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The Dialectics of War: Left and Right Ideologies of War, Peace, and Militarism in Russia and Sweden, 1914-1945
No full textPh.D.Soviet militarism is often viewed as diametrically opposed to Swedish neutrality. As a result, the history and ideologies of war, peace, and militarization in Russia and Sweden from 1914 to 1945 have almost exclusively been studied separately. Militarism and pacifism, however, developed not in isolation, but often as dialectical opposites that negated, overcame, and synthesized one another to shape Russian and Swedish history.The Dialectics of War demonstrates the entanglement not only of Russian (Soviet) and Swedish history, but also of Left and Right political ideologies. On the basis of Russian and Swedish published and archival sources, it traces the development of competing Herderian and Hegelian paradigms of war that interacted across borders and over time to shape political ideologies and military policies in these countries the first half of the twentieth century. In examining various ideologies of war, the dissertation does not limit the concept of war to conflicts between states, but expands it to include class war and racial war in order to highlight the mutual dependencies and interactions of ideologies across the political spectrum. Such an analysis reveals that Soviet “militarism” and Swedish “pacifism” emerged not so much from a dichotomy between “war” and “peace,” as from debates about what kind of war and what kind of peace would enable various groups to create and sustain particular political and social visions.
The long-trajectory approach of the dissertation from 1914 to 1945 not only elucidates continuities and changes in the development of ideologies of war and peace, but it also sheds new light on central questions in the historiography of the Soviet Union and Sweden. Among other conclusions, it demonstrates how the pro-war positions of the international Left and Right contributed to the construction of Swedish neutrality, and how the dialectics of class war and national war were superimposed to mobilize Soviet society in the Second World War
Unlikely Messiahs: The Missionary Church and the Path to Indigenous Conversion in the Early Years of New Spain, 1509-1527
No full textAdvancing Competitiveness in the Peruvian Procurement Market: Exploring the Impact of Open Data Policies and Legal Reforms
No full textM.P.P.This study employs Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) regression analysis to investigate the impact of the disclosure of ex-post contract award information through digital platforms and the enactment of legal reforms on bid competitiveness in the Peruvian public procurement market, specifically in terms of prices. The findings indicate that certain large-scale legal reforms to the Peruvian Procurement Act significantly enhance bid competitiveness, leading to reduced bid prices relative to government estimates. Surprisingly, the disclosure of ex-post procurement information through friendly user platforms exhibits a negative impact on bid competitiveness. Potential explanations for this discrepancy may stem from Omitted Variable Bias (OVB) problems, as well as characteristics of the data portal's design and strategy, potentially leading to increased scrutiny and prolonged processes to prevent irregularities, as suggested in the literature. I recommend reevaluating the portal's purpose and design to bolster transparency and competitiveness effectively. Additionally, I highlight the importance of strategic collaboration with stakeholders to surmount barriers to data accessibility and manipulation, given that data complexity hinders broader access and comprehensive analysis. While the study primarily focuses on competitiveness measured by prices, it also encourages exploring the impact of various initiatives on indicators beyond prices, such as the quality of services and goods provided
Essays on the Economics of Search Algorithms
No full textPh.D.This dissertation explores the economics of search algorithms deployed by platforms. Chapters 1 and 2 address challenges in evaluating market power associated with algorithms. Chapter 3 explores the mechanisms that platforms use to alter search outcomes when their access to user data changes.In Chapter 1, I develop a model of search based on competition over algorithms that can be used to evaluate the market power of an algorithm that aids a consumer's search process. In the model, platforms make an endogenous choice about how much their algorithms should favor consumers' preferences versus the platform's profitability-per-consumer. This decision is modeled as a choice to set a distance between realized, consumer-optimal, and platform-optimal search outcomes. Finally, a general framework to apply this model across platform types is presented.In Chapter 2, the model is applied to JD.com e-commerce data. First, I estimate a discrete choice model of consumer purchase decisions given their search outcomes. Then, I estimate the structural search model. I find that the algorithms achieve an outcome almost identical to the outcomes that maximize the platform's profitability-per-user. The finding suggests one of two