Law and Original Contract in the Republican Thought of Immanuel Kant

This article discusses the concept of right and its identification with the power to coerce, to show a reciprocity between the original contract and the right, as a manifestation of the reciprocity between moral law and freedom, as Kant states in its Second Critique. The demonstration of this view will allow a republican stance evident in the legal and political thought of Kant, since the right of a people can only exist while the town itself is unified to enact.

Peace Building and Conflict Transformation: A Case Study of Northern Ireland

This paper provides an overview of the transition from armed conflict to peace in Northern Ireland between 1994 and 2016. It discusses the main stages of the peace process and the main elements of the peace Agreement in relation to the development of global thinking around peacebuilding as set out in the United Nations 1992 report Agenda for Peace and the 2000 Brahimi Report. The paper argues that while Northern Ireland is often highlighted as a positive example of peacebuilding, it is not without its limitations and overall the experience of the past twenty years emphasises the importance of ensuring a broadly inclusive process and the need for a sustained commitment over a long period of time. 

On the Economics and Politics of Mobility

Exit, Voice and Political Change: Evidence from Swedish Mass Migration to the United States. During the Age of Mass Migration, 30 million Europeans immigrated to the United States. We study the long-term political effects of this large-scale migration episode on origin communities using detailed historical data from Sweden. To instrument for emigration, we exploit severe local frost shocks that sparked an initial wave of emigration, interacted with within-country travel costs. Because Swedish emigration was highly path dependent, the initial shocks strongly predict total emigration over 50 years. Our estimates show that emigration substantially increased membership in local labor organizations, the strongest political opposition groups at the time. Furthermore, emigration caused greater strike participation, and mobilized voter turnout and support for left-wing parties in national elections. Emigration also had formal political effects, as measured by welfare expenditures and adoption of inclusive political institutions. Together, our findings indicate that large-scale emigration can achieve long-lasting effects on the political equilibrium in origin communities. Mass Migration and Technological Innovation at the Origin. This essay studies the effects of migration on technological innovations in origin communities. Using historical data from Sweden, we find that large-scale emigration caused a long-run increase in patent innovations in origin municipalities. Our IV estimate shows that a ten percent increase in emigration entails a 7 percent increase in a muncipality’s number of patents. Weighting patents by a measure of their economic value, the positive effects are further increased. Discussing possible mechanisms, we suggest that low skilled labor scarcity may be an explanation for these results.  Richer (and Holier) Than Thou? The Impact of Relative Income Improvements on Demand for Redistribution. We use a tailor-made survey on a Swedish sample to investigate how individuals' relative income affects their demand for redistribution. We first document that a majority misperceive their position in the income distribution and believe that they are poorer, relative to others, than they actually are. We then inform a subsample about their true relative income, and find that individuals who are richer than they initially thought demand less redistribution. This result is driven by individuals with prior right-of-center political preferences who view taxes as distortive and believe that effort, rather than luck, drives individual economic success. Wealth, home ownership and mobility. Rent controls on housing have long been thought to reduce labor mobility and allocative efficiency. We study a policy that allowed renters to purchase their rent-controlled apartments at below market prices, and examine the effects of home ownership and wealth on mobility. Treated individuals have a substantially higher likelihood of moving to a new home in a given year. The effect corresponds to a 30 percent increase from the control group mean. The size of the wealth shock predicts lower mobility, while the positive average effect can be explained by tenants switching from the previous rent-controlled system to market-priced condominiums. By contrast, we do not find that the increase in residential mobility leads to a greater probability of moving to a new place of work.

