Past Fellows at the Institute of International Studies

John L. Simpson Memorial Research Fellows, 2007-2008

Elizabeth Allison, Environmental Science, Policy and Management: What is Good and Proper? Religious Stories and Environmental Action. Decisions to preserve or protect natural resources reflect judgments about what is good and proper, and are thus radically moral acts. Through forest and watershed management, values take concrete form, shaping unique socionatural places. As the ground of people's most cherished values, religions -- including textual traditions, personal belief, and lived practices -- hold the key to a deeper understanding of the ways in which moral discourse and socionatural place interrelate. "Environmental imaginaries," the place-specific conceptions of nature that shape the ways that people perceive, discuss, and work in nature, often expressed in religious or spiritual terms, encapsulate a community's values with respect to its environment. This dissertation investigates the foundations of these moral choices about the environment, by examining the environmental imaginaries and their consequences for decision-making through two case studies of watershed management in two highly dissimilar, yet complementary, places -- a village in the Himalayan Kingdom of Bhutan and an activist network in the Hudson River Valley of New York -- where religion is explicitly invoked in environmental conservation. This research asks: 1) What aspects of religious beliefs shape local environmental imaginaries?; and 2) How do these environmental imaginaries affect forest and watershed management at the local level, in Bhutan and New York?

Douglas Bushey, Energy and Resources Group: International Knowledge Production: Expert Advisory Bodies as New Sites of Productive Power in Global Governance. Mr. Bushey's research employs a discursive analysis to better understand the politics of knowledge production within international expert advisory bodies. Understanding the process by which knowledge is produced in international expert advisory bodies is important because this knowledge defines and frames problems, while simultaneously enabling and constraining the range of possible solutions. This "productive power" is not coercive, but instead acts by shaping understandings, norms, and social identities that in turn define both the problem and the range of possible responses. Drawing from democratic theorists and the knowledge politics literature in Science and Technology Studies (STS), Douglas traces the emergence and evolution of the discourses of sound science, trust, and representation on expert advisory bodies to the Codex Alimentarius Commission and the Clean Development Mechanism. He finds that as knowledge producers are increasingly understood to be acting as policymakers, the rules and operating procedures of international scientific advisory bodies have become important sites of negotiation and conflict between states seeking to exercise productive power. While this phenomenon has been observed extensively in domestic politics, the asymmetric ability of Northern and Southern nations to produce what is viewed as legitimate science has led to advisory bodies with unique practices that reflect a hybridity of democratic and scientific norms.

Jennifer L. Bussell, Political Science: Bytes and Benefits: the Political Logic of Community Computer Centers.In the last ten years, thousands of community computer centers have been introduced in developing countries, with more than 10,000 in India alone. Ms. Bussell's dissertation asks how this innovation in development infrastructure can inform our understanding of broader issues in political economy of development. By drawing together theories of electoral incentives from democratic politics analyses and arguments about the importance of public bureaucracies for shaping economic and social development trajectories, this research project fills a gap in the literature on policy choice and the outcomes of particular development initiatives. The decentralized emergence of these initiatives in India also provides an opportunity to examine sub-national political economic dynamics. Through an examination of computer center initiatives across multiple Indian states, Ms. Bussell shows how state-level electoral incentives interact with regional bureaucratic capacity to affect computer center outcomes. Specifically, variation in politicians' expectations regarding opportunities for political gains and the potential for successful implementation of these projects leads to variation in the distribution and available services of computer center initiatives. The Indian analysis is then tested through broader national comparisons to community computer center initiatives in South Africa and Brazil. In addition to furthering theories on political economy of development, this project's effort to understand the political sources of computer center variation, often ignored in discussions of the "digital divide," is also crucial for illuminating why some countries -- and especially some regions within countries -- have fallen behind in the digital era, while others have taken advantage of new technologies to provide crucial services to often-neglected, poor and rural populations.

Kerstin Carlson, Jurisprudence & Social Policy: Taking Root: Assessing the Achievements of the International Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia. The expanding role of courts in modern human rights discourse places them not only at the center of punishment and justice, but also as institutions designed to heal social rifts through the creation of shared narratives. In her dissertation, Ms. Carlson considers the impact of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former-Yugoslavia (ICTY) both on the states of the Former Yugoslavia as well as on the development of international criminal and human rights law. Through interviews in Serbia and Croatia and the Hague, as well as through examining the ICTY's mandate, procedures, institutional capacity, indictments and rulings, Ms. Carlson's dissertation considers the role the ICTY has played in constructing civil society in the wake of violence, in order to address the larger question of what institutional role courts -- and the international law they are developing and applying -- can and should play in structuring social reconciliation.

