THE IMPACT OF TRANSNATIONAL-INTERNATIONAL ADVOCACY ON ISRAELI SETTLEMENT POLICY IN THE OCCUPIED PALESTINIAN TERRITORIES: AN ANALYSIS OF SHEIKH JARRAH NEIGHBORHOOD AND THE BOOMERANG-SPIRAL MODEL

International University of Japan博士（国際関係学）/ Ph.D. in International Relations2023This dissertation investigates the efficacy of international advocacy in driving domestic policy changes. Drawing on the works of Risse et al. and Keck and Sikkink, the study employs the boomerang-spiral model of transnational-international advocacy, which posits a five-stage framework that enables advocacy networks to achieve the desired policy change. The case study for this dissertation is the Israeli settlement policy in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, which challenges the boomerang-spiral model. The expected policy change was not realized, despite fulfilling the conditions for transitioning through the model’s phases. Therefore, the research identifies the factors that hinder the progress through the model’s phases to achieve the desired outcome. The study employs a single case study method following the theory-testing approach utilizing multiple data sources and mixed analysis methods, including quantitative and qualitative techniques. The study’s findings reveal that while the advocacy network achieved success by halting specific settlements, a permanent solution was not guaranteed. The Israeli lobby, which supports the settlement policy, and the American foreign policy approach, which balances promoting international norms with regional interests, contributed to this outcome. These findings contribute to our understanding of the constraints of international advocacy in promoting domestic policy change, particularly in cases where powerful interest groups are involvedthesi

The Effects of Education on Fertility and Child Mortality: Evidence from the free secondary education policy in the Philippines

The Philippines implemented the free secondary education policy in 1988, which offers a natural experiment to explore the effects of maternal education on fertility and child mortality. Exploiting age-specific exposure to this educational reform through the use of fuzzy regression discontinuity design, this study finds that on average, there is an increase of 0.536 year of schooling in for the cohort of women who had been affected by the policy. Moreover, the results of this study reveal that increasing education by one year reduces 0.829 child born per woman, and decreases child mortality by 1.659%. The empirical evidence supports that increasing opportunities for women to enter and complete secondary education can reduce fertility rates and cause a significant decline in child mortality in developing countries.departmental bulletin pape

Sustainable Development Goals of No Poverty and Zero Hunger, and Sustainable Agricultural Intensification: The Institutional Perspective

International University of Japan博士（国際関係学）/ Ph.D. in International Relations2022Scholars have proposed global governance as a means of addressing the challenges posed by neoliberal globalization. Current global governance approach, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) framework, symbolizes the pinnacle of development’s past evolution and future goals. Both scholarly literature and global public opinion have revealed that SDG2 and SDG1 are prominent on the global agenda. The literature has stressed the relationship between agricultural progress and alleviating poverty and hunger for decades. Sustainable agricultural intensification (SAI) is a fundamental school of thought that proposes practical solutions to challenges afflicting global agriculture. However, the free market economy with minimal state intervention has weaknesses and negative externalities that have paved the way for the rise of institutionalism. Meanwhile, SDG16 promotes the development of responsible and efficient institutions at all governmental levels. This study investigates the likely impacts of institutions on achieving the SDGs of no poverty and zero hunger, with a particular focus on SAI as a mediator variable. The study combined panel data, time series data, and cross-sectional data to achieve its objectives, and a range of robust analytical methods was employed to produce reliable estimates. When applicable, the direct, threshold, mediation, and moderating effects of institutions were investigated utilizing worldwide governance indicators and political risk ratings as a measurement of institutions. The results reveal that institutions have a highly significant direct positive relationship with SDG1 performance. Furthermore, institutions affect SDG1 indirectly via mediating factors—state policy, agricultural productivity, economic growth, and SDG2 performance. With reference to the findings on institutions–SDG2 nexus, institutions showed a positive and highly significant association with SDG2 performance. Furthermore, institutions showed a significant mediating impact on SDG2 performance via agricultural productivity, economic growth and SDG1 performance. SAI has no significant influence on SDG1; however it has a significantly positive impact on SDG2 performance. However, a positive effect on SDG1 is likely if institutions intervene to moderate SAI. Furthermore, the results divulge that institutions do not significantly associate with SAI adoption. Results show that while agricultural development reduces poverty in Sri Lanka, the country’s institutions are not. Institutional framework hinders agricultural productivity’s ability to reduce poverty. In the long run, Sri Lanka’s institutional framework is not favorable to food security and has no moderating influence on agricultural development. Thus, this study offers compelling empirical evidence to demonstrate that strengthening existing institutional framework is integral for achieving SDGs of no poverty and zero hunger.thesi

