This dissertation examines the emergence, survival, performance, and national impact of rebel parties following negotiated settlements. Building on a growing literature examining the environmental and organizational factors affecting insurgent-to-party transformations, this dissertation asks why some insurgent organizations thrive as political parties in post-conflict environments and others fail to make such a transformation. I propose that foreign actors play a pivotal role in the formation of what I call “protégé parties,” which are better equipped to make the transformation into political parties than other rebel groups. Further, different kinds of sponsors have varying effects on transformation. Empirical analysis supports these propositions, finding that protégé parties with authoritarian sponsorship are better equipped to develop than those backed by democracies or no one.

This dissertation investigates how healthcare provider networks are formed and their effects on patient health outcomes. The first chapter explores three types of hospital networks that are intended to improve coordination of patient care across different hospitals: integrated delivery systems, accountable care organizations, and electronic health records. Using 2007-2017 Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society IT data and Medicare data on accountable care organizations and hospital quality, I document several interesting patterns regarding the formation and potential effects of these networks in the United States. I find correlations consistent with assortative matching where higher quality hospitals match with higher quality groups, which may be inefficient if there are peer effects that mean higher quality groups could have more substantial influence on lower quality hospitals that have more room to improve. I show that accountable care organizations appear to be strategic about the network formation process, omitting hospitals that are natural members. They may do so for anticompetitive reasons–ordinary least square regressions find that accountable care organization market concentration is negatively correlated with hospital quality. These regressions additionally point to the need for caution in advocating for a unified electronic health record, as hospital quality is positively correlated with regional electronic health record market concentration–which is related to coordination abilities–but negatively correlated with national concentration–which is related to competition. The second chapter takes inspiration from the descriptive results of the first chapter and establishes a causal effect of electronic health record networks at the patient level. I hypothesize that systematic, reliable transfer of patient medical history can improve clinical decisions and thus health outcomes, especially during medical emergencies. Thus, I identify patients who had emergency cardiovascular episodes in 2007-2014 Medicare claims and use a difference-in-differences strategy to estimate the causal effect of their primary care and emergency hospitals being in the same electronic health record network. I find that electronic health record compatibility decreases the mortality rate but increases the rate of other bad health outcomes by approximately the same amount, suggesting that compatibility makes it easier for patients to survive given poor health but does not overall improve health otherwise. This result highlights the importance of analyzing the effects of healthcare treatments on both the rates of mortality and negative outcomes in survivors. Only looking at the rate of negative outcomes in survivors, electronic health record compatibility would have appeared to be a harmful treatment, while it was actually reducing mortality. The third chapter moves from hospital networks, which have only one type of agent, to look at physician-insurer networks, represented by a two-sided many-to-many matching market. I use Healthgrades and National Committee for Quality Assurance consumer ratings data to collect physician and insurance plan characteristics, respectively. Descriptive statistics indicate that higher quality physicians are in more insurance networks, while higher quality plans tend to be more restricted in the numbers of physicians they accept. There is a mild correlation between physician and plan quality, but there are many possible explanations for it. To test if it is due to assortative matching and to better understand how physicians and insurers decide with whom to contract, I estimate a structural many-to-many matching model using the matching maximum score estimator. Data quality and quantity appear to be obstacles in obtaining precise estimates, so I leave further exploration of this topic to future research.

Background: Social media marketing has grown rapidly in recent years and has become a standard tool for marketers. As a result, companies use social media influencers (SMIs) to reach their target audiences. One important aspect of influencer marketing is the relational aspect. Followers who exert parasocial relationship (PSR) with SMIs are more prone to respond positively to influencer marketing and the persuasion tactics put forward by companies and SMIs. It has therefore become crucial to understand how PSR and followers' persuasion knowledge affect followers' perception of transparency in sponsored posts.  Purpose: The purpose of this thesis is to explore parasocial relationships and persuasion knowledge impact on followers’ perceived transparency of social media influencers. Methodology: This abductive thesis used a qualitative strategy for the collection of empirical data. A combination of four focus groups and semi-structured interviews were used, leading to a total of 17 participants. The data was analyzed using thematic analysis, resulting in three major themes and nine sub-themes. Findings: We found that followers’ perceived transparency has direct relationships with PSR and persuasion knowledge, respectively. However, there was no direct link between PSR and persuasion knowledge. Instead, this relationship was indirect through perceived transparency. Furthermore, how these concepts affect each other determines how followers perceive and respond to sponsored content.  Value: This thesis demonstrates the effectiveness perceived transparency has in SMIs sponsored content. Furthermore, we also extend the view and the meaning of PSR and persuasion knowledge, in response to perceived transparency. Lastly, this thesis illustrates PSR and persuasion knowledge’s effect on perceived transparency and how this ends in followers' perception of sponsored content.