Rebecca Hamlin, Political Science: International Law in Domestic Court: The Judicial Politics of the Refugee in the United States, Canada, and Australia. This dissertation examines refugee policy implementation in the United States, Canada, and Australia in comparative perspective. While all three nations share a commitment to the United Nations' definition of a refugee, Ms. Hamlin shows how different national legislative and judicial frameworks can lead to divergent outcomes on the ground, even in the interpretation of the same language. The central question is: what role does the national context play in interpreting and applying the text of refugee rights? Drawing on an in-depth analysis of both administrative tribunal and federal court decisions in all three countries, as well as in-person interviews with refugee lawyers, political advocates, policy makers, and bureaucrats, she finds that some nations are better able to allow for "trickle down" of refugee law developments, while other nations have high levels of jurisprudential ambiguity that lead to inconsistent outcomes. She then illustrates the effect that such cross-national differences can have on who receives protection, and ultimately, the concept of a refugee itself. The dissertation is an empirically driven critique of comparative law studies which focus exclusively on the highest level of courts, rather than viewing the judicial branch in its domestic political and institutional setting.

Samuel Handlin, Political Science: Left Parties and Lower-Class Mobilization in South America, 1990-2005. Many scholars suggest a decline of class cleavages in South America's third wave democracies, asserting that electorates rarely or weakly divide along socioeconomic lines. Yet surprisingly few studies have marshaled the necessary survey data to assess this proposition. In this project, Mr. Handlin attempts to address this lacuna. He first demonstrates that major political parties with historical roots on the left have differed greatly in the class basis of their support in the third wave period. Some parties have been characterized by a lower-class electoral base, in that they have been consistently and significantly more successful at attracting support from the lower classes than the middle classes. Yet others are characterized by a middle-class electoral base, being consistently and significantly more successful at attracting support from the middle classes than the lower classes. A next step involves investigating the causes underlying these divergent outcomes, with a focus on the strength of parties in rural areas, their willingness to embrace patronage politics, and the ability of newly formed parties to mobilize lower class electoral support through programmatic and organizational innovations. The project investigates these questions across six countries (Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Uruguay, Venezuela) through a combination of survey data, ecological analysis of voting returns, secondary case materials, and primary field research in Venezuela and Bolivia.

Sikina Jinnah, Environmental Science, Policy and Management: Managing Overlapping Regimes: Authority, Autonomy, and Agency in International Bureaucracies. This dissertation addresses concerns about the trajectories of global governance, and seeks to identify shifting locations of agency and influence in international politics. Through an examination of two international secretariats at opposite ends of the authority/autonomy spectrum: the secretariats of the World Trade Organization and the Convention on Biological Diversity, this dissertation argues that international secretariats are not mere functionaries of the state, but have begun to challenge traditional understandings of agency within international bureaucracies by assuming new roles and responsibilities vis-à-vis managing the points of overlap between international regimes. This study explores how the source and significance of bureaucratic authority when overlaid with the problem characteristics of overlap management has situated international secretariats as uniquely able to fill a lacuna of international environmental governance (management of regime overlap) that is rapidly rising in political importance. These international secretariats are, to different degrees, emerging as political actors in their own right by both shaping the ideas and values of the Parties they serve, as well as playing an important role in shaping their own identity and relevance in global environmental governance.

Robert Johnson, Economics: Endogenous Non-Tradability and International Prices. With the growing integration of the global economy, each country's economic fate is intimately linked to that of other countries. Yet, there are many unanswered questions regarding the nature of the ties that bind countries together. One important area for research concerns the behavior of international traded goods prices. Recent research has documented that export prices differ widely across countries and destination markets, even within narrowly defined sectors. Prices are also positively correlated with a host of source and destination country variables such as income per capita and the capital/skill intensity of production. These robust patterns suggest that prices contain important information about the structure of the international economy and the process of economic growth and development. Johnson's research attempts understand these facts by integrating models of firm export decisions into macroeconomic models and evaluating these hybrid models using detailed trade data. The key prediction is that if firms select to enter export markets based on productivity, then exporting firms will tend to have lower prices on average than non-exporting firms within disaggregated sectors. As a corollary, prices will vary across markets with the relative costs and benefits of accessing a given market. To test these predictions, Johnson combines a fully articulated economic model with disaggregated trade data to study the joint evolution of joint evolution of export thresholds, prices, and trade flows.

Andra Olivia Maciuceanu, Political Science: Unions, Business, and the State: Labor Relations Lessons from the Automotive Industry. Intensified economic globalization in the last two decades has prompted a number of multinational corporations to decentralize their manufacturing facilities in developing countries. This restructuring, coupled with the concurrent flexibilization of labor and technical advancements in production, brought about novel business-labor disputes. Workers' representatives in Latin America have responded to these challenges by reconsidering their strategies for conflict resolution. Notably, certain union leaders sought the support of foreign unions with varying degrees of success. The first objective of this study is to explain the variation in union strategies for conflict resolution. The second objective is to analyze the factors that condition the success of the transnational strategies. Case studies of car assembly plants are embedded within a broader comparison of the Brazilian and Mexican automotive industries.

