Research Students (Comparative)

Anar Ahmadov 

Supervisor: Professor James Hughes
|Contact: a.ahmadov@lse.ac.uk|

Brian Aitchison

The Influence of Small Business Groups on Legislative and Judicial Decisionmaking in Russia's Regions : This research project aims to examine the significance of small business associations in influencing regional and municipal politics in Russia. Stemming from a critique of state capture and collective action theories, it departs from mainstream academic discourse on Russia’s politico-economic development from epistemological and methodological standpoints, emphasizing the difference between national and local political dynamics, and utilizing a qualitative research design.

This research project aims to examine the significance of small business associations in influencing regional and municipal politics in Russia. Stemming from a critique of state capture and collective action theories, it departs from mainstream academic discourse on Russia’s politico-economic development from epistemological and methodological standpoints, emphasizing the difference between national and local political dynamics, and utilizing a qualitative research design.

This research project aims to examine the significance of small business associations in influencing regional and municipal politics in Russia. Stemming from a critique of state capture and collective action theories, it departs from mainstream academic discourse on Russia’s politico-economic development from epistemological and methodological standpoints, emphasizing the difference between national and local political dynamics, and utilizing a qualitative research design.

Interviews with local political and business leaders in the Tver’ and Lipetsk regions, which a recent analysis by OPORA, Russia’s largest association of small businesses, found to be the least and most favorable business climates for small enterprises, respectively, will be the primary data collection technique and will inform subsequent analyses. Ultimately, the aim of the research is to examine small business groups’ potential as democratic- and market-institution builders, and to reconcile that potential with the Russian executives’ national development objectives.
Supervisor: Dr David Woodruff
|Contact: b.aitchison@lse.ac.uk|
Personal website: http://personal.lse.ac.uk/aitchiso/ |

Karabekir Akkoyunlu

Politics of Change in Hybrid Regimes: The Role of the Guardians in Iran and Turkey.
Supervisor: Dr Zhand Shakibi|  & Professor Dominic Lieven
|Contact: f.k.akkoyunlu@lse.ac.uk| 

Carolyn Armstrong

Refugee Protection and Constraints on Free Movement: Explaining the Evolution of Regional Forced Migration Regime : This research looks at recent developments in regional level cooperation regarding forced migration. Faced with increasing numbers of asylum applications and an often volatile distribution of those applications between countries, states that share regional boundaries have started engaging in cooperative arrangements that attempt to better manage and control the flow of asylum seekers. Perhaps the most obvious examples of such cooperation are the Dublin system in the European Union and the Safe Third Country Agreement currently in effect between Canada and the United States. Both systems seek to prevent the phenomenon of ‘asylum shopping’ by designating the responsibility for processing an application for asylum to the ‘first country of entry’ and both have been labelled as ‘burden-sharing’ mechanisms by their designers. Since their introduction, these agreements have continually faced significant criticism in terms of their operational effectiveness, their legality and their normative desirability given their impact on individuals seeking protection throughout the EU and North America. Despite these criticisms, however, both agreements have remained fairly stable and show few signs of undergoing fundamental alterations. The actual design and negotiation of these agreements are also questionable in that it is not clear why these systems were designed based on the principles, parameters and omissions that they were, and it is further unclear as to why some of the countries involved agreed to participate in systems that would likely increase the costs and responsibilities attributable to them. While much of the existing literature has focused primarily on examining the content and criticizing the impact of these agreements, this thesis will instead seek to provide an explanation for how these regional forced migration regimes emerged, why they were designed in the way that they were, and how they have remained stable despite widespread doubts regarding their impact from both an operational and normative standpoint.
Supervisor: Eiko Thielemann
|Contact: c.armstrong@lse.ac.uk |

Jacqui Baker

The Rise of Polri: The Democratic Reorganisation of the Coercive Apparatus of the Indonesian State: Democracy hinges, in part, upon herding militaries ‘back to barracks’ from positions of dominance in politics, economy and domestic security and establishing of civilian governance in these sectors. This implies that democracy entails a particular reorganisation of the coercive apparatus of the state wherein the civilian institution of coercion, the police, will prevail over the military in matters of domestic security. Indonesia’s recent transition from military-authoritarian regime to consolidated democracy has rested on this security seesaw and the handover of matters of domestic and national security to the national police (Polri).

