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On ghostly lives: life, death and the British immigration detention estate
No full textThis research project investigates the role of administrative detention in the UK and its impact on the evolving concept of the human. By engaging with critical theorists such as Sylvia Wynter, Frantz Fanon, Katherine McKittrick, Simone Browne and Achille Mbembe, I examine how immigration laws and policies perpetuate racial differences within the immigration detention estate in Britain. This study addresses crucial questions: How do immigration regulations uphold racial disparities through detention? What are the implications of racial terror (the normalisation of racialised violence) for the politics of the human? How does the popular adage, ‘we did not cross the border, the border crossed us,’ challenge conventional understandings of borders? Why do states increasingly impose restrictions on migrants globally? The research explores the extensive measures used to enforce borders, including walls, fences, surveillance technologies, biometric data collection, prisons, and detention centers, and their connection to the (un)making of the human. I argue that detention serves as a mechanism of power that enforces racialised surveillance and control, perpetuating a hierarchical reordering of humanity often characterised by discrimination and violence. Guided by Puar’s (2017) concept of debilitation, I apply the notion of maiming as a form of state power that operates between biopower (the governance of life) and necropower (the governance of death). I contribute to the field by meditating on what I call ‘maimed life’ which are lives that are ‘derealised’ (Butler, 2020: 33), maintained in a state of ‘injury’ (Mbembe, 2019:75) or ‘deadness’ (Butler, 2020: 33), through practice and discourse. I employ a diverse range of data sources, including ethnographic notes from fieldwork in Calais, interviews with activists, refugees, and asylum seekers, and documents from a public inquiry (witness statements, transcripts, footage, etc.). Through this comprehensive approach, this study aims to elucidate the intricate connections between the practice of detention, racialised surveillance, geographies of domination and the politics of being human in the UK
Colours, giants, and games
Full text linkThis thesis focuses on three independent areas of research. In the initial part, we study the occurrence of monochromatic substructures in coloured combinatorial objects across two different settings. First, we investigate the presence of monochromatic products in arbitrary, random, and randomly perturbed colourings of the integers —varying a classical line of research which originated with Schur and has since drawn considerable attention. Our results mark the first contributions in this new direction and lay the foundation for further work. Next, we determine the exact value of the Ramsey number of the squares of long paths and cycles, expanding the limited class of graphs for which this number is precisely known. In the middle part, we extend and address works and conjectures of earlier authors. First, we resolve a conjecture by Letzter and Snyder on the chromatic number of graphs with large minimum degree and no short odd cycles. Second, we extend the Transference Principle of Conlon and Gowers, thereby paving the way to strengthen and generalise existing counting results in sparse random settings. As an application, we obtain an asymptotically optimal counting version of the KŁR Conjecture. In the final part, we analyse the dynamics that arise when learning agents repeatedly interact in the framework of games. We first consider the case of players with finite recall under various monitoring conditions in repeated games. Here, we establish a Folk Theorem-like result, characterise the set of payoff vectors attainable under these dynamics, and uncover a wide spectrum of possibilities for the emergence of algorithmic collusion. We then investigate best-response dynamics in random potential games, and demonstrate the robustness of this approach across different regimes of payoff correlation
The antecedents and moderators of online privacy disclosure perceptions and behaviours
No full textThis thesis explores antecedents, contextual factors and mechanisms of individual privacy disclosure perceptions, intentions and behaviours in digital environments. The research examines the role of time pressure, engagement format, as well as the impact of sequential privacy disclosure, where individuals disclose information at multiple and connected decision stages. This thesis also aims to explore the role of personality traits (BIG5) in privacy disclosure behaviours. First, results from the large-scale online randomised controlled trial (RCT) experiments (n=2776) indicate that under time pressure, individuals decrease the disclosure of sensitive information, suggesting the presence of a trade-off between speed and privacy. Second, individuals’ willingness to disclose sensitive information is also reduced when engaging with service agents (e.g. Artificial Intelligence (AI)-based, Human or hybrid Human AI teams) compared to non-agent-based engagement formats such as traditional web forms, as demonstrated by an online behavioural experiment (n=3176). This effect remains consistent for one-off and multiple engagement scenarios where sensitive information disclosure occurs. Finally, using the structural equation modelling (SEM) approach, I build a theoretical construct integrating personality traits, privacy concerns, and disclosure behaviours, showing that conscientiousness, agreeableness, and openness elevate privacy concerns that drive privacy behaviours. Taken together, these findings extend the Antecedents-Privacy Concerns-Outcome (APCO) theoretical framework (Smith et al., 2011) by incorporating personality traits as another antecedent and demonstrating new boundary conditions under which individuals disclose sensitive information. They also highlight the importance of evidence-based and informed policymaking in the context of privacy regulation that should focus on the long-term aspects of privacy disclosure behaviours, especially with the steadfast advancement of AI. Furthermore, when building privacy-related user-centric experiences, organisations should focus on building a better understanding of individual characteristics to drive personalisation and strive to find the right balance between solutions that foster innovation, boost trust and reduce perceived risks of data sharing
