2014

A developed public system of primary and secondary education exists within all of the thirty-four member countries of the Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD). At the same time, these systems are organized very differently depending on the country or set of countries in question. This thesis aims to understand why developed countries feature vastly different education systems despite similar goals of providing a universal system of public education to its citizens. More specifically, this thesis borrows perspectives from both political economy and sociology to help explain two major questions: 1) Why do some countries pursue secondary school systems that sort students into academic or vocational studies and 2) Why do some countries pursue early tracking from ages ten to twelve while others pursue late tracking at ages sixteen and beyond? Distinguishing features between coordinated versus liberal market economies, a set of classifications borrowed from political economy’s varieties of capitalism, appear to help explain the existence of tracking versus non-tracking in the secondary school systems of developed countries. Additionally, the effects on inequality of early versus late tracking appear to influence partisan interests, namely those of Christian versus social democratic parties, which then influence the existence of early versus late tracking in many developed countries. More specifically, coordinated market economies feature the structural support for secondary school tracking that liberal market economies do not, and countries with Christian democratic leadership are more likely to pursue early tracking than social democratic leadership, which pursue late tracking, because the former is more likely to support higher inequalities in the form of restricted intergenerational mobility.

While torture is often thought of as one of the most degrading and brutal treatments as well as violations of human rights, it has been regularly practiced by liberal democratic governments throughout the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries in a wide range of contexts. My thesis examines moves to torture in democracies and aims to conceptualize and refine existing models, explicit or implicit in the current scholarly literature, on how and why democracies turn to torture. I will also lay other potential models for these moves, including an unsettling model in which politicians explicitly decide on these policies, a possibility that has not been discussed adequately in the scholarly literature but surfaces in more journalistic accounts. I consider two primary cases of democratic torture, those of the United States and the United Kingdom, but make reference to a number of other historical cases. Finally, I hope that my discussion of democratic turns to torture will suggest one important limitation in some of the secondary literature on torture: a tendency to accept uncritically certain assumptions about the efficacy of torture, in part due to the paucity of large-scale data on this point. Here, my account will consider mythology built and transmitted around torture by examining tactical and strategic examples of torture. Assumptions of efficacy are important on a number of levels, as they are implicit not only in scholarly articles but in most governmental decisions to utilize torture techniques.

This thesis uses the tertiary sector in India to inform policy debate for economic development in developing countries—in particular, the information technology (IT) services and banking sector as a case study of economic governance. This paper uses a new dataset on the IT sector collected from paper archives of the Software Technology Parks of India (STPI) in New Delhi during July 2013 and a dataset on the seventy-two largest banks in India collected from public documents at the Reserve Bank of India in Mumbai. Socioeconomic indicators—specifically wages, higher education, and urban agglomeration—only partially account for the growth of these sectors. In both the banking and IT sectors, government ownership promoted stability and geographical agglomeration but reduced performance. Government investment in a shared infrastructure commons through STPI was critical for the growth of the IT sector after 1991. Gradual deregulation following state ownership resulted in significant gains for both sectors. The paper concludes with a theory for the growth of technologically advanced sectors in India, which promotes gradual liberalization in sequence with government promotion of infrastructure and domestic competition.

This thesis analyzes the evolution of Marxist, Leninist, and Maoist thought leading up to and within the early Naxalite Movement in Calcutta from 1969–1972. I place the movement in a greater context of ideological development within the Indian Left and its historical relationship with peasant insurgency, urban discontent, and international political ties to China and the Soviet Union. Throughout the movement, the Naxalites negotiated their ideological commitments to Marxism with the diverse demands of their political situation, formulating ideas on revolution, class collaboration, and the role of the agrarian that were deeply imbedded within the Indian context. My thesis draws from archival material from within the movement, interviews, and secondary sources to trace the articulation and impact of Naxalite thought.

How do immigrants come to participate in the social and political institutions of their adoptive communities? In the first part of my paper, I argue that participation in any organization or club can drastically improve an immigrant’s propensity to engage in the social and political life of the host community. Clubs provide an “access point” through which political candidates, government agencies, and other actors can access newcomers and facilitate their integration into community institutions. Surprisingly, social contacts made through club participation—and in particular, social contacts with native-born Canadians—are not nearly as important as exposure to efforts to mobilize immigrants.

