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Remnants of kin : three essays on kin loss
No full textDefence date: 07 June 2024Examining Board: Prof. Juho Härkonen (European Uiversity Institute, Supervisor); Prof. Arnout Van De Rijt (European University Institute, Co-supervisor); Prof. Pearl Dykstra (Erasmus University Rotterdam); Prof. Andreas Motel-Klingebiel (Linköping University)This dissertation examines kinship loss, its impact on socioeconomic trajectories, and kinship composition in Sweden through three empirical studies. Chapter 2 sheds light on the labor market implications of sibling bereavement, documenting an 8% reduction in survivors' gross earnings. This finding highlights the importance of siblings as a resource that affects labor market outcomes. Chapter 3 examines the timing of retirement, a pressing concern in the context of an aging population. The study contributes by incorporating kin loss, a previously neglected event, into retirement models. The chapter reveals the extent to which the death of a family member accelerates retirement, highlighting the profound influence of family ties and gendered relationship dynamics on important life course decisions. Chapter 4 analyzes the kinship networks of migrants, primarily from the Global South, and highlights the unique challenges posed by their often geographically dispersed and transnational family ties. Using sophisticated microsimulation forecasting techniques, I find a "double burden" for future elderly migrants, characterized by economic vulnerability and a lack of informal caregiving support. This chapter compares the availability of family support and economic resources between native and migrant elders, highlighting the uneven distribution of kin. Overall, the dissertation highlights the role of kinship in shaping economic outcomes and the availability of kinship resources. This is a call for policymakers to create nuanced social policies that are sensitive to the complex fabric of kinship amidst changing demographics
Human rights in the midst of intelligent humanoid robots’ rise : the good, the bad, and the uncertain
No full textDefence date: 22 April 2024Examining Board: Prof. Giovanni Sartor (European University Institute; University of Bologna, Supervisor); Prof. Marc Rotenberg (Georgetown University; Center for AI and Digital policy, External Co-supervisor); Prof. Ugo Pagallo (Università degli Studi di Torino); Prof. Hans-Wolfgang Micklitz (European University Institute)The recent progress in Artificial Intelligence (AI) has inspired a remarkable transformation in Intelligent Humanoid Robots (IHRs). These human replicas are purposefully designed to mimic human appearance and actions. As they interact with individuals, they might pose great potential positive and negative impacts on their human rights, e.g., the right to privacy and non-discrimination. In this thesis I explore the relevant ethical and human rights issues in the context of IHRs, which the AI and human rights literature has not yet adequately addressed. I argue that the aesthetics, presence in private spaces, and the perception of IHRs by individuals as animate beings, pose threats and afford opportunities for human rights and ethical values, particularly privacy as broadly understood. Furthermore, I argue that, as a distinct AI and robotic technology, IHRs have the potential to exploit human vulnerabilities for, e.g., the elderly and individuals with physical and mental disabilities, thus, they deserve a particular attention from the human rights scholarship. As a representative case, I pay particular attention to elderly care robots. I contribute to the AI and human rights literature in 3 interrelated ways: 1) I create a classification of privacy to provide a comprehensive understanding of how privacy is impacted by IHRs. This classification includes elements such as informational, physical, mental, and social privacy, among others. 2) I conduct qualitative interviews with leading technologists, roboticists, and AI experts to gain insight into the present and potential trajectory of IHRs. The findings of these interviews reveal the following issues: 1) growing concerns about the urgency to understand the ramifications of AI/IHRs on human rights, particularly the right to privacy, 2) human-centric AI was considered as an appropriate approach to supervise the development of IHRs/AI, and 3) regulating AI/IHRs was preferred by most of the interviewees. 3) Based on this analysis, I propose a “Human Rights-Centred Approach,” which I consider as a unifying universal approach to design and deploy human rights-respecting IHRs. I suggest that: 1) human rights can inform use the challenges and opportunities raised by IHRs, and 2) incorporating human rights in the process of design and developing IHRs should be of essential importance.Chapter 5 'An exploration of the dual nature of intelligent humanoid robots and privacy' of the PhD thesis draws upon an earlier version published as an article ''A robot is watching you' : humanoid robots and the different impacts on privacy' (2021) in the journal 'Masaryk University journal of law and technology'