However, the scholarship of Indonesian politics tells us that the restoration of Polri’s authority over security should not be disregarded as a simple rearrangement of the state’s technical arms of coercion. The corporate interests of the military (TNI) and the police are deeply embedded in the state, the economy, society and criminality. Moreover since even pre-colonial days, reorganisations in security have indexed complex and multifarious transformations in the wider arrangement and exercise of power. As such, this thesis asks what does the rise of Polri tell us about the structure of power in contemporary, democratising Indonesia?

Supervisor: Professor John Sidel|
Contact: j.w.baker@lse.ac.uk|  

Francesca Biancani   

Let Down the Curtain Around Us. Sex Work in Colonial Cairo (1882-1952): This dissertation explores the construction of social marginality of sex workers in colonial Cairo (1882-1952), in the context of major economical and social changes and the development of dramatically new concepts about the scope of intervention of the State on society. The quantitative and qualitative change in sex work which took place in Cairo since the end of Nineteenth Century was made possible by a number of structural factors such as the integration of Egypt in the global market in a subaltern position, the restructuring of autonomous households' economy, the augmented economic social vulnerability of female economic roles in the job market, migration and rapid urban growth. At the same time, the new social meaning of prostitution, a permanent symbolic threat to the physical and moral welfare of the rising Egyptian nation, was discursively constructed by dominant positions, both by local and colonial elites. Prostitutes were used as dense referent to express a wide range of dominant anxieties about the social order, the definition of normative notions of Egyptian citizenship and colonial racial hierarchies. Positing the inextricable link between material and discursive formations, this study analyzes the political economy of sex work and combines a wide range of sources- governmental reports, reformist societies' papers, court cases, coeval press and semi-academic literature- to explore a space of subaltern and gendered agency which has been overlooked for long and endeavours to restore prostitution, generally considered as a marginal activity, to the history of the Egyptian nation.
Supervisor: Dr John Chalcraft
|Contact: f.biancani@lse.ac.uk|

Gustavo Bonifaz   

Supervisor: Dr Francisco Panizza|
Contact: g.x.bonifaz@lse.ac.uk|

Anita E Brkanic

A Home Away from Home: the drivers behind Croatian Diaspora political involvement in homeland affairs:  My research is focused on the political role of Diasporas and seeks to answer why conflict-based arguments are insufficient to explain Diaspora mobilization. More specifically, it looks at the drivers behind Croatian Diaspora mobilization and explains why Tudjman's Croatian Democratic Union succeeded in cementing and augmenting the mobilization and political influence of the Croatian Diaspora in their homeland. I argue that the successful mobilization of the Croatian Diaspora was a product of collective action frames (diagnostic; prognostic; motivational). The political elites have made words their chief tools in spurring receptive audiences at home and abroad to action. Drawing on some recent theoretical literature, this study will provide a framework for understanding the dynamics and motivations behind the political activation and mobilization of Diaspora communities and examine how this process is triggered by homeland leaders' efforts to galvanize Diasporas in order to advance their own political or economic interests. This study thus argues that framing processes, alongside resource mobilization and political opportunity structures are crucial for understanding the nature, dynamics and scope of Diaspora mobilization and its consequent political influence. This research employs the frame analysis approach and thus intends to link the literature on collective action frames and framing processes with the research done in Diaspora studies.  
Supervisor: Dr John Hutchinson
|Contact: a.e.brkanic@lse.ac.uk|

Kenneth Bunker   

The Shift to the Left in Latin America: A Structural Explanation: This project explains the ideological shift to the Left in Latin American governments during the past decade. I argue that the shift is structurally founded on two different transitions: one economic and one political. The former is the story of the rise and fall of the Washington Consensus; the latter is the political opportunity seized by the Latin American Left elites towards the late 1990s. The first part argues that Washington consensus policies deliberately remolded right-wing ideologies in Latin America since the late 1970s; the shift to the left appears as a natural backlash to this movement. The second part argues that while the conditions—for the shift to the Left—were set by the severe deterioration of free-market policies, the timing and terms were given by the political strategies of Left wing elites. The final part describes the outcomes of this shift. I argue that three different roads have emerged within the current Leftist model: one populist, absolutist, and expansive (e.g. Bolivia, Venezuela); one based on moderate state intervention programs (e.g. Argentina, Brazil); and one heavily based on neo-liberal cornerstones (e.g. Chile).
Supervisor: Dr Francisco Panizza| & Professor George Philip
|Contact: k.a.bunker@lse.ac.uk|
Personal Website: http://personal.lse.ac.uk/bunkerk| 

