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Cultural legacies of pre-industrial family systems : household structure, family change and values
No full textDefence date: 14 March 2025Examining Board: Prof. Juho Härkönen (European University Institute, Supervisor); Prof. Lea Pessin (European University Institute); Prof. Joana Maria Pujadas Mora (Centre de Éstudis Demografics; Universitat Oberta de Catalunya); Prof. Arnstein Aassve (Bocconi University)This thesis presents itself as a theory to approach the persistent effects of culture over current outcomes and phenomena through a historical legacies approach. It combines the theory of cognitive culture, historical legacies, the theory of human values, and the second demographic transition to address a crucial question: can a historical antecedent such as pre-industrial family systems capture cultural traits that affect our behaviors and values today? The first chapters of the thesis are dedicated to introducing and presenting the theoretical and historical background that sets the grounds for this argument on the cultural legacies of the pre-industrial family. The third chapter is presented as a case study to analyze the most common European pre-industrial household structure, the Stem family system, to understand its internal logic, reproduction, and resilience to the times of change (mid-19th to mid-20th century). It uses census data for 5 municipalities in the region of Baix Llobregat, near Barcelona, in Catalonia, Spain. Chapter four focuses on the cultural congruence of the common sense captured by the four pre-industrial family systems and the basic human values described by Schwartz, testing the argument of Emmanuel Todd and defining the value profile associated with each of the four basic pre-industrial family systems in Western Europe. The fifth chapter focuses on the current practice of cohabitation as a legacy of these family systems. For chapters four and five, I combine the ten waves of the European Social Survey and the data for historical family systems described by Emmanuel Todd (1996) and coded by Duranton et al. (2009). The results highlight that the specific characteristics of each family type can be used to address persistent cultural differences in the individual's common sense that are linked to significant differences in the individual's profile of human values and the adoption of practices such as cohabitation. Moreover, the third and fifth chapters show how the family should not be merely interpreted as an economic unit adrift from economic and social conditions but as an agent that affects and plays a role in the processes of social change in its environment
The power of counsel : a qualitative socio-legal study in investment treaty arbitration
No full textDefence date: 21 January 2025Examining Board: Prof. Jürgen Kurtz (University of Melbourne; European University Institute, supervisor); Prof. Sergio Puig de la Parra (European University Institute); Prof. Freya Baetens (University of Oxford; Leiden University); Dr. Taylor St John (University of Oslo; University of St Andrews)The influence of legal counsel on litigation outcomes has been well-documented in the law and society literature. Extending this to investment treaty arbitration, a study by Franck and Wylie (2015) found counsel experience to be the most statistically significant predictor of outcomes. Building on their findings, this study dives deeper to explore two important research questions. First, in what activities does counsel engage with a view to influencing outcomes in investment treaty arbitrations? Second, which of these activities create effective pathways for counsel to exert influence on such outcomes? Using data from 48 novel, semi-structured interviews with arbitration practitioners, the study uncovers four pathways through which counsel shape outcomes. First, they establish facts and frame the case through evidence collection, witness testimony, and cross-examination. Second, they impact results through strategic selection of party-appointed and presiding arbitrators. In selecting party-appointed arbitrators, counsel tend to rely on seemingly widespread and effective heuristics for ascertaining potential appointees’ suitability. In selecting presiding arbitrators, counsel generally seek to advance their party’s position by anticipating collegiate dynamics within the tribunal. Third, while advocacy is a factor, its impact is often limited due to inconsistent quality. Fourth, counsel have a profound impact on the valuation of damages. They exert this influence by selecting and instructing valuation experts. These experts’ influence, in turn, derives from the combination of complex, speculative valuation analyses and arbitrators who struggle to understand and apply these analyses properly. Thus, counsel are powerful actors in investment treaty arbitrations. There is reason for concern that counsel’s influence may advantage players who are able and willing to spend more on their legal representatives. While some players may benefit from reduced counsel rates and thirdparty funding, systemic solutions would be preferable. To a significant degree, this may be achieved through establishing an advisory centre for international investment law, eliminating disputing parties’ right to unilaterally appoint arbitrators, and regulating valuation practices.Chapter 3 'Arbitrator selection and tribunal formation' of the PhD thesis draws upon an earlier version published as an article 'Pro-claimant bias in arbitrator selection' (2024) in the journal 'Journal of international economic law'
Essays on empirical political economy & education