Political Economy Perspectives on the Current Economic Crisis in Sri Lanka

departmental bulletin pape

An Electric Vehicle Migration Framework

Electric vehicles (EVs), with lighter environmental footprint than traditional gasoline vehicles, are growing rapidly worldwide. Some countries such as Norway and Canada have successfully established EV networks and achieved a significant progress towards EV deployment. While the EV technology is becoming popular in developed countries, emerging countries are lacking behind mainly because of the huge investment hurdle to establishing EV networks. This paper developed an efficient Electric Vehicle Migration Framework (EVMF) aiming to minimize the total costs involved in establishing an EV network, using real world data from three major cities of Morocco: Rabat, Casablanca, and Fes. A given set of public institutions having a fleet of EVs are first grouped into zones based on clustering algorithms. MILP (Mixed Integer Linear Programming) models are developed to optimally select EV charging station locations within these organizations, with an objective to minimize the total cost. This paper can help to minimize the investment needed to establish EV networks. The transition towards EV networks can first take place in cities, especially at public institutions, followed by locations among cities. With the framework developed in this paper, policy makers can make better decisions on EV network migration.departmental bulletin pape

To protect myself, others, or both? An investigation of preferences and the uptake of COVID-19 preventative measures in Australia

Wearing face masks is an important COVID-19 precautionary measure and many governments have mandated wearing face masks in public areas. However, the mandatory policy is hardly sustainable in the long run and has been criticised for reducing autonomy. It is essential to understand the underlying preference for wearing face masks as that can help encourage the use of face masks without government intervention. This study investigates how the uptake of wearing face masks as a COVID-19 precautionary behaviour is determined by self-interest and other-regarding preferences. The results reveal that if people perceive wearing face masks as an act of protecting both themselves and others, the probability of consistent face mask use increases by 46%. However, if people perceive wearing face masks as only protecting themselves, they do not want to wear face masks unless the surrounding people wear them too. These findings provide insights into future government non-mandatory use policies. They suggest that to encourage face mask use, policymakers should consider publicising not only the protection face masks provide for wearers, but also their ability to protect other people.departmental bulletin pape

Design and Implementation Mismatch in Integration Policies: A Case Study of National Rurban Mission in India

Integration policies have emerged as a response to fragmented governance action post-NPM and participatory governance reforms across multiple sectors such as social development and rural development in both the developing and developed world. Despite the attention these policies have attracted, their implementation has been a failure, as recent reviews suggest. We examine a case of integration policy implemented in rural development in India, the National Rurban Mission, at multiple levels using interviews, secondary data, and document analysis. Findings suggest a mismatch between policy design and policy implementation of integration. Limited incentives for integration and overtly designed procedural policy instruments lead to efficiency and effectiveness tradeoffs during policy implementation. Findings imply the importance of overcoming the barriers to policy implementation of integration policies during the policy design phase.departmental bulletin pape

Effects of Intergovernmental Transfers on Income and Poverty Rates: Evidence from the Philippines

Despite that subnational governments are key actors in the provision of public services, there are concerns about whether providing additional funding to them in developing countries can raise the living standards of local communities. This study investigates the impact of intergovernmental transfers on development outcomes at municipality and city levels in the Philippines from 1994 to 2015. Since the revenue-sharing mechanism between central and local governments in the Philippines follows a predetermined formula, we leverage this feature and apply the instrumental variable (IV) method for estimation. Our results suggest that the household disposable income per capita increases by 9.6% in the long run due to extra transfers of 1,000 pesos per capita in the Philippine local governments. The poverty rate has also decreased by approximately five percentage points in the long run. The improvement of development outcomes mainly occurs in small and less-developed local governments. Finally, we examine the effect of intergovernmental transfers on local expenditure and taxation; then we discuss how the results of local finance behavior can explain the observed developmental impact.departmental bulletin pape