Lila Caballero-Sosa

Party Dynamics in the Mexican Chamber of Deputies: Power Networks and Institutional Design: This research focuses on the logic of appointments to committees and the Directive Board of the Lower Chamber of the Legislative Power in Mexico. This body has a complex institutional design due to the predominance of informal rules, the existence of term limits and an absolute power of the parties over it as a consequence of the particularities of the historical formation of the entire political system. The latter is dominated by factionalised parties with fragmented leaderships who are able to control political careers through candidate-selection processes to different institutions. In such context, this study seeks to identify the underlying factors regarding appointments across the Chamber, such as loyalty to the party, political experience, professional expertise or public service. Overall, this selection process affects the institutional design of the Chamber  
Supervisor: Professor Simon Hix| & Professor George Philip
|Contact: l.caballero-sosa@lse.ac.uk|

Gisela Calderón Góngora  

Party Politics and Schemes of Citizen Participation in Mexico City and State of Mexico: Authoritarian and Democratic trends in the Era of "Transition"
Supervisor: Professor George Philip
|Contact: g.calderon-gongora@lse.ac.uk|

Susana Adelina Carvalho  

Supervisor: Dr John Hutchinson
|Contact: s.g.carvalho@lse.ac.uk| 

Hyun-Seok Chang   

Supervisor: Dr Bill Kissane| & Dr Chun Lin
|Contact: h.chang1@lse.ac.uk|

Ceren Coskun   

Supervisor: Dr Bill Kissane|
Contact: c.coskun@lse.ac.uk|

Ignazio De Ferrari    

Supervisor: Dr Francisco Panizza|
Contact: i.de-ferrari@lse.ac.uk|

Ursula Durand Ochoa

Supervisor: Dr Francisco Panizza| & Professor George Philip
|Contact: u.m.durand-ochoa@lse.ac.uk|

Jose Javier Olivas Osuna

Civilian Control of the Military in Portugal and Spain: a Policy Instruments Approach :  Portugal and Spain are two neighbouring countries sharing many economic, cultural and geopolitical features that in the twentieth century have experienced similar and parallel processes of political transformations. Nevertheless a closer look to the evolution of civil-military relations elicit quite different pictures in each of them. During the periods of Salazar’s and Franco’s authoritarian rule and the transitions into democracy that followed them quite different schemes of military subordination to civilian rule could be observed. This research sheds light to this empirical puzzle by exploring two questions: Did Portuguese and Spanish governments used different combinations of tools to maintain the military subordinated?, and why such choices diverged or converged?

This thesis compares the control policies used to maintain the military subordinated during Portuguese and Spanish authoritarian and transitional periods. It focuses on the tools of control employed by the governments. It shows that authoritarian as well as transitional and democratic governments adopted different control styles vis-à-vis the military in Portugal and Spain. The contribution of this thesis is threefold. First, it contributes to the understanding of civil-military relations and control tools through the historical analysis of the twentieth century in Portugal and Spain. Second, it provides explanations about the events and contextual that constrained and stimulated tool choices. Third, the adaptation of a public policy comparative framework, Hood’s (1983) typology for the study of tools of government, provides a new angle to the sub-field of civil-military relations bridging the gap with main stream political science.
Supervisor: Dr Martin Lodge| & DrJonathan Hopkin
|Contact: J.J.Olivas-Osuna@lse.ac.uk|

Omar El Mougy    

Supervisor: Dr John Chalcraft
|Contact: o.a.el-mougy@lse.ac.uk|

Mariana Escobar    

Supervisor: Professor John Sidel|
Contact: m.escobar1@lse.ac.uk|

Michael Farquhar 

Contemporary Islamic Piety Movements and the Influence of Saudi Arabia : My research focuses on the system of Islamic universities established in Saudi Arabia in the latter half of the twentieth century and their role in training non-Saudi students. I explore the social history of these transnational religious educational circuits, taking Egypt and the United Kingdom as case studies of countries whose citizens have taught and studied in the institutions in question. My work involves documentary research and ethnography, and employs a historiography drawing on the literatures on hegemony and discursive subject-formation in order to explore questions of power and subaltern agency in this context.
Supervisor: Dr John Chalcraft
|Contact: m.j.farquhar@lse.ac.uk|

