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ATale of Two Countries: Comparing Outcomes in Marriage Equality between Taiwan and Japan
No full textThesis advisor: Kenji HayaoNational marriage equality: the legalization of same-sex marriage and recognition that same-sex pairings are to be granted the same privileges under the state as straight pairings, is widely recognized as a turning point for a country’s acceptance of queer identities at all levels of society. More than thirty countries around the world have legalized same-sex marriage, most of them being advanced industrial democracies. Given such hegemony, one may expect that being an advanced industrial democracy is one of the strongest indicators as to whether a country has instituted same-sex marriage. Yet, out of the three Asian countries which meet the criteria: South Korea, Taiwan, and Japan, only Taiwan has instituted marriage equality. The timing of progress in East Asia, particularly in Japan, still presents a puzzle to scholars given dominant understandings of queer culture and politics. Through comparative examination of the social and political structures in Taiwan and Japan as they relate to queer rights and expression, I seek to prove that robust democratic institutions and practices are the main factor in securing marriage equality rather than socio-cultural attitudes, judicial processes, or mass political movements. To this point, robust institutions and practices can be defined as those which actively imbue a citizen with more voting power or the amount of political power an individual is granted by the state to determine government policies that affect their life and those of their community. Healthy competition between political parties occurs as a result, meaning issues pertaining to minority communities are much more likely to be part of party platforms. As such, governments are more likely to actively push for social reform and are otherwise disincentivized from alienating minority groups.Thesis (MA) — Boston College, 2023.Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.Discipline: Political Science
Articulating, Learning, and Enacting Democratic Science Pedagogy:
No full textThesis advisor: G. Michael BarnettMany stakeholders emphasize the importance of diverse populations’ participation in the sciences, though the motivations for this vary. Some reference an economic standpoint by emphasizing the importance of either recruiting more science workers to compete in a global economy, or of individual financial success for people from historically marginalized groups. However, a growing body of researchers and educators has emphasized the importance of increasing representation from historically marginalized communities in science because their exclusion from discussions about science funding, research, and implications has resulted in widespread harm to communities. The goal of this research is to broaden science participation for the purposes of democracy and strong equity. This work expands on the Democratic Science Teaching (DST) framework, articulated by Basu & Calabrese Barton in 2010. While the original work articulated a theory by identifying goals and practices in existing science classrooms, this work explores the possibilities of using DST as a framework for teacher learning.This dissertation consists of three papers. Paper 1 details the development of an instrument to measure teaching practices aligned with democratic science teaching. The instrument could be used and built on by researchers, teacher educators, and school leaders who wish to use tools to develop democratic accountability in their systems. Paper 2 is a case study exploring how teacher beliefs and actions are activated through interaction with the DST framework. The study follows one novice physics teacher who participated in a DST-aligned professional learning fellowship for one academic year. Paper 3 is a practitioner-facing piece that functions as a starting point for teachers who are interested in developing democratic teaching practices in their own classrooms. The paper outlines the DST framework for teachers, explores how a photo-journal project supported students in making connections between their personal lives and science content, and presents other strategies used by teachers to bolster student voice, shared authority, and critical science literacy. Altogether, these papers offer understanding of teachers’ experiences as they work with the DST framework as learners, and provide tools for science teachers, teacher educators, and other education leaders to develop DST-aligned programming, and more broadly consider democratic and holistic systems of accountability for teachers.Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2023.Submitted to: Boston College. Lynch School of Education.Discipline: Teacher Education, Special Education, Curriculum and Instruction
Creditor Government Intervention in Sovereign Debt Crises:
Get PDFThesis advisor: David A. DeeseFor centuries, debt has been an important financing vehicle for governments around the world, and ever since the liberalization of cross-border capital movement that started in the US in 1974 and spread quickly through the rest of the West in the second half of the 1970s, states have been borrowing billions of dollars in the international private capital market. All governments are not willing or able to pay their debts at all times, however, and when they are not, a sovereign debt crisis is born. Unlike domestic bankruptcy proceedings, there is no standard default resolution mechanism in sovereign debt, leaving the debt restructuring process ad-hoc, highly unpredictable, and extremely susceptible to political influence. This dissertation studies the behavior of creditor governments---the home governments of private creditors who have lent to foreign states---during such crises and how they step in to intervene in the process of crisis resolution and sovereign debt restructuring.
