VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
Cash, courts, and constitutions: democratic integrity in political finance law

Money in politics is seen as a global, existential threat to democracy and presents unique and difficult challenges for courts when they review political finance regulation. The objective of this dissertation is to develop a normative framework for apex courts, which may guide them reviewing political finance law in a range of constitutional systems. The dissertation thus advances a conception of democratic integrity, which permits considerable legislative choice and appropriately guides courts based on a democratic minimum. Reflecting on the existing rights-structure debate, Part I argues that a new approach should respect the duality of rights and structure in election law, openly mediate between fundamental democratic values, and be based on a richer concept of integrity than that currently in the literature. In developing a theoretical framework that meets these aims, Part II advances three related but distinct strands of democratic integrity: trustworthiness, completeness, and coherence. Trustworthiness describes a democratic system that, through its reliability and honesty, engenders people’s trust or confidence. Reliable democracy depends on the other two strands of democratic integrity, which describe the possession and arrangement of democracy’s core elements of political liberty and political equality, respectively. Meanwhile, honest democracy is concerned with whether there is reasonable transparency and information about democratic processes. As trust or confidence in democracy generally mirrors its trustworthiness, the dissertation shows how public opinion evidence might be used as an indicator for courts before they assess democratic integrity’s objective requirements of reliable and honest democracy. Using this framework, Part III then assesses political finance law jurisprudence in three comparative systems: the United Kingdom, the United States, and Australia. For each system, the dissertation discusses the legal and political context, explores if public opinion evidence justifies greater judicial concern, and identifies ways each system might better achieve democratic integrity’s reliability and honesty requirements.

Keywords: democratic integrity
money in politics
corruption
integrity as completeness
political trust
honest democracy
rights-structure debate
electoral integrity
political equality
integrity as trustworthiness
political liberty
campaign finance
democratic legitimacy
reliable democracy
equilibrium
core elements of democracy
non-domination
freedom of expression
integrity as coherence
Advisor: Rowbottom, J
Higher education and knowledge in Slovak political life

This research focuses on the promise that expanding education and scientific progress will enhance social harmony. It explores this question in elite interviews with Slovak politicians, analysing their answers through the use of critical phenomenology and messy approaches, with an emphasis on active reflexivity. The issues are presented in a broader historical context, accounting for current political and educational challenges, and institutional structures. Participants’ experiences from interviews are complemented with educational biographic data of Slovak politicians. The first part of the research focuses on the relationship between education and political life. A compiled database of the educational biographical data of politicians was used to map the Slovak educational cleavage within political representation, confirming the thesis of diploma democracy (Bovens & Wille, 2017). However, participants reject the simplified binary division of people with and without HE. Hence, the research moved to explore the absolute and relative contributions of education to political participation. It uncovered nuanced ways that certain educational experiences in combination with affluent background and the associated predispositions, help individuals to accumulate advantages that place them in proximity to political power. The research introduces the concept of higher education immersion, which shows the impact of educational hierarchies on stratifying access to transformative higher education-related experiences and through that limit space for self-formation. In the second part of the dissertation, the relationship between knowledge and political life is explored, mapping various rationalities used to justify policies. The dissertation identifies the need to rethink the relationship of science to policy and the need to critically reflect on the limits of public reason in the context of confirmation bias, the Dunning-Kruger effect, and social media.

Keywords: critical phenomenology
interviews
higher education
HE
institutional design
case study
student self-formation
Slovakia
political participation
HE2022
Advisor: Marginson, S
'Is it worth it?': Austrian postgraduate's perception of studying at Loxbridge in terms of personal and professional outcomes

This dissertation examines the worth perception of Austrian postgraduate students pursuing a degree at the prestigious English Loxbridge institutions in times of the twin challenges of COVID-19 and Brexit. Increased tuition fees and restricted social activities impacted the experience broadly and developed a more consumerist lens specifically among self-funded students. This opens up the question of how students reflect on their educational journey in terms of personal and professional outcomes – the personal value, social value, skills value, career value and the overall cosmopolitan value as we live in a globalized world.
By conducting qualitative in-depth interviews, this study demonstrates that students’ value perception is hugely dependent on their individual aspirations, expectations, and cost of studying beyond financial aspects. It argues for a proper information and funding structure for Austrian degree mobile students. These demands are particularly urgent as international students experience extensive price discrimination, a status quo that is troubling due to the cultural aspiration of whiteness and the colonial legacy in and beyond the academy.