Luisa Feline Freier

Crossing the Atlantic in Search of New Destinations: Origin and Impact of African migration to Latin America. The bulk of the academic literature on African migration has in recent years focused on African migration to EU member states. While it is certainly true that most African migrants with overseas destinations currently live in Europe, recent trends suggest that African migrants, including both economic migrants and asylum seekers, are increasingly arriving in Latin America. What explains the surprising expansion of African migration to Latin America, and how to political determinants influence the new direction of these flows? 
Supervisor: Dr Eiko Thielemann| Contact: L.F.Freier@lse.ac.uk|

Alex Grainger     

Supervisor: Professor John Sidel|
Contact: a.t.grainger@lse.ac.uk|

Sara R Gross

New Economy, Old Politics: The Mexican Experience of Economic Restructuring Using Competition Policy in Telecommunications. 1990 to 2004    

Supervisor: Professor George Philip
|Contact: s.r.gross@lse.ac.uk|
Personal Website: http://personal.lse.ac.uk/grosssr|

Mohanad Hage Ali

Supervisor:  Dr Zhand Shakibi|
Contact: m.a.hage-ali@lse.ac.uk|

Kathleen Henehan  

Affordable Childcare: Staggered Policy Development and Uneven Distribution across the "Liberal Welfare Regime”

Supervisor: Dr Jonathan Hopkin
|Contact: K.A.Henehan@lse.ac.uk|

Pinar Dinc Kenanoglu

Supervisor: Dr Bill Kissane|
Contact: p.d.kenanoglu@lse.ac.uk|

Neil Ketchley       

Supervisor: Professor John Sidel|
Contact: n.f.ketchley@lse.ac.uk|

Mariana Kriel  

Loose Continuity: The Post-apartheid Afrikaans Language Movement in Historical Perspective:   Most theories of nationalism seek to establish the particular relationship between politics, economics and culture which in any particular case brought about the transition from ethnicity to nationalism (Kellas 1991:35). Focussing on Afrikaner nationalism, my thesis explores the role of language in these dynamics – something that has not been done in a systematic manner. The aim is to develop a theoretical framework within which the hypothesis can be tested that the post-apartheid movement for the maintenance of Afrikaans as a public language constitutes a continuation of the Afrikaner nationalist project. 
Supervisor: Breuilly
Contact: m.kriel@lse.ac.uk|

Durukan Kuzu

Multiculturalism and Egalitarianism: Null Remedies to the Injustices of Forced Assimilation and the Elusive Ideal of Civic Nationalism. (The European Union, Turkey and the Kurds):  This study elaborates  Will Kymlicka's ethnocentric multiculturalism and Brian Barry's difference blind egalitarianism as theoretical approaches that seem to inform most states, international and supranational organizations in their efforts to find a liberal democratic solution for the problems of national minorities.  In this research, I focus on the remaining problems with these theoretical approaches to show why we still need a new insight to deal with problems of national minorities. In what follows, I focus on my argument with reference to the context that, I suggest, explains the failures of these specified theories. Identification of different contexts to be pointed out in this study is  made through looking at different types of  state nationalism to which national minorities had been previously exposed. Therefore the study  also examines the compatibility of multiculturalism with nationalism and suggests that one who tackles with this question would necessarily need to be sensitive to the different  types of nationalism and their implications.    In the process of contextualization , the process tracing method is used and the main case study of this dissertation,  the Kurds in Turkey is compared to the similar and contrast cases like the  Flemish in Belgium,  the Corsicans in France and the Muslim Turks in Greece.   
Supervisor: Dr John Hutchinson
|Contact: d.kuzu@lse.ac.uk|

Wei Ling Diane Lek

Analysing the Institutional Incentive Structures that Shape Governance of Chinese Old Age Security: My proposed research aims to investigate why old age security governing outcomes for the period 1990 - 2010 differ across China's localities. In particular, I will examine whether and how i) the degree of (de)centralisation, ii) institutional incentive structures, iii) demography, and iv) access to institutional resources shape governing outcomes.  

The recent literature on Chinese old age security highlights that governance is complex. In most other countries, old age security reforms are introduced to plug endogenous policy gaps in a stable social security system. In China however, old age security reform was primarily introduced in the early 1990s to support China's economic transition, and to stem (potential) social unrest. In the recent years, governance has been made more complex by the rise of new interest groups and state-society partnerships, each making differentiated old age security demands.

