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Forum choice in social rights mobilisation : a comparative study of Spain and the UK (2010-2020)
No full textDefence date: 03 June 2024Examining Board: Prof. Claire Kilpatrick (European University Institute, Supervisor); Prof. Bruno de Witte (European University Institute; University of Maastricht); Prof. Scott Cummings (University of California, Los Angeles); Prof. Colm O'Cinneide (University College London)This thesis explains the forum choices of civil society organisations in Spain and the UK in their legal mobilisation against austerity measures from 2010 to 2020. It also elucidates the theoretical foundations behind these choices. This research identifies the Human Rights Treaty Bodies (HRTBs) and the Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights as crucial forums for anti-austerity mobilisation. Using Legal Opportunity Structure (LOS) theory, this research emphasises the significance of access, costs, and legal stock in social rights mobilisation. However, LOS theory faces challenges in capturing nuanced actor dynamics, variations in actor engagement with ICESCR, and the involvement of 'unlikely' actors with limited resources in resource-intensive mobilisation strategies. Additionally, it struggles to explain differing forum choices between Spain and the UK despite similar opportunities. To overcome these limitations, this thesis incorporates the mapping of actor dynamics and qualitative interviews. These methods provide a nuanced explanation for divergent actor behaviours, highlighting the pivotal role of actors' perceptions of opportunities in shaping strategic decision-making. This thesis applies LOS and POS theory to the domestic environment, illustrating the significance of understanding the interrelationship between domestic and international opportunities in multi-level mobilisation. Through the analysis of actor dynamics and qualitative interviews, this thesis challenges the identity theory or the 'logic of appropriateness' in explaining forum choice during crises. Instead, it reveals the emergence of new and unlikely actors in the HRTB system following the Economic Crisis. These organisations were able to mitigate structural barriers to access through network formation and the diffusion of information, resources, and frames. Similarly, this thesis shows that when faced with blocked opportunity at the domestic level, civil society in Spain and the UK adjusted their strategies and targeted institutions deemed most likely to unlock closed domestic opportunities. The Special Rapporteur was perceived as likely to open opportunity through his distinct communication strategy and media attention. Furthermore, civil society were drawn to the HRTBs because of their potential to facilitate access to political actors and provide domestic advocacy tools. In this context, this thesis underscores the significance of actors' perceptions of opportunities and their strategic responses to restricted opportunity in driving forum choice
French colonizers and coal mining in Vietnam, 1873-1939
No full textDefence date: 31 May 2024Examining Board: Prof. Corinna Unger (European University Institute, Supervisor); Prof. Laura Lee Downs (European University Institute, Second Reader); Prof. Christophe Bonneuil (CNRS-EHESS, External Supervisor); Prof. Marion Fontaine (Sciences Po)Critically engaging with the existing literature, this dissertation investigates the attitudes and practices of French public and private officials involved in the making of colonial Vietnam's coal industry between 1873 and 1939. It demonstrates that they were predominantly shaped by the officials’ instrumental rationality operating under structural constraints and imperatives, within a colonial and capitalist system, and confronting Vietnamese and Chinese officials, “bandits”, subcontractors, and workers. Meanwhile, it shows that their attitudes and practices were shaped to a lesser extent by their moral ideas, which played a minor role in all domains, their emotions, which had a significant role only in times of crisis, and their representations, which were driving forces in the conquest phase but less so afterwards. More specifically, this thesis examines the history of colonial Vietnam’s coal industry through a series of case studies in colonial, social, labor, medical, and environmental history. It makes the argument that Tonkin was conquered by France in 1883, notably, because of French representations of its coal resources as plentiful, easy to exploit, legitimate to appropriate, and necessary for the French Navy, but under threat of being seized by China or Great Britain. It assesses the importance of Sinophilia and Sinophobia in the recruitment of Vietnam’s collieries. The dissertation argues that French colonizers relied on a largely shared moral economy of domination, exploitation, and justice to justify before their own eyes their colonial and capitalist practices and interests. It furthermore demonstrates that workers’ informal resistance to exploitation and complete dispossession, rather than organized anticolonial or working-class