No full textDefence date: 16 September 2025Examining Board: Prof. David Levine (Royal Holloway, University of London, External Supervisor); Prof. Andrea Ichino (European University Institute, Co-supervisor); Prof. Stefano Gagliarducci (University of Tor Vergata); Prof. David Strömberg (Stockholm University)This thesis contains three independent chapters on applied empirical economics and econometrics, focused on the area of political economy and education. In the first chapter, I study how important national swings are in determining election outcomes in the U.S. Senate. Developing a model and identification strategy that takes prediction market prices as inputs, I estimate the relative importance of local and national uncertainty in determining the election outcomes. I find that national uncertainty has approximately 40-60% the importance of local uncertainty, suggesting that national swings are important to explain election dynamics under simultaneous local elections. The second chapter is jointly co-authored with Andrea Ichino, Fabrizia Mealli, and Javier Viviens Martın. We show how principal stratification analysis can be used to evaluate whether test scores help teachers make better track recommendations for students. Additionally, we show that it can be used to measure the ”fairness” of these recommendations with respect to protected attributes such as gender, socioeconomic status, or immigration background. In the third chapter, I describe the campaign spending patterns of political parties in the Canadian first-past-the-post setting. The key theoretical prediction is that marginal districts should be targeted, as they more easily influence the election results. I find that this holds in practice and that the parties invest systematically more in districts that were competitive in the last election. This is true for most parties in most elections, despite the fundamentals dilering substantially. Incumbency is also predictive of spending, and marginal incumbents receive the most funds from their party on average. However, the most relevant competing party in a district provides only limited predictive power over spending when correcting for how competitive the district is.-- Chapter 1: Local and National Election Uncertainty
-- 1 Introduction
-- 2 Background and Previous Literature
-- 3 Data
-- 4 Model & Identification
-- 5 Results
-- 6 Conclusion
-- Chapter 2: Do Test Scores Help Teachers Give Better Track Advice to Students? A Principal Stratification Analysis
-- 7 Introduction
-- 8 The Dutch School System and the Quasi-Experiment
-- 9 Why Test Scores May Induce an Upgrade
-- 10 Statistical Framework
-- 11 Test Scores and Quality of Teachers’ Advice: Evidence
-- 12 Identification Without the Exclusion Restriction
-- 13 Fairness of Teachers’ Recommendations
-- 14 Conclusions
-- Chapter 3: On Campaign Spending in First-Past-the-Post
-- 15 Introduction
-- 16 Background & Previous Literature
-- 17 Institutional Setting
-- 18 Data
-- 19 Competitiveness of District and Contributions
-- 20 Spending and Competing Party
-- 21 Conclusion & Future Research
-- Appendix to Chapter 1
-- Appendix to Chapter 2
-- Appendix to Chapter
Identity under pressure : migration, marginalization, and political integration in early 20th century Greece
No full textDefence date: 18 September 2025Examining Board: Prof. Simon Hix (European University Institute, Supervisor); Prof. Elias Dinas (European University Institute); Prof. Alexandra Cirone (London School of Economics); Prof. Lukas Haffert (University of Geneva)This thesis examines how shocks—forced migration, political marginalization, and linguistic repression—shape minority political behavior, identity formation, and integration. Focusing on Greece in the interwar and post-World War II periods, it analyzes how displaced and marginalized communities responded to political exclusion, adapted their voting strategies, and navigated shifting political landscapes. Using archival electoral data and causal inference methods (Difference-in-Differences, Regression Discontinuity Design), the thesis provides an empirical account of how political representation and identity formation unfold under conditions of displacement and repression. The first chapter the political realignment of refugees following forced displacement, demonstrating that while initial political loyalties were strong, they weakened when political representation failed. However, rather than permanently defecting, they remained engaged by shifting from substantive to descriptive representation, increasingly supporting co-ethnic candidates within the party rather than abandoning it altogether. This shift underscores how minority groups adjust their political strategies when policy-based representation falters, relying instead on identity-based representation to maintain influence. The second chapter investigates how internal divisions within refugee communities weakened their collective influence, showing that fragmentation disrupted political cohesion and reduced their ability to mobilize effectively. The third chapter examines the impact of linguistic repression during foreign occupation, challenging the assumption that suppression automatically triggers a nationalist backlash. Instead, the findings suggest that political responses to repression depend on broader historical and social contexts rather than repression alone. Taken together, these studies advance theories of ethnic voting, representation, and repression, demonstrating that minority political behavior is neither static nor purely grievance-driven but shaped by strategic adaptation and group cohesion. The findings contribute to debates on refugee integration, the effects of repression, and the long-term consequences of displacement, offering insights into how marginalized communities engage with political systems and how historical legacies shape democratic institutions over time
What and where is state consent? : judicial engagement with instruments issued by international organisations