In view of this complexity, a decentralisation-centralisation debate now takes centre stage. Some scholars argue for decentralisation as the governing solution; others argue for increased centralisation.

My proposed research aims to move beyond this centralisation-decentralisation debate. It recognises that both governing approaches have their merits and demerits. As such, instead of arguing for either approach, it seeks first to identify the context-specific incentive structures of old age security systems operating across China. It argues that context-specific incentive structures determine whether governing actors in a locality will capitalise on the advantages of a regime structure – decentralised or centralised – to improve governing outcomes.
Supervisor: Dr Chun Lin
|Contact: w.l.lek@lse.ac.uk|

Kanokrat Lertchoosakul  

Supervisor: Professor John Sidel|
Contact: k.lertchoosakul@lse.ac.uk|

Barak Levy  

Supervisor: Professor John Breuilly
|Contact: b.levy@lse.ac.uk|

Swen Alonso Liby   

Supervisor: Dr David Woodruff
|Contact: s.m.liby-alonso@lse.ac.uk|

Marie-Elisabeth Maigre  

Supervisor: Professor John Sidel|
Contact: m.maigre@lse.ac.uk|

Mansoor Mirza     

Supervisor: Dr John Hutchinson
|Contact: m.a.mirza@lse.ac.uk|

Gustavo Bonifaz Moreno

From Unfinished Modernizations to a state crisis. The gap between legality and legitimacy in Bolivia: Since year 2000, and in the backlash of what appeared to be a stable and centripetal political party system, Bolivia experienced a period of deep political instability, characterized by: Presidential crises in which popular mobilization forced elected governments to resign their mandates; massive social protests and unrest, and warlike confrontations between civilians; a  sustained loss of legitimacy of representative institutions –parliament and political parties. Furthermore, as the crisis developed, the state itself began to be the subject of political contention; entering, thus, into a foundational legitimacy crisis. Finally, the crisis manifested itself in the openning of a gap between new sources of legitimacy (identity, regional and class oriented claims for a state re-foundation), and the constitutional structures in place in the country. The result was tha call for a Constituent Assembly.

What account for the crisis of the state and political institutions in Bolivia between 2000 and 2008? The present research aims to trace the process by which a gap between legality and legitimacy was opened in Bolivia, understood as the cause of the crisis. This, by revisiting and revising Samuael Huntington´s theory about the relation between social change and political institutions, or the political gap. In general, other analysis of the Bolivian state crisis foscuses on long term causes or continuities to explain the crisis (interethnic, class or territoral unresolved tensions). We believe that despite the importance of these factors, they tell just half of the story. It is the combination of social change and historicall long term continuities, or the projection of this particular type of political gap into a gap between legality and legitimacy, the best way to approach the question under study. 
Supervissor: Francisco Panizza
|Advissor: Jean Paul Faguet (International Development Department)

Suzanne Morrison     

Supervisor: Dr John Chalcraft
|Contact: s.morrison@lse.ac.uk|

Alia Mossallam

Imagining Otherwise in Nasserist Egypt…
'Exploring the role of informal art spaces for the development of an alternative political imaginary in Nasserist Egypt'.

Set in the 1960s, during a period of heightened nationalist sentiment and a socialist hegemony that had captured the minds, hearts and imaginations of a populace; this study explores the role of independent art spaces in cultivating an alternative social and political imaginary.

The Nasserist establishment promoted itself as a 'populist' movement, propagating values of Arab unity, autonomous industrial achievement, and liberation from imperialism, all within a 'socialist' framework that throbbed through songs on the radio, poetry in classrooms, and speeches memorized in proverbs. Outside of the formal cultural spaces however, the 60s experienced a bourgeoning art movement that made stages of the streets, cafes, battle-fields and construction sites. These were spaces where people engaged in day-to-day theatrical and lyrical performances where an alternative imagined community was created and engaged with. It is in these spaces that the prevailing social order was disengaged with, and alternative narratives to the great achievement of the building of the high dam, and the elevated values of the revolution were created. All in a rhythm and rhyme that would continue to echo in collective memory for generations to come.