The trade‑off between faster access and evidentiary certainty in the FDA’s Accelerated Approval of cancer drugs: empirical evidence on patient preferences and regulatory decision‑making
No full textBackground: When approving new drugs, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) must balance a trade-off between providing earlier access to new drugs and accepting greater uncertainty about a drug’s clinical benefit. In 1992, the FDA introduced the Accelerated Approval pathway to expedite access to new drugs. While the use of Accelerated Approval has shortened clinical development and approval times as intended, it has also led to greater uncertainty about the clinical benefit of new drugs at approval. Evidence shows that most cancer drugs receiving Accelerated Approval do not help patients with cancer live longer or improve their quality of life – outcomes that matter most to patients. Aims: This thesis aimed to better understand the extent to which individuals are willing to accept greater uncertainty in exchange for faster access to new cancer drugs, and whether factors beyond clinical data supporting approval may influence the FDA’s oversight of cancer drugs receiving Accelerated Approval. Methods: Mixed-methods. Key findings: The first two studies in this thesis find that individuals with experience of cancer may be willing to wait longer for FDA approval in exchange for greater certainty of a drug’s clinical benefit, and that patients are most likely to accept greater uncertainty only when no treatment alternatives exist or when the anticipated benefits are likely to be transformative. The third study finds that empirical evidence in support of claims that clinical or non-clinical factors influence FDA approval decisions is limited. The final study finds that many FDA conversion–withdrawal decisions diverge from mandated post-marketing study outcomes, suggesting the application of case-specific discretion and nuance, while not ruling out the influence of other factors beyond clinical evidence. Conclusion: Findings from this thesis demonstrate that FDA decisions made under conditions of uncertainty may not always reflect patients’ preferences and underscore the complexity of FDA cancer drug approval and post-market oversight
The threats we face: British imperial defence and the Far East, 1925-1934
Full text linkFrom 1925 to 1934, the British Empire in the Far East was menaced by two principal threats. The first – Chinese nationalism, alongside and often in partnership with international communism – was transnational in nature, attempting to make not a revision to the Far Eastern status quo but a revolution in the politics of the entire region. The second – a rising and increasingly militaristic Japan – was international in nature, intent on upsetting the regional balance of power that Britain had helped police for a generation. This thesis makes several arguments. First, that assessments and understandings of British imperial defence and strategy in the era, which heretofore have focused predominately on the international threat of Japan at the expense of the transnational threat of Chinese (and other indigenous forms of) nationalism and communism, must be reframed around a broader understanding of imperial defence efforts against both. Second, that Britain’s responses to these twin threats were dissonant. The crisis of Chinese Nationalism from 1925-1927, while transnational in nature, was also an international challenge to the status quo, and thus unique in the way that it afforded Britain the opportunity to synchronize and leverage tools and strategies, employed by both policymakers in the imperial core and officials in the imperial periphery, to counter it. The transformation of that threat from 1927 into a purely transnational challenge allowed Britain to simultaneously soften, with respect to moderate Chinese nationalists, and sharpen, with respect to radical Chinese nationalists and communists, these strategies. This vibrant, nuanced, forward leaning, and often effective campaign against communism and what it saw as malign forces of nationalism coexisted alongside Britain’s static and ambivalent efforts in understanding Japan both before and after it emerged as the principal international threat to the British-led Far Eastern status quo in the early 1930s. This dissonance both complicates and builds upon existing narratives of imperial crisis and decline and shows Britain continuing, at times, to exert agency and leadership and shape the regional environment well into the 1930s. Third, and finally, this thesis will demonstrate that such dissonance and complexity more accurately depict the realities, experiences, efforts, and achievements – or lack thereof – of imperial defence officials of all stripes, from the members of the Committee of Imperial Defence in London to the inspectors of the Straits Settlements Police Force in Singapore
Framing change: behavioural insights to facilitate the transition to more sustainable dietary norms
No full textThere is now a strong scientific consensus that a rapid and significant reduction in the consumption of animal products is needed in order to ensure a safe operating space for the planet. A multi-strategy approach incorporating behavioural interventions, along with market and regulatory mechanisms, will likely be required to change consumers’ eating habits. Insights from behavioural science can inform both interventions and communication strategies to help facilitate the transition to more sustainable dietary norms. Emerging research suggests using dynamic norms – social norm messages which emphasise how others are changing – may be effective in influencing attitudes and behaviours in a number of domains, including meat consumption. However, there have been only a few studies investigating social norm interventions to encourage sustainable diets. Moreover, the research on dynamic norms specifically is still nascent, with much to be learned about how they work and what could limit or improve their effectiveness. Evidence from behavioural science tells us that people may respond