Theses and Dissertations from UMD
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New submissions to the thesis/dissertation collections are added automatically as they are received from the Graduate School. Currently, the Graduate School deposits all theses and dissertations from a given semester after the official graduation date. This means that there may be up to a 4 month delay in the appearance of a give thesis/dissertation in DRUM
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Item Investment and Economic Performance in Europe: The Role of the Investment Climate(2020) Schwarzenberg Zilberstein, Andres; Swagel, Phillip L; Public Policy; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This dissertation investigates how investment, the investment climate, and economic integration affect the economic performance of 31 European countries. A major contribution is the development of two new composite indicators—the European Investment Attractiveness Index (IAI) and the European Union (EU) Economic Integration Index (EEI). The study conceptualizes the investment climate both as a multidimensional construct and as a framework for understanding how political, economic, and social factors interact and affect the attractiveness of a country for foreign and domestic investment. In addition, it considers how trade, financial, monetary, and value chain relationships have shaped the process of economic integration at the EU level. The study then uses the indices to examine the impact of foreign and domestic investment on gross domestic product (GDP). The results from cross-country regression and dynamic panel data analyses reveal that both types of investment have a positive and significant impact on economic growth in Europe (although, notably, exports seem to have a larger impact than either foreign or domestic investment). Moreover, this study finds that the investment climate matters for economic performance. Attractive investment climates and higher levels of economic integration—particularly among the Central and Eastern European economies—are associated with higher per capita GDP levels and growth rates. Finally, the dissertation examines the relationship between foreign direct investment (FDI), exports, and GDP in 11 countries in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). While the goal is not to establish “true” causality, the results show that links between foreign investment, exports, and GDP differ significantly across these countries. While for many of them there is a reinforcing relationship between foreign investment and GDP, there does not seem to be a “causal” relationship between their exports and GDP. These findings challenge the validity of policy guidelines that emphasize—often almost exclusively—attracting foreign investment and boosting exports for development under the assumption that FDI or exports “cause” growth. Thus, policies aimed at improving the fundamentals of these economies (i.e., the investment climate) might be key in generating and sustaining economic growth.Item TragedyMachine(s): Performances of Power and Resistance in Indebted Greece(2018) Banalopoulou, Christina; Harding, James M; Theatre; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)TragedyMachine(s): Performances of Power and Resistance in Indebted Greece looks at the negotiations between Greece and its international creditors, street protests and demonstrations, refugee camps, and theatre productions in Greece within the larger context of the 21st century European debt-economy. Building upon Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari’s works on Nietzsche’s notion of tragedy, it introduces a concept of tragedy valid in contemporary frames of European neoliberalism. TragedyMachine(s) argues that the relations between Greece and its international creditors are non-resolvable power relations between a creditor and a debtor, hidden beneath the appearance and seeming promise of a resolution that nonetheless remains elusive. In the first chapter, titled “The Tragedy of the Greek Debt Crisis” I contend that the works of Deleuze and Guattari on Nietzsche’s notions of tragedy help us grasp the conceptual foundations of the 21st century European debt-economy. In the second chapter titled “Dromocratic Democracies,” I draw upon the tensions between Austin’s notion of a “happy performative” and Deleuze and Guattari’s concepts of “order word” and “collective assemblages of enunciation.” I closely examine why the NOs of both the “NO” demonstration—the demonstration that took place two days before the Greek bailout referendum of 2015—and the Greek referendum of 2015 did not succeed in their resistance against Greece’s international creditors. The third chapter titled “Imperceptible Performances” focuses on the flows of forced migration that emerge from the Syrian War. In the fourth and last chapter of my dissertation titled “Theatres of Dramatization” I look at Zero Point Theatre Group’s—one of the most popular Greek avant-garde theatre companies—production of Buchner’s Woyzeck and Yiannis Houvarda’s—a well-known Greek director—production of Aeschylus’ Ορέστεια. I argue that these two productions dramatized the destruction of promises of resolution of the non-resolvable power relations between Greece and its international creditors.Item Goodbye Lenin, Hello Europe? An Empirical Investigation of Subjective Well-being in Transition and Post-transition