Explored in a Gramscian tradition the study attempts to analyze and understand a cultural hegemony as it prevailed and continues to be remembered. It explores resistance, as the re-articulation of a particular social order in the creation of alternative imaginaries that may eventually alter the balance of power. Relying mainly on ethnography, oral history interviews are being conducted particularly with workers who built the high-dam, Nubians displaced by it, and civilians who fought in resistance during the wars of '56 and '67 in Portsaid, Ismaeleyya and Suez.
Supervisor: Dr John Chalcraft
|Contact: a.mossallam@lse.ac.uk|

Henry Newman 

Supervisor: Professor John Sidel|
Contact: h.j.newman@lse.ac.uk|

Miran Norderland

Agenda-Setting in the Context of Real-Time Web Case Study: How Anglosphere Agenda Preferences Resonate with Global Public in the context of High Profile Events of Global Consequences: How information and news are produced, exchanged and most importantly, how they are prioritised critically affects the way we see the state of the world and how we, as societies come to understand what changes are needed. In the past five years we have begun to see a cultural shift through the advent of increasingly sophisticated Real-Time Web (RTW) and Social Media channels. Today, anyone can upload a video, write a blog, or disseminate information about the causes of the local and consequences of the global events. Consequently, as attempts are being made to establish the equilibrium between 'socially just' and 'economically and politically feasible' policies, the worlds of government, corporations, media, interest groups, activists and global public are increasingly facing each other within the social media arena. As such, the aim of this study is to preserve the relevance of the agenda-setting to policymaking process by investigating how national policy preferences, in the context of high-profile global events, resonate with Global Public Agenda in the realm of the Real-Time Web -- by observing Who says what; in What social media format; Who may be (un)intentional recipient of such information; and with What effect? Undoubtedly, the future of agenda- setting will rest in our ability to mirror societal changes and cultural shifts, whilst effectively harvesting the real-time information flow by tapping into the wisdom of crowds Public Policy and Real-Time Internet, Social Media Agenda-Setting and Real-Time Internet, Social Media Public Policy and Prediction Markets, Traditional Media vs. New Social Media.
Supervisor: Dr Martin Lodge|
Contact: m.a.norderland@lse.ac.uk|

Reza Pankhurst

The Calls for the Caliphate - Explaining and Interpreting the Claims in the Middle East and Beyond: It is clear that some kind of socio-economic deterministic approach to explaining the phenomenon of the rise of the call for an Islamic form of polity generally and the call for the Caliphate specifically across the Muslim world is deeply unsatisfying, it is also clear that any approach that relies solely upon a reading of the various discourses produced by the different groups and activists outside of their context and without an appropriate interpretive framework would also be erroneous. Rather, an analysis of the discourse produced over time read in light of the different contextual conditions would help in arriving at a clearer understanding of the motives and intentions of the various authors. It is not enough to recognize that various individuals and groups call for the reestablishment of a Caliphate, but it is important to understand what is meant by the Caliphate, whether the call for it is consistent and if not then why is it adopted at particular times. The approach intended in this research is to tread a path related to the “Cambridge School” of the history of political thought, where the importance of the context in which ideas are generated and expressed is not neglected but an hermeneutic approach is also required. This is applied to key influential movements across the Middle East and beyond, explaining the ebb and flow of the appeal of this particular alternative form of polity in light of the beliefs of the population and in the face of the legitimacy deficit of regional regimes.
Supervisor: Dr John Chalcraft
|Contact: r.pankhurst@lse.ac.uk|

Julia Pomares

Working Thesis Title: Inside the black Ballot Box: Origins and Consequences of Electronic Voting Adoption:  The use of new technologies in voting has increased dramatically over the last decade. In two of the world's most populous democracies, Brazil and India, together with Philippines and Venezuela, the entire electorate cast their vote using some kind of electronic device. More than 35 of the world population living under democracy cast an electronic vote. However, electronic voting has not been adequately addressed in the academic or practical literature. An underlying assumption in electoral studies that casting a vote on Election Day is neutral to voter's choice must be unpacked. Electronic voting reinforces this view due to the prevailing idea that new technologies are transparent devices, devoid of independent political influence. This PhD seeks to open this presumed black box in three directions. First, it aims to explain the drivers of the implementation and adoption of e-voting. Second, it provides a nuanced understanding of the impact of electronic voting on electoral behaviour and election outcomes, from the voter standpoint. Third, it addresses the consequences of the introduction of new technologies on public trust in the electoral process. The research design follows a triangulation of quantitative and qualitative techniques. It combines a cross-national longitudinal analysis of elections in 80 countries, a case study pair-wise comparison approach and a voting experiment conducted in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Supervisor: Professor Simon Hix|
Contact: J.S.Pomares@lse.ac.uk|