Imperfect indifference : the rhythm, structure and politics of neutrality

Cette thèse propose l’émergence d’une poésie de l’entre deux dans la littérature expérimentale, en suivant ses développements du milieu du vingtième siècle jusqu'au début du vingt-et-unième. Cette notion d’entre-deux poétique se fonde sur une théorie du neutre (Barthes, Blanchot) comme ce qui se situe au delà ou entre l'opposition et la médiation. Le premier chapitre retrace le concept de monotonie dans la théorie esthétique depuis la période romantique où il est vu comme l'antithèse de la variabilité ou tension poétique, jusqu’à l’émergence de l’art conceptuel au vingtième siècle où il se déploie sans interruption. Ce chapitre examine alors la relation de la monotonie à la mélancolie à travers l’analyse de « The Anatomy of Monotony », poème de Wallace Stevens tiré du recueil Harmonium et l’œuvre poétique alphabet de Inger Christensen. Le deuxième chapitre aborde la réalisation d’une poésie de l’entre-deux à travers une analyse de quatre œuvres poétiques qui revisitent l’usage de l’index du livre paratextuel: l’index au long poème “A” de Louis Zukofsky, « Index to Shelley's Death » d’Alan Halsey qui apparait à la fin de l’oeuvre The Text of Shelley's Death, Cinema of the Present de Lisa Robertson, et l’oeuvre multimédia Via de Carolyn Bergvall. Le troisième chapitre retrace la politique de neutralité dans la théorie de la traduction. Face à la logique oppositionnelle de l’original contre la traduction, il propose hypothétiquement la réalisation d’une troisième texte ou « l’entre-deux », qui sert aussi à perturber les récits familiers de l’appropriation, l’absorption et l’assimilation qui effacent la différence du sujet de l’écrit. Il examine l’oeuvre hybride Secession with Insecession de Chus Pato et Erin Moure comme un exemple de poésie de l’entre-deux. A la fois pour Maurice Blanchot et Roland Barthes, le neutre représente un troisième terme potentiel qui défie le paradigme de la pensée oppositionnelle. Pour Blanchot, le neutre est la différence amenée au point de l’indifférence et de l’opacité de la transparence tandis que le désire de Barthes pour le neutre est une utopie lyrique qui se situe au-delà des contraintes de but et de marquage. La conclusion examine comment le neutre correspond au conditions de liberté gouvernant le principe de créativité de la poésie comme l’acte de faire sans intention ni raison.

Occupied childhoods: discourses and politics of childhood and their place in Palestinian and Pan-­Arab screen content for children

This thesis explores changing discourses of childhood and the ways in which power relations intersect with socio-cultural norms to shape screen-based media for Palestinian children. Situated within the interdisciplinary study of childhood, the research is an institutional and textual analysis that includes discursive and micro-level analysis of the socio-political circumstances within which children consume media in present-day Palestine. The thesis takes a social constructionist view, arguing that ‘childhood’ is not a fixed universal concept and that discourses of childhood are produced at specific historical moments as an effect of power. The study has a three-part research agenda. The first section uses secondary literature to explore theories and philosophies relating to definitions of childhood in Arab societies. The second employs participant observation and semi-structured interviews to understand the history and politics of children’s media in the West Bank. The final part of the research activity focuses on the impact that definitions of childhood and the politics of children’s media have on broadcasting outcomes through an analysis of (a) discourses on children’s media that circulate in Palestinian society, and (b) local and pan-Arab cultural texts consumed by Palestinian children. The analysis demonstrates that complex ideological and political factors are at play, which has led to the marginalisation, politicisation and internationalisation of local production for children. Due to the lack of alternatives, local producers often rely on international funding, and are hence forced to negotiate competing definitions of childhood, which while fitting with an international agenda of normalising the Israeli occupation, conflict culturally and politically with local conceptions of childhood and hopes for the Palestinian nation. While the Palestinian community appreciates the positive potential of local production, discourses and strategies around children’s media show that Palestinian children are constructed as vulnerable, incomplete and in constant need of guidance. Pan-Arab content presents a slightly less didactic approach and in certain cases presents childhood as a dynamic space of empowerment. However, by constructing children as ‘consumercitizens’, it alienates Arab (and Palestinian) children from disadvantaged backgrounds,as the preferred audience is middle-class children living in oil-rich countries of the Gulf.