possibilities: JD.com has tremendous market power in the market studied, or JD.com is using a suboptimal ranking algorithm that maximizes profits-per-consumer rather than total profits. Realigning the incentives of the platform and consumers by banning first-party participation on e-commerce platforms would improve the market outcomes for consumers and sellers, however, it would decrease the platform's profitability-per-consumer by a larger magnitude.In Chapter 3, I calibrate a structural model of consumer search that allows the platform's beliefs about the consumer to be incorrect. The model estimates the weights the platform places on user preferences and expected profits when choosing to display search results. I estimate this model separately for JD.com shoppers that the platform possesses predictive data about and for those without this data. Then, I simulate search and purchase outcomes for the shoppers with predictive data as if this data did not exist. Finally, I decompose the effects into those from price discrimination, those from personalized steering, and those from changes in market power
Prior Language Experience and Metalinguistic Awareness in the Learning of a Third Language
No full textPh.D.To date, most classroom-based research into the learning of a third language (L3) in the US has examined patterns of acquisition among various groups of bilinguals. Situated mainly within the context of Portuguese for Spanish Speakers (PSS), studies typically group learners based on the sequence / age of onset of their main background languages, Spanish and English (e.g. Johnson, 2004), revealing differential and oftentimes conflicting results. This raises questions as to the most appropriate way to conceive of individual differences (IDs) within the L3 classroom.This dissertation thus explores how these students differ from one another, and the impact of various IDs on target-language proficiency at the end of a semester of L3 instruction. Participants were 28 Spanish-English bilinguals taking accelerated introductory French, Italian, or Portuguese. By analyzing L3 development over a three-month span, this study first examined the role of prior language experience, encompassing sequence / age of onset, proficiency in the shared pivot language (i.e. Spanish), and classroom exposure to heritage or foreign languages. A series of other IDs included metalinguistic awareness, measured via retrospective written protocols after a brief language-learning task (e.g. Jackson, 2014), as well as motivation, anxiety, strategy use, and aptitude. Target-language domains included L3 lexical and grammatical knowledge, as well as L3 written complexity, accuracy, and fluency.The study yielded several significant correlations, including metalinguistic awareness being tied to classroom language-learning experience, while anxiety correlated differentially with sequence / age of onset. Longitudinal results showed that pivot-language proficiency was predictive of gains in written complexity, while metalinguistic awareness predicted growth in grammatical knowledge. By the semester’s end, it was revealed that motivation had decreased and pivot-language proficiency had increased, neither of which was expected. Despite the modest sample size, it can nonetheless be concluded that metalinguistic awareness plays an important role in the L3 classroom and deserves further attention, whereas sequence / age of onset — though ubiquitous in PSS literature — does not emerge as the best way to account for prior language experience. Finally, the pedagogical implications of these results are discussed, as well as their contribution to the field of instructed L3 acquisition
Kickstarting Gender Empowerment: An Analysis of Women and Girls’ Participation in Soccer and Country Performance on the Women Empowerment Index
No full textM.P.P.2023 put a spotlight on both women’s soccer and sport for development initiatives. FIFA announced the FIFA Unites the World campaign in which they partnered with UN Women on the two initiatives aimed at women’s empowerment and ending violence against women. The announcement coincided with the release of FIFA’s second membership survey taking stock of women’s soccer globally. UN Women and UNDP also released two new gender-development indices aimed at more fully understanding the status of women and girls worldwide – the Women Empowerment Index [WEI] and the Global Gender Parity Index [GGPI]. While there appears to be significant attention turning to sport for gender development with the involvement of FIFA and UN women, its increase in popularity has not been spurred by significant empirical evidence. This paper utilizes the WEI and data from FIFA’s membership survey to answer two questions. First, can soccer empower women and girls? Second, should development practitioners use soccer as a development tool to empower women and girls? I find that the answer to both questions is the same – it depends. While soccer is the world’s favorite sport, it may not be the world’s development tool; country context impacts the possibility of soccer to be an empowerment tool. This paper explores two, of many, contextual differences: region and human development group. The relationship between participation