Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

“Put A Crapaud In A Suit And People Will Vote For The Pnm”: A Critical Examination Of Patronage, Loyalty, And The Structuring Force Of Party Partisanship In Trinidad, Taapsi Ramchandani

Dissertations - ALL

This dissertation examines an unflattering aspect of political partisanship in Trinidad: the ambivalences of being a party loyalist. Extensive scholarship on Trinidadian politics points to the confluence of race and patronage shaping political decisions yet less is spoken of the conflicting subjectivities of loyalists that are obscured by their exercise of franchise once every few years. In truth, there are limited options to reject one’s socio-historical conditioning towards a party in Trinidad because, here, political identities are also psycho-social identities. They are entangled in generational dependencies, shared egalitarian aspirations, and hyper-local networks of reciprocity that make opting out an almost …

Privacy For Whom? A Multi-Stakeholder Exploration Of Privacy Designs, Yaxing Yao

Dissertations - ALL

Privacy is considered one of the fundamental human rights. Researchers have been investigating privacy issues in various domains, such as our physical privacy, data privacy, privacy as a legal right, and privacy designs. In the Human-Computer Interaction field, privacy researchers have been focusing on understanding people's privacy concerns when they interact with computing systems, designing and building privacy-enhancing technologies to help people mitigate these concerns, and investigating how people's privacy perceptions and the privacy designs influence people's behaviors.

Existing privacy research has been overwhelmingly focusing on the privacy needs of end-users, i.e., people who use a system or a product, …

Rural Political Agency And Local Politics In Globalized Market, Ranitya Kusumadewi

Dissertations - ALL

This dissertation seeks to demonstrate civic activism among rural communities in Indonesia and how they can obtain their policy of interest – two main features that build rural political agency. It emphasizes on rural participation in Rural Producer Organizations (RPOs), popular community-based farmer organizations, which have proliferated over the last decade. Two research questions guide this project: (1) What are the conditions that explain rural participation in RPOs in Indonesia? and (2) What are the effects of this participation on the political agency of rural communities?. Using a mixed-method approach that consists of original survey analysis, interviews, and quantitative analysis, …

Kim Dae-Jung's Leadership As Relevant To The Sunshine Policy (1998-2003), Shin Yon Kim

Dissertations - ALL

South Korea’s engagement policy toward North Korea has a unique potential to contribute to permanent peace on the Korean peninsula by improving inter-Korean relations. However, given Korea’s historical, political, and socio-cultural context, comprehensive engagement has proved difficult. Any South Korean leader who adopts overall engagement strategies vis-à-vis North Korea may face constraints and setbacks stemming from the internal and external environments, including North Korea (the target state), domestic politics, and the United States. During Kim Dae-jung’s presidency (1998-2003), North and South Korea engaged in an unparalleled degree of interaction, reshaping the pattern of inter-Korean relations. President Kim’s Sunshine Policy demonstrated …

The Strategic Balance Between The Public And Allies: A Theory Of Authoritarian Distribution In China, Dongshu Liu

Dissertations - ALL

This project explores how authoritarian regimes can meet the demands of both the ruling coalition and the public from a perspective of distributional politics. This challenge is particularly severe since authoritarian regimes face increasing pressure to expand public goods and welfare. This project proposes a theory of authoritarian distribution that addresses this challenge in the case of China. First, autocrats adopted a differentiated strategy of distribution. They allocate universalistic benefits that target the large group of people to the public while distributing the particularistic benefits, which is exclusively for a small and specific group of people, to the regime allies. …

Transgender Congruence And Sexual Satisfaction In Trans Masculine Adults: The Role Of Affirmative Sexual Partners, Tristan Karel Martin

Dissertations - ALL

Literature that addresses sexual issues pertaining to sexual satisfaction is often not inclusive and neglects transgender, specifically trans masculine, identities. The media frequently highlights physical transitions but ignores the distressing psychological effects of dysphoria on sexual satisfaction and the influence of sexual partners during sex. In this quantitative study informed by a systemic gender affirmative lens, trans masculine adults (N=1,041) responded to a questionnaire on their experiences of transgender congruence, sexual satisfaction, and affirmative sexual partners. Data analyses revealed diverse participant and partner demographics. The transgender congruence variable expressed group differences based on gender/sexual identity, age, and medical transition. An …

Cyber Security @ Home: The Effect Of Home User Perceptions Of Personal Security Performance On Household Iot Security Intentions, Erica Mitchell

Dissertations - ALL

This study explored potential human factors predictors of home user security intentions through the lens of past performance, perceived self-efficacy, and locus of control. While perceived self-efficacy and locus of control are elements in several organizational and individual security models, past performance has been less frequently studied. The variable, past performance, which has been referred to in other studies as prior experience, knowledge, and information security awareness, is usually a single question self-assessment of familiarity or comfort with technology. This study explores user technical prowess in further depth, using formal technical education, informal technical education, employment in an IT/CS field, …

Essays On Globalization, Labor Market, And Productivity, Hoang Pham

Dissertations - ALL

This dissertation studies issues at the intersection of globalization, labor market, and productivity in developing countries. It is composed of three chapters.

Chapter 1 studies how a country's trade policy affects competition in its domestic labor market. In a heterogeneous-firm model with oligopsonistic local labor markets, this chapter demonstrates that opening up to trade can affect distortions in such markets. These distortions arise because firms are large and able to exercise market power over their local workers. Using a panel dataset of Chinese manufacturing firms from 1998-2007, I measure firm-level labor market distortion, captured by the ratio between marginal revenue …

Time, Schedules, And The College Student With Adhd, Erik Daniel Rodriguez

Dissertations - ALL

Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is a complex, heterogeneous condition associated with organizational and time management challenges that can impact academic performance. Using information gathered through texts and 28 semi structured, in-depth interviews, I explored the everyday lived experiences of college students diagnosed with ADHD as they worked to adhere to the schedule and time expectations of their college coursework. I also the explored institutional policies and processes of the community college they attended to determine if, and how, these impacted the work of adherence.

Using institutional ethnography and Liza McCoy’s three-way alignment model as frameworks, this qualitative, ethnographic study …

Revolutionships: Experiences Of Queer Women Of Color Maintaining Romantic Relationships While Engaging In Contemporary Movements For Liberation, Montinique Denice Mceachern

Dissertations - ALL

Queer women of color (QWOC) organizing in resistance to the increasingly hostile contemporary political context of the United States of America are at immediate risk for threats to survival. Nevertheless, some maintain romantic relationships that fall outside of the hegemonic frameworks of romance. While simultaneously resisting a settler colonial state that sanctions violence, environmental racism, and homophobia, QWOC are cultivating love in the face of oppressions they seek to dismantle daily. I used a Black Feminist grounded theory framework to explore the experiences of QWOC in romantic relationships who were also organizing in the contemporary radical political movements – an …