Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Tennessee, Knoxville, 2008. / Title from title page screen (viewed on Sept. 17, 2009). Thesis advisor: Paul Ashdown. Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

Made available in DSpace on 2014-06-11T19:24:04Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 2008-08-21Bitstream added on 2014-06-13T20:48:18Z : No. of bitstreams: 1 caputo_mv_me_bauru.pdf: 1726479 bytes, checksum: 75d6fecd66a954ee2a86b944d1bccb21 (MD5) / Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP) / Este trabalho investiga os modos de organização do ativismo digital, ou ciberativismo, bem como os processos comunicativos implícitos nessa prática. Especificamente, enfoca-se aqui uma iniciativa ciberativista que se utiliza das estratégias e táticas de boicotes para instaurar possibilidades de negociação entre a sociedade civil, as corporações e os governos, diante de conflitos de interesses decorrentes das relações entre essas dimensões sociais. Buscou-se, primeiramente, entender os fundamentos básicos da organização social e sua evolução a partir dos conceitos de bloco histórico, hegemonia, superestrura, sociedade civil e, mais recentemente, do conceito de sociedade civil global. Tal entendimento se faz necessário, diante das implicações políticas dos usos das Novas Tecnologias da Informação e da Comunicação e, para isso, recorreu-se também ao conceito de informacionalismo para sustentar a compreensão do cenário econômico, político e social aqui delimitado, com vistas a identificar novas práticas para o exercício da cidadania / This dissertation investigates the organizing methods of digital activism or ciberactivism and the communicative processes implicit in those practices. Specifically, it focuses a ciberactivist initiative which uses the strategies and tactics of boycotts to establish possibilities of negotiation between civil society, corporations and governments, considering the conflicts of interests which arise as a result of relationships between those social dimensions. The aim was, firstly, to understand the basic fundamentals of social organization and its evolution from the concepts of historical bloc, hegemony, superstructure, civil society and, more recently, the concept of global civil society. This understanding is necessary, given the political implications of the uses of New Information and Communication Technologies and, therefore, has also appealed to the concept of informacionalism to sustain the understanding of the economic, political and social environment defined here, aiming to identify new ways for citizenship practices

Orientador: Maximiliano Martin Vicente / Banca: Tânia Márcia Cezar Hoff / Banca: Regina Célia Baptista Belluzzo / Resumo: Este trabalho investiga os modos de organização do ativismo digital, ou ciberativismo, bem como os processos comunicativos implícitos nessa prática. Especificamente, enfoca-se aqui uma iniciativa ciberativista que se utiliza das estratégias e táticas de boicotes para instaurar possibilidades de negociação entre a sociedade civil, as corporações e os governos, diante de conflitos de interesses decorrentes das relações entre essas dimensões sociais. Buscou-se, primeiramente, entender os fundamentos básicos da organização social e sua evolução a partir dos conceitos de bloco histórico, hegemonia, superestrura, sociedade civil e, mais recentemente, do conceito de sociedade civil global. Tal entendimento se faz necessário, diante das implicações políticas dos usos das Novas Tecnologias da Informação e da Comunicação e, para isso, recorreu-se também ao conceito de "informacionalismo" para sustentar a compreensão do cenário econômico, político e social aqui delimitado, com vistas a identificar novas práticas para o exercício da cidadania / Abstract: This dissertation investigates the organizing methods of digital activism or ciberactivism and the communicative processes implicit in those practices. Specifically, it focuses a ciberactivist initiative which uses the strategies and tactics of boycotts to establish possibilities of negotiation between civil society, corporations and governments, considering the conflicts of interests which arise as a result of relationships between those social dimensions. The aim was, firstly, to understand the basic fundamentals of social organization and its evolution from the concepts of historical bloc, hegemony, superstructure, civil society and, more recently, the concept of global civil society. This understanding is necessary, given the political implications of the uses of New Information and Communication Technologies and, therefore, has also appealed to the concept of "informacionalism" to sustain the understanding of the economic, political and social environment defined here, aiming to identify new ways for citizenship practices / Mestre

The use of cultural boycotts motivated by international conflicts between countries or regions has long been observed within sports. However, so far it has not been studied in other context of international competition like the Eurovision Song Contest. This essay aims to evaluate if we can understand political actions like boycotts or political symbolism through existing theories regarding political symbolism. This case study has chosen three withdrawals during the 21th century, which have been made due to conflict with another competing country. The withdrawals studied are Lebanon in 2005, Georgia in 2009 and Armenia in 2012. Through the use of political symbolism and boycotts as a political mean the three cases have been studied and classified. The result shows that current theories regarding political symbolism can be applied to understand two out of the three cases. The Lebanese withdrawal can be understood as a classic political boycott against Israel and the Georgian withdrawal as protest against Russia and therefor a case of political symbolism. The Armenian withdrawal has been characterized as a different kind of political symbolism than previously has been observed within the field of study. This essay has chosen to identify the case of Armenia as morally motivated political symbolism.

