento de receitas tributárias por meio da elevação do imposto sobre o consumo ou do imposto sobre a remuneração do trabalho pode gerar custos negativos de bem-estar. Esta possibilidade existe em economias nas quais a elasticidade da probabilidade de default da dívida com relação às receitas governamentais é suficientemente elevada, e os custos adicionais de default não são desprezíveis. Constata-se ainda que resultados perversos (no sentido de contra-intuitivos e indesejáveis) podem sobrevir a mudanças bem-intencionadas na estrutura tributária. / This dissertation presents a general equilibrium model, with contingent service of sovereign debt, constructed to analyze the impacts of taxes on welfare. In this model, variations on the tax structure (originated from reforms) impact welfare directly, in the form of allocative distortions, and also through their indirect effects on the probability of default on sovereign debt. I evaluate, quantitatively, for Brazil, the welfare costs associated to each type of taxation. I find that the total welfare loss due to current taxation in Brazil is close to 19% of long-term consumption. The ranking of tax types demonstrates to be robust, both in terms of welfare costs per unit of revenue raised (under the current tax structure), and in terms of additional welfare costs per unit of additional revenue raised. From the most efficient to the least efficient: consumption tax, labor income tax, capital income tax. I observe that a growth in tax revenues through the increase in either consumption or labor income tax can generate negative welfare costs. This is a possibility in economies in which the elasticity of the probability of default in relation to the level of government revenues is high enough, and additional costs of default are substantial. I also find that perverse results (in the sense of being counter-intuitive and undesirable) may be generated by well-intentioned changes in the tax structure.

Thesis advisor: Karen D. Arnold / Taking a gap year between high school and college has become more common in the United States in recent years, yet little research attempts to describe or analyze the experience of the students who arrive on college campuses after such a year out. This qualitative study followed 12 first-year students attending highly-selective private institutions in the northeastern U.S. as they experienced the transitions from high school to gap year to college. With varying levels of family support and high levels of personal motivation, the students participated in a wide range of gap-year endeavors. The findings indicate that students were heavily influenced by their encounters during the gap year, leading to strong evidence of self-authorship among the participants, which in turn shaped the way students pursued their goals when they arrived at college. Particularly influential were encounters that involved independent problem-solving, participating in multigenerational relationships, and immersion in new cultural settings. The students' transitions to college during the first year were marked by patterns of Sovereign Engagement with regard to learning, relationships, and decision-making. Commonly marked by internalized goals, authenticity in relationships, and greater individual agency, "Sovereign Engagement" captures the self-authored perspective that these students brought to their college experience. Contrary to suggestions in the popular media, not all gap-year students found the transition to be seamless; nor were they uniformly motivated to earn good grades. As a summary of the findings, the Gap Year Impact Model provides an important frame of reference for understanding the experiences, needs, and sovereign decision-making patterns of gap-year students. The results offer students, parents, colleges and universities an introduction to the lived experiences of gap-year students, who are arriving on campus in increasing numbers each year. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2015. / Submitted to: Boston College. Lynch School of Education. / Discipline: Educational Leadership and Higher Education.