The effects of political regimes on school quality and learning outcomes
No full textDefence date: 02 February 2024Examining Board: Prof. Juho Härkönen (European University Institute, Supervisor); Prof. Filip Kostelka (European University Institute, Co-supervisor); Prof. Sirianne Dahlum (University of Oslo); Prof. Katerina Tertytchnaya (University of Oxford)Diana Rafailova has been awarded with the 2024 Linz Rokkan Prize for the best European University Institute doctoral thesis in Political sociologyDemocracies invest more in mass education and have higher school enrollment and attendance compared to autocracies, but prior research has not found a positive relationship between democracy and average student achievement. With a focus on students’ learning outcomes and adults’ cognitive abilities, this dissertation expands prior research to examine the nuanced role of political regimes in predicting school quality. Study 1 explores how countries respond to poor student achievement revealed in the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). Based on the analysis of PISA scores, both democracies and autocracies react to students’ underachievement by subsequently improving their performance and by increasing public expenditure on schools. Study 2 investigates the subject-specific effects of political regimes on student achievement and argues that, unlike democratic governments, autocrats do not cultivate critical thinking. Employing the largest country-level dataset of students’ learning outcomes, time-series cross-sectional regression analysis shows the positive effects of democracy on students’ scores in subjects that require critical thinking, but not in those that require subjectspecific knowledge. Multilevel analysis of individual-level performance in separate PISA tasks provides more fine-grained evidence that democracy is positively associated with critical thinking abilities even after controlling for students’ socio-economic backgrounds. Complementarily, a qualitative case study of Russia illustrates the mechanisms that can discourage critical thinking under autocratic rule. To go beyond adolescents’ learning outcomes, Study 3 focuses on how political regimes promote adult cognitive skills not only during compulsory schooling but also through higher levels of education. Drawing on large-scale individual-level Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC) data on cognitive skills, cross-sectional regression analysis shows that more education received under democracy predicts better proficiency of adults who advance in their education. Overall, this dissertation enhances the understanding of school quality under distinct political regimes and provides meaningful insights into the role of democracy in promoting cognitive skills through different levels of formal education
Horizontal energy governance in the European Union
No full textDefence date: 30 September 2024Examining Board: Prof. Joanne Scott (European University Institute, Supervisor); Prof. Leigh Hancher (European University Institute; University of Tilburg; University of Bergen); Prof. Dirk Buschle (College of Europe); Prof. Kim Talus (University of Eastern Finland; University of Helsinki)This thesis examines how the European Union moderates between different priorities of energy policy, commonly conceptualised as the energy trilemma, which consists of the three interdependent objectives of sustainability, security, and affordability/competitiveness. It focuses on how the EU approaches the challenge of ensuring coherence and synergies between the dimensions of the trilemma via the governance instruments contained in Regulation (EU) 2018/1999 on the Governance of the Energy Union and Climate Action. This thesis argues that the Energy Union, a flagship project of the Commission led by Jean-Claude Juncker, was the most explicit attempt by the European Union to date to meaningfully engage with the trade-offs and synergies of the energy trilemma at EU level. The Energy Union's legal foundation for such 'horizontal' trilemma governance is Regulation 2018/1999. This regulation and its ambition to create trilemma coherence remain crucial despite the recent legislative changes introduced as part of the European Green Deal and REPowerEU policies, and indeed have grown more critical because later energy legislation relies on the Energy Union governance mechanism, not just to reach the EU's increased energy and climate targets, but also to efficiently align the dimensions of the energy trilemma at Union level. This thesis builds on new governance theory to identify and evaluate the use by the European Commission of the horizontal energy governance instruments put at its disposal by the Governance Regulation. It finds that the governance tools for horizontal energy trilemma governance are not used consistently or to their full potential by the European Commission and suggests ways in which these secondary law provisions could be better leveraged. Finally, this thesis argues that the primary law principle of energy solidarity has the potential of leading to greater coherence across the dimensions of the energy trilemma if leveraged through litigation or the processes anchored in the Governance Regulation.Chapter 7 'Solidarity as catalyst for horizontal energy Union governance' of the PhD thesis draws upon an earlier version published as an article 'The principle of energy solidarity : Germany v. Poland' (2022) in the journal 'Common market law review'