No full textDefence date: 25 June 2025Examining Board: Prof. Sarah Nouwen (European University Institute, Supervisor); Prof. Sergio Puig De La Parra (European University Institute); Prof. Ingo Venzke (University of Amsterdam); Prof. Xinjun Zhang (Tsinghua University)State consent has traditionally been regarded as the foundation of international law, yet its status as the bedrock of the system has consistently faced contestation. Theorists have raised challenges from various quarters. This thesis shifts away from theoretical discussions by empirically examining how the International Court of Justice and its predecessor, the Permanent Court of International Justice (collectively referred to as the “Court”), have either looked for or ignored state consent when engaging with instruments issued by international organisations (“IO-generated instruments”). The relationship between state consent and IO-generated instruments is complex. While states create international organisations (“IOs”) and are involved in their operation, state consent to these instruments is often indirect and ambiguous. The thesis demonstrates that in judicial discourse, states, the Court, and judges in their separate opinions have understood the concept of state consent in different ways across various contexts. The Court’s jurisprudence suggests that a strict interpretation of state consent—viewing it as individual state consent to specific norms—does not explain the lawmaking effects of IOgenerated instruments. To link these instruments with state consent, the Court often frames state consent as “common consent” or “regime consent”. Yet the Court’s approach to these two forms of state consent does not necessarily reflect respect for the genuine will of states. The thesis also highlights instances where IO-generated instruments are treated as authoritative in identifying or interpreting international law without any accompanying explanation—let alone evidence of state consent. Ultimately, the thesis concludes that state consent is neither the exclusive foundation of international law nor indispensable to the formation of legal norms. When invoked as the basis of international law, the concept of state consent is highly fluid and often subject to varied—and at times lenient—standards of review. While social acceptance remains vital to the formation of international law, such acceptance stems not only from states, but also from IOs and international legal professionals
From migrants to settlers : the history of Greek communities in colonial Zimbabwe and Tanganyika, 1890s-1960s
No full textDefence date: 10 October 2025Examining Board: Prof. Corinna Unger (European University Institute, Supervisor); Prof. Federico Romero (European University Institute); Prof. Amalia Ribi Forclaz (Geneva Graduate Institute); Prof. Andonis Piperoglou (University of Melbourne)This doctoral thesis examines the position of Greek migrants in the colonial societies of sub-Saharan Africa, focusing on their transformation from migrants to settlers. Through the cases of colonial Zimbabwe and Tanzania from the 1890s to the 1950s, it explores how Greeks, as marginal Europeans without a colonial background, were positioned both materially and culturally within these societies. Although generally classified as Europeans in the 20th century, Greeks lacked direct colonial rule background, having themselves been subjects of British and Italian rule in the Ionian Islands, Cyprus, and the Dodecanese. The study argues that Greek migrants’ racial and settler status was fluid, shaped by their economic activities, class, and interactions with European settlers, indigenous communities, and other immigrant groups, such as Indians. In the early period (1890s– 1920s), most Greeks worked as laborers, small shopkeepers, or traders with indigenous populations, often occupying peripheral roles in colonial society. However, from the late 1920s to the 1960s, their status shifted: in Southern Rhodesia, Greeks entered politics and even held mayoral positions in major cities, while in Tanganyika, they acquired extensive agricultural estates—land ownership on a scale rarely seen in their homeland. This dissertation examines the conditions that allowed only certain social classes to access the privileges of settler colonialism and how individuals from a non-imperial background—lacking capital, foreign language skills, and religious or ethnic alignment with ruling elites—were able to integrate into, and sometimes thrive within, colonial structures. Ultimately, it challenges approaches to settler colonialism as an exclusive domain of imperial powers, demonstrating how ‘smaller’ European migrant communities strategically navigated, participated and even influenced colonial systems
Shaping the direction of structural change : how firms and institutions influence the outcomes of economic transformations in the 21st century
No full textDefence date: 21 November 2025Examining Board: Prof. Anton Hemerijck (European University Institute, Supervisor); Prof. Thomas Kurer (University of Zurich, External Co-supervisor); Prof Pavithra Suryanarayan (London School of Economics); Prof Simon Hix (European University Institute)Driven by technological change, globalization, and climate transitions, structural change has benefited people unequally and, thereby, deepened societal and political polarization in postindustrial societies. This raises the question of how deterministic the outcomes of structural change are. While there is an increasing scholarly interest in the processes that can exacerbate or prevent disadvantageous outcomes, there are also three biases this dissertation seeks to overcome. Concretely, there has been the tendency (1) to di!erentiate statically between the winners and losers of structural change, (2) to focus on the most visible yet not the most representative outcomes of structural change, and (3) to assume that the main role of institutions is to