Economies(2014) Nikolova, Milena Veselinova; Graham, Carol L; Public Policy; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)In this dissertation, I rely on self-reported objective and subjective data to study processes related to acquiring new opportunities and exercising choice in transition and post-transition countries, i.e., the economies in Central and Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union, which recently underwent or are still going through transitions to democracy and market economy. The departure point is the proposition that at the macro level, transition consists of marketization and democratization processes but at the individual level, transition generated a process of acquiring autonomy, i.e., taking charge of one's own life and making personal choices instead of relying on the government. Frustration and disillusionment may accompany this process, as it is often a difficult transformation involving uncertainty and volatility, sacrifices, and changing time use, norms, or reference groups. This dissertation consists of three separate but related essays. Specifically, Chapter 1 taps into the relationship between capabilities and subjective well-being. Chapter 2 directly builds on that by exploring the well-being consequences of the pursuit of new opportunities through migration. Finally, Chapter 3 investigates the life satisfaction effects of joining the European Union, which was a process that provided citizens in transition economies with new rights and opportunities. The research questions in these three essays relate to broader inquires about the well-being implications of the process of learning to be in charge of one's own life. A fundamental, yet not well-understood determinant of human well-being is the capacity to exercise choice and live a fulfilling life. Chapter 1 explores how actual and perceived manifestations of this capacity relate to subjective well-being dimensions. The chapter furnishes evidence that in transition economies and other world regions, capabilities and subjective well-being are related and both objective and subjective capabilities are more important for life evaluations than for emotional states. Capabilities are also generally less important for the happiest respondents. We further demonstrate that the same set of capabilities and means has a slightly different relative importance for different well-being dimensions across different regions. We also show novel evidence related to the least well-understood subjective well-being dimension: eudaimonic happiness, which relates to having meaning and purpose in life. Finally, our results demonstrate that while employment arrangements contribute to happiness overall, they are also associated with stress and anger. The second chapter uses Gallup World Poll data, statistical matching, and difference-in-differences to assess the effects of migration on the well-being of migrants from transition economies living in advanced countries. In addition to increasing household income, migration enhances subjective well-being. While all migrants realize income gains, there is a substantial well-being migration premium for the unhappiest movers. Moreover, by voting with their feet, migrants not only exercise choice but also enhance their perceived opportunities, including satisfaction with freedom and standard of living. Based on the results, migration can be seen as a development mechanism as it enhances migrants' means, well-being, and capabilities. The third chapter provides novel evidence about the perceived well-being effects of EU accession in the ten post-communist countries which joined the European Union between 2004 and 2007 (EU-10). Using difference-in-differences, the main finding is that EU accession had no immediate influence on the perceived well-being of Bulgarians and Romanians (EU-2) in 2007 but was positively related to life satisfaction in 2008-2009, with some variation by socio-demographic groups. In addition, there were EU-related well-being gains in most of the EU-8 countries, which were experienced shortly after joining. Taken at face value, the results suggest that EU membership has immediate perceived well-being effects in the more advanced transition members and is associated with well-being gains only after a lag in the less advanced ex-communist members. From a policy perspective, these results are relevant to countries aspiring to EU membership such as the Western Balkans and the Ukraine. The chapter also suggests that the increased control of corruption and EU aid were associated with higher life satisfaction in Bulgaria and Romania, although a greater share of EU imports had the opposite influence. In the EU-8, better governance, economic growth, and EU imports had a positive influence on life satisfaction, while the control of corruption had a marginally significant negative association. This dissertation's results have several policy implications. First, given that public policy has a role in assisting those lacking choice and freedoms by providing them with equal opportunities, the results in Chapter 1 may ultimately have importance in that arena. The findings suggest that the same set of opportunities and means may have a different meaning and value in different contexts or among different cohorts. Therefore, policies aiming to enhance opportunities may have a differential impact on subjective well-being across groups. For example, if