Submitted by Filipe dos Santos (fsantos@pucsp.br) on 2016-09-13T14:19:55Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Maurício Roberto Ortiz de Camargo.pdf: 2304692 bytes, checksum: d4103a4fa91cd6616c74432967e7e01a (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2016-09-13T14:19:55Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Maurício Roberto Ortiz de Camargo.pdf: 2304692 bytes, checksum: d4103a4fa91cd6616c74432967e7e01a (MD5) Previous issue date: 2016-04-20 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / The object of study of this thesis is the metaphoric concept “the costumer is king”, which aims to analyze the influence of the popular management, or the pop-management, on the social construction of the costumer. Sustained by this theoretical framework, this thesis assumes that the referred concept is current in the organization´s circulating speeches and the aspects related to the organizational practices and discourses need to be better understood in its limitations and contradictions. The researcher, therefore, identified as its data source the announced constructions in the HSM Management Magazine, due its editorial focus in producing exclusively contents to business management. The theoretical framework of this study is broadly influenced by the Business Administration perspective and Organization Discourse. The methodology of this research, first, comprehends data collection from public documents and, second, the analysis and the interpretation of the data based on the principles of Discourse Analysis approach, with the view in the everyday meaning production. The finding results allow inferring that the concept of “the costumer is king” is embedded in the speeches of HSM Management magazine, as it emerges sovereign costumer characteristics as: autonomy, rationality and power in the consumption relationships. However, to a lesser or greater extent, it is possible to observe that there are additional social representations that hang over the costumer and the consumer, which contradict the cited pillars that supports the image of the sovereign costumer / O objeto de estudo dessa tese de doutorado é o conceito metafórico “cliente é o rei”, por meio do qual buscou-se analisar a influência do pensamento do gerencialismo popular, ou pop-management, na construção social do consumidor. Parte-se do pressuposto, sustentado pela fundamentação teórica da pesquisa, de que o conceito referido está presente nos discursos circulantes das organizações e que seus aspectos relacionados às práticas organizacionais e discursivas precisam ser melhores compreendidos em suas limitações e contradições. O pesquisador, portanto, identificou, como fonte de dados, as construções enunciadas na Revista HSM Management, em virtude do foco editorial da revista ser de conteúdo exclusivamente voltado para gestão e negócios. A orientação teórica deste trabalho é largamente influenciada pela perspectiva da Administração e do Discurso Organizacional. Os métodos de pesquisa compreendem coleta de dados do tipo documentos públicos seriados e a análise e interpretação de dados por meio de Análise do Discurso, com o olhar na produção de sentido no cotidiano. Os resultados encontrados permitem inferir que o conceito “cliente é o rei” permeia os discursos na Revista HSM Management, aflorando características do consumidor soberano como: autonomia, racionalidade e poder nas relações de consumo. Entretanto, em maior ou menor grau, pode-se observar que há outras representações sociais que pairam sobre o cliente e o consumidor, as quais contradizem os pilares citados como suporte a imagem de soberano do consumidor

Modern states are committed to the implicit assumption that one generation has the normative power to bind later generations through laws and contracts. My dissertation explores this assumption through two case studies: constitutions and sovereign debt contracts. I show that in both cases the assumption of transgenerational binding shapes the legal practices and doctrines of modern states. It informs, for instance, the ratification of eternity clauses, the interpretation of constitutions, and the doctrines of sovereign immunity and odious debt. But although these practices of transgenerational binding are prevalent in modern states, they stand in tension, I argue, with the liberal moral commitments of these states. Liberals are committed to moral individualism, according to which only individual human beings (and some nonhuman animals) are moral persons. Moral individualism, I show, is incompatible with the assumption of transgenerational binding and its accompanying practices and doctrines. By contrast, moral statism, according to which states themselves are moral persons, can easily justify those transgenerational practice. But moral statist justifications are illiberal because they assign states intrinsic moral status above and beyond individual human beings. I argue that liberals must engage in revisionism whichever theory of political obligation they pick - whether it is a theory of agreement, restitution, justice, reciprocity, or instrumentalism. If liberals assume moral individualism and combine it with any of these theories, they will be forced either to declare some transgenerational practices and doctrines illegitimate or to revise the justification and scope of transgenerational binding in light of instrumentalism. If liberals choose moral statism, they will be able to justify the transgenerational doctrines and practices of constitutions and sovereign debt contracts - but only at the cost of illiberalism. The dissertation's analysis thus shows that liberals face a trilemma between illegitimacy, instrumentalism, and illiberalism.

