Browsing by Title
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(2013)The aim of this dissertation is to examine when indirect environmental taxes are permissible under the rules concerning prohibited State aid in the European Union. The underlying motive is to clarify what types of environmental taxes national legislators in EU Member States can adopt without being restricted by State aid control. The method applied to the dissertation is traditional legal dogmatics, which is justified by the fact that this specific field of law has been only rarely been studied in legal literature. The focus of the dissertation is the cumulative criteria for State aid which must be notified the European Commission before being adopted. These criteria are defined in Article 107(1) in the Treaty of the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU). This dissertation clarifies how national indirect environmental taxes are assessed under the four criteria for State aid in Article 107(1) TFEU. In order to be considered as State aid which must be subjected to the notification procedure in the Commission, an environmental tax measure must favour certain undertakings, or the production of certain goods, be financed through public resources, distort or threatens to distort competition and affect trade between Member States. Applying the above criteria to national indirect environmental taxes proves that the assessment of the tax measures is rather strict when considering the Member States’ treaty-based competence in tax matters. On the other hand, the indirect nature of the taxes as well as the acceptable aims behind them can sometimes allow them to escape the definition of State aid as expressed in Article 107(1) TFEU. In many cases, private financing of an environmental aid is preferable to an environmental tax, since the former escapes the criterion of aid being granted through state resources. Furthermore, indirect environmental taxes may have less distortive effects than other aid measures, and therefore they can be more desirable when assessed in light of the objectives of State aid control. Therefore, it is recommendable that the legislators in the Member States take into consideration the strictness of the interpretation of State aid when introducing environmental tax measures. As a precaution, all such measures should be notified to the Commission. The notification can, however, be accepted by the Commission without imposing further conditions, if the tax falls outside the scope of Article 107(1) TFEU. It can therefore be wise to construct taxes so that they escape the definition of State aid control, even when the aid is being notified. The Commission’s approval brings certainty to the application of the tax, which is important when considering the long-term objectives of environmental policy.
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(2020)Tiivistelmä – Referat – Abstract This partly autoethnographical study of homelessness within highly mobile people asks if the meaning of home changes and how it changes when people do not have a fixed point of dwelling. It aims to shed light onto the question of space and place within social studies. This thesis combines personal narrative with semi-structured interviews in order to provide better understanding of the seemingly simple concept of ‘home’. The fieldwork was conducted in multiple locations around the world, following the mobile lifestyles of people working within the yachting industry. As the thesis focuses on the lifestyles of elites, it provides a different perspective to homelessness as the studies that focus on forced homelessness do. The ‘spatial turn’, which started in the late 1980’s, has changed the perception of space and place not only within anthropology but in other fields of academia as well. This thesis looks at how this theoretical approach has affected the way that space and place is reflected in everyday life. Utilising discourses from mobility and transnationalism studies, the aim is not to present highly mobile people as disconnected from place but, instead, to show how place and space are still meaningful. The analysis of different spatial perspectives concentrates on three different aspects: home as a dwelling place, home as a community and home as a nation. Through these approaches, the thesis makes the concept of home easier to understand. Another important element that this thesis reveals is how anthropologists should not forget the temporal aspect of life while putting more emphasis on spatiality. The thesis argues that only by combining these two elements, we can fully comprehend the implications of mobile lifestyle. Without the temporal aspect, the understanding of homelessness remains partial. Drawing from previous ethnographic studies of lifestyle migration, this thesis contributes to the discourse of rootedness and the implications of leaving one’s homeland. Identity and nomadic lifestyle are in a constant dialogue with each other, affecting the life trajectories of the “elite homeless”. This thesis looks at how time changes its shape, when life consists of short periods of time in multiple different locations. The interview material amplifies the paradox of the need for a permanent home and the urge to keep travelling. The thesis aims to show how once uprooted, the ability to relocate and return to location bound lifestyle becomes problematic. This thesis also aspires to show how autoethnography can be a useful tool for anthropologists. The writer’s personal experiences act as the structure around which other ethnographic material and the theory build on. As autoethnography is not widely used method in anthropology, the thesis looks into the history and two main branches of autoethnography.