More than a century ago, the United States implemented an English-only educational system in its new colonial acquisition of the Philippines. Today, the burgeoning Philippine call center industry relies on widespread English proficiency and ties with foreign investors from the United States. In attracting such investors to the country, Philippine officials attribute a set of uniform qualities to the workforce that repeat colonial ways of speaking about the country. Individual workers’ speech must then accord with these attributions; in order to enter the industry, workers must prove their ability to speak the “correct” kind of English. Cultural and communication training, both outside and within the call center, teaches agents to modify their voices to accord with a spectrum of linguistic value that mirrors economic value. The linguistic spectrum relies on evaluations of speech’s relative “neutrality”—a vague identification that indicates a framework of ideas about social types in the world. Likewise, these social types inform representations of the macro-level workforce abroad. The remarkably consistent ideas about the desirability of a supposedly American standard find ultimate expression in workers’ bodies. Working the night shift to synchronize with American daytime, agents often suffer bodily fatigue and social detachment from others. In examining these cross-context ideas about social types and their real physical effects, I find that the call center require these specific modes of speaking in order to express national identity on the phone.

My thesis focuses on the reconstruction of the city of Izmir, Turkey after the Great Fire of Smyrna of 1922; focusing on the relationship between rebuilding the city and the establishment of national identity within the new Turkish nation-state. In particular, I focus on the development of the Izmir International Fair and the urban fairgrounds on which the event was held—the Kültürpark. I argue that while the old Izmir was comprised of a multicultural fabric that arose over time—forged by its communities of Turks, Greeks, Armenians, Jews, and Levantines—the fire created a chance for the new Republic to insert its presence into a city that for so many years lived without direct state interference. Building the Kültürpark and holding the Izmir International Fair served as a calling card to its citizens and to other nations that the Turkish Republic was ready to enter the modern world. However, the Izmir International Fair, while remaining a locus for the consolidation of identity, changed its role over time as the Turkish Republic became increasingly integrated into the economic and political order that began to take shape in Europe during the post-World War II period.

Development initiatives increasingly regard the participation of beneficiaries as essential to improving provision of public goods. So much so, that international aid agencies such as the World Bank requires the development projects they fund to include "beneficiary participation" components. Local village leaders act as key information brokers between the villagers, the government, and non-governmental organizations. They are often asked to recommend community residents to help implement social good interventions. However, limited literature exists on the characteristics of the nominated intervention workers and motives for why specific leaders make specific nominations. I employ mixed-methods to examine the social network and demographic characteristics of individuals nominated by local Ugandan village leaders to help implement hypothetical health, female empowerment, technology, and agricultural interventions as compared to those who were not nominated, as well as analyze why specific leaders make specific nominations. I use a 2011–2012 sociocentric network study of 1,669 adults and original fieldwork interviews with four types of local leaders in eight villages in Nyakabare Parish, Southwestern Uganda. The results suggest that individuals with a direct relationship with a local leader, higher socioeconomic status, and higher social network centrality are more likely to be nominated as hypothetical intervention workers.

This thesis uses Community Health Evangelism (CHE), a holistic, community-based Christian development methodology, as a case study to explore the challenges facing faith-based development organizations in their struggle to define a non-secular modernity. Focusing on the role of dichotomies in creating identity (e.g., sacred/secular, local/global, relative/absolute) I outline a history of the methodology and its broad ideological influences—which range from the WHO’s Alma-Ata conference, to the teachings of Paulo Freire, to the writings of evangelist Francis Schaeffer. Within the context of the rapidly increasing evangelization of sub-Saharan Africa, I explore how the legacy of colonialism has defined the role of medical missionaries on the continent and how the concept of “holistic health” has been conceived as a vehicle for biomedical moralizing in both the secular and faith-based development communities. Drawing upon field research and 150 interviews from Zambia, South Africa, and the United States, I illustrate the process by which the abstract global ideologies of CHE are translated into on-the-ground programs and then explore the reception of these programs by local communities.

This paper explores how three different actors—retail investors, investment enterprises, and the Chinese government and its regulatory agencies—engage with one another through their participation with the Chinese stock exchanges. From the outside, the Chinese stock exchanges do not appear to be well functioning mechanisms; insider trading is rife, companies do not publish accurate financial data, and many retail investors use the exchanges as a vehicle to gamble their money. This thesis will investigate how the different actors rationalize participating in the stock exchanges through an adapted cost-benefit analysis, and consequently hold the system together.