Keywords: value perception
Bourdieu
international students
HE
postgraduates
HE2022
higher education
qualitative interviews
Brexit
Advisor: Robson, J
Phosphorylation and dephosphorylation regulate the Fanconi anaemia DNA repair pathway


Interstrand crosslink (ICL) is a highly deleterious form of DNA damage as crosslinked DNA double strands block DNA replication, transcription machinery and prevent chromosome segregation. One of the major pathways for resolving DNA ICL damage is the Fanconi anaemia (FA) pathway, of which recruitment of the FANCD2/FANCI complex to sites of ICL damage is crucial for its repair by the FA pathway. The activity of FANCD2/FANCI complex is tightly regulated by post-translational modifications. Monoubiquitination of the FANCD2/FANCI complex lead to their retention on chromatin, which is essential for subsequent repair events to occur. However, it is believed that ubiquitination takes place after the recruitment of the FANCD2/FANCI complex to DNA, thus how recruitment of the complex is regulated still remains to be investigated. Our group reported a previously unknown kinase CK2 dependent phosphorylation event on FANCD2 at a six-residue cluster spanning from residue 882-898, which reduces the activity of FANCD2/FANCI complex, hence blocking subsequent events in the FA pathway. Phosphorylation of FANCD2 by CK2 restrains not only recruitment of FANCD2/FANCI complex to DNA but also FANCD2 monoubiquitination, pointing to an inhibitory effect on the function of the complex to prevent cells from spurious activation of repair in unperturbed conditions. We speculated that an unknown phosphatase may antagonize the effect of CK2 and promote the repairing function of FANCD2/FANCI complex during ICL repair. Here we identified one of the members belonging to the protein serine/threonine phosphatase PP2A family, PPP2R3A/PP2A, as the major phosphatase that specifically dephosphorylates and therefore activates CK2-phosphorylated FANCD2 during ICL repair. Silencing the catalytic activity of PPP2R3A/PP2A led to reduced recruitment and ubiquitination of FANCD2 upon induction of ICL damage. Importantly, cells lacking active PPP2R3A/PP2A displayed a deficient activation of the FA pathway, including increased sensitivity to ICL inducing reagent MMC. Our results describe a novel regulatory mechanism in which the function of FANCD2/FANCI complex is tightly regulated by the dynamic phosphorylation and dephosphorylation events mediated by CK2 and PP2A. In addition, PPP2R3A/PP2A that activates FANCD2 could serve as a potential druggable target to overcome chemotherapy resistance to ICL inducing reagents such as cisplatin, as the major mechanism of developing drug resistance is via an over-activated FA pathway.

Keywords: PP2A
PPP2R3A
ICL repair
FANCD2
Fanconi anaemia
protein phosphorylation/dephosphorylation
Advisor: Cohn, M
Exploring agency enactments of women farmworkers in South Africa's Western Cape province

This thesis explores the subjective meanings inhering in individual purposeful agency among women who are, or have been, farmworkers in South Africa’s Western Cape province. Existing research has highlighted gendered dimensions of farm labor on commercial farms in South(ern) Africa (Addison, 2019; Hall, 2013; Lazzarini, 2017; Rutherford, 2001; Rutherford & Addison, 2007) and the Western Cape (Eriksson, 2017; Randle, 2014; Scully, 1997; Visser, 2016; Waldman, 1996). These findings firstly reveal the gendered experiences of farmworkers. Secondly, they underscore the need to understand the processes through which women enact agency to/through work.
To gain a deeper understanding of these processes, this study pursues a conceptually- rooted examination of empirical findings from qualitative research conducted in Western Cape. It explores women’s agency enactments by analyzing the motivations behind their choices and the meanings they attach to particular behaviors. It frames the research through Amartya Sen’s (1999, 2009) capability approach and integrates individual interviews, focus group discussions, key informant interviews, and observations in its analysis of women’s individual agency. The thesis presents ground-up conceptualizations of the forms of agency women have, value, and/or pursue. Furthermore, it discusses how individual agency can also, sometimes, be ‘other-related’ when individuals’ choices and actions can be linked to their relational considerations.
The thesis investigates the link between agency and the meaningfulness of individual women’s choices and actions, grounded in understanding what women value instrumentally (as a means to an end) and/or intrinsically (as an end in itself). The project does so by examining women’s control over income (chapter 5), decisions to work (chapter 6), and ideas about the ‘self’ (chapter 7). Thus, the main empirical contributions of this research are: analytically distinguishing control over income as strategic and/or executive; understanding how women’s decisions to work (or not) helps them pursue what they value, and developing a conceptual link between those values and their identities; and examining how the ‘good woman’, a concept of the self that emerged from the data, is an exemplar that relates to some women’s agency. This study contributes to improving our understanding of the subjective dimensions of women’s individual agency.