in soccer and country performance on the WEI or its component parts changes based on region and human development group [HDG]. The results of simple ordinary least squares regressions imply that while soccer has the potential to empower women and girls, it also has the power to disempower them. I find that increasing rates of participation in soccer are associated with increasing labor participation in medium HDG countries and secondary education attainment in high HDG countries. I also find that they are associated with increasing levels of violence against women in low HDG countries, increasing adolescent birthrate in medium HDG countries, and decreasing family planning satisfaction in high HDG countries. The implications of these findings are that practitioners must undertake precautions to mitigate the potential risk of harm when using sport as a gender development tool. This paper argues for two potential policies currently at the forefront of the development community: localization and foreign aid transparency. However, these results and conclusions are drawn from a limited sample of data, and will need to be revisited as additional data becomes available to ensure their robustness
Essays on Labor Economics
No full textPh.D.Across three chapters of my dissertation, I explore diverse topics and policy implications related to labor economics. In the first chapter, I investigate the relationship between relative income and deaths of despair in the United States. In the second and third chapters, I analyze South Korea's dual labor market structure. I study the impact of Korea’s employment protection legislation (EPL) on worker mobility between sectors in chapter 2 and analyze the role of the informal sector in chapter 3.In the first chapter, I investigate relative income as a possible driver to the increasing deaths of despair among non-Hispanic white male Americans in the United States between 2006 to 2016. I analyze two plausible comparisons in income: non-Hispanic white men's income relative to that of black and Hispanic men and relative to that of their household members. I find that deaths of despair among younger non-Hispanic white men change more sensitively to relative income compared to the older population.In the second chapter, I analyze the impact of South Korea's 2007 EPL on the transition patterns of young male workers between different sectors using a three-state on-the-job search model. While formal workers in South Korea benefit from permanent contracts with better insurance coverage and non-salary compensation, workers with informal status have non-permanent contracts and are mostly not entitled to insurance benefits. In 2007, the Korean government implemented an EPL to prohibit the exploitation of informal workers. I find that the 2007 EPL could have benefitted both high-school and college graduate men in the informal sector if it facilitated their transition into the formal sector. I also find that starting off in the informal sector has a long-term scarring effect for college graduate men, whereas high-school graduate male workers are not negatively impacted by their entry status in the long run.In the last chapter, I examine the role of South Korea's informal sector using a piecewise constant hazard model. Being employed in an informal job may provide workers chances to enhance their skills or may provide employers more information to screen workers into a formal job. Estimated transition patterns suggest that South Korea's informal sector is a screening device rather than a skill accumulation opportunity for both high-school graduate and college graduate male workers. As most worker transitions into the formal sector happen at the beginning of worker's career without further skill enhancement, this likely supports the dead-end hypothesis of informal jobs
Against “Technology”: The Present-Absence of Luddism
No full textM.A.Against “Technology”: The Present-Absence of LuddismJames Doyle, B.A.
Thesis Advisor: Matthew Tinkcom, Ph.D.
ABSTRACT
Whether it be through pejorative use or through invocations of their history by other protesters, the name of the Luddites—a nineteenth century British movement, which fought against factory use of automated weaving machinery—is one often leveraged in technology discourse. However, the technology against which the Luddites fought is different from our own. A vast amount of time and development exists between their power loom and our current artificial intelligence technologies. As such, this thesis seeks to understand how technology, as it is understood today, varies from its historical origins, and how such a difference impacts the values and approaches of those protesting against technologies. In approaching these central questions, this thesis will leverage historical analysis and discourse analysis to pry apart the norms and values which structure our understandings of technology. It will then place these findings in conversation with core texts of critical theory, in an attempt to better descriptively understand the current technological ecosystem
Carroll Round Proceedings 2024
No full textUndergraduate research papers on contemporary international economics. Georgetown School of Foreign Service. Volume XVIII