Three Essays On The Political Economy Of The Cfa Franc, Francis Perez

Doctoral Dissertations

---

This dissertation is organized into three essays. The second essay provides a historical overview of the CFA franc and explores why the CFA franc has survived for so long. It argues that a historical and dialectical materialist analysis of the CFA’s history can best explain both its extraordinary longevity and the periodic major reforms to its functioning. The third essay assesses whether the Central Bank of West African States (BCEAO) has an independent monetary policy by examining the relationships between BCEAO’s foreign reserves and base money, and between BCEAO and the European Central Banks’s policy rates. The fourth essay evaluates …

---

Another Postcolonialism: Innovating Sovereignty From Below Through The Responsibility To Protect, Gabriel P. Mares

Doctoral Dissertations

---

I focus on the work of civil society actors, scholars, and diplomats from the Global South, in particular the South Sudanese anthropologist and diplomat Francis Deng, and the ways in which they attempt to remake sovereignty through institutions. Using sovereignty-as-responsibility and the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) as problem spaces, I recover an alternate vision of sovereignty and the community of states that emerged in response to defenses of non-intervention by postcolonial state actors. Focusing on sovereignty allows these agents to simultaneously critique and innovate that which is “above” (the international state system) and that which is “below” (the sovereign state). …

---

Targeting Drones: Framing, Vetting, And Power In Transnational Advocacy Issue Networks, Alexandria J. Nylen

Doctoral Dissertations

---

Existing international relations literature shows that coherent messaging by advocacy networks is a key component for successful transnational mobilization around human security issues. However, traditional models of transnational advocacy do not fully explain how activists working against armed drones have mobilized over the past two decades. This dissertation explores the case of a transnational advocacy coalition that – despite efforts to do so – was unable to coalesce around a central message: the anti-drone issue network. I ask two interrelated questions: 1) Why have international anti-drone activists not been able to overcome disagreements over framings? and more broadly, 2) How …

---

Understanding China’S Discourse On South-South Cooperation And China-Africa Higher Education Exchange: A Field Research Study At Zhejiang Normal University’S China-Africa International Business School, Yi Sun

Doctoral Dissertations

---

This dissertation research attempts to distinguish China’s model from that of the traditional North-South relationship, with a focus on how China’s philosophy articulates its foreign policy and the nation’s higher education engagement with African countries. It examines the China-Africa higher education partnership in response to China’s discourse on South-South Cooperation (SSC), Africa’s human resource flows, and the benefits and constraints of current China-Africa cooperation. In order to achieve these goals, the dissertation uses one of the China-Africa partnership universities in China, Zhejiang Normal University (ZJNU) as a site for its field research. The fieldwork looks at both a student level …

---

Allocative Poisson Factorization For Computational Social Science, Aaron Schein

Doctoral Dissertations

---

Social science data often comes in the form of high-dimensional discrete data such as categorical survey responses, social interaction records, or text. These data sets exhibit high degrees of sparsity, missingness, overdispersion, and burstiness, all of which present challenges to traditional statistical modeling techniques. The framework of Poisson factorization (PF) has emerged in recent years as a natural way to model high-dimensional discrete data sets. This framework assumes that each observed count in a data set is a Poisson random variable $y ~ Pois(\mu)$ whose rate parameter $\mu$ is a function of shared model parameters. This thesis examines a specific …

---

Applying Stakeholder Analysis To Lay The Groundwork For Conflict-Sensitive Education In The Somali Education Sector, Nina Aristea Papadopoulos

Doctoral Dissertations

---

ABSTRACT

APPLYING STAKEHOLDER ANALYSIS TO LAY THE GROUNDWORK FOR CONFLICT-SENSITIVE EDUCATION IN THE SOMALI EDUCATION SECTOR SEPTEMBER 2018 NINA ARISTEA PAPADOPOULOS B.A., University of South Carolina, Columbia M.A., American University, Washington, D.C. Ph.D., UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS, AMHERST Directed by Ash Hartwell, College of Education This research represents the growing convergence of two previously discrete fields: education in conflict and crisis, and stakeholder analysis. Momentum for an improved and more sophisticated approach to education in conflict and crisis is gaining speed. We are now engaged in a crucial analysis of the interaction between the conflict or crisis and the education system, …

---

Managing The Agricultural Biotechnology Revolution: Responses To Transgenic Seeds In Developing Countries, Alper Yagci

Doctoral Dissertations

---

There has been heated debate over transgenic or genetically modified (GM) crops in agriculture. Advocates and critics argue over possible economic, environmental, public health implications of this technology. This study examines varying policy approaches to regulating GM crop cultivation in four developing countries where the technology has large potential application. Why have some countries banned GM crop cultivation in their territory while others encouraged it? In countries where GM crops were allowed, why have varying systems of intellectual property rights (IPR) protection been constructed? To investigate these questions I comparatively examine the policy experience (1995-2015) of Argentina, Brazil, Turkey relying …

---

Ownership In The Development Discourse: A Case Study In Education In Tanzania, Satomi Kamei

Doctoral Dissertations

---

Today, there is a solid consensus in the international development community that “country ownership” is essential to promoting sustainable development in developing countries. Many donors also address ownership as essential to improving aid effectiveness. In this context, there have been continuous debates and emphasis on the importance of ownership. Meanwhile, the debates were further accelerated by the “Paris Declaration” to reform aid delivery and country ownership as an aid effectiveness principle. Despite various attempts to better define ownership, the notion remains unclear and debatable. Furthermore, the development discourse is still largely dominated by international donors. Consequently, the ownership agenda is …

---

The Effects Of Using Security Frames On Global Agenda Setting And Policy Making, Sirin Duygulu Elcim

Doctoral Dissertations

---

Why do transnational advocacy campaigns on environmental, health, human rights or humanitarian causes sometimes (but not always) frame these problems as security issues? This is an important question because there is an under-analyzed assumption made by some transnational advocacy networks (TANs) and securitization studies scholars that framing an issue as a security threat has an overall positive effect on convincing states to take actions in addressing transnational social problems. The lack of systematic comparison across cases limits our ability to reveal the advocates’ motivations in adopting security frames and the contrasting effects that securitization might have at various stages of …

---

Still Dirty After All These Years: Political Leadership, Knowledge, And Socialization And Regional Environmental Cooperation In Northeast Asia, Inkyoung Kim

Doctoral Dissertations

---

This dissertation examines the microprocesses of regime creation in Northeast Asia regarding transboundary environmental problems. Despite the growing need for international environmental cooperation and policy coordination at the regional and global levels, Northeast Asia has not yet succeeded in reaching any binding regional agreement on any environmental issue, even though it has developed various environmental cooperative mechanisms regarding transboundary pollution. Rather than characterizing regional environmental cooperative mechanisms in Northeast Asia as “non-regime,” this study unpacks the varying forms of collective action in terms of the speed of development of cooperative mechanisms and the substantive content of the development undertaken by …

---