Keywords: Amartya Sen
women's empowerment
agency
concept of the self
conceptions of the self
decision-making
farmworkers
financial control
women's work
capability approach
South Africa
gender and development
Advisor: Doss, C
Chinese multinational enterprises’ corporate political capabilities in overseas markets

In a world of rising political uncertainty, it is increasingly challenging for firms to navigate the political landscape. Political challenges can severely affect firms' operations in overseas markets, particularly during home-host country geopolitical confrontations. Hence, it is crucial for firms to develop organisational capabilities to manage political risks and challenges. Prior research argues that variations in firms' strategic responses to host countries' political challenges are shaped by the home country's political environment. However, the existing literature appears to overlook firm-level variations within the same home country: firms may develop different relationships with the home government and, subsequently, manage government relations in different ways. Hence, my thesis seeks to address the research question: “Why do firms originating in the same country develop different political capabilities in overseas markets?” I approached this question empirically by conducting an in-depth qualitative study to investigate how Chinese firms handled host governments' national security concerns. I utilised interview and archival data to present six detailed case studies. My research findings illustrate that the heterogeneity of Chinese firms' political capabilities is shaped by their relationships with the Chinese government. My thesis first contributes to the corporate political capabilities literature by suggesting two additional antecedents – ownership and strategic importance – to explain firms' divergent responses to similar political challenges. Second, it provides an alternative explanation for firms' strategic choices between deploying internal political capabilities and/or relying on external political actors. Finally, my thesis offers practical guidance for business leaders to manage overseas political challenges.

Keywords: corporate political capabilities
China
geopolitics
business-government relations
nonmarket strategy
Advisor: Thun, E
Sako, M
Diabetes prevention: economic evaluation of individual case-based and population-wide prevention programmes and implications for public policy

This thesis aims to inform diabetes prevention policy through economic evaluation of individual-case based and population-wide prevention programmes for type 2 diabetes (T2DM). Two broad approaches are described: i) individual case-based programmes focusing on individuals at high risk of T2DM and ii) population-wide programmes that seek to modify an entire population’s risk of developing T2DM.
Published evidence on individual case-based interventions is described, with both lifestyle programmes and metformin appearing effective at reducing incidence of T2DM and being cost-effective at a willingness-to-pay threshold of £20,000/QALY. However, key differences were identified between current clinical guidelines/national policy in England and published economic evaluations. The implications of these different approaches to individual case-based programmes, in terms of cost-effectiveness, budget impact and incidence of T2DM, are quantified using a de novo Markov model. This analysis found that whilst current UK national guidance and policy is likely to be cost-effective and have the most favourable budget impact, it will prevent fewer than 5% of incident cases of T2DM over 50 years.
Alternative approaches to diabetes prevention, using population-wide programmes, are therefore identified. Their impact on T2DM, or its major risk factor of adiposity, is summarised through an overview of systematic reviews. Four population-wide actions were associated with lower BMI, including sugar sweetened beverage tax, menu labelling, food store interventions and multi-component community interventions. However, impact on T2DM was impossible to quantify precisely due to lack of primary studies. A pre-existing micro-simulation model was utilised to quantify the potential impact of these interventions on healthcare costs associated with T2DM, QALYs and cumulative incidence of T2DM. This analysis found that these four interventions were associated with reduced costs relating to T2DM and increased QALYs. However, costs and benefits outside the health system precluded meaningful assessment of cost-effectiveness and the interventions resulted in only a small reduction in incidence of T2DM.
These findings support a more comprehensive, complex systems approach to diabetes prevention policy that encompasses both individual case-based and population-wide programmes. They suggest that, even if all the available evidence-based policies described in this DPhil were implemented, they may still be insufficient to substantially reduce the prevalence of T2DM in England. This moves the diabetes prevention policy debate on from considering which single approach to adopt (individual case-based or population-wide) to considering how to implement a combination of programmes concurrently and continuing to search for new, promising interventions at both an individual and population level.