resistance, was the main form of resistance in colonial Vietnam’s coal industry until the 1930s. This thesis exposes the (self)contradictory character of French colonial biopolitics, which was ambitious and conceived as instrumental to the mise en valeur in theoretical and ministerial texts, but not enforced by local French public officials and colliery managers willing to prioritize the mise en valeur over workers’ lives. Finally, it uncovers the centrality of biopolitical and environmental tensions of empire in the making of Vietnam’s coal industry. The dissertation concludes on the possibility to simultaneously move beyond the orthodox Marxist’ deterministic and reductionist tendencies without giving the primacy to ideas, representations, or emotions as driving forces of (colonial) history; and to move beyond the Manichean conceptual oppositions such as between agency and structure, indicating future avenues for successfully transcending these analytical distinctions.Chapter 1 'French imperialists and Vietnam’s coal resources, 1873-1885' of the PhD thesis draws upon an earlier version published as an article 'French energy imperialism in Vietnam and the conquest of Tonkin (1873-1885)' (2019) in the 'Journal of energy history
National security and the European Court of Human Rights : mediating challenges through interdependent interpretation
No full textDefence date: 17 September 2024Examining Board: Prof. Martin Scheinin (European University Institute, Supervisor); Prof. Başak Çalı (Hertie School; University of Oxford, External Co-supervisor); Prof. Gráinne de Búrca (European University Institute); Prof. Robert Spano (University of Iceland; University of Oxford)Using a doctrinal-constructivist approach, this thesis analyses how national security restricts the interpretation of rights protection under the European Convention on Human Rights (‘the Convention’) by the European Court of Human Rights (‘the Court’) and in turn how the interpretation of national security is affected by the general principles of Convention interpretation. Relying on a dataset of 442 cases concerning national security, the thesis maintains that national security is an interdependent notion in Convention interpretation. Characterised by a possible absence of rights protection, the contours of national security become established through the principles that define and delineate that protection. National security thereby differs from Convention notions that primarily establish rights guarantees. Within this understanding, the thesis unravels some core characteristics of national security. National security is broad and fuzzy, tilts Convention interpretation in favour of state interests and executive powers, justifies secrecy, and creates unequal effects in rights protection. These characteristics are supported by the Court’s subsidiary and restricted role, which brings about an absence of set substantive Convention requirements in interpretation, and by an understanding of priority to rights under procedural and qualified rights that demarcates national security in a minimalistic way. National security is mainly delimited by democratic society both as a set of liberal values and as informed political decisionmaking by the public and through representative government, by the rule of law as a commitment to diminish the possibility of arbitrary power by public authorities, and by a range of comparative materials. Convention interpretation thus continuously mediates, but does not exclude, the challenges inherent in the international adjudication of rights and security. Mediation primarily takes place through the most fundamental Convention principles, which even during the Convention negotiations were envisaged to restrict rights limitations, and when the Court’s interpretation is shared with some of its constituencies
Did the euro-crisis change the social constitution? : an analysis of constitutional amendment projects in Greece and Ireland
No full textDefence date: 19 April 2024Examining Board: Prof. Claire Kilpatrick (European University Institute, Supervisor); Prof. Gráinne De Búrca (European University Institute); Prof. Colm O’Cinneide (University College London); Prof. George Katrougalos (Democritus University of Thrace)Despite substantial inquiry into the euro-crisis’ constitutional implications and its impact on fundamental social and labour rights, the constitutional amendment of the social constitution remains an undocumented and unexplored area of the study of the euro-crisis. This thesis, bridging the fields of constitutional change and social constitutionalism, investigates the role of the eurocrisis in shaping constitutional amendment projects with regard to the social constitutions of sovereign debt states. It does so primarily through a comparative examination of the case-studies of Greece and Ireland, both places where projects to amend the social constitution, understood as involving social and labour rights, as well as fiscal constitutional arrangements, accelerated in the aftermath of the euro-crisis. I show how the euro-crisis influenced demands and projects to change the social constitution