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Rethinking the metaphysics of competition regulation : political philosophy, neoliberalism and competition law
No full textDefence date: 04 April 2023Examining Board: Prof. Giorgio Monti (Tilburg University; European University Institute, supervisor); Prof. Nicolas Petit (European University Institute); Prof. Angela Wigger (Radboud University); Prof. Daniel Crane (University of Michigan Law School)It is sometimes said that competition laws are or that they have become “neoliberal”. However, for all the pervasiveness of the concept in the literature, it is still not entirely clear what neoliberalism is, or what a neoliberal competition law comports. The present thesis aims to bridge this gap by exploring the relationship between competition, competition law, and neoliberalism. The thesis is divided into two interrelated parts. Part one is a theoretical analysis of the meaning of competition and competition regulation in the context of neoliberalism. I explain neoliberalism in the broader context of political philosophy and identify two main strands, which I term first-wave and second-wave neoliberalism. I argue that each strand is built on values and assumptions which produce different visions of competition and competition law. Part two, on the other hand, aims is to exemplify what a neoliberal competition law system looks like in practice, with reference to substantive legal and institutional aspects of EU competition law. This thesis makes three main contributions. First, its sheds light on the broader question of the how the normative values and assumptions embedded in political philosophy influence our understanding of competition and how it should be regulated. This has foundational implications for the study and understanding of competition law. Second, the thesis posits that neoliberalism, a political philosophy which grapples with the problem of squaring efficient markets with other values and social arrangements, has been key in defining the role of competition and competition law in society. The example of the EU is given to illustrate how neoliberal ideas translate into concrete legal and institutional mechanisms. Third, the thesis adds nuance to the current understanding of neoliberalism by identifying two main strands and looking more granularly at the differences and similarities between them. This expands our current appreciation of the meaning and complexity of that political philosophy
The politics of commemoration and decommemoration
No full textDefence date: 12 June 2023Examining Board: Prof. Elias Dinas, (European University Institute, supervisor); Prof. Ellen Immergut, (European University Institute); Prof. Irene Martín Cortés, (Universidad Autónoma de Madrid); Prof. Miguel Pereira, (London School of Economics and Political Science)In recent years, we have seen an increase in public discussions regarding how democracies should deal with, and celebrate, their past. This thesis studies how public commemorations of the past are used by elites and citizens, and how they influence attitudes and behavior. At the elite level, I argue that political leaders have an interest in disseminating their preferred narrative for political gains. At the citizen level, I argue that attitudes, emotions and behaviors are influenced by exposure to memory objects, which citizens also use to make inferences that shape their beliefs about the world. I test these arguments using state-of-the-art causal inference methods. Using a regression discontinuity, Paper 1 finds that public spaces do not simply follow citizens’ preferences. Instead, political elites manipulate public commemorations to reflect their ideological preferences. Paper 2 uses an experiment to check how places of memory affect citizens. Using a video of an unnamed American town, the experiment manipulates whether individuals are exposed or not the town’s Confederate commemorations. The findings show that citizens use the commemorations to infer information about the residents and elites of that town, and that those monuments and place names affect their emotions, attitudes, and behavior. Finally, Paper 3 uses a different experiment to test whether exposure to monuments can foster tolerance. The treatment exposes respondents to German Stolpersteine placed on the ground, close to the residence of victims of the Nazi regime. The findings show that even these small monuments can significantly affect emotions. Although results are mixed, the stones may be effective in promoting the inclusion of groups that face the most intolerance, but may also cause backlash within some groups. These findings show that public commemorations condition how individuals make up their minds about social and political groups, and that they are used strategically by elites
Imagined countrymen : German migrants between nationalist claims and daily life experiences in Austria, 1900-1960
