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Portable natures : environmental visions, urban practices, migratory flows. Agriculture and the Italian experience in north American cities, 1880-1940
No full textDefence date: 18 October 2023Examining Board: Prof. Stéphane Van Damme, (European University Institute; École Normale Supérieure); Prof. Lucy Riall, (European University Institute); Prof. Marco Armiero, (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona); Prof. Rosetta Giuliani Caponetto, (Auburn University)This dissertation explores Italian migration to the United States at the turn of the twentieth century through the lens of environmental history and puts gardening at the center of its analysis. First, gardening here is considered as a resilient practice of adjustment to new urban environments which helped migrants to overcome the shock of migration while providing them with food and in some cases, an entry point into the US economy. Secondly, gardening is recognized as a tool used by both US and Italian governments and authorities to manage migratory flows through the creation of agricultural settlements populated by urban migrants. In this dissertation, I have focused on Italian migrants as a case study for two main reasons. First, from Europe, it was the Italian population that contributed the most to the migratory phenomenon, and Italy said farewell to around 26 million emigrants between the years 1898-1914. This short period represented the peak of the Italian diaspora. Second, the study of migrant adjustment practices connected to nature is a recent concern, and a comprehensive study on the gardening practices of Italians in the US is still missing. The first part of the dissertation analyzes the practice of urban gardening made by Italians who emigrated to the United States. Gardening, for them, was as a resilient practice of adjustment to their new urban environments. At the turn of the twentieth century US cities underwent a series of modernization and sanitation changes, which obliterated the presence of rural elements, such as agriculture and animals. This dissertation explored how, for immigrant communities, including Italians, this tension continued well into the twentieth century. Furthermore, it will be unveiled how this process of obliteration of urban agriculture during the decades of modernization was often contested and strictly connected with the politics of urban food provisioning. The second part of the dissertation explores how institutions of both the US and Italy observed, perceived, and attempted to manage migratory flows. It shows how US Institutions dealt with the Italian practices on North American urban soil and how social reformers and urban planners dealt with Italian agricultural background and migrants’ knowledges and practices in urban contexts. Furthermore, it will be introduced the term Agricultural Diplomacy to describe the complex interactions that occurred between a variety of actors, from diplomats to politicians to agronomists and landowners, of both the US and Italy, on the management of Italian immigrants with the common aim to establishing agricultural colonies with Italian migrants in the US South. There, gardening emerges as the environment of Italianness which had a different meaning for the different actors involved in this relationship. Addressing this aspect uncovers unexplored avenues of the global history of Italy and its expansionist ambitions.Introduction of subcjapter 3.1 'The American narraave : Italians are somewhere between unskilled peasants and talented farmers' and chapter 4 'Italian agricultural diplomacy (1880-1912)' of the PhD thesis draws upon an earlier version published as an article 'Italianness in the United States between migrants’ informal gardening practices and agricultural diplomacy (1880–1912)' (2021) in the journal 'Modern Italy'
Environmental litigation and the CJEU : overcoming barriers to standing?
No full textPublished online: 15 September 2025In the last decade, climate change litigation has skyrocketed in Europe and worldwide, placing courts at the core of a key dialogue between civil society and political institutions. In particular with regard to cases brought by NGOs and individuals, the Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU) seems to have remained largely immune from this wave, having easily dismissed relevant climate cases due to the demanding standing threshold of the Plaumann test. But is climate change litigation truly impossible before the CJEU? This chapter outlines alternative avenues for standing in environmental cases for NGOs and individuals before the CJEU. More specifically, this contribution will argue that the recent amendment of the Aarhus Regulation, as well as the preliminary reference procedure, offer opportunities for calling the CJEU to its duties as the supreme court of the EU legal order. In the same breath, weremain critical of the EU's so-called complete system of remedies, as gaps persist in the access to justice for civil society
How did peasants go to the bank : an introduction to the educational activities of the peasants’ land bank in the late Russian Empire
No full textPublished online: 28 January 2026This chapter examines how the Peasants’ Land Bank (1882–1917) sought to integrate the Russian Empire’s peasantry into the state-controlled land credit system. Through mechanisms such as supplementary payments, partnerships, arrears management, and various locally produced instructional materials, the Bank attempted to cultivate financial discipline, reshape peasants' expectations of land ownership, and build their trust in this state institution. The chapter argues that, although no unified educational program ever emerged, these dispersed efforts reveal how exactly the state used the Bank to transform peasant economic culture and integrate rural society into the imperial financial order
Causation : the forgotten element in abuse of dominance proceedings?