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(2010)Nowadays any analysis of Russian economy is incomplete without taking into account the phenomenon of oligarchy. Russian oligarchs appeared after the fall of the Soviet Union and are represented by wealthy businessmen who control a huge part of natural resources enterprises and have a big political influence. Oligarchs’ shares in some natural resources industries reach even 70-80%. Their role in Russian economy is big without any doubts, however there has been very little economic analysis done. The aim of this work is to examine Russian oligarchy on micro and macro levels, its role in Russia’s transition and the possible positive and negative outcomes from this phenomenon. For this purpose the work presents two theoretical models. The first part of this thesis work examines the role of oligarchs on micro level, concentrating on the question whether the oligarchs can be more productive owners than other types of owners. To answer the question this part presents a model based on the article 'Are oligarchs productive? Theory and evidence' by Y. Gorodnichenko and Y. Grygorenko. It is followed by empirical test based on the works of S. Guriev and A. Rachinsky. The model predicts oligarchs to invest more in the productivity of their enterprises and have higher returns on capital, therefore be more productive owners. According to the empirical test, oligarchs were found to outperform other types of owners, however it is not defined whether the productivity gains offset losses in tax revenue. The second part of the work concentrates on the role of oligarchy on macro level. More precisely, it examines the assumption that the depression after 1998 crises in Russia was caused by the oligarchs’ behavior. This part presents a theoretical model based on the article 'A macroeconomic model of Russian transition: The role of oligarchic property rights' by S. Braguinsky and R. Myerson, where the special type of property rights is introduced. After the 1998 crises oligarchs started to invest all their resources abroad to protect themselves from political risks, which resulted in the long depression phase. The macroeconomic model shows, that better protection of property rights (smaller political risk) or/and higher outside investing could reduce the depression. Taking into account this result, the government policy can change the oligarchs’ behavior to be more beneficial for the Russian economy and make the transition faster.
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(2019)Tutkielma käsittelee ilmiötä jota kutsutaan filantrokapitalismiksi. Tutkimuksen tavoitteena on selvittää filantrokapitalistisen toiminnan taustalla olevaa etiikkaa ja tutkia filantrokapitalistista toimintaa nykymaailmassa. Tutkimusmetodina on systemaattinen käsiteanalyysi. Filantrokapitalismi -käsitettä puretaan sen funktionaalisen muodon sekä eettisen ulottuvuuden keinoin. Eettistä ulottuvuutta valotetaan tutustumalla hieman etiikan keskeisiin käsitteisiin kuten utilitarismi, deontologia sekä oikeudenmukaisuus. Tutkimuksen lähteinä ovat pääasiassa Bill Gatesin vuosittain julkaisemat kirjeet (Annual Letters 2009-2017), jotka ovat kaikkien luettavissa Gates Foundationin verkkosivuilla, sekä filantrokapitalismia käsittelevää kirjallisuutta; joista keskeisimpinä Linsey McGoey:n 2015 julkaisema No Such Thing as a Free Gift sekä Bishop & Greenin 2008 julkaistu Philanthrocapitalism. Tutkielmassa pyritään selvittämään minkälainen eettinen käsitteistö vaikuttaa Bill Gatesin ja muiden filantrokapitalistien toiminnan taustalla. Kapitalismi suffiksi sanassa filantrokapitalismi viittaa vahvaan taloudelliseen kytkökseen. Tutkielmassa käydään lyhyesti läpi nykymaailman talouspoliittisia rakenteita käsitteleviä teorioita ja väittämiä, sekä köyhyyden ja epätasa-arvon tuottamia moraalisia velvoitteita. Tutkimukseen sisältyvää moraalista pohdintaa ohjaavet pääasiassa Thomas Pogge ja Tom Campbell. Tutkimuskysymys on kaksiosainen: Onko filantrokapitalismi käsitteenä ja ilmiönä eettisesti koherentti? Ja minkälaiset motiivit Bill Gatesin mukaan ohjaavat filantrokapitalistiseen toimintaan? Filantrokapitalismin eettistä koherenssia tutkitaan kirjallisuuden sekä useiden aihepiiriä käsittelevien artikkelien kautta. Tutkielmassa pureudutaan filantrokapitalismia kohtaan esitettyyn kritiikkiin, sekä yritetään hahmottaa filantrokapitalismin tarjoamaa potentiaalia yhteiskunnallisessa kehityksessä. Yhdessä pääluvuista esitetään tapaustutkimus, jonka kohteena on Yhdysvaltojen koulutusjärjestelmä, ja erityisesti filantropian rooli sekä vaikutusvalta sen uudelleen strukturoinnissa. Tutkielman johtopäätöksenä esitetään seuraava väittämä filantrokapitalismin luonteesta: Nykyisessä maailman tilassa lienee kaikille parempi, että upporikkaat miljardöörit kuten Gates lahjoittavat omaisuutensa pois sijoittamalla sen hankkeisiin joissa on potentiaalia postitiiviselle kehitykselle, kuin se että he eväisivät maailmalta nämä varat ja käyttäisivät ne omiin tarkoituksiinsa ja nautintoihinsa.
