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Constructing the European Union's budget : origins, continuities, and consequences
No full textDefence date: 23 February 2024Examining Board: Prof. Philipp Genschel (Bremen University, Former European University Institute, Supervisor); Prof. Erik Jones (European University Institute); Prof. Miriam Hartlapp (Freie Universität Berlin); Prof. Lucia Quaglia (University of Bologna)The European Union's budget is a transfer budget, unlike the budget of a fiscal (federal) state. Its role is to maintain a level of equality between member states and to sustain the functioning of the single market. But the ongoing agreement and institutionalisation of welfare related spending takes place at the national level and within national communities. The emergence of this transfer budget is not an incidental process. We know that member states are reluctant to integrate core state powers, and fiscal powers are core state powers. But the categorisation does not explain why and how member states have retained power over their fiscal capacities over the last seven decades. Based upon freshly collected archival material covering the time span from 1950 until 1979, five case studies show that preventing the integration of fiscal capacities was achieved through active political work by the member states. A period of institutional openness between 1950 and the 1970s shaped a path-dependency that, from then on, was not altered anymore but only reinforced. This pathdependency, here referred to as an underlying budgetary logic, steers what is considered appropriate for the budget. Maintaining this logic allows member states to predict their gains and losses through their budgetary contribution, the juste retour dynamic. Changes in the budget system frequently take place, but the underlying budgetary logic always remains the same. When there is a functional need for budgetary instruments that do not follow this logic, for example to stabilise the single market or to facilitate aid in times of crisis, the EU institutions resort to two strategies that can be traced throughout European budgetary history. Either they agree on budgetary instruments outside of the budget in fiscal galaxies, or they temporarily deviate from the underlying budgetary logic, which in the long-run safeguards the underlying budgetary logic.Chapter 1 'The budget of the European Union : origins, continuities and consequences' and chapter 4 'The unusual case of the European Coal and Steel Community's budget' of the PhD thesis draws upon an earlier version published as article 'Revisiting early fiscal centralisation in the European Coal and Steel Community in light of the EU's transfer budget' (2023) in the journal 'Politics and governance'
Three essays on Russian political migration following the 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine
No full textDefence date: 01 October 2024Examining Board: Prof. Miriam Golden (European University Institute, Supervisor); Prof. Elias Dinas (European University Institute); Prof. Grigore Pop-Eleches (Princeton University); Prof. Timothy Frye (Columbia University)Up to one million Russians emigrated during 2022-2023 after the invasion of Ukraine, driven by dissent, fear of repression, or economic crisis. This exodus is considered the biggest brain drain from Russia since Soviet Union’s collapse, and already in 2022 had consequences on economies and policies of hosting societies. This dissertation explores the dynamics of Russian migration following the Ukraine invasion, through three interconnected studies leveraging unique survey data from over 10,000 migrants across 100 countries, collected between March 2022 and April 2024. The research integrates insights from authoritarianism studies, political psychology, and migration studies, alongside advanced survey methodologies. The first paper, co-authored with Emil Kamalov, develops a model describing interactions between autocrats, exile organizations, and migrants. Findings from conjoint experiments suggest that, despite potential risks from autocratic crackdowns, criminalized exile organizations attract migrant support mainly through perceived effectiveness and authenticity. However, cooperation declines when donations are traceable or when organizational transparency is lacking. The second study examines the impact of nationality-based discrimination on migrants’ integration decisions. Utilizing panel data and qualitative analysis, it confirms that discrimination signals non-acceptance by host communities, thereby discouraging integration. The response to discrimination varies: some migrants withdraw or relocate, while others reduce assimilation efforts, especially when residing in what they consider temporary host countries. In the third paper, Kamalov and I revisit cumulative migration theories to understand how diaspora networks influence migration during crises. The study investigates which migrants are prioritized for assistance by their communities, applying the deservingness framework. Results indicate that political opposition and persecuted individuals, including ethnic minorities impacted by the war, are prioritized for support, highlighting a solidarity-driven selection process that transcends coethnic biases