No full textAward date: 21 November 2023Supervisor: Prof. Nicolas Petit (European University Institute)Article 102 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (hereinafter “TFEU”) prohibits “abuse […] of a dominant position”. The wording of the article clearly invites the idea that for the prohibition to apply, the abuse must originate from the undertaking’s dominant position. In other words, a causal link between the dominant position and the abuse must exist. The issue of a causal link between dominance and abuse has, despite the wording of the article, received remarkably little attention by the enforcers of the treaty as well as legal commentary. Against this background, the thesis explores the issue of a causal link between dominance and abuse under Article 102 TFEU and sets forth a study of the relevant case law of the EU Courts dealing with the issue of a causal link. The analysis shows that the EU Courts have largely rejected the relevance of such a link under Article 102 TFEU. The thesis further explores to what extent an introduction of a causal link between abuse and dominance would affect the scope of Article 102 TFEU. This has been done by analysing the main categories of abuse under Article 102 TFEU and assessing whether these could have been decided equally with a requirement of a causal link between dominance and abuse
The political economy of natural resources : the mechanisms of resource rent allocation in oil-producing economies
No full textDefence date: 25 July 2023Examining Board: Prof. Philipp Genschel, (European University Institute, supervisor); Prof. Vladimir Gel’man, (University of Helsinki, co-supervisor); Prof. Dorothee Bohle, (University of Vienna); Prof. Hilary Appel, (Claremont McKenna College)Why do governments of some nations successfully collect resource revenues while governments of other countries fail to do so? This thesis addresses the ability of the state to convert resource rent into government income. Using a mixed-methods research design, I seek to analyze the fundamental conditions that either allow governments to appropriate a large share of resource rent or hinder them from doing so. I investigate the influence of two structural factors on the collection of resource revenues: (1) the ownership structure of the petroleum industry and (2) state capacity. I test two primary hypotheses in this dissertation. First, I hypothesize that governments collect more resource revenues in countries with nationalized petroleum industries than in countries with privatized petroleum industries. Second, I hypothesize that the more robust state capacities in an oil-producing country are, the more significant share of total resource rents the country’s government should transform into its revenues. I run random-effect regressions to test these two hypotheses. The statistical analysis shows that in countries with nationalized petroleum industries, the government tends to collect a more significant part of resource rents than in countries with privatized petroleum industries. Moreover, the statistical analysis demonstrates that governments tend to collect more resource revenues in countries with more robust state capacity than in countries with weaker state capacity. I also do a comparative analysis of Russia and Venezuela in this dissertation. The critical puzzle I seek to examine in my case studies is how to explain the highly different trajectories in resource rent collection in Russia and Venezuela, two countries with nationalized petroleum industries, at the beginning of the 21st century. The puzzle is that in the 2000s and early 2010s, the government of Venezuela collected only 10-15 percent of its total oil rent, while the Russian federal government collected around 60-70 percent of all resource revenues. In the comparative analysis of Russia and Venezuela, I study how changes in petroleum ownership, state capacities, and elite competition have historically affected the allocation of resource revenues in these countries.Chapters 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7 'What is beyond structural factors? Why Russia and Venezuela
are not alike? ..', 'Russia I (1991-2000): resource revenues under the privatized
petroleum industry and weak state capacity', 'Russia II (2000 -): resource revenues under the nationalized
petroleum industry and strong state capacity', ',Venezuela I (1909-1975): oil revenues under the privatized
petroleum industry and growing state capacity', 'Venezuela II (1998 -): oil revenues under the nationalized
petroleum industry and weak state capacity', of the PhD thesis draw upon an earlier version published as chapter 'The pitfalls of rent-seeking : alternative mechanisms of resource rent collection in Russia and Venezuela' (2022) in the book 'The ambivalence of power in the twenty-first century economy : cases from Russia and beyond'
Failure to reform the EU migration and asylum rules : explaining divergent member state decisions on the CEAS reform
No full textDefence date: 14 February 2023Examining Board: Prof. Dr. Dorothee Bohle, (EUI / University of Vienna, supervisor); Prof. Dr. Philipp Genschel, (EUI); Prof. Dr. Claudius Wagemann, (Goethe University Frankfurt); Prof. Dr. Emilia Zankina, (Temple University Rome)The 2015 European migration crisis seemingly made it obvious that Migration and Asylum policy in the EU had to be reformed in order to overcome the persistent problems in policy implementation, burden-sharing, and solidarity among the Member States. However, no such reform of the Common European Asylum System and Dublin III Regulation has been adopted until now. This thesis investigates why the Member States did not manage to solve this integration problem and opposed the reform of the CEAS proposed after the peak of the crisis at the end of 2015. It does so in three steps, using a multimethod design. First, a comprehensive analysis of the 25 countries of the EU participating in the CEAS is done with the help of QCA to arrive at the combination of conditions that lead to the opposition to the reform. This is the first systematic analysis of the conditions and positions of the Member States participating in Migration and Asylum integration. Through this analysis, the thesis tests major European integration theories, including Liberal Intergovernmentalism, Postfunctionalism, and the Core State Powers approach, for their capacity to explain the problems and successes of integration in a particular policy area. The QCA results produce two sufficient pathways for opposition to the reform and show that while Liberal Intergovenmenatlism largely accounts for much of the variation in the decision on the CEAS reform, Postfunctionalism rightly stresses the importance of domestic public opinion for the EU integration processes