policymakers aim to enhance subjective well-being, they may choose to invest in objective capabilities and means (such as income, employment, and education). Alternatively, for normative reasons, decision-makers may choose to equalize capabilities of all kinds for all citizens despite the differential weights that different put on them and the differential impact on subjective well-being. Second, immigrant well-being is not only a pivotal part of each nation's well-being but immigrant dissatisfaction may also be symptomatic of deeper social problems such as social exclusion and discrimination. While policy debates and the extant literature tend to focus on the distributional consequences of immigrants on natives in the destination countries, Chapter 2 finds that migration has positive effects on the incomes, subjective well-being, and perceived opportunities of migrants from transition economies living in advanced countries, implying that migration can be a development mechanism enhancing individual well-being. Yet, arguably migration is not a comprehensive development strategy as it does not solve deeply-rooted social problems such as corruption, poor economic policies, and market and government failures in the sending countries. Third, Chapter 3's findings are relevant to policymakers in the Western Balkans and the Eastern Partnership countries, which aspire to EU membership. Like Bulgaria and Romania, these candidate countries are less advanced and less prepared for membership than accession countries in previous enlargements. Therefore, if accepted into the EU, citizens in these countries will likely experience the subjective well-being gains after a lag. The results also have implications for the EU's enlargement and integration policies.Item Vienna's Transnational Fringe: Arts Funding, Aesthetic Agitation, and Europeanization(2011) Poole, Justin Aaron; Hildy, Franklin J; Theatre; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This dissertation deals with a subculture of transnational fringe artists, which is emerging in Europe in the early part of the twenty first century. It examines this subculture within the confines of Vienna, Austria, which was once the capital of a grand supra-national empire that spanned much of Central and Eastern Europe. Vienna is the site of this case study because in recent years the city has been instituting a self-conscious internationalization of its fringe scene, which resulted from local politicians' desires to help the city regain some of its long lost symbolic capital and become a legitimate competitor in an expanding and converging European field of cultural and economic production. In Vienna's struggle for symbolic capital, the city's subculture of fringe artists is defined by their need to collaborate with the socio-political demands of the local government. They are also impacted by the requirement that they adhere to the economic, ideological, and aesthetic demands of transnational social spaces, i.e. co-production venues and fringe festivals, throughout Europe. The artists are enmeshed in external pressures as they forge paths for themselves within an increasingly uniform European fringe scene. The artists' complicity in the processes of globalization and Europeanization, which enable their subculture as they threaten to divest them of their "avant-garde impulse," causes the artists to adopt a highly ironic posture in their work. This posture, which is evident in their performances, may be partially to blame for a widespread claim that European fringe artists are suffering from an aesthetic crisis. An examination of two fringe groups, i.e. Toxic Dreams and Superamas, which are thriving within Vienna's current system, reveals how any analysis of the aesthetics and ideologies of the performances being generated in the context of Europe's fringe scene must take into account the material realities that the artists are facing. In this dissertation the term conglomerate performance is used a as a descriptor for the emergent genre that is adapted from a media-induced and "McDonalidized" system of cultural production within a specific, yet vital niche of European culture.Item Enduring Dilemmas: Sources of American Ambivalence Toward European Defense Autonomy, The EDC and ESDP in Comparative Perspective(2005-08-04) Armitage, David T., Jr.; Quester, George H.; Government and Politics; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Since World War II, transatlantic security relations have reflected a tension between American desires for Europeans to share more of the defense burden without having to give up its leadership role and European desires for greater defense autonomy without having to devote more resources toward military capabilities. The dissertation explores this tension and argues that systemic theories of international relations do not adequately explain why the US supported a potentially competitive institution with NATO - the European Defense Community (EDC) - during the 1950's, while resisting a much-looser version of European defense cooperation in European Security and Defense Policy (ESDP) in the late 1990's. The dissertation focuses on additional variables at the domestic level, such as fragmented political systems, divergent threat perceptions, and core beliefs and influence of policy entrepreneurs in explaining US behavior toward European defense ambitions during these two discrete periods of time.