It turns out that creditor government intervention can vary greatly from case to case, and it varies mainly in two dimensions: whether the creditor government compels the debtor state to repay debt (and, in order to do so, commit to structural economic reforms and fiscal austerity), and whether the creditor government uses its own public funds to provide temporary but immediate financial relief to the distressed debtor (known as a “bail-out”). This dissertation argues that the variation in creditor government behavior can best be explained by two factors in the creditor country: the interest of finance and public sentiment against foreign bailout. Strong, concentrated interests of big players in finance causes the creditor government to demand full debt repayment from and impose austerity demands on the debtor. Strong public opposition to foreign bailouts, driven by ongoing economic recessions in the creditor country itself, constrains the creditor government’s ability to tap into public funds to provide bilateral finance.
This dissertation tests the theory using a mixed-methods research design, exploiting both quantitative and qualitative data to test three hypotheses proposed in support of the theory. It presents an original data set that comprises over 700 observations of creditor government intervention from 1981 to 2016, and uses structured comparisons of study cases to uncover causal mechanisms between the interest of finance, public sentiment, and creditor government behavior.Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2023.Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.Discipline: Political Science
Essays on Information and Political Economy:
Get PDFThesis advisor: Mehmet EkmekciThis dissertation consists of three essays on media, political and learning. More specifically, I investigate the effects of biased media and learning from that biased media on political institutions. In the first essay, titled “Optimal Dynamic Information Supply and Competition”, I provide a model of an information market where the viewers acquire signals each period at an attention cost, solving an optimal stopping problem à la Wald (1947), and the objective of the potentially biased information providers is to maximize the number of viewers who acquire signals from them across periods. I find that, in a monopoly market, the information provider sends unbiased signals that perfectly reveal the state of the world when there is a single period but provides biased signals when there are multiple periods. This is because biased signals elongate the learning process of some viewers, potentially increasing the information provider payoff. I also find that incentives due to competition, modeled as another information provider that is potentially biased in the opposite direction, overtake the intertemporal incentives and the full information equilibrium is recovered, even though it is wasteful in terms of social welfare. Hence, the paper provides a model with rational information providers and viewers that leads to biased signals in equilibrium. In the second essay, titled “Voter Behavior and Information Aggregation in Elections with Supermajority”, I provide a model of elections where there are three possible outcomes, but the voters can directly vote for one of the two options. Theoutcome of the election corresponds to the options if the vote share for one of them is higher than a supermajority threshold. If neither of the options achieves that, then the result is the third outcome that the voters cannot explicitly vote for, which I interpret as compromise. I investigate various properties of elections in this setting. I find that, in line with the popular argument, supermajority rules foster compromise outcomes. But, on the other hand, elections with supermajority rules fail to aggregate information. In the third essay, titled “Protests, Strategic Information Provision and Political Communication”, I consider a model of protests where the protesters learn about the state of the world via a biased information provider whose objective is to either instigate or dissuade the protest. A successful protest removes the incumbent from office, where the success threshold is determined by the incumbent who is biased. My main aim is to uncover whether the incumbent can learn the true state of the world from the protest turnout, even though the information of the citizens is provided by biased media. I pin down the optimal success threshold and signal noise choices by the incumbent and the information provider, respectively. I find that if the information provider is trying to instigate the protest, then political communication is always possible, regardless of the level of the bias of the incumbent. If the information provider is trying to dissuade the protest, then political communication is possible if and only if the incumbent bias is relatively small.Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2023.Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.Discipline: Economics
Differences in Emotional Intimate Partner Violence and Relationship Satisfaction Among Same-Sex and Different-Sex Couples:
Get PDFThesis advisor: Alyssa GoldmanThesis advisor: Sara MoormanHow do lesbian, gay and heterosexual couples experience emotional intimate partnerviolence (IPV) and relationship satisfaction? And how are these associations affected by differences in power, stress and discrimination? This research aims to fill the gap in literature by examining how emotional IPV and relationship satisfaction may be differently shaped by power, stress and discrimination among gay, lesbian and heterosexual couples. To address this research question, I use data from the Health and Relationships Project, in hierarchical linear models to explore the differences between gay (N=248), lesbian (N=342) and straight (N=248) respondents' experiences of emotional intimate partner violence and relationship satisfaction within couples. Using dyadic data, the actor-partner interdependence models also test the mediating roles of stress, discrimination and feelings of equal power. Findings indicate that overall, lesbians experience the least amount of emotional intimate partner violence and the greatest amount of relationship satisfaction, while straight respondents experience the most amount of emotional intimate partner violence and the least amount of relationship satisfaction. Furthermore, feelings of equal power mediate this relationship. These findings contradict past literature, which suggests that same-sex couples would experience more emotional IPV than their heterosexual counterparts. This indicates that more research is needed to explore the numerous variables at play for same-sex and different-sex emotional IPV and relationship satisfaction, as there are unique differences in power, stress and discrimination between these groups.Thesis (MA) — Boston College, 2023.Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.Discipline: Sociology
Essays on International Economics and Trade:
No full textThesis advisor: Jaromir NosalThis dissertation comprises three self-contained essays that investigate the determination and transmission of exchange rate fluctuations, as well as the impact of import quality on consumers’ gains from globalization. In the first chapter, “Decomposing the (In)Sensitivity of CPI to Exchange Rate", I examine the role of domestic frictions – distribution costs, variable markups and nominal rigidities – in explaining the low sensitivity of domestic prices to exchange rate fluctuations. I begin by modeling what the sensitivity of CPI to exchange rates is expected to be, given the presence of insensitivity in border prices and domestic frictions. Distribution costs, such as transportation and wholesaling costs, introduce a wedge between the retail price, on one side, and the border price of imports and the domestic producers’ costs, on the other. Similarly, domestic firms do not fully adjust their price to changes in their own cost because of changes in the desired markup or because prices are sticky. These frictions introduce wedges between the change in domestic producers’ costs and border prices following an exchange rate shock, and the response of domestic consumption retail prices. Using firm and transaction data from Chile, I document that domestic frictions account for 60% of the overall insensitivity of domestic CPI. Moreover, the presence of domestic frictions also impacts the sensitivity of domestic CPI: contrary to previous literature, most of the sensitivity arises from the direct consumption of imported final goods, rather than through the costs associated to imported inputs in the production of domestic goods. This is because domestic frictions dampen the response of domestically produced goods more significantly. In addition, I quantify a rich heterogeneity in the sensitivity across products, which stems from the interaction of domestic frictions and import exposure. These heterogeneities are relevant for the overall (in)sensitivity, as sectors with higher import exposure face also larger frictions. Overall, my results showcase the importance of domestic frictions and their heterogeneity in studying the response of domestic prices to exchange rate fluctuations, with implications for monetary policy in open economy and redistribution dynamics. In the second chapter, “Strategic Behavior and Exchange Rate Dynamics", joint work with L. Pollio, I examine the impact of heterogeneous investors with different degrees of price impact on exchange rate behavior. The huge trading volume in the currency markets, about $6 trillions per day, is highly concentrated among the market-making desks of few large financial institutions. However, models of exchange rate determination assume that investors take the equilibrium price as given, ignoring the presence of a few large investors who recognize the price impact of their decisions and can exert pressure on market prices. We incorporate heterogeneity in price impact, following of Kyle (1989), into a two-country, dynamic monetary model of exchange rate determination. Our theory of exchange rate determination with heterogeneity in price impact reveals that market structure is a key determinant of exchange rate dynamics. Strategic investors recognize their price impact, which leads them to trade less on any information and reduce the information loading factor of the exchange rate (price informativeness). The presence of strategic investors explains the weak explanatory power of macroeconomics variables in predicting exchange rates (exchange rate disconnect puzzle) and the excess volatility of the exchange rate relative to fundamentals (excess volatility puzzle). We also provide empirical evidence that supports our theoretical predictions by using trading volume concentration data from the NY Fed FXC Reports for 18 currencies from 2005 to 2019. We extend our theoretical framework to include another dimension of heterogeneity among