compensate the ”losers” for losses after they materialize. Against this backdrop, I consider firms as the societal actors that bring structural change most immediately in the lived experiences of their workers. Concretely, I focus on how firms design jobs for workers with occupational risks and maintain their commitment to these workers in periods of restructuring. Thereby, I argue that firms can either broaden the circle of workers who benefit from structural change or trigger the mechanisms that cause resentment and radicalize people politically. This firm perspective also enables a better understanding of which policy interventions a!ect the outcomes of structural change, namely those that increase the institutional capacity to support firms managing structural change inclusively in their organizations. I test these arguments empirically in three papers, using survey and administrative register data, overcoming the challenge of studying the role of firms empirically. Ultimately, my dissertation demonstrates how firms and the institutions in which they are embedded not just react to structural change but endogenously shape its direction and outcomes. This has important implications for behavioral and institutional debates about structural change in political science as well as in the welfare state literature.Chapter 2 'Upgrading jobs for all: How welfare states shape differences in life satisfaction between the winners and losers of structural change' of the PhD thesis draws upon an earlier version published as an article 'Upgrading jobs for all: How welfare states shape differences in life satisfaction between the winners and losers of structural change' (2025) in the journal 'Socio-economic review'
The material culture of 'Weltliteratur' : history and the German book trade 1773-1867
No full textDefence date: 29 October 2025Examining Board: Prof. Giorgio Riello (European University Institute, Supervisor); Prof. Ann Thomson (European University Institute); Prof. Daniel Fulda (Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg); Prof. Daniel Leonhard Purdy (Penn State University)The German composite term Weltliteratur (world literature), like many other historiographical and scholarly terms, has endured throughout time due to its vague and multifaceted meaning and application. This thesis hypothesises that the term Weltliteratur presents a material and cultural lens into wider historical developments in the German Sattelzeit (roughly 1750-1850). It addresses historians, literary historians, and critics with a methodological intervention by identifying and analysing how materiality, in the form of books, texts, and objects, operates in the earliest uses of Weltliteratur. These ‘things’ serve as the performative and experimental tools in the literary laboratory of eighteenth and nineteenth-century Germany. To study the historical formation and development of Weltliteratur, this thesis loosely draws on the framework of historiographical concepts: Reinhart Koselleck’s Begriffsgeschichte and Hans-Jörg Rheinberger’s concept of the ‘epistemtic thing’. Through the processes of conception, translation, commoditisation, politicisation and universalisation, this thesis tells a material story about the motivations and environments that conditioned the formation of Weltliteratur as a term and as an epistemic thing. The printed and written mentions of Weltliteratur emerge as unanticipated results of intellectual and literary experimentation. This thesis moves beyond the predominant focus on Johann Wolfgang Goethe as the most renowned author of Weltliteratur in literary histories. It studies the materiality and ‘material experiences’ at work in its formation between its first mention by the Göttingen historian August Ludwig Schlözer in 1773 and the beginning of the Universal Bibliothek published by Reclam in 1867. Through a material culture approach, performative and experimental expressions and connotations of Weltliteratur emerge that originate from contemporary ambitions that retrospective historiographical and literary definitions cannot quite capture. This thesis argues that metaphors and references to objects should be taken at face value: the material environment of texts and the material environment of authors are permeable. The materiality of books and objects and their authors’ material environment allows us to reread people’s experiences through their own language, perception of materiality and imagination. This requires a close reading of printed texts and archival material and an obligation to the object and materiality of the book. A historical study of the composite term Weltliteratur has not concentrated on the ‘material’ book itself. The use of the concept of ‘materiality’ contributes to a broad range of scholarship by bringing together literary and historical contexts through material, political and economic conditions. Weltliteratur emerges as a historical term interwoven with German publishing, history and historiography long before Goethe, comparative literature and literary history redeveloped it
The ex-empire builders : migrants of decolonisation and the transformation of work in post-war Britain