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(2019)This thesis examines the phonology of Gangou, a Sinitic (Chinese) variety spoken in Minhe County, Qinghai Province, China. Gangou is a variety of Mandarin, a.k.a. Northern Chinese, that belongs to what has been termed the Amdo Sprachbund, a linguistic area consisting of Sinitic, Bodic, Mongolic, and Turkic languages which have converged structurally towards a common Altaic prototype. Although the languages of the Amdo Sprachbund have started to receive more attention recently, Gangou remains an underdocumented language. Of the few articles that have been published, none so far has been dedicated to phonology, and it is the aim of this thesis to fill this gap. The material for the thesis was elicited during a field trip in Xining and Gangou, Qinghai Province, in September–October 2017. The data has been analysed based on general phonemic theory; no formalist theory of phonology has been adopted. The focus is primarily syn-chronic, but attention is paid to diachronic development where it facilitates the explanation of features that are peculiar to Gangou as compared to other Mandarin varieties such as Standard Mandarin. The primary goal of the present thesis is to determine the phonemes and tonemes of Gangou from a synchronic perspective. A secondary goal is to manifest the peculiarities of Gangou as compared to Standard Mandarin, which is the most widely known member of the Mandarin group of Chinese languages. Attempts have also been made to explain these unique features as possible contact-induced changes. As for the phonology of the languages of the Amdo Sprachbund, they represent either a Bodic or a Sinitic type. The results of this thesis show that Gangou exhibits a Sinitic orientation; it has a phonemic inventory that is close to that of other Mandarin varieties and a C (initial con-sonant) M (medial) V (vowel) F (final) syllable structure that is typical of Sinitic. Further-more, Gangou is tonal, having three tones in syllable-initial position, which is also a non-Bodic (i.e. Sinitic) feature. A comparison between the tone systems of Gangou and Standard Mandarin shows that a correspondence between Gangou and Standard Mandarin tones can be detected, which is to be expected. However, there are also many inconsistencies, especially in non-final syllables. Tone reduction may be one explanation to these inconsistencies.
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(2020)My thesis is about photography and its aesthetics in a world of digitized culture. The main hypothesis is that there is an ongoing and fundamental change in the way photographs and images are being produced, distributed and consumed in society, resulting in a new kind of aesthetics, that did not previously exist in photography. I argue that digital photography should be seen as part of a wider range of digital imaging, as a separate field from traditional analogue photography. My observation is on all different aspects of photographic practice: artistic, technical and social; on the different aspects of photographic expression in different artistic, social and scientific practices (both analogue and digital). Fundamental issues are how the digital divide changes our perception, the way we work and how we process and understand images. I complement academic thought with empirical observations derived from my background as a practicing media-artist and film- and photography professional with almost two decades experience from the field. I start by introducing a basic history of photography, in order to place the practice in a historicaly and technologically determined context, followed by defining what a photograph is in an analogue and digital sense. The main discussion looks at aesthetic concepts related to photography and imaging. This is mainly done by deconstructing formal aspects of the image/photograph and examining the photographs function as a representation of reality and truth. To support my thoughts and to argue against conflicting theories, I mainly rely on writings and thoughts by authors like Bruce Wands, Vilém Flusser, Jerry L. Thompson, Martin Hand and Charlie Gere. From more classic writers on photographic theory I use Susan Sontag, Walter Benjamin, Roland Barthes, Henri Cartier-Bresson and Roger Scruton. The aim is to create a comprehensive image of the field of thought, both on a contemporary and historical axis, and through this build a solid base for understanding and argumentation. I conclude that we are already living in the future, and that the reality we know will change with an ever-increasing pace, soon taking the step over to augmented and virtual reality. Current and future image makers should consider in depth what it really means to create images in a digital universe. A new way of seeing digitally is crucial for future understanding of the changing digital landscape of images.