in these two sovereign debt states, albeit in different ways and to different degrees, with different constitutional actors and sites involved. I further consider the outcome for the social constitution of constitutionalizing European fiscal constraints through constitutional amendments. Examining the cases of Italy and Spain, I show that the constitutionalization of balanced budget rules as a response to the euro-crisis interacted with fundamental labour and social rights and challenged their protection. Overall, albeit to different degrees in different places, the euro-crisis has been an agent shaping the change of the social constitution, referring to amending and attempting to amend the social constitution by entrenching labour and social rights and reformulating the constitutional provisions protecting them, or to amending the fiscal constitution. Notwithstanding these outcomes of the euro-crisis, the latter has not been the only agent of change for the social constitution in the post-crisis years. I evidence that other crises, the need to adapt to a changing environment, and international socio-economic rights obligations have also animated discussions on constitutional change of European social constitutions.Chapter 3 'Ireland: Acceleration of constitutional amendment of the social constitution, but with limited links to the crisis' of the PhD thesis draws upon an earlier version published as an article 'Social rights, culture, crisis and austerity : the strange case of Ireland' (2023) in the journal 'The Irish jurist
The nature of the Risorgimento : science, environment and nation-building in nineteenth-century Italy
No full textDefence date: 20 May 2024Examining Board: Prof. Stéphane Van Damme (European University Institute; Ecole Normale Supérieure in Paris, Supervisor); Prof. Lucy Riall (European University Institute); Prof. Elena Canadelli (Università degli Studi di Padova); Prof. Deborah Coen (Yale University)This thesis investigates conceptions of nature and their relationship to politics in nineteenth-century Italy. I claim that, in the context of nation-building that followed Italian political unification in 1861, Italian nature was used as an instrument of legitimisation of the nation. This happened in different ways and involved the creation of the very concept of Italian nature, which until then met with little correspondence on either the scientific or cultural level, and only had meaning when referred to the Italian peninsula as a geographical entity. Within the context of the politicisation of nature in Risorgimento and liberal Italy, science played a central role. The production of knowledge about Italian nature was the basis for giving legitimacy to the national territory through the definition of a naturalistic unity of the peninsula, the mapping of its natural resources for exploitation and, finally, the invention of the Italian landscape and the creation of an imagery still partly operating today. These three perspectives, which correspond to the three parts into which the thesis is divided (‘Territorialising Italian Nature’, ‘Exploiting Italian Nature’, ‘Experiencing Italian Nature’) define what I refer to as Patriotic ecology, which I consider to be a crucial moment for Italy’s history of science and environmental history. This thesis aims to be a contribution in the field of the history of science, yet it recognises environmental history as an essential component, showing the inextricable link between the history of nature, science, and politics in nineteenth-century Italy. The choice of archives was determined by a preliminary selection of key figures in the scientific panorama of nineteenth-century Italy, considering both the history of institutions and the contributions of single individuals. Sources include published and unpublished material dated between the late eighteenth and early twentieth centuries
Welfare amid dictatorship and democracy : disabled war veterans, colonialism, and the end of empire : Portugal, 1961-1976
No full textDefence date: 18 October 2024Examining Board: Prof. Corinna Unger (European University Institute, Supervisor); Prof. Laura Lee Downs (European University Institute); Prof. Miguel Bandeira Jerónimo (University of Coimbra); Prof. John Paul Newman (Maynooth University)The 1974 Carnation Revolution unfolded in Portugal half a century ago. The ‘bloodless’ revolution marked the end of nearly fifty years of dictatorial rule in Portugal, and the end of five centuries of Portuguese imperial history, the last thirteen of which had been defined by war in the African colonies. The Colonial War ‘created’ thousands of disabled veterans, the central protagonists of this thesis. For these men, the Carnation Revolution represented not only the end of the war, but a critical opportunity to gain a voice and rights. Whereas the Estado Novo regime had refused them proper welfare support for the entirety of the war, the move towards democracy meant not only the chance to secure better welfare provisions, but also to establish new ideas about disability. By focusing on the period from 1961 to 1976, this thesis investigates how disabled