Master of Arts / Department of History / Heather L. McCrea / This thesis highlights the consequences of the 1980 US boycott of the Olympic Games in Moscow from the perspective of the Olympic boxers. Beginning with a review of scholarly work on the Olympics and their surrounding politics, I outline how the White House, under President Jimmy Carter, manipulated the United States Olympic Committee (USOC) into supporting a boycott. I conclude that the political actions of the Carter Administration affected an entire nation's participation in an Olympic event. Exploring the socio-political circumstances surrounding the 1980 US Olympic boycott, my study seeks to answer three questions: First, what political tactics did the Carter Administration use to implement a boycott designed to pressure Russia to withdraw troops from Afghanistan? Manipulation of the USOC and threats to cut funding pushed compliance with Carter's agenda. As a result, the Carter administration’s actions included using US boxer Muhammad Ali as a pawn in an effort to persuade athletes to support a boycott. Few athletes felt comfortable speaking out against such high-level political strategies. Historically, the US denounced any nation's attempt to use the Olympic Games to make a political statement; this was exemplified in the US’s decision to send black and Jewish athletes to the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin, despite the obvious dangers these athletes faced in the midst of the Nazi regime. As noted in the German press, allowing “wooly-haired niggers with protruding lips” to compete with Aryans was a disgrace. Second, what was the real reason Carter sought a boycott? The Carter Administration saw participation in the Moscow Games as “…signify[ing] an attitude of indifference toward the continuing occupation of Afghanistan by Soviet troops.” One possible explanation of the boycott, then, was to raise awareness about human rights atrocities within the Soviet Union and beyond during the Moscow Games. Perhaps the boycott was Carter’s desperate last effort to revive his presidential reputation after several instances of critical failure as President of the United States, including the Iranian-US hostage outrage (1979), the failed US hostage rescue attempt (1980), and economic inflation so extreme it contributed to a dramatic downward spiral in Carter’s re-election poll numbers. Third, what was the real impact of the 1980 Olympic boycott? How did athletes and coaches become victims of the IOC (International Olympic Committee) and the US government? For many of the prospective medalists, a boycott permanently slammed shut the only open window of opportunity and robbed them of potential fame and financial gain. My work shows that the 1980 boycott not only strained international relations, but also significantly altered the lives of the athletes, coaches, and teams beyond the 1980 Olympics.

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) has moved to the forefront of many firms' concerns and is defined as a firm taking into consideration the interests of society by taking responsibility for the impact of the firm's actions on all stakeholders: customers, employees, shareholders, communities at large, and the environment. This dissertation will look at several public announcements and examine not only the level of corporate social responsibility a firm has but also the effects these announcements have on not only firm value but also customers' reactions to them. The three samples examined in the paper are boycotts announcements, recall announcements, and negative social responsibility announcements. The announcements were separated into the three groups to allow me to better analyze the effects of individual announcements and distinguish between types of announcements. The first part of the study focused on market response, measured by stock reactions and shows that the three samples of event announcements produced inconsistent results. Each of the three events produced the negative short term effects expected, either for Day 0 or for the post event period (+1, +30). However, the significance varied and the control sample for both recalls and boycotts produced positive post announcement results, implying that competitors are positively affected by these announcements. With regards to the control samples, only the general announcements control sample produced negative post announcement implying market wide affects. These test also showed that recalls may be subject more often to leakage. The general findings of this test are as expected though the significance was not. The second part of the study focused on customer's reactions, measured by change in market shares, to the three announcements. I found that no significant effect existed due to any of the three types of announcements, negative CSR announcements, boycotts, and recalls. This can be interpreted as the lack of public response to the announcements studied. These results were then followed up with a regression analysis that put the market share as the dependent variable and `Sample" as one of the independent variables. The purpose was to see if the firms that were subject to an announcement affected market share significantly. With regards to the tests establishing the effects of variables on market share, it was found that the results in all three samples were similar. The Size variable was always among the most significant followed by whether the firm is in its growth stages or mature stages. The Sample variable is the most important variable in the regression and shows that the subject firms did not have the expected effect on market share. For all three samples the Sample variable was not consistently significant but was, in fact, positive. This implies that a negative announcement positively contributes to market share. The implication of these regressions is not necessarily contrary to the event study first completed since the stock market study is observing owners' responses while the market share analysis is studying the customers' response to the same announcements. The final portion of the study shows that KLD is relatively effective at ranking firms, both at the product and firm level. Effective ranking is determined as the firm's lack of need to reassess a firm after an announcement. I find that there is no significant or economic difference in the ranking provided by KLD in the years surrounding the event. However, the regression results in all samples tested did produce the negative reaction in the KLD ranking that was as expected. However, it was only significant in the boycott sample. I conclude that the market reacts minimally to poor CSR and that customer's barks' are worse than their bite.

