Browsing Political Science - Ph.D. / Sc.D. by Title
Now showing items 207-226 of 339
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Participation is not enough : associations and local government in the social fund of Nicaragua
(Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2010)Community participation in development projects, in which billions of dollars are invested every year, has become quite controversial. While these initiatives can be beneficial, many participatory projects fall short of ... -
Participatory autocracy : private entrepreneurs, legislatures, and property protection in China
(Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2015)This dissertation addresses the puzzle of why individuals in authoritarian systems seek office in formal institutions, which are often dismissed as weak and ineffective. I argue that individuals seek office mainly to protect ... -
Party positions and the seats/votes relationship with ideological voters
(Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2007)Chapter 2 is based on two axioms: party members must run under common platforms, but are made up of incumbents who seek their own individual re-election. Politicians seek to win their own seats in the legislature, but they ... -
Pathogens as weapons : the international security implications of biological warfare
(Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2004)This dissertation assesses the international security implications of biological weapons and the strategic consequences of their proliferation. It examines the impact of biological weapons on four key areas of concern for ... -
The paths of glory : structure, selection, and leaders
(Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2011)Practitioners, journalists, and historians believe that leaders play a crucial role in determining events. Social science theories, however, generally argue that leaders are unimportant. This dissertation proposes a two-stage ... -
Paths toward the modern fiscal state : England (1642-1752), Japan (1868-1895), and China (1850-1911)
(Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2007)This dissertation examines the rise of the modem fiscal state, which enabled the state to use centrally collected revenues from indirect taxes to mobilize financial resources either through long-term borrowing or issuing ... -
People pressure : strategic engineered migration as an instrument of statecraft and the rise of the human rights regime
(Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2004)Using a combination of historical case studies and insights from formal modeling, this study proposes and tests a new theory to explain one piece of a poorly understood phenomenon, namely the strategic use of population ... -
Playing favorites : Washington's meddling for peace in the politics of Israel and the Palestinian Authority
(Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2012)Governments often try to use their foreign policies to influence the choice of who will rule in other countries. However, scholars know strikingly little about this commonplace and consequential phenomenon, especially when ... -
The pobladores and local democracy in Chile : the case of El Bosque and Peñalolén
(Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2004)(cont.) models of local governance, questioning blanket statements about the virtues of political decentralization. The managerial elitist" model favors individual participation and technical/centralized decision-making ... -
The police and political development in Malaysia : change, continuity, and institution-building of a "coercive" apparatus in a developing, ethnically divided society
(Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1977) -
Policing and the rule of law in weak states : evidence from Liberia
(Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2019)How can states with limited resources build citizens' trust in the police? How can they ensure the primacy of the police and courts over customary alternatives in peripheral regions long accustomed to autonomy? In urban ... -
A policy history of Hanford's atmospheric releases
(Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1994) -
Political creativity
(Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2004)This thesis is about political change and the possibilities for politically creative individuals to achieve desired change. To identify such possibilities, I argue that we should employ a catalog of analytical tools from ... -
The political culture of order and anarchy : remembrance and imaginative power in Central America
(Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1994) -
The political economy of industrial adaptation in Silicon Valley
(Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1989) -
The political economy of technological innovation : a change in the debate
(Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2006)Why are some countries more technologically innovative than others? The dominant explanation amongst political-economists is that domestic institutions determine national innovation rates. However, after decades of research, ... -
The political effectiveness of non-state violence : paradox, polarity, and the pursuit of power
(Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2011)When is non-state violence politically effective? Existing scholarship suggests that insurgency and terrorism are generally effective or ineffective based on the analysis of unitary non-state coercers operating solely at ... -
The political impediments to prosperity : an analysis of the political origins of business confidence
(Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1993) -
Political learning and economic policymaking : governments of the left and of traditional labor-based parties during Latin America's golden decade (2003-2013)
(Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2018)This dissertation seeks to explain variation in macroeconomic management among Latin American governments of the left and of traditional labor-based parties during the commodity boom that lasted from 2003 to 2013. In ... -
Political liberalism, social pluralism and group conflict
(Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2001)This dissertation develops a political liberal approach to multiculturalism as an alternative to its dismissal by some egalitarian liberals and its celebration by some multicultural liberals. Some egalitarian liberals ...