The Institutional Spillover, Financial Development and Economic Growth : International Political Economy Perspectives

International University of Japan博士（国際関係学）/ Ph.D. in International Relations2022International Political Economy (IPE) tries to interpret the complex contemporary environment, its interrelated and interactions between markets, states and international actors at different levels. Economic liberalism has mainly shaped the contemporary economic system, which argues for the limited role of the state in the relationship with the market. The failures and externalities of the free-market system have paved the way for institutionalism, which proposes minimising transaction costs, strong property rights and enabling the proper contract enforcement. Most studies on institutions in respect of the finance–growth relationship in neoclassical contexts are inconclusive and inconsistent. This study explores the institutional spillover on financial development and economic growth. The variables of good governance indicators for institutions and financial development index to measure financial development and per capita GDP for economic growth are mainly used in this study. The first objective is explored analysing the panel data of 152 countries for the period 2002–2019 using spatial econometric modelling to explore the spatial spillover of the institutions on the finance–growth nexus. Results indicate that financial development and institutions of surrounding countries create a reverse spatial spillover impact on local countries. The second objective is achieved by employing global panel data from 181 countries for the years 2002–2018 using simultaneous equation modelling. The financial market and its moderation of economic growth indicate a spillover behaviour. The third objective is achieved by the analysis in the Sri Lankan context using the data from 1990–2019 by time-series modelling and provincial data from 2013–2019 for nine provinces using spatial econometrics, including the inclusive growth to compare the institutional impact on economic growth. Results find that the mediator impact of institutions on inclusive growth and moderation impact of institutions with financial development on economic growth is adverse. Further, provincial analysis indicates that fiscal decentralisation had no significant impact on economic growth and inclusive growth. Results concluded that global governance is a positive-sum game; monitoring and governance structures have failed at the international level in relation to separate states. To prevent institutional failure at the state level, good governance and links with the global governance structure could energise local institutions.thesi

Institutions, agricultural land utilisation and greenhouse gas emissions

Increasing agricultural land use is required to achieve SDG1 (no poverty) and SDG2 (zero hunger). However, agricultural land use and other input intensification strategies have been questioned due to the danger of increasing emissions of greenhouse gases (GHG) and damaging natural capital. Most contemporary approaches to agricultural land management and its consequences on the GHG are mostly discussed from the classical economic perspectives. Though the nature of institutions plays a pivotal role in resource allocation of any society and impact, the failure of micro and macroeconomic policies could not be explained by the old institutionalism. Adverse effects of GHG and land use become external to the market and the market may be failed to capture actual cost and benefits. New Institutional Economics (NIE) attempts to prevent market externalities by introducing transaction costs to contractual arrangements and the legal system, stressing the importance of institutions or governance in minimizing and avoiding market failure by lowering transaction costs. We found that the influence of governance on agricultural land use management and GHG emissions is not comprehensively researched with scientific data. This research contributes to the existing knowledge by quantifying the effects of institutions measured by governance indicators on agricultural land use and GHG emission using a panel dataset covering 176 countries for the period 2002-2019. A Two-Stage Least Square (2SLS) estimation technique was utilised to quantify the impact. The moderating influence of the overall governance on agricultural land use has decreased the GHG emission by 2 per cent. Moreover, individual governance indicators, control of corruption (COC), regulatory quality (RGQ), voice and accountability (VAC), and absence of violence/terrorism (POS) have a significant moderating influence on agricultural land usage by 7 per cent, 6 per cent, 9 per cent, and 33 per cent, respectively. The research findings provide empirical confirmation backing and verifying that the quality of institutions measured by the World Bank governance indicators enhances sustainability by changing agricultural land use and reducing GHG emissions.departmental bulletin pape