investors, information heterogeneity, that provides similar qualitative predictions in terms of exchange rate dynamics. We demonstrate that both dimensions of heterogeneity are quantitatively relevant in explaining the disconnect of exchange rates and their excess volatility. In the third chapter, “The Quality of US Imports and the Consumption Gains from Globalization", joint work with D. Lashkari, I examine the role of quality improvement in shaping the gains from trade. The existing empirical literature indicates that globalization has offered consumers around the world access to a wider variety of products at cheaper prices. However, since the available data typically lacks detailed information on product characteristics, we may underestimate the value of imports for consumers if the quality of goods within each product rises over time. To overcome this limitation, we propose a novel methodology to estimate demand elasticity and infer unobserved quality using only data on prices and market shares. Our approach builds on the standard framework that models product quality as residual demand. This framework requires estimating price elasticities and the standard approach assumes CES demand and imposes uncorrelated supply and demand shocks. However, the latter assumption is untenable if we associate demand shocks with quality and generates an upward bias in the estimates of price elasticities. Our strategy circumvents this problem by restricting the dynamics of product quality to a Markov process. We apply our new methodology to the US customs data (1989-2006), and find that quality improvements contribute the most to the gains from trade in the US. Quality improvements have lowered the price of US imports relative to the CPI by 17%, with Chinese products contributing the most. In comparison, import prices have fallen by around 11% relative to the CPI and increasing variety has contributed an additional 4%. These findings demonstrate that accounting for quality is essential to better understand and measure the effects of international trade.Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2023.Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.Discipline: Economics
Cutting Out the Fat: Fatphobia and Vegan Embodiment
Get PDFThesis advisor: Stephen J. PfohlUsing qualitative data from semi-structured interviews with vegans of diverse backgrounds and body types, this study aims to investigate how vegans understand their own bodies and the bodies of others in relation to their consumptive practices and habits. The context of fatphobia in vegan activist spaces and communities surrounds this research as a tension within veganism that helps to elucidate the ways vegans use and engage with their bodies, further helping to understand not only vegan embodiment but also how fat vegans navigate these tensions with their own bodies. Vegans often engage with veganism as a tool for better understanding their own bodies and the social identities their bodies are associated with. This reflexivity causes them to not only concern themselves with how they relate to their own bodies but also with how others view and perceive their bodies. Thus, vegans respond to anxieties and fears about these perceptions by constructing their bodies in opposition to the stereotypes others apply to them (unhealthiness, preachiness, militancy, etc.). This may result in the exclusion of some bodies which are socially understood as fitting these roles (such as fat bodies as unhealthy) and, further, the ethical nature of vegan practices also causes these bodies to be seen as immoral or especially indulgent. This research helps to understand more precisely how vegans act as bodies in promoting their veganism and how they sometimes exclude other bodies in their attempts to defend vegan bodies.Thesis (MA) — Boston College, 2023.Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.Discipline: Sociology
Timescales of Oceanic Lithosphere Hydration: Constraints from Rodingites, Apennines, Italy
Get PDFThesis advisor: Ethan BaxterSerpentinites assume a critical role in geochemical and geophysical cycles, from recycling fluid into the sub-arc mantle to facilitating exhumation within subduction zones. Rodingite dikes can be used as a lens to investigate the hydration of the oceanic lithosphere as their development is synchronous with serpentinization, and while serpentinites lack sufficient mineral phases for geochronology, rodingite dikes are rich in andradite and grossular garnet which are potentially amenable for geochronology. This research seeks to constrain the timescales and duration of hydration of the oceanic lithosphere within the Alpine Tethys ocean basin, and associated serpentinization, by examining Apennines rodingites from the Internal Ligurides (Italy). These rodingites experienced seafloor hydrothermal alteration and were obducted onto the continental margin during Alpine orogenesis. As a result, they are ideal for studying seafloor metasomatism as they were not affected by prograde subduction zone metamorphism and dehydration. Sr isotopic and trace element profiles were constructed across two rodingite-serpentinite transects, revealing a complex, multi-stage hydration history consisting of 1) Widespread serpentinization, 2) Gabbroic intrusions, 3) Rodingitization, and 4) Localized, late-stage advective fluid flow. Serpentinizing fluids locally display strong continental crustal isotopic signatures, while rodingitization fluids are characterized by seawater-like values. U-Pb geochronology on rodingite garnets produced an age of 96.1 ± 8.9 Ma, which could represent either the main rodingitization phase or the late-stage advective alteration.Thesis (MS) — Boston College, 2023.Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.Discipline: Earth and Environmental Sciences