veterans’ welfare changed between shifting political regimes, emphasising how the two regimes’ divergent political ideas and ideologies translated into different welfare schemes for veterans. Complementing this top-down perspective, the thesis further explores how disabled veterans and their associations engaged with changing regimes on the ground and played an active role themselves in enacting change. Not all disabled veterans benefitted from change in the same way, however. As this dissertation demonstrates, the Mozambican, Angolan and Guinean veterans who fought on the Portuguese side during the colonial war were not entitled to the new democratic regime’s welfare provisions. Either because they ‘lost’ their Portuguese nationality or because they were not evacuated during the decolonisation processes, these men were discriminated against when compared to their white comrades. This difference in treatment demonstrates that the benefits of the Portuguese democratic political transition did not extend to the colonial sphere and that long-standing unequal colonial relations were prolonged beyond the metropolitan regime shift. This dissertation is placed at the intersection of different historiographical fields that are seldom put together: colonial history, histories of disability and of veterancy, gender history and Portuguese political and social history. In this sense, the thesis is a new and nuanced contribution to the history of the Portuguese democratic transition, colonialism and the end of empire, moving away from triumphalist political narratives and a lingering metropolitan myopia. It does so by critically revisiting these histories, and placing the analytical focus on the welfare of an overlooked group of actors who lived through and engaged with the most consequential transformations in contemporary Portugal
L’internationalisme universitaire mis en action : stratégies, pratiques et écueils de l’Université Nouvelle de Bruxelles, 1894-1919
No full textDefence date: 04 October 2024Examining Board: Prof. Stéphane Van Damme (École Normale Supérieure Paris, Supervisor); Prof. Kenneth Bertrams (Université libre de Bruxelles, External Supervisor); Prof. Nicolas Guilhot (European University Institute); Prof. Kaat Wils (Katholieke Universiteit Leuven)Cette thèse explore les modalités de l’internationalisme universitaire à la fin du XIXe et au début du XXe siècle, au travers du cas d’étude de l'Université Nouvelle de Bruxelles, ouverte de 1894 à 1919. La première partie s’intéresse à la fondation de cette institution, s’inscrivant dans une crise politique et scientifique à Bruxelles. À ce titre, l’Université Nouvelle entend renouveler l’enseignement supérieur belge, mais échoue rapidement, n’étant pas reconnue par les autorités publiques belges. Dès lors, pour survivre, l’Université Nouvelle développe une stratégie d’existence tournée vers l’international, en invitant de nombreux intellectuels européens s’intéressant aux sciences sociales ou provenant des réseaux progressistes et socialistes, et en s’adressant à des étudiants venus d’Europe de l’Est phénomènes analysés dans la deuxième et troisième partie de cette thèse. La deuxième partie met en évidence l’évolution de la stratégie d’accueil de professeurs étrangers : d’abord, l’Université Nouvelle apparaît comme un refuge pour des scientifiques marginalisés ; ensuite, elle invite activement des intellectuels déjà établis, majoritairement français. Ceci influe le fonds des cours qui y sont prodigués : une sociologie positiviste laisse place à une approche plus globale des sciences sociales. La troisième partie se penche sur les étudiants étrangers, en grande majorité bulgares, abordés comme des acteurs essentiels de l’internationalisation de l’Université Nouvelle. Nous tentons de comprendre les raisons de leurs migrations, entre contrainte, opportunisme et réelle attractivité de l’institution. La politique d’accueil ambivalente de l’institution à leur égard, ainsi que les processus embryonnaires et complexes de la reconnaissance des diplômes durant la fin de siècle, y sont également abordés. En jouant sur ces différentes perspectives, alliant local et global, suivant une chronologie souple, notre thèse propose une histoire incarnée d’un laboratoire bruxellois d’internationalisme universitaire à la Belle Époque.This thesis explores the modalities of university internationalism at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries through the case study of the Université Nouvelle de Bruxelles, which operated from 1894 to 1919. The first part examines the founding of this institution within the context of a political and scientific crisis in Brussels. The Université Nouvelle aimed to renew higher education in Belgium but quickly faced challenges due to its lack of recognition by the Belgian public authorities. To survive, the Université Nouvelle developed an international strategy by inviting numerous European intellectuals interested in social sciences or affiliated with progressive and socialist networks, as well as attracting students from Eastern Europe. These phenomena are analysed in the second and third parts of