Three papers in applied political methodology
No full textDefence date: 01 December 2023Examining Board: Prof. Miriam A. Golden, (European University Institute, supervisor); Prof. Elias Dinas, (European University Institute, co-supervisor); Prof. Macartan Humphreys, (WZB Berlin); Prof. Mark A. Kayser, (The Hertie School)What are the best practices in political methodology for applied research? How can political methodology best help with knowledge accumulation in political science? This thesis presents three related papers in applied methods for political science, each addressing a specific issue in the sub-field: model selection in empirical analysis (Paper I), formal and empirical model integration (Paper II), and model selection and aggregation with a common target (Paper III). The papers share the meta-methodological concern of optimizing cumulative learning through optimal modeling practices across two dimensions of model usage: the number (single or multiple) and the type (formal or empirical) of the models. The main point is that knowledge in political science best accumulates when models are both carefully used within and properly aggregated between empirical studies, so that meta-methodological advances can best benefit meta-learning in the discipline. Paper I deals with the issue of model selection in data analysis. Using political deliberation as a case in point, it argues that model choice should take into consideration both the key characteristics of the data under analysis and the expected gains in model insights. For analyzing deliberation data specifically, it recommends the use of network models like the Exponential Random Graph Models (ERGMs) as such models best respect the complex structure of the data and allow for explicit estimation of endogenous influences driving the process. Paper II looks at the issue of model integration between formal and empirical approaches. Using intraparty unity as an example, it proposes that formal models can be used for guiding not only hypothesis testing but also latent variable measurement in empirical studies. For measuring intraparty unity in coalition bargaining, it demonstrates how to turn a formal account of faction-based portfolio allocation into an empirical recipe for measuring this latent variable using real-life data. Paper III focuses on a broader issue of model selection and aggregation across multiple studies. Using crowd-sourced statistical models of COVID-19 mortality as an input set, it field tests multiple methods for the said purpose including both forecasting and algorithmic techniques. For predicting pandemic deaths, it finds that aggregated meta-models generally outperform individual models, and that algorithmic approaches consistently best human experts in achieving such tasks
Same history, different stories : a comparison of East and West German history textbooks
No full textDefence date: 28 September 2023Examining Board: Prof. Elias Dinas (European University Institute, supervisor); Prof. Filip Kostelka (European University Institute); Prof. Anja Neundorf (University of Glasgow); Prof. Grigore Pop-Elecheș (Princeton University)Political leaders use their influence over state institutions to maximize political control, irrespective of the regime they represent. Since autocratic leaders have more power over state institutions, their tactics were studied more closely, especially the avenues more focused on violence. A growing literature looks at the non-violent means used by political leaders to create political legitimacy and regime stability, especially under the form of information control. This literature focuses on ad-hoc information control and anti-regime coordination that are threatening; this overlooks the possibility of information control that is meant to shape not only the political information received, but the filter through which political information is processed. This thesis looks at institutional control tactics that guide the creation of an individual’s political identity and information filtering process using indoctrination. I propose indoctrination is a multi-level socialization-based process aimed at creating a political identity that is both supportive of the regime and skeptical of the regime’s opponents. I argue that the purest avenue for indoctrination is schooling and especially schooling via nation-building school subjects which also have the capacity to generate a selfreinforcing pro-regime loop through an individual’s collective memory. Nation-building is essentially a political instrument delivered primarily through schooling; this reinforces the need for political scientists to study education tied into the nation-building process, as a potential avenue for social identity creation, indoctrination, and political control. To understand how indoctrination through schooling is exercised, this study identifies a case study where two opposing regimes (one democratic and one autocratic) share the same national history and then compares the schooling materials of the competing regimes referring to the same historical periods. By contrasting how the same history is used in two different nation-building narratives, I draw the core tactics used for indoctrination by the autocratic political regime. The thesis concludes by stressing the importance of schooling materials as a readily available new data source for the study of indoctrination input and as a widely used means to achieve political control in both democratic and non-democratic political regimes