Paul’s 'σθένεια as an Embodied Experience of Decentering: A Reading of 2 Cor 10-13
No full textThesis advisor: Angela Kim HarkinsThesis advisor: Mary Rose D'AngeloPaul of Tarsus has been considered a prominent figure in early Christianity, and his writings are major influence for the Western Christianity. Traditional interpretations of Paul as a heroic and authoritative figure have neglected his personal experiences, particularly his embodiment of weakness. In this thesis, I suggest that Paul’s embodied experience of weakness appears as the axis that articulates his argument in 2 Cor 10-13. I argue that if we take Paul’s weakness seriously, it turns out to be a decentering experience because he is claiming for a spot within the community as one-among-others, and not as its authoritative hero. The thesis is divided in three consecutive chapters. The first chapter of the thesis discusses the interpretative tradition of 2 Cor 10-13, highlighting how the major interpreters of the letter have shifted from rhetorical and linguistic perspectives to culturally embodied analyses that acknowledge Paul’s weakness. The second chapter examines the usage and function of weakness in Paul’s social and literary context as a Second Temple Jew and minister in Corinth. I discuss how the term 'σθένεια was employed in various texts from Greco-Roman, Second Temple Judaism, and early Christianity backgrounds and explores how diverse are the meanings regarding this word. The third chapter delves into how reading 2 Cor 10-13 through the lens of Paul’s weakness decenters him from an authoritative figure. I argue that the discussion in the letter of tears revolves around Paul’s identity, recognition of the Corinthians as agents in the discussion, and Paul’s claim for a spot as one-among-others in the community. Finally, I present conclusions to the study and ecclesiological projections of reading the Pauline correspondence through the decentering-Paul project’s eyes.Thesis (STL) — Boston College, 2023.Submitted to: Boston College. School of Theology and Ministry.Discipline: Sacred Theology
Revisiting Youth Participatory Action Research Through Leadership, Activities, and Impact: A Meta-Synthesis
No full textThesis advisor: Brinton LykesThis study used a systematic meta-synthesis methodology to explore and expand upon the field of youth participatory action research (YPAR) through synthesizing findings for a change-oriented audience interested in how YPAR has been and can be leveraged to support youth outcomes reported in current and future YPAR academic literature. With that in mind, I screened, coded, and synthesized studies using both inductive and deductive processes to support my meta-synthesis. This included defining, and systematically searching databases for keywords, screening the academic literature, assessing the quality of the literature, and extracting and presenting the formal data before undergoing detailed thematic analysis and validation. Of the 153 non-duplicated English-language US-based YPAR sources read and analyzed for fit, 20 distinct studies were included in the final sample. These studies were coded for documented reports of youth-led research activities and youth-directed change. A description and analysis of YPAR principles, project and contextual characteristics, study methods, and reported youth outcomes are included. Analyses confirmed that this YPAR literature emphasized youth leadership in problem-posing and data collection contexts, with fewer studies involving youth in leading the data analysis and reporting the academic findings. Moreover, while thereare many studies that report a change as part of the desired action, there are fewer that explicitly explore how the youth understand the change as being aligned with their interests ‒ or that show the youth seeing the change through to the end of their involvement with the project. While most common outcomes associated with participation in YPAR were related to the discussion of youth leadership, followed by academic or social changes, interpersonal outcomes were also explored through discussions about the importance of youth involvement in YPAR. Additionally, more recent research has tended to emphasize the role of change (also called “action” or “impact”) and youth’s protagonism in exploring if the actions that the YPAR studies initiated are beneficial to the youth’s own goals, versus more general goals or outcomes. This meta-synthesis provided increasing support for the role of YPAR in fostering some of the skills and competencies youth wish to acquire and that their teachers, mentors, etc. seek for them. This dissertation offers a methodological discussion on YPAR that can provide greater evidence of YPAR’s contributions to youth outcomes, where youth’s protagonism is explored as a contributing factor for the shifts in intrapersonal, relational, and contextual outcomes. Throughout the dissertation, this meta-synthesis offers suggestions as to implications for research, practice, and policy.Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2023.Submitted to: Boston College. Lynch School of Education.Discipline: Counseling, Developmental and Educational Psychology