A major theme in the discussion surrounding Chinese NGOs is the relationship between these organizations and the state. Some scholars believe that the state exercises strict control over these organizations while others argue that NGOs are able to negotiate for more autonomy from the state. However, many of these theoretical works tend to make broad generalizations without providing a firm foundation of empirical analysis. My thesis seeks to analyze the online social media usages of Chinese education NGOs varying in their relationship to the state (from government-organized NGOs to grassroots NGOs) to provide a more nuanced picture of NGO-state relations. The Internet is an especially appropriate and interesting topic to analyze. On the one hand, it offers cost-effective ways for NGOs working as questionable legal entities to obtain vital resources. One the other hand, the state is also acutely aware of the potential for activism on the Internet and uses an extensive censorship apparatus to control Internet usage. These two conflicting trends make the Chinese Internet a politically “gray” area, not completely dominated by the CCP or completely free from its control. Indeed, the choices that NGOs make about their use of the Internet will reflect greatly on the current reality of NGO-state relations. Through both a quantitative analysis of education NGOs’ Weibo accounts as well as extensive interview data with past and current NGO workers, founders, and volunteers, I seek to contribute to the conversation surrounding state-society relations in China.

There has been significant research on the US and China’s intergovernmental relations, but public-to-public relations between the two countries are not well explained. Each nation’s popular perception of the other is influenced by both media and upbringing, but additionally by the school systems, where teachers play a vital role forming student’s political opinions during the early to mid-teen years. Both countries’ school systems have formal (institutionalized) and informal (incidental) mechanisms that promote students’ understanding of themselves as belonging to an exceptional nation. Building on scholarship about citizenship education and patriotism as well as ethnographic work, this thesis provides a description and interpretation of current patriotism-promoting practices in Chinese and American secondary schools, and more importantly, of the meanings that educators ascribe to them. The study suggests that schooling, though not the only factor that promotes patriotism, contributes to mutual alienation by creating opposing narratives about national identity. The findings can be used to inform future quantitative research by identifying useful frameworks for investigation.

During the 2000s, political regimes in Bolivia, Ecuador, and Venezuela moved from unstable democracies toward competitive authoritarianism under leftist, populist presidents such as Hugo Chávez. At the same time, neighboring Peru enjoyed one of the longest periods of democratic governance in its history after emerging from its own experience with competitive authoritarianism. What accounts for these diverging regime trajectories in four countries that share many economic, political, and social conditions? Focusing on the Peruvian case and building off work that connects populism to the development of competitive authoritarian regimes, I argue that a factor behind this variation is the “emerging, urban middle class”—residents of recently settled areas on the peripheries of major cities who largely work in the informal sector but have acquired lifestyles associated with the traditional middle class. Whereas elsewhere this group has been a key constituency behind presidents like Chávez in their efforts to establish new institutions, in Peru it has shown a preference for moderate institutional reform over revolution. I argue this conservatism results from Peru’s experience with neoliberal economics over the last twenty years. While far from a universally positive experience, neoliberalism has provided economic benefits to this group and thereby limited, at least in the short run, this group’s interest in institutional change, economic or political, compared to their counterparts elsewhere in the region.

This thesis attempts to understand recent changes in political strategies and distributive policies by Argentina’s ruling Peronist Party; shifting from heavy reliance on clientelism—for example, vote buying and patronage—toward broad-based, programmatic, and universal-social programs such as conditional cash transfers. In pursuing these universal voter-linkages, the Peronists seem to have risked undermining their own political viability since much of their support traditionally comes from clientelistic exchanges. However, through qualitative interviews with politicians, brokers, journalists, voters, and other political actors, I demonstrate that this move from clientelism is not strictly about expanding political support overall, but also an attempt by the president to centralize power and support within the traditionally fragmented party and prevent defections by fellow party members. In doing so, I use the Argentine case to challenge previous scholarship on the issue, which generally considers moving away from clientelism solely as an inter-party electoral strategy. With a new three-part model of clientelism—delineating politician, machine, and voter—I demonstrate how decisions to employ either clientelist or universalist strategies are not simply made by “unitary-actor” political parties, but can also be the result of intra-party dynamics, competition, and power struggles.