Catering for communists : de-Stalinization and the socialist food service industry in the USSR
No full textDefence date: 07 June 2024Examining Board: Prof. Alexander Etkind (Central European University; European University Institute, Supervisor); Prof. Federico Romero (European University Institute); Prof. Vanessa Voisin (Università di Bologna); Prof. François-Xavier Nérard (Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne)In the Soviet planned economy, lunch too was planned. This dissertation studies Soviet policies with regards to the socialist food service industry (obshchestvennoe pitanie), a network of state-run food service enterprises. It zeroes in on the Soviet government’s engagement with this sector during the years following the death of dictator Joseph Stalin in 1953. It shows that the official agenda of deStalinization had consequences for food service in the USSR—the network of canteens was expanded, self-service was introduced, and the culinary cadres was professionalized. As such it contributes to the burgeoning field that studies consumer culture in the USSR. Historians in this field have long argued that one aspect of de-Stalinization was a “consumerist turn” on the part of the Soviet government, which consisted in the latter’s prioritization of the production of consumer goods and services over heavy industry. However, historians have yet to study what institutional changes this led to. This dissertation offers an institutional perspective and approaches the socialist food service industry from the view of the Soviet central government. It treats food service enterprises as political institutions that served multiple ends: allocating efficiently scarce foodstuffs, keeping workers’ bodies healthy, and liberating women from domestic work. The dissertation demonstrates that these three goals had motivated Soviet authorities to organize and maintain a food service industry since Russian Civil War. After Stalin’s death, however, the improvement of food service became a centerpiece of the policy to increase the standard of living in the USSR and garner political legitimacy for the post-Stalinist leadership. The dissertation relies on a variety of sources, many of which have not been used in previous historical research. It pieces the history of the socialist food service industry together from magazines, newspapers, handbooks, recipe books, stenographic reports of speeches, archived policy documents, statistics, and photographs
Traumatic globalization : the fall of the Franco regime and the rise of the Big Four group in the years of the oil shocks (1973-1982)
No full textDefence date: 09 February 2024Examining Board: Prof. Federico Romero (Università degli Studi di Firenze, Supervisor); Prof. Glenda Sluga (European University Institute, Second Reader); Prof. Mario Del Pero (Institut d'études politiques de Paris); Prof. N. Piers Ludlow (London School of Economics and Political Science)The world evolves in twists and turns, and not even the simplest of lives or the humblest of regions are spared from this evolution. Such is one of the lessons of contemporary globalization. Growing economic interdependence, the rise of international finance, or the shaking of post-Cold War international relations are all emblematic elements of a global order that is now destabilized and destabilizing. In the face of this reality, tracing the origins of contemporary globalization has been one of the central tasks of scholarship over the past decade. This dissertation follows in the footsteps of this current in its approach to Spanish history and Western multilateralism. It sets out to explain the fall of the Franco regime and international cooperation over Spain in the 1970s in the light of the radical new challenges confronting the world on the wake of the 1973 oil shock. One main conclusion stands out: it was the world economic crisis in the 1970s that led the Franco regime to its final crisis. It was also this force, and the exhaustion of the Cold War consensus in Europe, that compelled the American, French, West German, and British governments to work together on Spain. Why the Franco regime fell the way it did, what were the main challenges facing post-Franco Spain, why the Big Four group emerged to coordinate Western strategies toward Spain, and how this new form of cooperation evolved over time are all questions that this thesis explores by looking at the foundations of the post-war multilateral order and its demise in an increasingly globalized world. This is not a triumphalist story of globalization, however. Viewing Spain's recent past through the lens of capitalism and the Cold War seeks not only to understand Spanish history and international cooperation in a global light. Crucially, it also reveals how Spain's profound changes during the tumultuous 1970s lie behind many of the country's political and economic problems today.Chapter 2 'Coming with the dust. The oil shock, the