Syftet med undersökningen är att få en uppfattning om hur svenskar ser på att barnmedverkar i betalda samarbeten på sociala medier, där influencers får betalt av företag för attmarknadsföra produkter tillsammans med sina barn. Det är en kvantitativ undersökning somgenomfördes med enkäter som skickades ut till grupper utifrån generation, kön ochfamiljesituation. Frågorna berörde ämnena influencer marketing, sociala medier vanor,inställning till produkter och samarbeten. Enkäten hade 102 respondenter. ABC modellenär ett exempel på en teori som ligger till grund för vår undersökning.Respondenternas inställning till att barn deltar i betalda samarbeten var övervägande negativ. Desom var födda 1995-2003 var mer splittrade i sina åsikter än vad de två äldre åldersgrupperna var,de som var födda 1965 - 1979 eller 1980 - 1994. Inställningen till betalda samarbeten med barnskiljde sig inte åt mellan könen. Av de respondenter som inte hade barn var fler negativt inställdaän av de som hade barn. Inställningen till att barn medverkade i reklam förändras beroende på vilkenprodukt det var som marknadsfördes. Betalda samarbeten med produkter relaterade till barn, såsomblöjor och barnböcker, var respondenterna mer positivt inställda till, medan de var mer negativtinställda till “vuxen” produkter som smink och alkohol. Många av de som inte följde någrainfluencers var negativt inställda. Få respondenter hade deltagit i någon debatt online kring ämnetoch de flesta svarade att de inte ville delta i framtiden heller. / The purpose of this essay is to get an idea of how Swedes view the way children are used in paidcollaborations on social media, where influencers get paid by companies to market productstogether with their children. This is a quantitative study where a survey was sent out to groupsbased on their generation, age and family situation. The questions touched on the topics ofinfluencer marketing, social media habits, approach to products and collaborations.The survey had 102 respondents. The ABC model is an example of a theory that our researchgrounds itself in.The general attitude of the respondents regarding the subject of children participating in paidcollaborations were predominantly negative. Amongst those born 1995-2003 the general opinionswere more divided than the two older age groups were, those who were born 1965 - 1979 or 1980 -1994. The attitude to paid collaborations with children did not differ between the sexes. Of therespondents who did not have children, several more were negative than those who had children.Changes in the attitude was discovered when the participants were asked to take a stand in attitudetowards different product categories. The attitude towards children participating in advertisingchanged depending on what product was marketed. The respondents were more positive to thepaid collaborations when the products were related to children, such as diapers and children'sbooks, unlike “adult” products marketed such as makeup or alcoholic beverages where therespondents were negative. Many of those who did not follow any influencers were negativetowards the paid collaborations. Few of the respondents had been involved in online debateregarding the subject, and most respondents did not want to participate in the future either

This study investigates and analyses the implications of state and state sponsored international terrorism for Africa. To realise this objective, the study focuses on international terrorist acts carried out by Libya and Sudan as well as those carried out by terrorist groups sponsored by them. The work examines new forms of terrorism, and attempts to develop a conceptual framework of state and state sponsored international terrorism. The focus is mainly on why states adopt or support terrorism as a means of achieving domestic and foreign policy objectives. The study also concerns itself with the measures in place to combat state and state sponsored international terrorism and further shows the extent to which sponsorship of international terrorism poses a threat to individual Africa countries in particular and the continent in general. The time period covered in this study is 1960 to 2006. The significance of this study is threefold: first, its clarifications of the concepts of terrorism, state terrorism, and state sponsored international terrorism, are necessary for policy formulation and implementation as well as secondly highlighting specific opportunities that exist for Africa if the threat of state and state sponsored international terrorism is combated. Thirdly, its investigation and recommendations for a concerted effort in the fight against this phenomenon are also aimed at policy makers. Copyright / Dissertation (MSS)--University of Pretoria, 2008. / Political Sciences / unrestricted

In this qualitative research study, I use case studies to analyze the rhetorical understanding students have about online audiences, including how this understanding informs writerly choices, primarily in digital, self-sponsored writing. In this study I found that, while anxieties about online writing do exist, there are also many benefits for online writers that cause these anxieties to lessen. In addition, findings indicated that participants didn't always know how to correctly interpret and capitalize on audience feedback, which causes challenges, but these participants also claimed rhetorical power once they entered community spaces they cared about and better understood their purpose and roles as writers in those spaces. These findings contribute to composition pedagogy because they suggest areas for growth in the high school classroom, such as learning how to manage multiple audiences, how to best interpret feedback, and how to claim authority as young writers in unfamiliar rhetorical situations.