Adnan Naseemullah, Political Science: Spirits of Capitalism: Three Bourgeois Classes in South Asia. Can we understand capitalists in the developing world as of one type, united in perspective and action in relation to other economic actors? This dissertation project argues that the economies of India and Pakistan contain not one, but three capitalist classes, defined as cohesive economic groups defined by history and culture as opposed to economic structure. These classes see the world differently and, crucially, act differently from one another in terms of acquiring capital, managing labour and relating to different aspects of the state. These differences in turn have profound consequences on the direction of industrialization and the character of economic exchange among social actors in the Indian subcontinent. Through in-depth interviews with industrialists in Pakistan and northern and western India, this project examines the backgrounds and perspectives of capitalists and their footprints on the political economy of the region, and attempts to provide a deeper understanding of the varieties of capitalism that are inherent in post-liberalisation developing economies.

Darius Ornston, Political Science: Renegotiating Adjustment: Institutional Innovation & Economic Adjustment in Northern Europe. Historically, "negotiated" economies have managed adjustment through structured bargaining between state agencies, universal banks, industry associations and trade unions. Conventional wisdom dictates that negotiated capitalism has been challenged by and fragmented in the face of new institutional constraints, economic changes and technological innovations. Mr. Ornston tests this hypothesis by examining institutional change in small states (Denmark, Finland, and Sweden), where market pressures should be most pronounced. Drawing on over three hundred interviews with policy-makers and industry representatives, he reveals that liberalization provoked new forms of private - public cooperation in the allocation of finance, human capital and knowledge, even as it destroyed alleged institutional linchpins like the universal banks and Keynesian demand management. Analysis of two industries within each national case not only confirms new forms of private - public cooperation, but links political bargains to distinctive adjustment trajectories in each nation. In particular, centralized concertation in Finland facilitated rapid restructuring and high technology growth more commonly associated with liberal economies like the United States. Collectively, institutional adaptation and rapid restructuring point to a hitherto neglected source of dynamism in negotiated capitalism. Findings are generalized with reference to Ireland, commonly classified as a liberal market economy. The Irish case reveals that increased private - public cooperation is not isolated to Nordic Europe. Indeed, liberal economies have been adopting similar "negotiated" strategies to facilitate rapid restructuring, even as the literature on comparative political economy predicts convergence in the opposite direction.

Malini Ranganathan, Energy and Resources Group: Seeing Like a Citizen: Technologies of Governance and Urban Service Delivery in Bangalore. Sixty-three major cities in India are currently undergoing "good governance" reforms as part of the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM) launched in 2005. JNNURM promises $11 billion for urban infrastructure over five years. In return, Indian municipalities must undertake a host of conditionalities, such as public-private partnerships in infrastructure development, and strategies to enhance transparency, accountability, and participation -- widely considered critical benchmarks of good governance. This dissertation interrogates the discourse and practices of "good urban governance" through the case of Bangalore, India. Specifically, this research examines technologies and reform strategies (such as e-governance) that are being promoted under the national mission, and are perceived to facilitate feedback and participation by citizens in urban service delivery. The project critically evaluates technologies of good governance along three dimensions: a) interest group representation, b) state-society relations, and c) equity in service delivery. The goal of the dissertation is to lend insight into how technologies of good governance are affecting the relationship between citizens, elected representatives, and service providers in the city, and the implications of good governance technologies for greater equity in urban service delivery.

Jessica Rich, Political Science: Civic Engagement from the Top Down: Comparative Lessons from the AIDS Policy Arena in Brazil. Vast amounts of international financial and technical assistance have been invested in fighting the spread of AIDS in the developing world, yet the number of national AIDS policy failures continues to far outweigh the number of successes. This dissertation examines a key component of the global "good governance" model for AIDS prevention: partnership between government and civil society organizations in developing and carrying out policy. Specifically, Rich analyzes the relationship between state and AIDS associations in Brazil, one of the rare instances of national policy success. Within this context of success, she examines how local-level political and social dynamics filter national and global efforts to mobilize civil society groups, thus producing different local patterns of participation. She situates her analysis in Brazil because it is an international standard bearer for good governance in AIDS prevention, and because within Brazil, AIDS is recognized as the policy area with the most active and broadest participation among civil society organizations. Thus, Brazilian AIDS policy is a critical arena of state/society intermediation, which represents a "most likely" scenario for observing a democratization of the policymaking process. At the same time, the limitations that we observe in the area of Brazilian AIDS policy are likely to appear even stronger in other policy and political contexts. Yet like many countries, politics within Brazil vary greatly across municipalities: Brazil is geographically and economically diverse; mayors are autonomous and powerful; and most social policy is controlled at the municipal level. Rich thus seeks to explain the significant degree of local variation in AIDS policymaking models, through a subnational comparison across four capital cities, and consequently to produce explanations for this variation that apply to other policy areas and national contexts. This project will utilize archival and secondary sources, in-depth interviews with policy-makers and associational leaders, and event observation of policy negotiations, protests, and other associational activities.