Southern Flank Crisis, and the slow transformation of
Western multilateralism (1973-summer 1974)' of the PhD thesis draws upon an earlier version published as an article 'Between détente and the shock of the global : the late Franco regime and its meaning for transatlantic relations (1975)' (2022) in the journal 'Journal of transatlantic studies'
One common assembly of people : the self-governing rural communities of the southeast Adriatic (1680s-1760s)
No full textDefence date: 02 December 2024Examining Board: Prof. Giancarlo Casale (European University Institute, Supervisor); Prof. Ann Thomson (European University Institute); Prof. Vera Costantini (Ca' Foscari University); Prof. Egidio Ivetic (University of Padua)The subject matter of this thesis are the self-governing rural communities of the Veneto-Ottoman southeast Adriatic frontier in the period from the late 17th to the late 18th century. Special attention among these is given to early modern Montenegro, the kernel of the eponymous present-day state. Against a historiographical tradition which was focused on the genesis of the modern statehood and national idea, this thesis is primarily interested in early modern Montenegro as one of the many such rural self-governing polities which seem to have thrived on both sides of the border. The thesis seeks to recover and understand these polities as specific subjects of frontier politics, and to do so in terms which were available to their own inhabitants to represent their subjectivity, agency, and their communal institutions. The rural communities are observed in interaction between themselves and with other subjects of frontier politics—the Venetian and Ottoman state representatives and the urban and ecclesiastical elites of the frontier area—as this interaction is recorded in the textual material produced through collaboration and confrontation between those parties. The common space of textual representation, sustained by shared ideas, practices, and circulation of letters, permits us to piece together the ordinary features of rural communal subjectivity and agency. The thesis argues that rural communal subjectivity is best defined through the institution of communal assembly and through the special services (e.g. military service) which such assemblies could perform for the early modern state in exchange for status and privilege. The full form of communal self-government comprised direct subordination to state representatives and standing administrative and judicial bodies within their assemblies. In their internal and intercommunal affairs, these assemblies functioned by delegating and authorising members to act in the name of the collective
The Apocalypsis Nova and early modern prophetic discourse
No full textDefence date: 31 January 2024Examining Board: Prof. Jorge Flores (European University Institute); Prof. Ann Thomson (European University Institute); Prof. Fernando Rodríguez Mediano (Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas); Prof. Stefania Pastore (Scuola Normale Superiore)At the beginning of the 16th century, some of the most important figures of Renaissance Rome gathered around a recent discovery. At the church of San Pietro in Montorio, the cardinal and ambassador de facto of the Spanish Catholic Kings, Bernardino López de Carvajal, and his most trusted acquaintances congregated in secret. There, after a private mass, the cardinal ordered to open and to read out the content of the freshly discovered manuscript. The sealed book contained the revelations allegedly given to a Franciscan friar of Portuguese origins, the so called Beato Amadeo Mendez da Silva (1420-1482), confessor of Pope Sixtus IV and a prominent member of the Franciscan order. His revelations, written in first person, are built around a series of raptures containing the conversation between Amadeo and the angel Gabriel about theological, exegetical and sacred history issues. The exact title and contents of that original manuscript are unknown: however, under the name of Apocalypsis Nova (“new revelation”), an alleged version of these raptures quickly gained great popularity and diffusion.Chapter 3 'Surget rex magnus cum magno pastore:” millenarianist readings of the Ap. N.' of the PhD thesis draws upon an earlier version published as an article 'From the "pastor angelicus" to the "rex magnus" : messianism and prophecy during the Iberian expansion in America' (2019) in 'Rivista storica italiana
Tribal justice struggle and resilience in Syria : societal justice beyond legal centralism