Secondary Mortgage Markets and Place-Based Inequality: Space, GSEs and Social Exclusion in the Philadelphia Region Michael H. Norton Temple University, 2015 Doctoral Advisory Committee Chair: Dr. Anne Shlay In 2015 virtually the entire US mortgage market is subsidized by US taxpayers. When the Federal Government took control of the Government Sponsored Enterprises (GSEs) Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in the summer of 2008, US tax payers assumed responsibility for the vast majority of outstanding mortgage debt in the country. This dissertation examined the historical development and contemporary activity of the secondary mortgage market to understand the way the secondary market contributes to the reproduction of place-based inequality in American cities. Specifically, this dissertation analyzed the political-economic history of the secondary mortgage market to ground a contemporary analysis of the impact of secondary mortgage market activity on neighborhood change in the Philadelphia region at the turn of the 21st century. At the turn of the 21st century secondary market institutions coordinated a financial production process referred to in this study as the financialization of space. This process transforms the individual spatial relationships between individuals and their homes into financial commodities that are bought and sold by financial institutions. Individual mortgage loans make the financialization of space possible by providing the raw material that transmits capital embedded in the social spaces of individual homes and communities through secondary market institutions and into the abstract spaces of international capital markets. However, the financialization of space itself is made possible by a number of key contradictions that created considerable tension between the ongoing expansion of finacialized space and mortgage lending to individual home owners. These tensions were built into the very framework of the legislative policies governing the secondary mortgage market. The evolution of the secondary mortgage market was informed by parallel streams of housing policy that alternately sought to expand and regulate the primary and secondary mortgage markets at the end of the 20th century. The confluence of these policy streams initially created the conditions for the GSEs to pioneer financial productions processes that led to the financializaiton of space. At the same time, the emergence of subprime lending in the primary market, combined with the expansion of the secondary mortgage market to unregulated, private institutions, created dual housing markets differentiated by the types of loans available in the primary market and the funding sources for these loans in the secondary market. Throughout the study period (1996 – 2007), the GSEs concentrated the vast majority of all their purchasing activity buying conventional loans in the more affluent areas of the region. On the other hand, private institutions steadily eroded GSE market share in the conventional market, represented virtually the entire secondary market for subprime loans, and were considerably more active purchasing loans made to borrowers in communities that had been historically excluded from the primary mortgage market. Secondary market activity from 1996 to 2007 was significantly associated with changes along key housing and socio-economic conditions from 1990 to 2010. GSE market share was significantly associated with changing homeownership levels in neighborhoods throughout the region from 1990 to 2010. Higher levels of GSE market share were associated with net increases in homeownership in neighborhoods throughout the region. In a similar way, GSE-informed changes in homeownership levels were subsequently associated with significant changes in the percentage of residents living in poverty in neighborhoods throughout the region from 1990 to 2010, particularly on the Pennsylvania side of the region. Unlike the relationship between secondary market purchasing and homeownership, the relationship between secondary market purchasing and poverty levels functions through housing - either by virtue of more affluent residents moving in, or poor residents moving out of these areas. In both instances, GSE market share, and GSE-informed changes in homeownership sharpened differences between the different communities depending on where the GSEs concentrated their purchasing activity. The region’s urban centers, where GSE market share was lowest, experienced the greatest reductions in home ownership throughout the region, and the greatest increases in neighborhood poverty levels. In addition, the spatial relationships between individual neighborhoods exerted significant influences on changes in each of the housing and socio-economic indicators assessed. These findings suggest that space itself, and the spatial relationships between neighborhoods, exerted a significant influence on both secondary market activity and changing neighborhood conditions throughout the Philadelphia region. Over the twenty year period observed in this study, the types of differences between neighborhoods in the region have remained largely the same, while the degree of these differences has intensified during this time. In this way, the spatial distribution of neighborhood types in the Philadelphia region informed secondary market at the turn of the 21st century, which in turn contributed to the intensification of the differences between neighborhood types throughout the region. The findings presented in this study point to a number of key implications for theorists seeking to explain the role of space and place in the (re)production of patterns of uneven-development in metropolitan regions, and for understanding the financializaiton of space. In addition, these findings also point to key insights for policy makers currently developing legislation to reform the secondary mortgage market. / Sociology