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The Physiological Effect of Mouse Peritoneal Mast Cell Chymase Activity on High Density Lipoproteins (University of HelsinkiHelsingin yliopistoHelsingfors universitet, 2009)In atherosclerosis, cholesterol accumulates in cholesterol-loaded macrophages (foam cells) forming cholesterol plaques in the arterial intima. Reverse cholesterol transport (RCT) is a mechanism in which HDL and its major structural protein apolipoprotein-A-1 (apoA-1) remove cholesterol from the foam cells and take it to the liver for its final excretion from the body in the faeces. An impaired removal of cholesterol from the foam cells is a potential contributor to a reduced RCT, which is related to a higher incidence of coronary heart disease. Chymase, a neutral protease of mast cells (MCs), is widely distributed in the connective tissue of most vertebrates and able to degrade apoA-1. After the degradation, HDL-particles are unable to interact with the ABCA-1 transporter protein on the surface of macrophages, which mediates efflux of cholesterol from the macrophage foam cells to HDL particles. It has been shown that chymase derived from rat peritoneal MCs is able to degrade apoA-1 even in the presence of blood plasma which contains natural inhibitors for chymase (α-2-macroglobulin and α-1-antichymotrypsin). In the present study we wanted to find out if mouse mast cell protease 4 (mMCP-4) isolated from peritoneal mast cells is able to maintain its enzymatic activity even in the presence of mouse serum and intraperitoneal fluid. A small molecular weight compound (S-2586) was used as a substrate. In the in vitro experiments a sonicated MC preparation that contains active chymase was used and the activity of chymase was measured in the presence of varying concentrations of plasma and intraperitoneal fluid. In the in vivo experiments we evaluate whether mast cell-dependent proteolysis of HDL particles does occur, and whether such modification inhibits their efficiency in inducing cellular cholesterol efflux in vitro. We found that both serum and intraperitoneal fluid inhibited chymase activity, serum to a higher extent. Systemic activation of MCs in mast cell-competent mice, but not in mast cell-deficient mice, in vivo led to a decreased ability of plasma and intraperitoneal fluid to act as cholesterol acceptors from cultured cholesterol-loaded macrophages. Local activation of peritoneal mast cells also blocked the cholesterol efflux-inducing effect of intraperitoneally injected human apoA-1. This work was performed at the Wihuri Research Institute. Licenses for animal work were approved by the Finnish Laboratory Animal Experiment Committee (Suomen eläinkoelautakunta, ELLA). Laboratory animals (female NMRI mice) were from the Viikki Laboratory Animal Centre of the University of Helsinki and the mast cell deficient strain of mice W-sash c-kit mutant KitW-sh/W-sh were from the Jackson Laboratory (BarHarbor, Maine). The work was supervised by the director of the Research Institute Petri Kovanen MD PhD and Miriam Lee-Rueckert PhD. Laboratory assistance was perceived from the technicians of the Wihuri Research Institute.
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The picture of Dongmun Yuhae : lexicographic description and review of its functions as a dictionary (2018)This thesis addresses the problem of situating Dongmun Yuhae, a Chinese-Korean-Manchu dictionary published by Joseon’s Bureau of Interpreters in 1748, within the crisis of identity afflicting the Joseon Dynasty. To achieve this, it is proposed that an analysis concerning a dictionary focuses on its inherent nature as a lexicographic tool, through a lexicographic description and review of its functions. Understanding Dongmun Yuhae’s functions ensures that the dictionary is not analysed according to its individual parts in separation from each other, but rather according to its whole design to produce a more comprehensive representation. The analysis mainly compares the functions of Dongmun Yuhae that have been explicitly stated in the postface of Dongmun Yuhae (Manchu vocabulary consultation) and the presumed function described by other research (vernacular Chinese consultation). Based on the results of macrostructural, microstructural and mediostructural analysis, Dongmun Yuhae is proven to be designed to fully support the consultation of Manchu vocabulary for its target users, students and interpreters of the Bureau of Interpreters. Against the crisis of identity of Joseon, Dongmun Yuhae reveals the diplomatic function of Manchu and its importance in Joseon’s search for legitimacy as the last bastion of Confucian cultures and value. Historical sources support the description and review of Dongmun Yuhae’s main function and shows that despite the crisis of identity and need for Joseon’s court and intellectuals to prove to be the deserving heir of Ming’s legacy, Joseon court still needed to maintain diplomatic relationship with Qing Dynasty. DMYH was one of the many steps taken to augment its cultural identity. To sum up, the cultural and political crisis of identities and linguistic situations are reflected in DMYH’s design and functions.