No full textDefence date: 04 October 2023Examining Board: Pieter M. Judson (European University Institute); Corinna R. Unger (European University Institute); Tara Zahra (University of Chicago); Philipp Ther (University of Vienna)Throughout the 20th century, German nationalists romanticised the national dedication of Germans coming from multilingual regions of Europe. Imagined as living colonial bulwarks against other nations, these Germans were supposed to be particularly loyal both to the territory they claimed as the Heimat and to its people. This loyalty should not be lost through the act of migration or of the territorial changes that took placer after the fall of the empire in 1918. German Nationalists assumed, for example, that self-professed German migrants from the former Habsburg crownlands living in the territory of the Republic of Austria after 1918, were particularly prone to be “most active in völkisch matters”. Both their selfproclaimed national representatives as well as local nationalist activists in Austria expected these migrants to act as a united community – a union that was often assumed to have been reinforced through the act of migration itself. At the same time though, both the representatives of these migrants as well as their local Austrian political counterparts dedicated considerable energies to creating those very expected communities in the first place. Through a series of case studies, this dissertation explores the history of this type of German migrant activism in Austria from the early 1900s and until the end of the 1960s. Focussing on ideological continuities that are particularly evident in the Austrian case, the dissertation seeks to show that German migrant activism was a specific political tradition in Central Europe with a longer history. In so doing, it connects the nationalist mobilisation of German Inner-Imperial migrants in the Habsburg Monarchy with the efforts of the post-1945 ethnic German expellee activists and their claims for national recognition
The economics of divestiture in merger control
No full textDefence date: 30 November 2023Examining Board: Prof. Giacomo Calzolari, (European University Institute, supervisor); Prof. Russell Cooper, (European University Institute, co-supervisor); Prof. Tomaso Duso, (Deutsches Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung); Prof. Steve Tadelis, (University of California)This thesis is a collection of three independent essays studying the effects of mergers and divestitures on welfare and their implications for competition policy in Europe and the United States. I develop a novel methodology to easily assess the price effects of mergers and divestitures in vertical markets. I also provide empirical evidences for three landmark mergers cleared conditional on divestitures; and identify economic mechanisms explaining these effects. In the first chapter, I present a novel empirical framework that leverages easily accessible sales data to calculate bounds on upstream bargaining weights among manufacturers and retailers at the brand level. With this approach, I examine the impact of changes in bargaining weights under varying scenarios. Specifically, I analyze a landmark U.S. merger, approved conditional on divestiture in the deodorant market, and its effect on bargaining power, final prices, and consumer surplus. Compared to a no-merger scenario, I estimate an increase in bargaining power associated with divested brands and a decrease related to the brands of the merged entity. This shift contributes to an overall rise in consumer surplus. Furthermore, I simulate consumer surplus outcomes under alternative divestiture packages, revealing an alternative package with fewer divested brands that could have improved consumer welfare. In the second chapter, co-authored with Morgane Guignard, we analyse a large upstream joint venture with divestiture in the French coffee market. First, we show that divestiture can lead to marginal cost savings for the buyer of the divested brand. Second, we study policy recommendation on the choice of the buyer of the divested brands. Our results reveal that, accounting for upstream bargaining, the standard policy recommendation corresponding to request divestiture to small recipient firms might not hold. In the third chapter, I investigate how divestiture affects prices and welfare in the presence of price coordination. I use a large divestiture in the U.S. beer market as case study. First, I find that price coordination materialized through conduct parameters is a countervailing force limiting the pro-competitive effects of a divestiture. Given current estimates, price coordination eliminates about 66% to 88% of the welfare benefits caused by a divestiture. Second, based on counterfactual simulations, I show that a merger cleared with divestiture is likely to deteriorate consumer surplus more than a merger approved without divestiture. Third, antitrust authorities need to take into account diversion ratios for products owned by the buyer of the divested brand and the potential coordinating partners when assessing the suitability of the buyer of the divested brand.-- 1. Unveiling Bargaining Impacts of Mergers and Divestitures
-- Appendix
-- 2. Upstream Mergers with Divestitures in Vertical Markets
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-- 3. The Role of Conduct in Divestitures
-- Appendi
The immigrant paradox in education : scope, causes and consequences