Shortly after the February 2014 Euromaidan revolution which ousted pro-Russian Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, Russia orchestrated a rapid and mostly bloodless annexation of the Crimea. Following the removal of Ukrainian authority from the peninsula, the Kremlin focused simultaneously on legitimizing the annexation via an electoral reform in Crimea and fermenting political unrest in the Donbas. As violence broke out in the Donbas, anti-Ukrainian government militias were formed by defecting Ukrainian security forces members, local volunteers, and volunteers from Russia. The Kremlin provided extensive support for these militias which sometimes even came in the form of direct military intervention by conventional Russian forces. However, the use of state-sponsored militias by Russia is not a new phenomenon. Since the end of the Cold War, the Russian Federation has been relying on militias to help stabilize local security environments, and more recently, achieve foreign security policy objectives in the Near Abroad. By tracking the history of Vostok (East) Battalion during its two distinctly different iterations, first as a militia for the Yamadayev family which operated primarily in Chechnya as well as briefly in South Ossetia and Lebanon and then as separatist formation in Eastern Ukraine, my thesis seeks to examine why Russia uses militias. Using the theoretical frameworks of principle-agent relations and organizational hierarchy, my thesis examines post-Soviet military reforms to contextualize the Kremlin's rationale for utilizing militia groups as well as analyzing the costs and benefits Moscow ultimately incurs when it leverages militias as force projection assets domestically and in the Near Abroad. / Master of Arts / This thesis is an examination of Russia’s relationship with its proxy militias. Proxy militias are paramilitary formations comprised of a mix of civilians and military veterans which states use to carry out acts of coercive violence without having to rely on regular military forces. Specifically, the thesis is divided into two case studies of a unit known as Vostok Battalion. Vostok has existed in two distinctly different iterations; first as a Chechen based militia operating throughout the Caucuses and later as a rebel militia fighting the Ukrainian government in the Donbas region. In both cases, Vostok received support and varying levels of guidance from Russia. The case studies of this thesis are attempting to contextualize why Russia utilizes proxy militias and identify the challenges Russia faces when its ability to control them is degraded.

Thesis (MA (Political Science. International Studies))--University of Stellenbosch, 2009. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: In an otherwise broad literature on civil conflict little attention has so far been paid to actual conflict violence and variation in severity. Existing work is also hampered by a reliance on a ‘closed polity’ model of the state, leading to disregard of the transnational dimensions of internal conflict, and by a dependence on over‐aggregated data. The present inquiry expands on the existing explanatory framework for variation in civil conflict severity by including transnational factors and characteristics of sub‐national actors. Data on conflict battle deaths are combined with recently available data on transnational ethnic linkages, transnational support and neighbouring conflict as well as other actor and country characteristics. Results from ordinary least squares regression analysis indicate that support for rebel groups from external non‐state actors increase conflict severity, while rebel presence in other states is associated with less severe conflicts. In addition, severity increases with duration but with a diminishing marginal return. Internal armed conflicts are less severe in democratic and ethnically polarised countries but rebel territorial control increases the level of violence. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: In die andersins omvangryke literatuur oor burgerlike konflik is daar tot op hede min aandag geskenk aan werklike konflikgeweld en variasie in felheid (vernietigende omvang). Bestaande werk word ook belemmer omdat dit staat maak op ’n model van die staat as ‘geslote regering’, wat lei tot verontagsaming van die transnasionale dimensies van interne konflik, en staat maak op oor‐geaggregeerde data. Hierdie ondersoek brei uit op die bestaande verklarende raamwerk vir variasie in felheid van burgerlike konflik deur transnasionale faktore en eienskappe van subnasionale deelnemers in te sluit. Data oor konflikgevegsterftes is gekombineer met onlangse data oor transnasionale etniese koppelings, transnasionale steun en naburige konflik, sowel as ander deelnemer‐ en landeienskappe. Resultate van gewone kleinstekwadrate‐regressie‐analise dui daarop dat steun aan rebellegroepe deur eksterne nie‐staatsdeelnemers konflikfelheid laat toeneem, terwyl rebelleteenwoordigheid in ander lande geassosieer word met minder fel konflikte. Felheid neem ook toe saam met duur maar met ’n afnemende marginale opbrengs. Interne gewapende konflikte is minder fel in demokratiese en etnies gepolariseerde lande, maar rebellebeheer oor grondgebied verhoog die vlak van geweld.

This work titled Advertising impact of influencers as perceived by the young online users defines the term influencer in its theoretical part, offering several perspectives through which this phenomen can be viewed. For example, the number of followers on influencers' profiles, the interaction between these two sides, or the characteristic features of influential figures, such as their behaviour on the Internet. Furthermore, this work deals with influencer marketing, some types of collaboration between influencers and companies within social media, and the issue of tagging the sponsored commercial content. Also, one of the chapters summarizes some of the findings from several relevant studies, creating an initial insight into the topic. The research part of this work explores the issue as perceived by the young online users, using the research sample comprising 179 respondents in the range of 16-26 years old. The data collected through the electronic standardized questionnaire revealed, for example, that respondents require tagging sponsored posts on influencers' profiles, even though they trust these commercial posts less. Also, the pattern of behaviour hinting some verifying information before immediate tasting influencers' recommendations was indicated. The analyzed answers also point to the...