http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/5427 http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/27884 The politics of restraint : Robert McNamara and the strategic nuclear forces, l963-l968 Kugler, Richard L Thesis. 1975. Ph.D.--Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Political Science. Vita. Bibliography: leaves 379-389. Tue, 29 Oct 1974 22:58:59 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/28670 Overcoming shadows of the past : post-conflict interstate reconciliation in East Asia and Europe He, Yinan, 1970- This dissertation explores the origins of interstate reconciliation after traumatic conflicts, mainly through the comparative study of postwar Sino-Japanese and (West) German-Polish relations. While Germany and Poland have basically achieved deep reconciliation, the Sino-Japanese relationship is still dominated by mistrust and simmering animosity. I test and compare two competing theories to explain the different reconciliation outcomes. Realist theory argues that common security interests solely drive post-conflict reconciliation. I develop the second theory, historical mythmaking theory, which suggests that elite mythmaking of the conflict history for instrumental purposes will obstruct long-term reconciliation. Because national myths glorify and whitewash the action of their own nations and belittle others, they can cause the memories of former adversary states to clash. Such mutually divergent narratives will provoke negative emotions and perception of each other's hostile intention, both mechanisms contributing to bilateral conflict. The case studies show the relative strength of historical mythmaking theory. The Cold War structural pressure initially blocked reconciliation in both dyads. At that time Chinese and Japanese war memories actually converged on a common myth that blames only a small handful of Japanese militarists for the war. It is because China tried to win the hearts and minds of the Japanese people in order to obtain Japanese official recognition of the Communist regime. Since the Sino-U.S. rapprochement and East-West detente in the 1970s, however, structural conditions turned favorable to reconciliation. But China and Japan only brushed aside historical legacy to make way for diplomatic normalization. A (cont.) honeymoon quickly disintegrated in the early 1980s when the changing domestic context prompted elites to create new national myths and escalate bilateral historiographic disputes. Since then, the history problem has aggravated mutual threat perception and popular hostility, seriously straining bilateral relations. In contrast, from the early 1970s West Germany and Poland narrowed their memory divergence through restitution measures and textbook cooperation. These efforts created a strong sense of closeness and trust, paving the way for the eventual reconciliation in the 1990s. Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Political Science, 2004. Includes bibliographical references (p. 430-468). Wed, 29 Oct 2003 22:58:59 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/42391 Ethnic leftists, populist ethnics : the new politics of identity Gisselquist, Rachel M Group identifications - in particular, those based on ethnicity and class - are central to political mobilization during elections. This dissertation asks: when and why does the salience of ethnic and class categories vary across elections in emerging democracies? It argues that which categories are politicized has less to do with which categories are most salient to voters and more to do with which are most useful to politicians. The strategies of politicians, however, are contrained in a particular ways, by opportunity, which is provided by party system crises, and by the political space, which is given by the structure of existing social identity categories, particularly their sizes and degrees of overlap with traditionally-politicized categories. Given the institutional rules, size and overlap affect which identity groups have the numbers to win and which describe similar constituencies that could be switched between for political expediency. The project nests the theory within an explanatory framework describing four key factors that drive variation in identification: voter preferences, political institutions, party institutions, and elite manipulation. The dissertation presents data from three sources: a fieldwork-based study of Bolivian party politics, focusing on the democratic period from 1982 to 2005; data from the "Constructivist Dataset on Ethnicity and Institutions (CDEI)" on political parties and elections in Latin America in the early 1990s; and four shadow cases from the Andean region (Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Venezuela). These data are used to map variation in identification across countries and over time; to illustrate the plausibility of the argument and to test it against predictions drawn from alternative hypotheses; and to explore the generalizability of the argument. Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Political Science, 2007. Includes bibliographical references (v. 2, leaves 398-434). Sun, 29 Oct 2006 22:58:59 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/42390 Effects of anti-poverty programs on electoral behavior : evidence from the Mexican Education, Health, and Nutrition Program De La O Torres, Ana Lorena Ever since Latin American economies collapsed in the 1980s and early 1990s, traditional redistributive programs began to coexist with new anti-poverty programs that usually took the form of conditional cash transfers (CCT). I examine the effects of the Mexican Education, Health, and Nutrition program (Progresa), the first and largest CCT implemented in the region, on electoral behavior. I argue that Progresa not only was substantially different from traditional clientelism, but that it challenged local monopolies on political power by increasing voter's income and giving recipients implicit and explicit information about its non-political nature. This weakening of monopolies, in turn, gave political parties incentives to compete for the votes of Progresa recipients. As a consequence, recipients increased their electoral participation, at least in the short term, and clientelism was irrevocably eroded. Despite the increased competition, however, recipients rewarded parties that proposed and retained Progresa. My understanding of Progresa's electoral effects is based on theory, field research on four villages, interviews with Progresa's designers and personnel, and analysis of media sources from 1996 until 2003. To test this argument, I use the Mexico 2000 Panel Study; aggregate data at the municipality level from 1997-2003; and to explicitly deal with the historic correlation between poverty, rural residence, and support for the seventy-year incumbent party, Institutional Revolutionary Party, I take advantage of the fact that early assignment of program benefits included a randomized component originally designed to evaluate the program effects on schooling and health. Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Political Science, 2007. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 190-202). Sun, 29 Oct 2006 22:58:59 GMT