This thesis examines the influence of domestic nationalist movements on bilateral relations between China and Japan. I will use Two-level game theory as the primary analytical framework. Two-level theory provides a useful lens for examining policy formation at discrete stages, domestic, international, and domestic again in order to ratify international agreements. I will examine three primary cases through this framework to study the effects of domestic nationalism on bilateral diplomacy between Japan and China. The East China Sea Dispute is the only actual territorial dispute between Japan and China. The Yasukuni Shrine controversy and the textbook controversy are both discrete elements of a larger dispute over war memory and guilt, as well as construction of historical narratives for political purpose. I will seek to show that domestic nationalism has a strong limiting effect on the ways in which China and Japan are able to interact with each other on the global stage, as leaders must retain their legitimacy against a backdrop of unresolved historical issues and domestic contention. / text

This senior thesis is a study of Putnam’s two-level game theory and how it applies to the Israeli-Arab and later the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In particular, I analyze how Putnam’s theory explains the successes and failures of past negotiations and what this means about the future of potential negotiations. I conclude that win-sets between the Israeli and Palestinian governments are too far apart for the parties to reach a successful peace accord and that until their citizens are willing to make more significant concessions there will not be lasting peace.

The dissertation research answers the question of what explains the variation across countries where the IMF SAP implementation is associated with the onset of armed civil conflict in some countries but not in others. Do SAPs increase the likelihood of the outbreak of armed civil conflict in recipient countries? By what causal mechanism could SAPs increase the probability of the onset of armed civil conflict? This study contributes to extant literature by taking actors’ preferences and ethnicity in recipient countries into account. I argue that the effect of SAP implementation on armed civil conflict is conditional on the ethnic characteristics of recipient countries. From a two-level game perspective, highly ethnic-fractionalized countries have a strong bargaining position vis-à-vis the IMF at the international level due to their domestic weakness. Hence such governments will receive relatively moderate conditionality from the IMF because the Fund will adopt its second-order preference of containing the contagious effect of debt crisis and ensure the loan repayment. The ethnically fractionalized countries will also implement the austerity measures across different ethnic communities. The result is reducing probability of the onset of armed civil conflict when ethnic fractionalization increases. But in ethnically-dominant countries, the governments’ bargaining position at the international level is relatively weak due to their domestic strength. Therefore the governments are more likely to get stringent conditionality from the IMF because the Fund will adopt its first-order preference of satisfying its constituents by imposing stringent conditionality. The result is to increase the likelihood of the onset of armed civil conflict when ethnic dominance increases. By analyzing cross-national data for 162 countries from 1992 to 2009 based on improved measurement of IMF conditionality, the empirical results confirm the theoretical hypotheses. The statistical results also reveal that SAP impact on the outbreak of armed civil conflict varies with conditionality. Historical analyses of Ghana and Rwanda provide further understanding of the theoretical mechanisms.

In this paper response curves of patients with chronic myeloid leukemia are modeled using one and two-level censored models. Two-level models (also called mixed models) allow random effects and censored models are used to account for the large amount of values too small to be detected. The curves are observed from start of medication to a maximum of 36 months (9 measurement points). The data set is divided into two: "excellent responders" and "other". The "excellent responders" are modeled with a simple cubic censored model, and only one of the background variables measured at time zero ("blasts"), is found to be significant in explaining variation in the change curves, and even this with certain reservations. "Other" are modeled with a cubic two-level censored model and hemoglobin and eosinophile levels, as well as amount of blasts, are significant in explaining variation in this group.

abstract: Nonregular designs are a preferable alternative to regular resolution four designs because they avoid confounding two-factor interactions. As a result nonregular designs can estimate and identify a few active two-factor interactions. However, due to the sometimes complex alias structure of nonregular designs, standard screening strategies can fail to identify all active effects. In this research, two-level nonregular screening designs with orthogonal main effects will be discussed. By utilizing knowledge of the alias structure, a design based model selection process for analyzing nonregular designs is proposed. The Aliased Informed Model Selection (AIMS) strategy is a design specific approach that is compared to three generic model selection methods; stepwise regression, least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (LASSO), and the Dantzig selector. The AIMS approach substantially increases the power to detect active main effects and two-factor interactions versus the aforementioned generic methodologies. This research identifies design specific model spaces; sets of models with strong heredity, all estimable, and exhibit no model confounding. These spaces are then used in the AIMS method along with design specific aliasing rules for model selection decisions. Model spaces and alias rules are identified for three designs; 16-run no-confounding 6, 7, and 8-factor designs. The designs are demonstrated with several examples as well as simulations to show the AIMS superiority in model selection. A final piece of the research provides a method for augmenting no-confounding designs based on a model spaces and maximum average D-efficiency. Several augmented designs are provided for different situations. A final simulation with the augmented designs shows strong results for augmenting four additional runs if time and resources permit. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Industrial Engineering 2020

The Transatlantic Trade Investment Partnership (TTIP) was a large trade deal that was negotiated between EU and the US under the years of 2013 and 2019. The negotiations for TTIP started with big expectations for both actors but ended without any succeeded agreement. The purpose of this study is therefore to investigate how this trade deal ended in failure despite the big commitment from these two negotiators.  To achieve this purpose, the study was designed accordingly to the theory of Two-level games. A theory that claims that international agreements depends on the domestic political situation. Focus was for that reason put on identifying changes in the political situation in EU and the US.  The method process tracing was then introduced to help identify these kinds of changes. Based on this method, the study found three possible changes that could have stopped the talks of TTIP: The opposition in EU, Brexit, and Donald Trump. To conclude how these three transformations affected the negotiations, evidence describing these three events was collected and thence tested in different process tracing tests. The results of the process tracing tests found that both Brexit and Trump had affected the talks negatively. Moreover, was the study also able to conclude that trade policy of Donald Trump was the factor that lastly ended the negations of TTIP.

The quasi-geostrophic equations (QGE) are a model of large-scale ocean flows. We consider a pure stream function formulation and cite results for optimal error estimates for finding approximate solutions with the finite element method. We examine both the time dependent and steady-state versions of the equations. Numerical experiments verify the error estimates. We examine the Argyris finite element and derive the transformation matrix necessary to perform calculations on the reference triangle. We use the Argyris element because it is a high-order, conforming finite element for fourth order problems. In order to increase computational efficiency, we consider a two-level method to linearize the system of equations. This allows us to solve a small, nonlinear system and then use the result to linearize a larger system. / Master of Science

China is playing an increasingly large role in the global arena and the relevance of understanding what drives their behaviour in international affairs is thus more important than ever. Earlier research points to how China upholds legitimacy thorugh socioeconomic performance and how this largely influences their behaviour and actions. With a basis in the theory of Performance Legitimacy, coupled with the Two-Level Games theory of the interconnectedness at the national and international arena, this study aims to explore this relationship in further detail. The purpose of this study is thus to examine how internal legitimacy and international behaviour has varied during the time period 1979–2018 and what impact internal legitimacy has on international actions. A quantitive analysis was conducted, using several socioeconomic factors as indicators of internal legitimacy and Chinas outward foreign direct investments as a variable measuring international behaviour. The analysis shows that when socioeconomic conditions within China deteriorate, they tend to pursue assertive foreign direct investment patterns. Furthermore, the effect of this is even more clear comparing the time period before and after the protests at Tianaman Square, pointing to a shift in the upholding of legitimacy and strengthening the argument for Performance Legitimacy.

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