differently to information depending on how it is framed. Could there be ways to strategically frame changing diets to increase norm receptivity? In this thesis, I investigated this question across four empirical chapters which draw on literature relating to social norms, behavioural economics, and strategic communications. I began with a scoping review which assessed the extent and nature of the research on messaging interventions using social norms to encourage sustainable food choice. It revealed mixed findings on the effectiveness of such interventions, limited by significant knowledge gaps, methodological weaknesses, and heterogeneity of research designs. The next part of the thesis focussed on optimising communications by manipulating the framing of messages communicating changing dietary norms in the United Kingdom. In a series of online randomised controlled trials, I first examined the relationship between gain/loss framing of diet change and interest in adopting the new norm. Findings revealed no evidence of backfire effects, but that food neophobia could be a barrier to norm receptivity. I then tested the effect of framing shifting norms as being rooted in shared values and goals, exploring how different value frames resonated across demographic groups. Further, I investigated other factors which could influence openness to the emerging norm, including affect, response efficacy beliefs, and perceptions of who might benefit from the change. Overall, results suggested the effectiveness of value framing is limited and that, despite the new norm being seen as good for society and future generations, negative perceptions that one would not personally benefit inhibited interest in diet change. I applied the findings of these online studies in a field intervention exploring how messages emphasising the cobenefits of diet change might be used to complement other behavioural strategies to encourage sustainable dining at a university canteen. Whilst there was no evidence that the dynamic norm influenced behaviour, I did find that students’ selection of lower emission dishes increased significantly when more of these dishes were on offer. Taken together, results suggest there is a mismatch between current messaging around changing dietary norms versus predominant barriers and motivators in this domain: The emerging norm is often framed in ethical terms such as ‘healthy and sustainable’ and ‘benefitting society and future generations’, however consumers are more motivated by perceptions that plant-based foods are satisfying and that they themselves will benefit from the change. Further, they are more likely to choose plant-based offerings when they are plentiful and affordable. Yet many perceive these foods as unappealing and expensive, and plant-based items are still vastly underrepresented in the market. Thus both policies and communication strategies which circumvent these perceptual and structural barriers and align with existing hedonic and utilitarian drivers of food choice are more likely to be successful. This thesis contributes to the literature on dynamic norms by shedding light on how people in the UK perceive, process, and respond to information about changing diets, and the interplay between these factors and norm receptivity across different groups. Findings yield valuable insights for behavioural interventions and evidence to inform food policies and how they are communicated to help ensure they will be accepted and effective
Structural barriers or patient preference? A critical appraisal of the medical abortion revolution in England and Wales
No full textIn this thesis I assess the extent to which structural barriers are limiting choice of abortion method in England and Wales and the relationships between abortion method choice, inequities, and abortion stigma. I adopt three theoretical frameworks (the socioecological framework, stigma theory, and a multidisciplinary framework for understanding choice and equity) to approach abortion method choice with a systemic, critical lens using mixed methods. The methods include key informant interviews with abortion service providers, managers, and commissioners, in-depth interviews with abortion care-seekers, a multilevel analysis of national abortion statistics, and an analysis of provider survey data. These analyses highlight that the supply of surgical abortion care has been restricted by the legal framework for abortion and by other institutional barriers relating to funding, infrastructure, and workforce. Health system constraints have limited the options offered by health care providers, which generates inequities in people’s ability to make an informed decision about their abortion method. Although I find that abortion providers’ method preferences and provision are not significantly associated with abortion provider stigma, I document how abortion stigma is produced in the institutional structures of the health system in this context. This structural abortion stigma reduces access to patient-centred care, including method choice, and can reinforce individual level stigma. This thesis makes use of novel data sources and methodologies to further our understanding of the structural factors that have influenced the shift towards medical abortion in England and Wales and reveals how these constraints are imposed and experienced inequitably. The findings pose challenges for dominant discourses that focus on the potential of medical abortion to empower care-seekers and indicate the need to protect method choice. The thesis concludes with implications for policy, practice and research in England and Wales and elsewhere
Psychosocial disability activisms in India: knowledges and practices towards justice, from the margins