Esta dissertação apresenta um modelo de equilíbrio geral dinâmico, com serviço contingente da dívida soberana, construído para analisar os impactos dos impostos sobre o bem-estar. Neste modelo, variações na estrutura tributária (oriundas de reformas) afetam o bem-estar dos agentes de forma direta, em decorrência de distorções alocativas, e também por meio de seus efeitos indiretos sobre o risco de default da dívida soberana. Avalia-se, quantitativamente, para o caso brasileiro, os custos de bem-estar associados a cada tipo de imposto. Obtém-se que a perda total de bem-estar devida aos impostos vigentes no Brasil é próxima de 19% do consumo de longo-prazo. O ranking dos tipos de imposto mostra-se robusto, seja em termos de custos de bem-estar por unidade de receita arrecadada (sob a tributação vigente), seja em termos de custos de bem-estar adicionais por unidade de receita adicional. Do mais eficiente para o menos eficiente: imposto sobre consumo, imposto sobre a remuneração do trabalho, imposto sobre a remuneração do capital. Observa-se que um aumento de receitas tributárias por meio da elevação do imposto sobre o consumo ou do imposto sobre a remuneração do trabalho pode gerar custos negativos de bem-estar. Esta possibilidade existe em economias nas quais a elasticidade da probabilidade de default da dívida com relação às receitas governamentais é suficientemente elevada, e os custos adicionais de default não são desprezíveis. Constata-se ainda que resultados perversos (no sentido de contra-intuitivos e indesejáveis) podem sobrevir a mudanças bem-intencionadas na estrutura tributária. / This dissertation presents a general equilibrium model, with contingent service of sovereign debt, constructed to analyze the impacts of taxes on welfare. In this model, variations on the tax structure (originated from reforms) impact welfare directly, in the form of allocative distortions, and also through their indirect effects on the probability of default on sovereign debt. I evaluate, quantitatively, for Brazil, the welfare costs associated to each type of taxation. I find that the total welfare loss due to current taxation in Brazil is close to 19% of long-term consumption. The ranking of tax types demonstrates to be robust, both in terms of welfare costs per unit of revenue raised (under the current tax structure), and in terms of additional welfare costs per unit of additional revenue raised. From the most efficient to the least efficient: consumption tax, labor income tax, capital income tax. I observe that a growth in tax revenues through the increase in either consumption or labor income tax can generate negative welfare costs. This is a possibility in economies in which the elasticity of the probability of default in relation to the level of government revenues is high enough, and additional costs of default are substantial. I also find that perverse results (in the sense of being counter-intuitive and undesirable) may be generated by well-intentioned changes in the tax structure.

O presente trabalho examinará a temática da imunidade de jurisdição do Estado estrangeiro em relação às violações aos Direitos Humanos. Na primeira parte, será abordada a configuração do instituto da imunidade de jurisdição do Estado estrangeiro, analisando seus fundamentos (soberania, independência, igualdade e dignidade), operando a distinção entre jurisdição, competência e imunidade do Estado estrangeiro, abordando a questão da transição do paradigma absoluto ao relativo e examinando como se deu esta transição na jurisprudência do Brasil. Na segunda parte do trabalho, tratar-se-á da oposição entre os Direitos Humanos em relação à imunidade de jurisdição do Estado estrangeiro, examinando-se as novas abordagens teóricas a respeito (teoria da renúncia implícita, teoria da hierarquia normativa, teoria da jurisdição universal, teoria da opção e da calculabilidade do risco, teoria e teoria do benefício coletivo), bem como suas repercussões jurisprudenciais, além de se propor uma síntese entre as teorias, para, finalmente, analisar o panorama jurisprudencial brasileiro na questão da imunidade de jurisdição em relação a violações de Direitos Humanos por Estado estrangeiro. / This paper will examine the issue of sovereign immunity regarding Human Rights violations. The first part will look at the configuration of the State’s jurisdictional immunity, analyzing its foundations (sovereignty, independence, equality and dignity), operating the distinction between jurisdiction, competence and sovereign immunity, addressing the transition from the absolutist paradigm to a relative one and examining how this transition occurred in Brazilian case-law. In the second part, the opposition between Human Rights and State’s jurisdictional immunity will be addressed by examining new theoretical approaches about the issue ( the implied waiver theory, the normative hierarchy theory, the universal jurisdiction theory, the option-risk calculability theory and the theory of collective benefit) as well as its repercussions in case law, in addition to proposing a synthesis between the theories, to finally analyze the Brazilian case-law on the question of sovereign immunity and Human Rights violations.

In 2009 the sovereign debt crisis started in the European Union. Every member state was involved in the financial turmoil, in particular Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece, and Spain. Why were these countries effected more so? Were they still committed to core ideas of the European Union? This paper will review this topic through the perspective of Portugal. Being a former colonial power, once having an authoritative government, and now a full-fledged member of the European Union, Portugal has a unique story to tell about the crisis at hand. This paper will evaluate different European Union principles involving gender equality, tertiary education, politics, and economics while comparing how Portugal ranks in Europeanization to the European Union specifically during the sovereign debt crisis. This paper will conclude by summarizing these topics, analyzing triumphs and setbacks, and hypothesizing Portugal's future in regard to their Europeanization of European Union standards and the current sovereign debt crisis the country faces today.