My thesis examines the background and significance of the women who participated in the Edenton Tea Party, which took place in 1774. By examining this important event and the community that supported it, I illuminate the common political and domestic struggles of white women in the American Revolution as well as how they changed. The time period includes Edenton's part in the colony's participation in the war, the women's demonstration, their subsequent wartime experiences, and the legacy of their unprecedented rebellion, all of which place women on the path to attain the right to participate in American government. I analyze county data from archives, published collections, correspondence, government documents, maps, and other photos. My thesis fills the gap in the historiography of the Edenton Tea Party and the women in Chowan County in the revolutionary period. The demonstration set a precedent for women's subsequent participation in the United States.

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Cette thèse a pour sujet les effets que l’information a sur les incitations. Les trois articles fournissent et explorent des résultats lorsque l’information est la principale variable d’intérêt, est endogène, pas homogène entre les acteurs et évolue dans le temps d’une manière qui n’est pas nécessairement rationnelle. Le premier article étudie les problèmes de hold-up dans les hiérarchies verticales avec la sélection adverse montrant qu’alors que le pouvoir de négociation des travailleurs augmente, les distorsions provenant de l’asymétrie d’information disparaissent. En outre, il étudie l’effet de la scolarité et du degré d’hétérogénéité de la population de travailleurs sur la répartition du pouvoir de négociation dans les marchés réglementés. Le deuxième article assouplit l’hypothèse des croyances homogènes dans les relations principal-agent avec sélection adverse. Dans un apprentissage évolutif qui est imitatif, les principaux peuvent avoir des croyances différentes sur la répartition des types d’agents dans la population. La convergence à une croyance uniforme dépend de la taille relative de la polarisation dans les croyances. En outre, le modèle est une version d’un cobweb stable. Notre approche offre des explications pour l’alternance des périodes avec quantité oscillante et relativement stable. Le troisième article étudie la fac¸on dont le contenu informatif des politiques juridiques, comme la responsabilité stricte et négligence, en cas de soucis morales, influence la conception optimale des régimes de responsabilité. Plusieurs cas récents ont montré qu’un individu ayant causé un dommage s’expose non seulement a une sanction légale — par exemple, une amende — mais aussi a un boycott social, la désapprobation ou la stigmatisation. L’article montre que le choix d’une stratégie dépend de façon complexe de l’importance du dommage et du “coût moral”. / This thesis focuses on the effects that information has on incentives. The three papers provide and explore some results when the information is the main variable of interest, it is made endogenous, not homogeneous between actors and evolving over time in a way that is not necessarily rational. The first paper studies hold-up problems in vertical hierarchies with adverse selection showing that as the bargaining power of the worker increases, distortions coming from asymmetric information vanish. Moreover, it studies the effect of schooling and degree of heterogeneity in the workforce on the allocation of bargaining power in regulating markets. The second paper relaxes the common assumption of homogeneous beliefs in principal-agent relationships with adverse selection. In an evolutionary learning set-up, which is imitative, principals can have different beliefs about the distribution of agents’ types in the population. Convergence to a uniform belief depends on the relative size of the bias in beliefs. In addition, the set-up is a version of a stable cobweb model. Our approach offers explanations for alternating periods of oscillating and relatively steady quantity. The third paper studies how the informative content of legal policies as strict-liability and fault-based, in case of moral concerns, influences the optimal design of liability regimes. Many recent cases show that an individual found to have caused harm faces not only the possibility of a legal sanction — e.g., the damages he must pay — but also social boycott, disapproval or stigma. The paper shows that the choice of a policy depends in a complex way on the magnitude of the harm and the “moral cost”.Keywords: Bargaining, Adverse Selection, Hold-up, Evolutionary Game Theory, Heterogeneous Beliefs, Bifurcation Theory, Boycott, Law Enforcement, Strict Liability, Negligence.

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