The Brazilian raw cotton trade : merchants and mercantile strategies during the industrial revolution
No full textDefence date: 11 October 2023Examining Board: Prof. Giorgio Riello, (European University Institute); Prof. Regina Grafe, (European University Institute); Prof. Leonor Freire Costa, (Universidade de Lisboa); Prof. Catia Antunes, (Universiteit Leiden)The golden age of Brazilian cotton production (c.1760s-1820s) coincides with the classic period of European – and especially British – industrialization. Before the rise of U.S. cotton from the first decade of the nineteenth century, Brazil was one of the world’s main suppliers of this raw material. Yet, much of what we know about Brazilian cotton comes from the perspective of British demand, thus hiding essential features of its production and commercialization. This thesis follows Brazilian raw cotton from its cultivation through to its shipping across the Atlantic. It concludes with an analysis of its circulation and consumption in the most important European manufacturing centres. The role played by the Portuguese Empire (with Brazil and parts of Africa), France, and ports such as Genoa and Hamburg are shown to be a much-forgotten chapter in the history of the “cotton revolution”. Classic narratives consider cotton as almost exclusively connected with labor (as slave labor in the production of raw cotton in the Americas, or as wage labor engaged in the mechanised production of cotton goods in European mills). As a consequence, trade has been marginalized and disconnected from the history of industrialization. My main argument is that one cannot narrate cotton without its merchant communities, the political economy of the Portuguese Empire, and a “multi-national” perspective. Commerce was vital to the history of cotton, and merchants were its main protagonists. The main conclusions of this thesis point to two modes of production and commercialization of cotton in Brazil: one made by large planters in Maranhão and another made by small slaveholders who sold their crops to merchants on the coast in the Northeast. The hundreds of importers in Lisbon were almost all Portuguese, and the few re-exporters were nearly all foreigners. A large part of Brazilian cotton was purchased in Lisbon by British traders, though my thesis also shows the enduring importance of cotton exports to France by Portuguese merchants.Chapter 2 'The Golden Age of Cotton Growing in Maranhão and Its Elite' and Chapter 3 'The precarious sugar expansion and changes in the agrarian structure brought by cotton' of the PhD thesis draws upon an earlier version published as an article 'reassessing the productivity of enslavement on large-scale plantations and small farms in brazilian cotton production (c.1750–c.1810)' (2023) in the journal 'Historical research'. Chapter 3 'Title of chapter' also draws upon an earlier version published as chapter 'Estrutura produtiva do complexo açucareiro em Pernambuco' (2021) in the book 'Financiando o negócio de Pernambuco : produção colonial, comércio ultramarino e a economia do transporte no Atlântico português (século XVIII)'. Chapter 4 'From the field to the bale: the cotton trade in the interior of the Northeast ' of the PhD thesis draws upon an earlier version published as an article 'A movimentação comercial de um negociante em Pernambuco no final do século XVIII: o diário de escrituração de Bento José da Costa' (2018) in the journal 'Faces da historia'. Chapter 5 'A Business for many: cotton importers in Lisbon and the Transatlantic cotton trade' of the PhD thesis draws upon an earlier version published as an article 'Hierarquias mercantis no Atlântico Português : as relações de agência no comércio entre Portugal e Brasil, 1780 a 1807' (2021) in the journal 'Revista de história'
Lumières et enthousiasme : jansénisme et convulsions durant la première moitié du XVIIIe siècle
No full textDefence date: 25 September 2023Examining Board: Prof. Ann Thomson (European University Institute, supervisor); Prof. Delphine Antoine-Mahut (ENS de Lyon, second supervisor); Prof. Giorgio Riello (European University Institute); Prof. Vincent Barras (Université de Lausanne)Ce travail se propose d’étudier dans la perspective d’une histoire intellectuelle les rapports entre jansénisme et Lumières. La résistance contre la bulle papale Unigenitus constitue un moment de mutation politique du jansénisme. Ceux qui se revendiquent comme les héritiers de Port-Royal mènent une intense entreprise de publication visant à mobiliser le clergé et les laïques dans la controverse religieuse, participant ainsi à l’émergence de discours remettant en question l’autorité de l’Église et de la monarchie absolue dans le contexte du développement d’une sphère publique en France. Nous-nous proposons de mettre au jour l’élaboration d’une identité résistante en plaçant la focale de l’étude sur le cas des femmes et de la défense de leur droit à raisonner des matières religieuses. L’apparition des convulsionnaires, mouvement perçu par les acteurs comme largement féminin, divise le parti appelant et entraîne un débat interne sur l’enthousiasme religieux qui met aux prises le rationalisme avec l’expérience charnelle de la vérité divine. Notre travail s’attache à dégager la complexité de la catégorie d’enthousiasme, lieu d’un questionnement épistémologique central au XVIIIe siècle. Perçu comme un danger pour l’autorité, il articule un ensemble de champs et de problématiques dépassant le cadre de la discussion religieuse, et participe à l’élaboration de l’anthropologie des Lumières