No full textDefence date: 05 October 2023Examining Board: Prof. Fabrizio Bernardi (Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia; European University Institute, external supervisor); Prof. Juho Härkönen (European University Institute); Prof. Elina Kilpi-Jakonen (University of Turku); Prof. Mathieu Ichou (Institut National d' Études Démographiques)European societies face the challenge of successfully integrating immigrants and their descendants. A key part of this process is to promote their education, which should enhance their participation in the labor market and other institutions. Against this backdrop, observers have been troubled by the tendency for immigrant-origin students to underachieve in school. However, despite facing several disadvantages, immigrantorigin individuals often “paradoxically” hold higher educational aspirations, make more ambitious track choices, and, in some countries, attain higher educational levels than comparable native-origin individuals. This dissertation investigates the scope, causes and consequences of this immigrant paradox in education through four empirical chapters. I draw on survey data from France, Germany, Italy, and the United Kingdom. In terms of scope, I show that the immigrant paradox in educational choices may not apply in relatively new countries of immigration, such as Italy, partly because of restrictive citizenship laws. I also show that immigrant-origin (dis)advantages in educational choices vary significantly across students’ genders, socio-economic status, and school achievement. Moreover, I show that, in Germany, the immigrant advantage also extends to occupational aspirations and their alignment with educational aspirations. In terms of consequences, I show that the ambitious educational aspirations and choices of immigrant-origin children generally improve their upper secondary attainment and tertiary enrollment in France and Germany. I show that Immigrant-origin students should be encouraged to aim high, but they should also be supported in their academic achievement from an early age to sustain their aspirations. In terms of causes, I contribute to the literature supporting immigrant optimism or selectivity as the leading explanation of the immigrant aspiration paradox in Germany. However, I nuance previous findings and show that immigrant educational selectivity may not work as a good proxy of immigrant selectivity to explain the immigrant paradox in the UK and similar contexts.Chapter 2 'Immigrant generation, gender, and citizenship: evidence on educational track choices from Italy' of the PhD thesis draws upon an earlier version published as an article 'Immigrant generation, gender, and citizenship : evidence on educational track choices from Italy' (2024) in the 'Journal of ethnic and migration studies'.Chapter 3 'Aiming too high or scoring too low? : heterogeneous immigrant-native gaps in upper secondary enrollment and outcomes beyond the transition in France' of the PhD thesis draws upon an earlier version published as an article 'Aiming too high or scoring too low? : heterogeneous immigrant–native gaps in upper secondary enrollment and outcomes beyond the transition in France' (2023) in the journal 'European sociological review'
Administrer 'l'esprit public' : pratiques de l’enquête et production de savoirs en France et dans le Nord de la péninsule italienne (1792-1814)
No full textDefence date: 12 May 2023Examination Board: Pr. Stéphane Van Damme, (European University Institute, directeur de thèse EUI / extérieur); Pr. Isabelle Laboulais, (Université de Strasbourg, directrice de thèse extérieure); Pr. Pieter M. Judson, (Eropean University Institute); Pr. Pierre Karila-Cohen, (Université Rennes 2)La socio-histoire de « l’esprit public » que propose cette thèse a été écrite à partir de l’étude des enquêtes menées entre 1792 et 1814, à une période où l’administration française n’en a pas développé d’usage stabilisé. À la fin du mois d’août 1792, la première enquête sur l’esprit public est lancée, confiée à un groupe d’agents envoyés sur le territoire qui rédigent des rapports administratifs sur cet objet pour le ministère de l’Intérieur. Sous le gouvernement révolutionnaire et jusqu’au Directoire, les agents nationaux puis les commissaires du pouvoir exécutif sont chargés de rédiger, pour le Comité de Salut public puis pour le ministère de l’Intérieur, des comptes rendus périodiques sur divers objets dont l’esprit public. La volonté de connaître l’esprit public perdure sous l’Empire, dans le cadre d’une enquête menée par le ministère de la Police générale et confiée au corps préfectoral. Sa mise en œuvre est alors étendue aux territoires annexés par l’Empire et placés sous son orbite, regardés de près par les autorités. Se départant d’une définition de l’esprit public qui serait posée a priori, cette thèse interroge donc la manière dont les administrateurs ont appréhendé la catégorie et la façon dont le contenu de celle-ci a évolué au gré des changements de régime. Les pratiques d’enquête tour à tour mises en œuvre font apparaître trois moments caractéristiques de cette sociohistoire de l’esprit public : celui de sa légitimation et de son institutionnalisation dans les structures gouvernementales, celui de sa mise en place sur le terrain, celui enfin où le travail de bureau se formalise et transforme les données sur l’esprit public en savoirs administratifs puis en instruments de gouvernement, dont l’usage, élargi à différents territoires du Nord de la péninsule italienne, permet d’observer la circulation des savoirs administratifs.This thesis offers a socio-history of the French administration's preoccupation with l’esprit public through political surveys between 1792 and 1814. At the end of August 1792, the first