Emmanuelle Poncin

Community-driven Development as Democratisation Instrument: Scrutinising CDD operation in the Philippines and Beyond: Community-driven Development (CDD) programmes have boomed in the past decade, as instruments of citizens’ empowerment and good governance. Although CDD are highly praised by development institutions for their accomplishments and quickly scaled up, there is little evidence and understanding of their impact on the local power dynamics it seeks to alter to achieve greater democracy. This research thus asks how to understand the operation of CDD programmes as instruments of political empowerment. It proposes to address this puzzle through the examination of the largest CDD programme in the Philippines, Kalahi CIDSS, as a showcase. The research relies on rigorous positivist social-science methods and measurements to understand the political empowerment impact of CDD at the local level, which yield the surprising descriptive conclusion that CDD programmes like Kalahi have no real discernible impact. In light of such evidence, this initial study of local politics leads to an in-depth inquiry into the development apparatus and the power relations responsible for CDD’s production and reproduction. It scrutinises the practices and perceptions of CDD actors and recipients from the ground up, from the municipal to the national level, to make sense of the continuing existence and scaling up of CDD programmes despite their unintelligible impact.
Supervisor: Professor John Sidel|
Contact: e.poncin@lse.ac.uk|

Madurika Rasaratnam

Supervisor: Professor John Breuilly
|Contact: m.rasaratnam@lse.ac.uk|

Justine Zheng Ren

Explaining Contemporary Chinese Nationalism - Social Actor, Mechanism and Power
Supervisor: Professor John Sidel| 
Contact: z.ren@lse.ac.uk|

Robert S Schertzer 

Dynamic Federation: Managing Plurinationality and the Role of the Court in Canada: The thesis is divided into three sections. In the first, the theory and context related to the management of national diversity via federation is reviewed (both that specifically applicable to Canada and more broadly). In the second section the vital role the judiciary plays as arbiter of the contestation over nationality and federation is demonstrated by reviewing the relevant jurisprudence of the Supreme Court of Canada between 1980 and the present. The third section draws out the implications of the review of federal jurisprudence. The core argument of the thesis is that the inherent conflict over nationality and federation in the plurinational state of Canada can be reconciled by promoting federation as both process and outcome. And, as the judiciary significantly impacts the process and outcome of federation its role must be adequately accounted for in a defensible federal theory.
Supervisor: Dr John Hutchinson
|Contact: r.s.schertzer@lse.ac.uk|
Personal Website: http://personal.lse.ac.uk/schertze/| 

J. W. Christian Schuster

Merit versus Tenure? The Politics of Diverging Reforms of Latin America's Patronage-Based Bureaucracies : Why do reforms of patronage-based bureaucracies introduce merit-based personnel decisions in some instances yet tenure protections in others? Moving beyond a literature revolving around the occurrence of reforms of patronage-based bureaucracies, the PhD research seeks to shed light on diverging reform content choices through a comparative analytic narrative of reform episodes in Paraguay, Peru, Panama and the Dominican Republic. All four countries have subscribed to similar reform objectives in the 2003 Latin American Civil Service Charter and all four countries were diagnosed in 2003-5 to face comparable technical weaknesses in their public personnel management. Since then, each of the countries has embarked on civil service reform programs. Their implementation, however, has come to emphasize distinct elements of a Weberian ideal-type bureaucracy. While Peru and Paraguay introduced merit in part of their personnel decisions, Panama and the Dominican Republic focused principally on extending job stability to a substantial share of their bureaucrats. As its working hypothesis, the research posits that differential political incentives stemming from distinct modus operandi of the countries’ patronage systems – and the resulting differences in public and private goods that political powerholders may provide through them – loom large in accounting for the diverging reform choices and thus differential incursions into patronage powers.
Supervisor: Edward Page| & Francisco Panizza
|Contact:  j.w.schuster@lse.ac.uk |

Fabrizio Scrollini

Supervisor: Dr  Francisco Panizza
|Contact: f.a.scrollini@lse.ac.uk|

Randi Helene Solhjell

Power networks and legitimate authority in Weak States’: The Case of the Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo: This project stems from an interest to challenge some common assumptions about regions, nations and societies associated with state weakness in sub-Saharan Africa. These assumptions suggest a political landscape of either chaos and anarchy or else autocratic or warlord rule. The political science literature on African politics has informed scholars on regime types and power networks, but it has for long been theoretical and state-oriented as the relevant narrative of understanding polity. These ‘actors and institutions’ that constitute a polity do not necessarily represent legitimate authorities in the cases of interest, but rather reflects a political reality often far removed from its people.