Full text linkThis thesis employs intersectionality and disability justice to inform a study of how activists with psychosocial disability in India understand and ‘do’ psychosocial disability. It responds to key critiques of existing literature: the absence of an intersectional lens in disability activism; the emphasis on a legalistic rights-based approach in disability; the dominance of the global North in framing the concept of ‘psychosocial disability’; the positioning of persons with psychosocial disability as objects rather than epistemic actors. My research draws on crip and critical disability theorisations as well as my own experiences as a Mad disabled researcher to analyse interviews with activists occupying multiply marginalised socio-political positions, including psychosocial disablement, in India. The analysis of 25 interview texts reveals that at the margins of the mainstream psychosocial disability activism, activists employ ‘psychosocial disability’ as a radical lens to explain, understand, and ultimately challenge oppressive structures such as casteism, fascism and militarisation, the criminal (in)justice system, and cisheteropatriarchy. They grapple with and attempt to resolve the tensions between abolition and reform in ways which bring together radical dreams and everyday practices of care and community-building while simultaneously navigating and negotiating with deeply broken medico-legal regimes. The demands of neoliberalism and fascism within movements present unique challenges for disabled and marginalised activists in India, and they undertake innovative ways to create spaces of liberation within and at the margins of a mainstream movement. The thesis contributes to disability studies and social movement literature by providing an example of what an intersectional liberatory practice can look like, the commitments that inform and animate it, as well as the struggles, challenges, and contradictions which shape it. This thesis invites activists and scholars embedded in movements of all kinds to bring a crip perspective on organising and resistance
God and Mammon: the Dissolution of the Monasteries and its consequences
Full text linkThe Dissolution of the Monasteries was the single largest transfer of wealth in English history between the Norman Conquest and today. It was immediately preceded by the creation of the Valor Ecclesiasticus, a complete survey of all Church property in England. The first paper uses a stratified sample of the Valor to create a georeferenced dataset that allows an unprecedented view into the English monastic system on the eve of its destruction. The dataset presented in this paper fills the crucial gap between aggregate overviews of the monastic system and case studies of individual monasteries, preserving a high level of detail while providing enough data and geographical coverage to ensure generalizability. Using this dataset, I demonstrate the overwhelmingly local nature of the monastic economy despite their long-distance networks, and show that the monastic system as a whole moved enormous quantities of money from the countryside into cities and suburbs. I also quantitatively confirm many of the assertions of previous historians of monasticism, including the Cistercian order’s focus on land revenue, the dominance of well-connected Benedictine houses, and the tight connections between Carthusian monasteries even over huge distances. The second paper investigates the causes of the largest rebellion ever faced by a Tudor monarch: the Pilgrimage of Grace. By combining a dataset of rebel musters and the seats of rebel gentlemen with the Valor data and a shapefile of Northern roads and shipping routes, I provide the first statistical evidence in the long-running debate over the rebellion’s causes. I find that monastic land is the only variable that consistently predicts rebellion: parishes with more monastic land were more likely to rise in rebellion and rose sooner than parishes with less monastic land. In addition, monastic land likely to contain tenants predicts rebellion much more strongly than monastic land likely to have been farmed with hired labor. This finding bolsters the argument of authors like Michael Bush, who see the Pilgrimage as fundamentally motivated by the economic impacts of the Dissolution, specifically the threat of eviction. Finally, the third paper investigates the long-run impacts of the Dissolution on individuals and the wider economy. Using a set of name lists containing status information and a new dataset created from taxation documents spanning three hundred years, I find that surname groups containing monastic land purchasers maintained a substantial wealth advantage well into the nineteenth century. This advantage is visible across a range of measures, including total family wealth, average individual wealth, the wealth of the richest bearer of each surname, and the total number of individuals with a given surname. On the broader economic effects of the Dissolution, the results are more mixed. I find a small increase in tertiary employment in parishes with more monastic land, but these effects do not scale up to the hundred level, making it unlikely that monastic land is associated with higher productivity
Cash transfers and women’s labour supply: theory and evidence from Brazil
Full text linkWomen’s participation in the labour force has been a powerful driver of economic growth, lifting millions out of poverty. Today, cash transfer programmes have come to dominate government efforts to reduce poverty. Whilst effective at providing short-term relief, these programmes may also undermine long-term poverty reduction by disincentivising labour supply. To study the direction and magnitude of the impact of cash transfers on labour supply, as well as the underlying mechanisms, I measure the effect of an exogenous increase in Brazil’s main transfer programme on the employment of men and women. I find no effect for men, whereas women increase their labour supply by 7.4% over two years. This is driven by mothers with children of pre-school age, for whom the transfer relaxes childcare constraints, enabling them to join the labour force. Exploring regional disparities, I find that the effect is stronger in areas that are poorer, but that have better availability of local public services. I causally estimate complementarities between cash transfers and local public good provision levering discontinuities on the allocation of public funds to Brazil’s 5570 municipalities. I show that this has potentially important fiscal implications for the long-term costs and benefits of cash transfer programmes. Overall, my paper illustrates that there is no trade-off between short-term relief and long-term poverty reduction. Rather, cash transfers encourage women’s labour force participation, particularly when complementary public goods, such as educational facilities, are available