In the last decades of the sixteenth century, Spanish historians began to portray the Incas more negatively. This did not sit well with Inca Garcilaso de la Vega, the son of a Spanish conquistador and an Inca princess. His written attempt to rectify the historical record, Royal Commentaries of the Incas and General History of Peru, would become the most influential source on Inca and early-Peruvian history for centuries. Garcilaso’s work provided an apologia for Inca society. My thesis clarifies how he did so, turning Spanish and classical models to pro-Inca ends. One group of sixteenth-century historians suggested that the Incas were tyrants—an Aristotelian category. Garcilaso denied these accusations. To build a positive conception of what the Incas had been instead, Garcilaso used Rome to create a model of the ideal non-Christian civilization, which he argued described both the ancient Romans and the Incas. My thesis argues for a contextual approach to Garcilaso. Some studies have viewed him as acclimated to European norms while others have searched for traces of the indigenous in his writing. I contend that Garcilaso used the European tradition in an integrative way: He refuted accusations originating within the European tradition with arguments from the same tradition, which he then purposefully used to craft a new, more positive conception of the Incas.

This thesis explores the effects of employment of local community members by sport-for-development organizations. Development scholarship focuses on the process of social change rather than the practice of it. At the same time, social-movement theory offers some insight into the outcome of participation in protests and movements. To date, no one has connected the two fields to gauge what the consequences of participating in development efforts via employment are, especially for members in disadvantaged communities. I argue that these development projects have a series of unintended personal consequences on employees—depending on their roles—that range from boosts in confidence, heightened senses of responsibility, and an increase in civic duty. Additionally, gender appears to impact the importance that employees give these benefits in their everyday life. This thesis further focuses on the mechanisms that enable such personal development, including measures of community involvement, organizational commitment, and self-understanding as the theory of change. My research is based on thirty-one staff interviews across three sites of Grassroots Soccer—a sport-for-development organization that uses soccer to provide HIV/AIDS education and mobilize communities throughout South Africa.

Since 1994, South Africa has been involved in resolving numerous conflicts throughout the continent, including Lesotho, Burundi, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Zimbabwe, the Comoros, Cote d’Ivoire, Sudan, and Libya. Through a mixed methodology of discourse and textual analysis, historical analysis, and field interviews, this thesis investigates how South Africa has capitalized on its own domestic experience to develop and legitimize its foreign-conflict intervention strategies. Employing the constructivist theoretical lens of national identity and role conception, I argue that South Africa rhetorically utilizes its own domestic history to justify its foreign-policy prioritization of diplomatic, peaceful intervention over the use of force, with an emphasis on inclusive dialogue, power-sharing, and reconciliation. I then conduct a historical analysis of Pretoria’s behavior to assess whether it matches its rhetoric, and argue that while South Africa often adheres to its policy of non-violent peace processes, it has increasingly resorted to military intervention. Finally, I examine the influence of the soft power or moral authority that South Africa gained from its domestic peace process—in contrast with economic and military hard power—on Pretoria’s conflict intervention strategy and legitimacy. I conclude by posing the possibility that a shift in soft and hard power dynamics can explain recent changes in South Africa’s foreign-intervention approach.

South Africa’s poor population is characterized by a relatively deep division between the working poor and the unemployed. Some use the term “underclass” to refer to the unemployed, while others argue for the importance of the interconnections between the two groups. At the same time, unions have become increasingly bureaucratized and closely affiliated to the neoliberal state. Attempting to break away from their state-affiliated union, workers at Lonmin’s Marikana mine were attacked by South African police, resulting in the deaths of thirty-four mineworkers. This was the largest instance of state violence since the fall of apartheid, and has become a point of political significance and a rallying cry for those who oppose the ruling government. This research looks at three grassroots organizations of unemployed activists around different communities in Johannesburg, and examines the impact that Marikana had on their relationships with worker groups. I argue that the violence at Marikana caused unemployed activists struggling for basic services to identify with mineworkers against an unresponsive government, even though the two groups’ interests remained unchanged, and to some extent, divergent. At the same time, activists see Marikana as a strategic turning point in South Africa and see cooperating with the Marikana mineworkers as tactically important. The shift in identity and strategy among the unemployed poor came as a result of the violence at Marikana—unprecedented in post-apartheid South Africa—and imply that effective linkages can be formed between these two categories of poor citizens.