The purpose of this study is to deepen the understanding of power networks and conception of legitimacy through exploring authorities and the ruled in an area with weak formal government structures. The study will develop some understanding of circumstance that affect power relations between non-state and the state actors, as well as state-society relations that affect power and legitimacy. The aim is to contribute in theory-building on a less studied phenomenon in the post-war and statehood literature, namely what a ‘weak state’ actually consists of in terms of power and legitimate authorities rather than a sole focus on its deficiencies.
Supervisor: John Breuilly|, Tim Allen, Elliott Green
Contact: r.h.solhjell@lse.ac.uk|

Pon Souvannaseng 

Political Economy of Agrarian Change in Post-Socialist Southeast Asia

Supervisor: Dr Chun Lin
|Contact: p.souvannaseng@lse.ac.uk|
Personal Website: http://personal.lse.ac.uk/souvanna|

Ulrike Theuerkauf

Ethno-Embedded Institutionalism: The Impact of Institutional Repertoires on Ethnic Violence: The relationship between political institutions and ethnopolitical (in)stability typically has been analysed by investigating the effects of single, formal political institutions. My thesis criticises this research focus on two different yet equally relevant accounts: first, the tendency to single out the effects of individual institutions is based on the implicit – and as I claim: wrong – assumption that political institutions can be treated as separate entities and that it is only of secondary relevance of which broader set of institutions they form part. Second, despite studies which highlight the relevance of informal political institutions, they have received far less attention in the academic debate so far. Using a grievance-based explanation of intrastate conflict and binary time-series cross-section analysis with a dataset that covers 173 countries between 1955 and 2007, I show that, first, singling out the effects of individual political institutions does not lead to clear conclusions about the relationship between institutional design and ethnic violence. Only when we analyse specific combinations of form of government, electoral system and state structure, it becomes evident that the incidence of ethnic violence is related to the combined chances of political representation which these institutions provide: if these chances are low, the odds of ethnic violence increase. Second, my thesis confirms that the occurrence of ethnic violence is related to the features of informal political institutions. In particular high levels of corruption increase the odds of violent ethnic conflict due to their often ethnically exclusionary character.
Supervisor: Dr Paul Mitchell| & Professor Simon Hix|
Contact: u.g.theuerkauf@lse.ac.uk|
Personal Website: http://personal.lse.ac.uk/THEUERKA/default.html|

Slobodan Tomic

Supervisor: Dr Bill Kissane|
Contact: s.tomic@lse.ac.uk|

Matthew Whiting

Defying Moderation? The de-radicalisation of Sinn Fein in comparative perspective : Sinn Féin has transformed from a revolutionary independence movement that supported the use of armed struggle to become a semi-constitutional political party, solely operating within the parameters of democratic political institutions. Whilst existing literature makes an important contribution to explaining how Sinn Fein has changed since its inception in the 1970s, it typically fails to disaggregate this process. This reduces Irish republicanism’s transformation to an overly simplified dichotomy between a radical violent movement and a moderate electoral movement. What is missing from the literature is an analysis of this transformation within the conceptual framework of ‘political moderation’. My thesis applies some of the most important and influential comparative theories of political moderation to this case, namely: (1) electoralism, (2) democratization, and (3) globalization. Additionally, the case of Sinn Féin has important lessons for the wider field of comparative politics. These dominant theories fail to take into account the possibility that small, ethno-nationalist parties may respond differently to moderating incentives from the context of larger parties in which most of the theories were developed. Ethno-nationalist parties operate in a more complex competitive space that includes cross cutting ethnic or regional cleavages that complicate parties’ strategic positions, potentially leading to a resistance to moderation. Therefore, this thesis will answer two key questions: 1) What is the explanatory power of comparative theories of moderation for the case of Sinn Féin in Ireland? and (2) Can existing comparative theories of party moderation explain adequately the moderation of small ethno-nationalist parties?

Supervisor: Dr Bill Kissane|
Contact: m.whiting@lse.ac.uk|

Eric Woods

Supervisor: Dr John Hutchinson
|Contact: e.t.woods@lse.ac.uk|
Personal Website: http://erictaylorwoods.com/|