Rachel Stern, Political Science: Catalysts of Contention? Lawyers and Environmental Litigation in China. Will environmental litigation led by Chinese "cause lawyers" spark an American-style rights revolution? Will it improve environmental quality? How did cause lawyers come to exist in an authoritarian state and how do they operate? This dissertation looks at the creation and impact of Chinese environmental cause lawyers, activist lawyers motivated by a cause rather than cash. Consciously or not, Western foundations and other non-governmental organizations (NGOs) have begun exporting a mode of legal action which relies on environmental litigation -- spearheaded by cause lawyers and legal aid centers -- to improve policy compliance, raise environmental consciousness and redress egregious violations of the law. Through interviews in the United States and China, this project traces the development of this form of legal action from its origins in (idealized) 1960s American legal history to its implementation in contemporary China. In-depth case studies of four recent lawsuits further investigate how legal expertise and transnational ties affect 1) the resolution of lawsuits and 2) operating procedures for local government and business. More broadly, this project explores both how legal practices move across borders and what activist lawyers can accomplish under severe political constraints.

Sarah Stroup, Political Science: National Diversity and Global Activism: INGOs and the Enduring Effects of National Origin. International non-governmental organizations (INGOs) have received considerable attention from academics, activists, and policymakers. Substantial research demonstrates that INGOs are powerful non-state actors that have successfully altered the policies of states and international organizations. Yet we know fairly little about INGOs - their origins, identities, and interests. In this dissertation, Stroup examines how country of origin -- that is, national institutions and national political cultures -- may affect INGO structure and strategy. Drawing from existing scholarship on both civil society and multinational corporations, Stroup examines how country of origin influences a wide array of INGO attributes, including their relations with governments, relations with other NGOs, centralization of decision-making, fundraising, hiring practices, and, perhaps most significantly, the selection of program activities and advocacy strategies for the organization. This examination proceeds through comparative case studies of a dozen major INGOs from the United States, Britain, and France, working in both the humanitarian relief and human rights sectors. Stroup's research utilizes government documents, internal and external INGO publications, existing studies of these organizations, and over 60 hour-long interviews conducted in the three countries. This project has both theoretical and practical implications. Theoretically, Stroup challenges the concepts of global civil society and convergence found in the globalization literature; argues for alternatives to state-centric theory building (while recognizing the enduring, but often unintentional, effects of state-level processes); and contributes to sociological institutionalism's understanding of INGOs and their environments. Practically, this dissertation offers activists and policymakers an explanation for the diversity of practices and structures among INGOs, which may be useful for building and sustaining international coalitions and campaigns.

Anna Wetterberg, Sociology: From Elective to Enforced? Labor Standards in the Global Apparel Industry. By the turn of the millennium, many large, branded clothing companies had adopted voluntary labor standards in response to anti-sweatshop campaigns. Such self-regulation shifts the responsibility for workers' protection away from national governments and into private hands. Voluntary standards have inherent flaws in terms of accountability, transparency, and enforcement, but are an emergent form of governance on social issues in a globalized world, where national governments are perceived as ineffective. Such "soft law" is evident in a range of other industries, including electronics, chemicals, and trade in certain agricultural commodities. In the global apparel industry, it is not clear, however, whether such self-regulation has spread to firms that operate on a smaller scale or lack brands. Tracing the spread of self-regulation in the apparel industry will provide insights into the current scope of this form of governance, prospects for further diffusion, and its possible elaboration into a "hard law" regime of enforceable global labor regulation. In the dissertation, Wetterberg will assess whether self-regulation has become institutionalized in the global apparel industry by mapping its spread, identifying factors that explain variations in adoption patterns, and tracing channels through which these practices have diffused. In contrast to theories that explain self-regulation based on targeting and brand orientation, she draws on organizational theory to hypothesize that a combination of field-, national-, and firm-level factors drive adoption of voluntary labor standards. Drawing on an original database of more than 500 firms from the global apparel industry, as well as qualitative case studies of select corporations, her findings will contribute to our understanding of the transnational flow of ideas, assess the impact of the anti-sweatshop movement, and inform policy debates on global labor standards.