No full textDefence date: 10 October 2025Examining Board: Prof. Corinna Unger (European University Institute, Supervisor); Prof. Benno Gammerl (European University Institute); Prof. Jordanna Bailkin (University of Washington); Prof. Sarah Stockwell (King’s College London)This thesis explores how formal decolonisation led to new ways of organising working life and the workplace in Britain in the second half of the twentieth century. During this period, approximately two million migrants arrived in Britain from newly independent nation-states, with around one-third classified as being of ‘European’ descent. I focus on the constitutive role played by a group of ‘European’ migrants of decolonisation, specifically former colonial civil servants, as employees in emerging sectors of the service and non-profit economy. By highlighting the interconnection between work and postcolonial migration, this study challenges the scholarly consensus that decolonisation had minimal or no economic impact in Britain. As I show, the arrival of postcolonial migrants resulted in the creation of new infrastructures for re-employment across Britain. Resettlement boards directed former colonial civil servants into high-status employment in education, non-governmental organisations, government departments and private companies. The rich archival records of these institutions illustrate how colonial civil servants managed the evolution of these growing institutions, which I argue were central to the post-imperial economy, between the 1950s and 1970s. In addition to highlighting the role played by colonial civil servants in specific workplaces transformed by decolonisation, this thesis places broader structural changes in conversation with the intimate and familial. Interviews with second-generation migrants reveal how decolonisation shaped memory, identity and politics within colonial service families late into the twentieth century. Ultimately, by drawing together the literature on the end of empire and post-war economic history, I show how the economic consequences of decolonisation reverberated at the level of the state, family and individual. In doing so, the thesis provides a new framework for understanding how postcolonial migration shaped work and the workplace in Britain, as one example in European history
L’exil en partage à Paris : engagement artistique de dissidents grecs et turcs à la lumière de l’Europe (1957-1992)
No full textDefence date: 17 October 2025Examining Board: Prof. Giancarlo Casale (European University Institute); Prof. Kristin Fabbe (European University Institute); Prof. Pascale Laborier (Université Paris Nanterre); Prof. Lea Nocera (Università degli Studi di Napoli L’Orientale)Dans la seconde moitié du XXème siècle, en Grèce et en Turquie, d’importants affrontements politiques ont donné lieu à de larges mouvements d’exil. Des dissidents ont cherché à rejoindre des pays sous influence soviétique ou l’Europe occidentale. Parmi eux, des artistes. Pour eux, Paris fut l’un des pôles les plus attractifs. Là, grâce à un soutien local et un environnement inspirant, ils ont su poursuivre leur contestation à distance, décidés à dénoncer coups d’État et manœuvres dictatoriales de leurs pays d’origine. Cette étude propose une analyse de l’action et de l’œuvre de ces artistes, pour mieux comprendre la vision du monde qui fut la leur pendant la période exilique et après celle-ci. Si les prises de position sont fondamentales, les messages, parfois cachés, des œuvres d’art, le sont tout autant. Les créations des artistes, chargées de symboles, d’allégories et de métaphores, disent beaucoup. Elles sont conçues pour dénoncer l’illibéralisme et pour prendre l’opinion publique et le monde politique à témoin. Ce faisant, se développe un art exilique, qui présente des thématiques et des formes particulières. Il va jusqu’à constituer un style nouveau. Sa spécificité principale est la dualité. Chez les artistes dissidents en exil, ce caractère double vient servir l’engagement politique, dans la mesure où se développe une forme de prédisposition à l’idée de la diversité dans l’unité, au cœur du projet européen. Si l’histoire des artistes grecs et turcs en exil à Paris s’est superposée à l’histoire de la construction européenne, elle s’est surtout arrimée à elle. Car en œuvrant au rapprochement gréco-turc et en considérant l’Europe politique comme un vecteur de paix et de justice face à des régimes autoritaires, les exilés ont contribué au mûrissement d’une idée : celle d’une Europe politique fondée sur la défense des droits humains et des droits politiques.In the second half of the twentieth century, both Greece and Turkey experienced major political disruptions, which gave rise to significant waves of exile. Numerous dissidents sought refuge either in countries under Soviet influence or in Western Europe. Among them were artists, for whom Paris was one of the most attractive destinations. There, supported by local networks and immersed in a stimulating environment, they continued their political commitment from afar, determined to further oppose the military coups and authoritarian maneuvers taking place in their home countries. This study offers an analysis of the political action and artistic production of these exiled artists, with the aim of shedding light on their worldview during the exile period and beyond. While their political stances are essential, equal attention is given to the implicit messages conveyed through their artistic works. Laden with symbols, allegories, and metaphors, these creations communicate complex narratives. They are deliberately designed to challenge illiberalism and to reach out to the civil society and to political actors. In this context, a distinct form of exilic art emerges – characterized by specific themes and aesthetic forms – ultimately giving rise to a new artistic style. A defining feature of this style is duality. Among dissident artists in exile, this duality serves a political function, reflecting an inclination toward the idea of unity in diversity, a core principle of the European project. The trajectory of Greek and Turkish exiled artists in Paris not only paralleled the broader process of European integration, but in many respects, became intrinsically linked to it. By fostering Greek-Turkish rapprochement and by considering Europe as a driver of peace and justice in the face of authoritarianism, these exiled figures contributed meaningfully to the development of a political ideal: a political Europe grounded in the protection of human and political rights