survey on l’esprit public was launched, entrusted to a group of agents sent to different territories in France who wrote administrative reports on this subject for the Ministry of the Interior. Under the Revolutionary government and until the Directory, local administrators wrote periodical reports that included an assessment of l’esprit public for the Committee of Public Safety and then for the Ministry of the Interior. The Napoleonic administration carried on with this concern for l’esprit public, within the framework of an investigation led by the Ministry of the Police and entrusted to the prefectural corps. Its use was extended to territories annexed by the Empire and placed under its orbit, watched very closely by the authorities. Without defining a priori the notion of esprit public, this thesis questions the way in which the administrators understood the meaning of the category and the way in which its contents evolved with the changes of regime. For this purpose, I examine three moments: the legitimization and institutionalization of l’esprit publicin governmental structures, its implementation in the field, and then the office work carried out in order to transform the data on l’esprit public into administrative knowledge. I question their use from the perspective of the circulation of administrative knowledge when it is extended to different territories of the North of the Italian peninsula.Chapter 8 'Mise à l’épreuve d’une catégorie administrative révolutionnaire sur le terrain impérial francoitalien' of the PhD thesis draws upon an earlier version published as an article 'Esprit public in the annexed departments of the Ligurian Apennines : from submission to laws to attachment to the government' (2020) in the journal 'Annales historiques de la revolution française'. Chapter 2 'L’enquête en train de se faire : le travail des commissaires sur le terrain', Chapter 5 'Instaurer une catégorie de l’action publique : le sens de l’esprit public' and Chapter 8 'Mise à l’épreuve d’une catégorie administrative révolutionnaire sur le terrain impérial francoitalien' of the PhD thesis draws upon an earlier version published as chapter 'Décrire 'l’esprit public' entre Révolution et Empire : les usages plastiques d’une catégorie administrative en construction' (2022) in the book 'Il mondo in subbuglio : ricerche sull’età delle rivoluzioni (1789-1849)'
Imperial legacies in British politics
No full textDefence date: 07 September 2023Examining Board: Prof. Elias Dinas (European University Institute, supervisor); Prof. Claire Adida (University of California); Prof. Simon Hix (European University Institute); Prof. Jason Wittenberg (University of California)This thesis explores how Britain continues to be shaped by the legacies of empire, both in terms of collective memory and the historical transmission of inequalities rooted in the imperial era. The first chapter (co-authored with Theresa Gessler) focuses on the historical ways in which empire has shaped Britain, looking at the persistence of ties to slavery among Britain’s political elite. Using a novel computational technique that utilises embedded Wikipedia data on inter-personal networks, we construct a measure of social proximity to slavery over time. Aggregating this measure across hundreds of years of parliamentary periods, we show how ties to slavery in parliament persisted long after the abolition of slavery itself - including into the present day – as well as analysing the institutional and political foundations of this persistence. The next two chapters focus on the effects of memory of empire in Britain, exploring how this memory is lined with amnesia, nostalgia, shame and guilt, and investigating the consequences of these dynamics on contemporary politics. The second chapter is a survey experiment examining how white British individuals react to information about their ancestors’ involvement in imperial slave-ownership. It demonstrates that whilst stronger identity threats are likely to lead to greater defensiveness in debates around ‘uncomfortable’ histories, an affirmation of one’s identity in the family domain facilitates greater openness and actively reduces the racial prejudice that may accompany backlash around histories of slavery. The third and final chapter is another survey experiment, focusing specifically on such backlash effects, including their invocation and consequences. In this chapter I outline one defensive cognition that has seen increasing use in debates over the British Empire – the tendency to compare the Empire favourably with other ‘worse’ regimes – and show that such defensive responses not only inhibit shame-related responses but may increase prejudice towards victimised colonial outgroups
From Kongsis and merchants to ‘coolies’ and immigrants : the globalization of borders and the regulation of Chinese migration in Dutch and British colonial Southeast Asia, 1870-1914