this thesis, respectively. The second part focuses on the evolution of the university's strategy for welcoming foreign professors. Initially, the Université Nouvelle served as a refuge for marginalized scientists. Over time, however, it began actively inviting established intellectuals, predominantly from France. This shift influenced the academic content, with positivist sociology gradually giving way to a more global approach to social science. The third part examines the role of foreign students, primarily Bulgarian, as key players in the internationalization of the Université Nouvelle. Their motivations for migrating to Brussels are explored, ranging from compulsion and opportunism to genuine attraction to the institution. The thesis also analyses the institution's ambivalent policies towards these students, as well as the embryonic and complex processes of degree recognition at the end of the century. By considering these different perspectives—combining the local with the global and following a flexible chronology—this thesis offers an embodied history of a Brussels laboratory of academic internationalism during the Belle Époque.The prologue 'Bruxelles, capitale du monde' of the PhD thesis draws upon two earlier versions published as chapters: 'Les mondialisations vues de Belgique' and 'Les mondialisations vues de Bruxelles' (2023) in the book 'Les mondialisations des années 1880 au milieu des années 1930'Chapter 3 'De la communauté à la nébuleuse internationale des sciences sociales' of the PhD thesis draws upon an earlier version published as an article 'Lalla et Émile Vandervelde : deux trajectoires au service du socialisme belge au début du XXe siècle' (2023) in the journal 'Cahiers Jaurès'.Chapter 5 'Régimes circulatoires des étudiants étrangers' of the PhD thesis draws upon three earlier versions published as articles: 'Construire l’internationalisme : communication, adaptation et réseaux des étudiants étrangers de l’Université Nouvelle de Bruxelles (1894-1914)' (2022) in the journal 'Revue du nord', 'From the East to the West : trajectories of foreign women studying the social science at the Université Nouvelle de Bruxelles (1894-1919)' (2023) in the journal 'Serendipities', and 'Rédiger une thèse en sciences sociales durant la Belle Époque : le cas des étudiantes de l’Université Nouvelle de Bruxelles' (2023) in the journal 'Les études sociales'.Chapter 6 'Administrer l’internationalité : politiques d’accueil et de contrôle' of the PhD thesis draws upon an earlier version published as an article 'Construire l’internationalisme : communication, adaptation et réseaux des étudiants étrangers de l’Université Nouvelle de Bruxelles (1894-1914)' (2022) in the journal 'Revue du nord'
After market making : the political economy of EU industrial policy
No full textDefence date: 23 October 2023Examining Board: Prof. Anton Hemerijck, (European University Institute, supervisor); Prof. Erik Jones, (European University Institute); Prof. Kathleen R. McNamara, (Georgetown University); Dr. Angela Wigger, (Radboud University)The fate of European integration hinges on the governance of its industries. In the 1980s, marketoriented regulation became dominant, aiming for competitiveness and efficiency through open markets. However, a series of highly visible interventions in markets reveal a shift in the EU’s stance against industrial policy. The dissertation argues that geopolitics and climate change have exposed the limits of a market making Europe, leading to a greater role for the state in correcting and directing markets, vested at the European level. Similar to the 1980s, the fear of industrial decline and the actions of national executives, business leaders, and EU bureaucrats are driving this change. The thesis captures the shift to an EU-level, market-directing industrial policy in both discourse and policy. Notions of strategic autonomy and technological sovereignty have rallied a coalition of neo-mercantilist and socially oriented actors in favor of a more interventionist industrial policy. In terms of policies, the thesis focuses on the green and digital transitions, showcasing the launch of industrial alliances and the reorientation of state aid rules as ways to overcome the limited fiscal and bureaucratic capacities at the EU level. The thesis also emphasizes the need for destruction alongside creation in the green transition, explaining the move away from a market-only emission-trading system. The thesis documents political conflict between EU Commission DGs, member states, and policy domains. Finally, the thesis shows that at the member state level, the reorientation of Germany to EU-level industrial policy since 2016 has been the driving force for many initiatives. Overall, the dissertation calls for a reassessment of global political economy dynamics in EU integration studies, the integration of business power and industrial policy perspectives, and a deeper understanding of the shift in EU economic governance towards market-correcting and market-directing policies
The effects and affects of international criminality : why make human trafficking an international crime?