Youth transitions and EU integration : paths to an EU regulatory fabric for youth employment
No full textDefence date: 13 May 2024Examining Board: Prof. Claire Kilpatrick (European University Institute, Supervisor); Prof. Loïc Azoulai (European University Institute); Prof. Sacha Garben (College of Europe); Prof. Nicola Countouris (University College London)This dissertation analyses the regulation of youth employment in and by the EU. By youth employment regulation, I refer to the legal, policy and other instruments establishing a regulatory framework for young people’s transitions to work. I find that, since 1957, the EU attempts to regulate youth employment through three policy locations, put differently, threads: young people’s geographical mobility; their working conditions and work relations - youth employment law; and instruments aimed at young people’s integration into the labour market - youth employment policy. The dissertation evaluates EU youth employment regulation and its over time varying contours through three frames. First, I trace the threads’ interactions which show how social Europe’s policy locations have been mobilised in broader governance arrangements for youth employment regulation. Second, I examine the area’s Europeanisation, i.e., the capacity of EU governance arrangements to orient and de facto change domestic youth employment regulation. Third, I assess the normative ambitions of EU youth employment regulation. The thesis argues for youth employment regulation that empowers personal development, but also realises public institutions and private actors’ responsibilities to regulate the structural pressures that determine the outcomes of work transitions. Thereby, my focus on young people’s work transitions adjusts existing macro-level characterisations of social Europe, its timeline, governance arrangements and normative ambitions. It also contributes to foundational debates on labour regulation, such as the classification of work and the access to labour and social rights, the flexibilisation of labour markets and the rise of precarious work, the individualisation of labour regulation, and the role of employment policy and other policy locations outside labour law narrowly understood for this regulatory field. This analysis helps in understanding how EU regulation constitutes young people’s work transitions.Chapter 8 'Inside integration : the interweaving of EU youth employment regulation in the early 2000s' and chapter 10 'The contemporary result of integration : a regulatory fabric for youth employment in the European Union' of the PhD thesis draw upon earlier versions published as articles: 'Opportunity or threat to cohesion? : brain drain and young people’s geographical mobility in the EU' (2023) in 'EU Law live', and 'An opportunity or a threat to cohesion : brain drain, young people, and geographical mobility in the EU' (2023) in the journal 'Revue des affaires européennes'
Union humans? : the EU’s prohibitions on eugenics, reproductive cloning and heritable genome editing
No full textDefence date: 25 March 2024Examining Board: Prof. Estelle Brosset (Université d'Aix-Marseille); Prof. Claire Kilpatrick (European University Institute); Prof. Marek Safjan (Court of Justice of the European Union; University of Warsaw); Prof. Joanne Scott (European University Institute, Supervisor)This thesis exposes and explores the disconnection between the strong legal and constitutional potential of the EU’s reproductive prohibitions (on eugenics, reproductive cloning and heritable genome editing) and the political reality of bioethical subsidiarity. These prohibitions, contained in the Charter and in secondary law, are typically understood teleologically: as the result of international human rights law on the one hand, and as evidence of EU biolaw’s inexorable and continuing rise on the other. Based on legal historical and doctrinal analysis, this thesis proposes a new understanding. First, it shows that the prohibitions were enacted during the high-water mark of EU bioethics (1994-2004). Context, contestation and contingency, not inevitable inference from human rights, explain their emergence. Yet the tide has since subsided and bioethical subsidiarity now reigns. Second, it shows that the prohibitions are not only good law, but potentially very powerful. The classical interpretative techniques and the drafting history support a wide reading with constitutional ramifications. Third, it develops three paths open