No full textDefence date: 11 March 2024Examining Board: Prof. Nehal Bhuta (University of Edinburgh; European University Institute, External Supervisor); Prof. Tobias Kelly (University of Edinburgh); Prof. Anver Emon (University of Toronto); Prof. Claire Kilpatrick (European University Institute)The thesis focuses on studying tribal justice in Syria and its resilience, adaptation, and transformation through a complete cycle of governance, from pre-state to a failed state. Drawing on primary sources obtained through conducting in-depth, semi-structured interviews with tribal members, legal and social figures, the research focuses on two central topics: tribal judiciary’s interaction with state law from the 19th century to the present, and tribal justice’s interaction with a non-state law, i.e. Shari’a, after the 2011 Syrian Uprising, where the thesis focuses on the case of Idlib in the northwest of Syria. Using the lenses of legal pluralism theory, the research demonstrates how tribal people engaged in the legal sphere in practice and how their interaction with other legal regimes led to the modification and hybridization of their judiciary norms, rather than the desertion of their jural system. Given the state law historical stance towards monopolizing and occupying all aspects of the legal sphere, the state law in Syria either assimilated or illegalized tribal justice, depending on the central state in power. The Shari’a on the other hand, which is another nonstate and uncodified law, as it was mostly applied in Idlib, built collaboration with tribal justice, both spontaneous before the hegemony of HTS and systematic after HTS’s control. The tribes’ interaction with state law induced adequate alterations in their practices and encouraged tribal people to negotiate their legal standing with the state formally and informally. At the same time, the tribes’ interconnection with Shari’a, pushed the tribes to accept further hybridization in their judicial practices to hold onto their position in the legal sphere. The research reveals how the legal subjects within the tribes actively shape their legal reality. They exercise agency by selectively choosing and even combining elements from various legal orders. It is the legal subjects themselves who opt to preserve their tribal justice and choose resorting to it over other available legal orders. This study emphasizes that legal pluralism is not merely a passive coexistence of different legal orders, but a dynamic process where legal systems influence and reshape each other, with individuals within tribal communities playing a pivotal role in defining their legal identities
Social investment reform in Europe : from policy adoption to design and implementation
No full textDefence date: 04 October 2024Examining Board: Prof. Anton Hemerijck (European University Institute, Supervisor); Prof. Waltraud Schelkle (European University Institute); Prof. Giuliano Bonoli (University of Lausanne); Dr. Rossella Ciccia (University of Oxford)In this thesis I investigate processes of social investment reform in Europe. The four empirical chapters respond to several research questions. Chapters 2 and 3 contribute to the literature on the determinants of welfare state reform, focussing on social investment. Specifically, the chapters address the question of why (and how) social investment reform happens (or does not). Chapters 4 and 5 proceed to investigate the delivery of social investment programmes. Chapter 4 engages with debates about social investment and the generation of “Matthew Effects”. By exploring the potential of vocational education and training as inclusive social investment, the chapter asks: what are the main challenges to making social investment inclusive? It then identifies ways in which these challenges can be mitigated. Chapter 4 addresses the related question of policy outcomes, this time from the perspective of governance frameworks. Concretely, it analyses which actors deliver social investment and how this might impact policy outcomes. In Chapter 2 I illustrate that favourable demographics and sustained economic growth have blunted the imperative for social investment reform in Ireland. Notwithstanding, I also show that even in the unfavourable austerity climate following the 2008 Great Recession, social investment reform retained some momentum. I show that in the case of Ireland the Great Recession paradoxically provided a window of opportunity for social investment expansion, even if elsewhere – notably in southern Europe - it has been associated with bringing expansion to a grinding halt. I then show that a second crisis, the Covid-19 pandemic, exposed deficiencies in the early childhood education and care system and precipitated systemic reform. I reveal through interviews that bureaucrats were influential in initiating reforms and in shaping policy in a context of limited reform politicisation by partisan elites. In Chapter 3 I focus on the territorial dimension of social investment. I find that the prima facie exceptional performance of Spain in early childhood education and care conceals widespread inequality of provision at the regional level. Investments by regional governments to expand provision thus emerges as an explanation for Spain’s performance. I subsequently explain variation at the regional level. I find that different levels of