No full textDefence date: 14 September 2023Examining Board: Prof. Sarah Nouwen (European University Institute, supervisor); Prof. Neha Jain (European University Institute); Prof. Siobhán Mullally (University of Galway); Prof. Nicola Palmer (King's College London)Activists and some states lobby for the recognition of conduct as internationally criminal. They are optimistic, it appears, that such recognition might bring about justice and morality. My close reading of efforts to mobilize international criminality’s promises for human trafficking shows that international criminalization has come to stand for transcending the legal obstacles that limit international responses to crimes considered “only” ordinary or transnational crimes. Specifically, international criminality has become a placeholder for a set of legal effects seemingly unavailable to other acts: individual criminal responsibility under international law, special rules on states’ and international criminal bodies’ jurisdictions, and exceptions to the immunity of state officials from foreign criminal jurisdiction. My doctrinal study challenges the belief that international criminalization could secure these effects. I demonstrate that international criminality is, at most, a prerequisite for the intended legal rights and obligations; they can, and often already do, attach to human trafficking through suppression treaties and international human rights law. To reflect on activists’ and some states’ attachments to the vernacular of international criminality despite its lack of legal effects, my thesis draws on Sara Ahmed’s and Lauren Berlant’s theories of the role of affect in political discourse. I claim that the value of international criminalization lies in the affective dimension. The circulation of international criminality as a sign of horror constitutes and authorizes an affective subject – a horrified humanity – that ordinary and transnational crimes lack the power to invoke. I argue, however, that hope in this humanity is underpinned by ‘cruel optimism’. Both affectively and legally, international criminalization ascribes horror to individuals, deflecting attention from the complicity of the horrified
Regulating human movement in a global pandemic : 'essential travel' during COVID-19
No full textPublished online: 20 May 2025Every government in the world introduced international travel restrictions in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. For the most part, these restrictions did not take the form of blanket entry bans, but rather acted as human selection mechanisms, with states refusing entry to most people while granting dedicated exemptions to others. This article addresses two interconnected questions: Who was granted entry, and on what basis? Drawing on new data capturing entry bans and selective exemptions in 212 countries and territories worldwide, we interrogate the concept of ‘essential travel’ that emerged in the early phase of the pandemic. We find that during the COVID-19 pandemic, states granted exemptions for up to seventeen categories of person, which we use to build a novel typology of the ‘grounds of entry’ applicable in times of emergency: (1) pre-existing ties, (2) instrumental value, and (3) international protection. By analysing the frequency of the seventeen ‘essential travel’ categories, we find that these grounds were prioritised differently, with much greater emphasis on pre-existing ties than on international protection. This indicates that during the pandemic, states prioritised the needs of ‘their own’, particularly their nationals, over those of vulnerable populations. The article thus highlights both the resilience of nationality and the fragility of asylum as bases for cross-border movement in times of global (health) crisis