to the legislature. The legislature can remain inert, thereby ceding authority to the Court of Justice. It can restrain the prohibitions, repealing secondary law and seeking to limit primary law’s bite so as to return power to the Member States. Or it can take control itself by explicitly implementing the EU primary law prohibitions, thereby contributing to the construction of the EU’s identity. In developing these arguments, the thesis offers a revised history of EU biolaw as a whole. It also contributes to the history and interpretation of EU fundamental rights. Finally, it highlights the importance of rigorous historical analysis of EU law’s emergence. Alongside enriching our understanding and interpretation of that law, such analysis reveals the degree of agency that actors still enjoy – albeit in an entangled way – to write the future.Part of chapter 2 'How the three prohibitions crystallised' of the PhD thesis draws upon an earlier version published as a chapter 'Bridge to nowhere : the right to integrity and the accuracy and weight of the Charter explanations' (2024) in the book 'Building bridges in European and human rights law : essays in honour and memory of Paul Heim CMG'
Oil palm development in Dahomey/Benin : a socio-environmental history (1894-1978)
No full textDefence date: 02 February 2024Examining Board: Prof. Corinna Unger (European University Institute); Prof. Federico Romero (European University Institute); Prof. Harro Maat (Wageningen University); Prof. Julia Tischler (University of Basel)This thesis analyses the history of oil palm development in Dahomey/Benin since the French conquest of the territory until the late 1970s, with a particular focus on its socio-environmental consequences. In particular, it seeks to answer the question of why decades of efforts to increase the productivity of what was considered the country’s main wealth have not led to its prosperity. It also aims to illustrate the material and social impacts of the various development projects. Thus, the dissertation argues for the importance of the environment as a crucial subject of any history of development, while trying to take into account as much as possible the role played by actors involved 'on the ground', and by economic interests and policies 'above'. Treating development as an inherently multifaceted topic, this dissertation provides new insights into the environmental, social and colonial history of Dahomey, as well as to the economic history of the country and of palm products in general. It begins with the attempts made by French traders and the colonial administration to increase the production of the palm groves at the beginning of the twentieth century, and describes how they evolved after the First World War, when African palm products had to face Asian competition. It analyses the instruments adopted to implement the colony’s first development plan during the Great Depression, based on the selection of improved palm trees and the mechanisation of extraction, and its impact during the 1930s and the war years. It then analyses the increasingly ambitious efforts of the French in the 1950s, when the first large oil mills were built. Finally, it examines the implementation and impact on Dahomean society and the environment of the schemes carried out by independent Dahomey and funded by international development agencies and France in the 1960s and 1970s
A Scandinavian way of adoption? : a comparative historical study of transnational adoption in Denmark, Norway, and Sweden during the late half of the 20th century
No full textDefence date: 03 April 2024Examining Board: Prof. Laura Lee Downs (European University Institute); Prof. Monika Baar (European University Institute); Prof. Klaus Petersen (University of Southern Denmark); Prof. Cecilia Lindgren (Linköping University)This thesis examines transnational adoption in Denmark, Norway, and Sweden from a comparative historical perspective in the context of the Nordic welfare state. The international research on transnational adoption is heavily focused on North America. However, Denmark, Norway, and Sweden have seen some of the highest rates of transnational adoptions in the world when measured per capita, and these countries have received the most children relative to their population size. This thesis seeks to contribute to the growing scholarship on transnational adoption as well as to bring it into conversation with research on the Nordic welfare state. It uses adoption to break away from the top-down statist perspective on welfare states and demonstrate how private associations and families in Scandinavia both shape the services that they receive and play a crucial role in how these services are delivered and regulated. A main finding of this comparative study is that transnational adoption in Scandinavia has been primarily promoted by private actors (adoptive parents, associations) who successfully forced the authorities to not only accept but also assist with the adoption of foreign children from abroad during the latter half of the 20th century.Chapter 1 'Domestic Adoption and Nordic Welfare Cooperation' of the PhD thesis draws upon an earlier version published as an article ' A Great Desire for Children: The Beginning of Transnational Adoption in Denmark and Norway during the 1960’s' (2020) in the journal 'Genealogy'