provision are explained by regional socio-economic, political and demographic conditions and their interactions. The chapter demonstrates that when it comes to social investment services, developed and delivered in subnational territories, we often find significant heterogeneity within countries. In doing so I make the case for research approaches which move beyond the prevailing methodological nationalism found in the literature. Chapters 2 and 3 also call into question the assumption that social investment is pursued only under left-wing governments. In both cases, I find evidence of reform regardless of the ideology of governing parties. The success of reform is, crucially, contingent on successful policy design and implementation. Taking this perspective, in Chapters 4 and 5 I proceed to evaluate the design and implementation of social investment programmes. In Chapter 4 I assess the design and implementation of an initial vocational education and training programme in Scotland. I find that implementation has been hindered by features typical of liberal skills formation systems, as well as operational challenges. The programme has also generated Matthew Effects which undermine the objective of social inclusion. Notwithstanding, I find that high level vocational qualifications have been widely accepted by students and parents and are contributing to increasing the supply of high-level vocational skills in areas of current and projected labour market shortages. I additionally show that lower-level vocational qualifications provide a complementary social inclusion function and compensate for the generation of Matthew Effects. The chapter suggests that there is a trade-off between making vocational education and training appealing to students and parents and achieving social inclusion in liberal skills formation systems. In the final empirical chapter (Chapter 5), co-authored with Lorenzo Mascioli, I turn to the EU’s Cohesion Policy. We operationalise the concept of subsidiarity to study the delivery of Cohesion Policy projects with a social agenda. Projects include social investment-type employment support, skills training and upskilling. We present evidence of diverse morphologies of delivery, which are composed of different territorial levels of governance and sectors of society, in Italy, Portugal and Spain. We suggest that these morphologies, which we call “Spaces of Subsidiarity”, and which partly reflect the governance of domestic social policy, have important implications for policy processes and outcomes. We conclude by proposing that research on the heterogenous impact of Cohesion Policy across member states would be advanced by considering governance arrangements as an explanatory variable. The empirical chapters illustrate, in a cumulative fashion, that social investment has become the main reform trajectory of European welfare states. That we find evidence of social investment even in cases consistent with the least likely logic of case selection provides strong evidence for this claim. I attribute this to the functional pressures exerted by structural socioeconomic changes, which encourage policymakers to turn to social investment as a policy solution. This perspective ultimately views policymaking as a response to policy problems and indicates that social investment appeals to different political parties, producer groups and governing institutions. The chapters also illustrate that policy design and implementation – and the actors responsible for these stages of the policy process – can make or break the success of social investment. I find that careful policy design and implementation – and constant policy monitoring and revision – can help to avoid, or compensate for, the generation of Matthew Effects. I conclude, however, with a note of caution. The chapters highlight that social investment reforms tend to be piecemeal and restricted to single policy sectors rather than recalibration which aligns policies which fulfil complementary welfare state functions. This raises doubts about the possibilities of realising complementarities and threatens to undermine social investment as a policy paradigm for contemporary welfare states.Chapter 5 'Spaces of subsidiarity : a comparative inquiry into the social agenda of cohesion policy' of the PhD thesis draws upon an earlier version published as an article 'Spaces of subsidiarity : a comparative inquiry into the social agenda of Cohesion Policy' (2023) in 'Solical policy and administration
Understanding Russia’s legalism : challenging and reproducing western hegemony in the fight against terrorism