No full textDefence date: 27 January 2023Examining Board: Prof. dr. Corinna R. Unger, (European University Institute); Prof. dr. Lucy Riall, (European University Institute); Prof. dr. Clare Anderson, (University of Leicester); Prof. dr. Martin Dusinberre, (Universität Zürich)Placed in the global context of emerging borders and modernizing immigration policies, this dissertation on the regulation of Chinese migration to the Netherlands East Indies and the British Straits Settlements aims to show how both regional continuities and global developments have shaped the history of Chinese migration in Southeast Asia between 1870 and 1914. Where at first Chinese migrants roamed relatively freely within this region and regulation of their migration was limited, the Dutch and British gradually started imposing heavier restrictions with various results. Equipping both a transimperial approach and a regional framework, this dissertation addresses the difficulties the Dutch and British colonial states had in carefully regulating the movement and migration of Chinese to, within, and beyond the borders of their territories in Southeast Asia. The complexities, contradictions, and near impossibility of such attempts to regulation stand at the heart of this research project. It aims to address that migration regulation of Chinese coincided and merged with various systems and logics of migration control, ranging from the erection of a labor-exploitative indentured labor system to discussions of full exclusions and immigration stops borrowed from a global context wherein Chinese were increasingly excluded from white settler states and colonies. This dissertation argues that Chinese migration to Southeast Asia played an important part in the globalization of borders that took place in response to the ‘Asian mobility revolution’ in the latenineteenth and early-twentieth century. But the increased regulation and/or exclusion of Chinese migrants on a global scale also heavily impacted the Southeast-Asian colonies of the Dutch and British. Stuck between competing interests of various actors and from forces on different scales, regulation of Chinese immigration in these two colonies was far from an easy and uncontested affair
From party polarization to citizens’ electoral (de)mobilization in European multiparty systems : uncovering the role of fear and indifference as political reactions
No full textDefence date: 24 February 2023Examining Board: Prof. Ellen Immergut,(EUI Supervisor); Prof. Virginie Van Ingelgom, (Université Catholique de Louvain, external supervisor); Prof. Hanspeter Kriesi, (European University Institute); Prof. Rune Slothuus, (Aarhus University)In the past twenty years, extreme parties have emerged and strengthened across European party systems, such as Podemos in Spain, the Afd in Germany, or Fratelli d’Italia in Italy. Could the polarization of parties be the cure to growing abstention in European systems by offering true political alternatives to disengaged citizens? Or, alternatively, is increasing partisan divisions becoming major threat to the working of our democracies? This thesis tackles this question with important normative implications by determining whether and how party polarization in European multiparty systems enhances electoral mobilization. Using a novel mixed-method and abductive approach, this dissertation’s main contribution is to uncover the role of fear and indifference as political reactions to party polarization. This thesis follows a three-step design that combines a cross-sectional times series analysis in 21 European countries, a comparative qualitative focus group analysis in France in Belgium, and a Survey Experiment fielded in France. First, this analysis provides evidence that party polarization may mobilize some voters when parties become increasingly divided on cultural issues. However, qualitative findings show that this may have less to do with the broadening of political alternatives than the role of parties in triggering strong negative emotions and a sense of fear, anxiety, and threat related to these issues. Second, while much of the literature warns us about the threat represented by rising affective polarization and the disproportionate mobilization of the most partisan, results suggest instead that party polarization may enhance widespread indifference toward parties, which may be at least as harmful for participation and the working of our representative democracies. Overall, this dissertation contributes to the growing literature on the consequences of party polarization and partisan divisions by highlighting promising theoretical avenues going beyond the study of the most partisans
'Send me some good muscatel wine' : the shopping lists of the European Jesuits in Japan, c. 1603–1604. The case of grape wines
No full textPublished online: 03 March 2026Since their arrival in Japan in 1549, Jesuit missionaries described the cultural and dietary challenges of adapting to the local environment. Staples of their southern European refectories – grape wine, bread, cheese, meat, and sugary confections – were largely unknown or rarely consumed in early modern Japanese society. Even as they gradually accommodated local customs, the fathers continued to depend on annual shipments of familiar provisions carried by merchant vessels from Portugal until the 1639 prohibition of Christian and Iberian presence. The culinary dimension of this global circulation of tastes survives in a series of missionary “shopping lists” compiled by the Jesuits in Japan. Focusing on grape wine shipments, this article shows that such goods were far more than commodities: they served as nourishment for the body, symbols of continuity, and markers of belonging, revealing how familiar tastes reinforced identities and helped negotiate displacement in early modern cross-cultural encounters