Keywords: sugar tax
diabetes prevention programme
prevention
menu labelling
diabetes
Advisor: Greenhalgh, P
Categorical tools for natural language processing

This thesis develops the translation between category theory and computational linguistics as a foundation for natural language processing. The three chapters deal with syntax, semantics and pragmatics. First, string diagrams provide a unified model of syntactic structures in formal grammars. Second, functors compute semantics by turning diagrams into logical, tensor, neural or quantum computation. Third, the resulting functorial models can be composed to form games where equilibria are the solutions of language processing tasks. This framework is implemented as part of DisCoPy, the Python library for computing with string diagrams. We give a hierarchy of categorical and linguistic notions and an overview of their applications in compositional natural language processing.

Keywords: Python
pragmatics
formal semantics
formal grammar
quantum
category theory
NLP
Advisor: Coecke, B
Truth and historiographical aims in Polybius' histories

This work looks at the textual exegesis of the passages in which Polybius writes about truth as seen in a historiographical milieu and in relation to what Polybius claims to be the proper way of writing history. The main scholarly contribution and originality of this dissertation are to provide a comprehensive analysis of this concept, since the notion of truth in Polybius’ work has not been yet extensively examined, and at the same time to ‘test’ Polybius’ assessments and check whether he actually stuck to his claims.
The linguistic analysis of the Polybian terminology and the close look at his style and narrative technique illustrate how he employs diverse narrative and oratorical devices, how he mixes references to history, philosophy, tragedy, and rhetoric to invent new words and concepts (which have been defined as Polybian neologisms), and how he plays on different levels with his readers (a special kind of readers, the ‘lovers of learning’). Also, this work shows Polybius’ anxiety to give an overall view of the events, which is feasible only by applying the rules and techniques required by universal history. The thematic approach to truth has gone hand in hand with the focus on Polybius’ attitude towards historiographical methodology in relation with his predecessors, and the dissertation also delineates different types of non-truths or anti-truths in Polybius’ view, thus ‘how not to write a (false) account of events’. Indeed, in most cases Polybius’ methodology lies in the shadow of the critiques to his predecessors.
My work not only reconstructs the image Polybius has of truth, but also advocates a new understanding of the figure of the historian, who is characterized by the newly-created Polybian concept of assuming the proper ethos when one undertakes the crucial task of writing history.

Keywords: Greek and Roman historiography
ancient history
truth
Polybius
Greek literature
Revisiting alliances in Somalia's Civil War

Alliances in Somalia have often appeared unpredictable to external observers. Since the collapse of Siad Barre’s regime in 1991, the country’s civil war has been characterized by fluid political alignments and constantly renegotiated alliances. Although lineage solidarity – the main determinant of political allegiances according to the classic Somali studies literature – has remained the foundation of political mobilisation, it cannot explain alliance choices on its own. At many times, the most intense fighting has been between rivals from the same clan or sub-clan, who have established alliances with groups involved in similar intra-clan competition within other clan-families, illustrating the limits of lineage solidarity based on genealogical proximity.
This thesis suggests a framework for understanding alliance formation in Somalia’s civil war that builds on the classic Somali studies literature, but moves away from culturally specific explanations by drawing on alternative approaches to alliance dynamics, including the realist tradition and the literature on the political economy of civil wars. It argues that Somalia’s civil war has not been about winning as much as it has been about not losing, and points to an underlying defensive logic to alliance formation often overlooked in favour of explanations that emphasize opportunism. It argues that alliance choices have largely been determined by perceptions of threat: the main tendency has been for political actors to focus on the main threat to their interests, and to draw support from allies accordingly. The thesis highlights three patterns in alliance formation: how alliances have been formed vertically as well as horizontally between local, regional, and national actors; how interaction between different arenas of competition in Somalia has shaped alliance formation; and how expectations of the emerging political order in Somalia have shaped perceptions of threat and informed alliance choices.
Through its analysis, the thesis provides a detailed historical narrative about alliances in Somalia from 1988 to 2001 and outlines a number of alliance patterns that can be seen in that particular period as well as in the country’s past and in the contemporary crisis. It builds on interviews with key players in Somalia’s civil war, including faction leaders, politicians, foreign diplomats, and representatives from other countries in the region, as well as original documents from Somali factions and international organisations.

Keywords: Somalia
Horn of Africa
realism
civil war
alliances
Advisor: Anderson, D
Cheeseman, N