Does participation follow the same logic across different types of elections? : determinants of voter turnout in national and European Parliament elections (1975-2024)
No full textPublished: 03 December 2025Do political and institutional factors influence voter turnout in the same way in national and European Parliament (EP) elections? We hypothesise that these factors exert broadly similar but asymmetrical effects, due to differing baseline turnout levels. For the purposes of this study, we conducted time-series cross-sectional analyses of an original dataset covering 508 national lower house and EP elections held in European Union member states between 1975 and 2024. Our independent variables include election frequency, based on data from 2,487 major elections and referendums held in these countries. The results support our hypotheses. Political and institutional factors exert similar effects in both election types, but their magnitude varies as hypothesised. Factors that increase participation show stronger effects in EP elections, while those that reduce turnout are more pronounced in national contests. As a secondary finding, we show that these factors account neither for the long-term turnout gap between EP and national elections nor for its recent decline.Les facteurs politiques et institutionnels influencent-ils la participation électorale de la même manière lors des élections nationales et des élections au Parlement européen ? Cet article suggère que ces facteurs exercent des effets qui sont globalement similaires mais asymétriques, en raison de niveaux de participation de base différents. Nous menons des analyses en coupe transversale temporelle à partir d’un jeu de données original couvrant 508 élections nationales et européennes organisées dans les États membres de l’Union européenne entre 1975 et 2024. Nos variables indépendantes incluent la fréquence des élections, basée sur des données concernant 2487 scrutins et référendums majeurs tenus dans ces pays. Les résultats confirment nos hypothèses. Les facteurs politiques et institutionnels produisent des effets similaires dans les deux types d’élections, mais leur intensité varie comme prévu. Les facteurs augmentant la participation ont un effet plus marqué dans les élections européennes, tandis que ceux qui la réduisent sont plus prononcés dans les scrutins nationaux. Enfin, ces facteurs n’expliquent ni l’écart persistant de participation entre les élections européennes et nationales, ni son déclin récent
Navigating revolutions and restorations : the Irish colleges in Paris and Rome between 1772 and 1849
No full textDefence date: 22 January 2024Examining Board: Prof. Lucy Riall (European University Institute, Supervisor); Prof. Ann Thomson (European University Institute); Prof. Liam Chambers (Mary Immaculate College); Prof. Colin Barr (University of Notre Dame)Scholarship on the Irish in Europe has flourished in recent decades and studies examining the network(s) of Irish Catholic continental colleges and their members have formed a significant part of this. However, much of the existing literature focuses on the early modern period, while the nineteenth century has been comparatively neglected. While patterns of Irish migration began to shift in the eighteenth century and legislation previously imposed on Catholics and dissenting Protestants in Ireland was gradually repealed, this thesis shows that these institutions and their residents remained important nodes connecting Irish people and continental Europe. Drawing on material from a mixture of state, church and newspaper archives in Paris, Rome and Ireland, this thesis builds on earlier literature and constructs a fuller analysis of the two Irish Colleges during the first half of the nineteenth century. It establishes why they proved to be so enduring; how they navigated the challenges they faced and the extent to which the nature of their role in relation to their host cities and Ireland was transformed by the process of adaptation and development. It highlights the connections and disconnections within and between the Colleges, as well as with their host cities, the broader Irish community in Europe and, of course, with Ireland itself. These relationships could be shaped—indeed in some cases strained—by the revolutions, regime changes and wars that punctuated the period, and also by political, social and economic developments back in Ireland. As Catholic institutions, the Colleges were frequently impacted by changing relations between the church and the state. Moreover, as Irish institutions composed of subjects of Britain, shifting relations between states, whether France and Britain, Britain and the Papal States or the Papal States and France, were also significant