No full textDefence date: 11 June 2024Examining Board: Prof. Jennifer Welsh (McGill University, Former European University Institute, Supervisor); Prof. Julie Wilhelmsen (Norwegian Institute of International Affairs, Co-supervisor); Prof. Stephanie Hofmann (European University Institute); Prof. Iver Neumann (University of Oslo)This thesis investigates how Russia views the role of the West in the fight against terrorism and how these representations contribute to Russia’s international positioning. While cooperation in fighting terrorism is often described as one of the rare successes in Russia–West relations during the Putin era, existing literature contains very little sustained analysis of Russian discourse on and representations of ‘the West’ in this domain, how these representations have evolved and connect to Russian identity, and how they shape Russia’s international and domestic policies. Assuming that these representations may yield significant power and even gain the status of objective knowledge, this thesis starts by mapping how the West has been portrayed in the Russian discourse on terrorism in two important moments of the so-called War on Terror: 2001 and 2015. The analysis reveals a central contradiction in the discourse: while Russia advocates collaboration with the West, it simultaneously blames the West for facilitating — or even encouraging — terrorism. The dissertation then advances two arguments about the shape and role of this discourse. First, it argues that ‘legalism’— the practice of using law to explain, justify or contest policies — has enabled key Russian actors to promote this contradictory narrative on the West. Second, it argues that Russia’s legalism displaces key moral and political issues and serves as the lowest common denominator that can connect Russia to ‘universal’ norms and values. Through investigations of Russia’s involvement in Chechnya, Syria and Central Asia, the findings show that legalism provides Russia with a flexible framework for inter-state cooperation that makes little distinction between democratic and authoritarian states. The findings further suggest that Russian security discourse under Putin is best conceived as a set of tactical, short-term interventions that seek to challenge Western foreign policies on their own terms rather than strategic interventions that change the West’s more fundamental premises. On this basis, the thesis argues that Russian legalistic discourse on the West and terrorism contributes to reproducing Russia’s position in the imperial order: Russia seeks to speak on behalf of postcolonial states victimized by ‘illegal’ Western interventionism while at the same time subjugating those it perceives as subordinate actors in both the domestic and international spheres. By employing legalism as a standard of civilization, Russia is appropriating ‘universal’ international law to challenge the so-called rules-based order. Through its sustained analysis of legalism, the thesis therefore makes an important contribution to various literatures on Russian foreign and security policy.Chapter 4 'Research design, methods and methodology : the ethics of representation and text selection: specters of the 'Putinversteher'' of the PhD thesis draws upon an earlier version published as article 'The normative security dilemma in making sense of the Kremlin' (2023) in the 'Journal of international relations and development'
From the feminist void to the feminist club : three essays on feminists movements and social change
No full textDefence date: 13 June 2024Examining Board: Prof. Elias Dinas (European University Institute, Supervisor); Prof. Simon Hix (European University Institute); Prof. Marta Fraile (Spanish National Research Council); Prof. Catherine E. De Vries (Bocconi University)The author has been awarded the 2024 Juan Linz Award for her PhD thesis.This dissertation examines the influence of feminist movements in bringing social change, specifically on violence against women, women’s representation, and the social acceptance of feminists’ demands. The first chapter, motivates and summarizes the main contributions. The second chapter, ‘We Are Your Pack: Feminist Movements on the Social Sanctioning of Violence against Women’, examines the effects of the International Women’s Day protests in Spain on societal responses to gender-based violence. The findings indicate that feminist protests have significantly increased both the reporting of violence and societal support for victims. The second chapter, ‘We March, She Runs? The Impact of Protest’s Movements on the Nomination of political minorities’ with Alba Huidobro, takes again the case of International Women’s Day protests in Spain. We assess their effects at the political level, examining the impact of feminist protests on parties’ nomination of female candidates. We find that parties react strategically to protests by placing women candidates in visible positions without challenging party leadership. The third chapter, ‘The Intrusion of Value Change: Mass Media and the Normalization of Contested Issues’ with Elias Dinas, focuses on what can make feminist movements popular in the first place. We follow the case of Argentina and the campaign for abortion rights, exploring the role of first movers in changing the political narrative around contested issues. We find that mass media triggered the political agenda around abortion by breaking the social stigma around this issue