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(2018)Tutkimuksessa tarkastellaan kahta tekstikokoelma Padma Purāṇaan kuuluvaa mytologista kertomusta meditaatioperinteiden kontekstissa. Tutkimuskysymyksenä on selvittää millaisia yhteyksiä näiden kertomusten ja meditaatioperinteiden väliltä löytyy. Nämä kaksi kertomusta, ”Arjunan toive ja sen täyttyminen” ja ”Nāradan kokemus”, ovat versioita samasta myytistä: siirtymästä Kṛṣṇa-jumaluuden maailmaan ja tämän rakastetuksi tulemisesta taivaallisen gopī-neidon hahmossa. Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇavien Rāgānugā-meditaatiossa visualisoidaan samanlainen siirtymä ja hahmonmuutos. Tutkimuksen kohteena olevia kertomuksia vertaillaan etenkin tähän meditaatioperinteeseen. Rāgānugā-meditaatio on myös inspiroinut mytologisia tekstejä, jotka vuorostaan toimivat visualisoinnin apuna meditaatiossa. Samanlaista narratiivien ja meditaatioharjoitteiden interaktiota löytyy myös muualta hindulaisuudesta; usein nämä narratiivit sisältävät meditaatioon ja henkisiin kokemuksiin liittyviä metaforia. Näitä metaforia voidaan löytää myös tämän tutkimuksen kohteena olevista tarinoista. Tutkimusmenetelmänä on käytetty historiallis-kriittistä metodia sekä lähiluku-menetelmää. Lähdemateriaalina on käytetty sekä sanskritin- että englanninkielistä versiota teksteistä. Teoreettisena pohjana kertomusten ja meditaatioharjoitteiden välisten yhteyksien tarkastelulle toimivat mm. Lauri Hongon (1972,1984) teoriat myytin ja rituaalin suhteesta.
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(2019)This thesis is based on Masanao Aoki's idea to use Poisson-Dirichlet sampling formulas and models on economical phenomena. He suggested that these models could be used for innovations. Inspired by that, the subject of this thesis' research is employment in the USA. The dataset is relatively comprehensive since economy of the USA is large enough. We use both, the one-parameter Ewens Sampling Formula and its extension, the two-parameter Pitman sampling formula, in simulations. Both of them are used to see how the complexity of model a ects on the result. Sampling formulas are e ective to use since they are used only on the latest state of the employment. By exchangeability, we are able to simulate with urn-type construction and result in a similar outcome as the state of the real employment distribution. The model makes many simpli cations and doesn't concern about speci c elds of employment. It treats them all equally. Therefore it can be thought as a macroeconomic model and could be used as boundaries for more speci c models. We use also Monte Carlo to simulate larger datasets than what we get with the urn-type construc- tion. With Monte Carlo and urn-type constructed simulations we test the probability of original employment distribution.
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(2002)The study is about the US policies towards the Indian and the Pakistani nuclear weapons programs in 1945-2001. In addition to the two nuclear weapons programs and the reasons behind them, also US policies towards them and the factors that have contributed to the success of the policies are considered, as well as US goals and interests in South Asia in general. The research method used in this non-experimental case study is critical literature analysis. The research material consists of books, articles, and statements about US non-proliferation policies, the South Asian nuclear weapons programs, and geopolitical and realist theories as well as theories about nuclear weapons. There are several reasons behind the Indian and the Pakistani nuclear weapons programs, of which the most important seem to be threats to security, the Indian aspiration to become a major international player, and domestic politics. The US seems to have been constantly against nuclear proliferation in South Asia, but its non-proliferation policies have not been totally successful. Preventing nuclear proliferation has not always been ensured because it has been secondary to some other goals of the US, most notably to that of blocking the growth of the Soviet sphere of influence during the Cold War. The US non-proliferation policies have somewhat concentrated on trying to prevent the spread of nuclear material and technologies but it has also tried to affect the reasons for proliferation. However, differing views on the best non-proliferation policies between the US Congress and the President and a lack of support from other states have caused certain ineffectiveness of US policies.
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(2020)This thesis examines the political career, agenda and narratives of Marielle Franco, a former city councillor of Rio de Janeiro. Franco ran for political office the first time in the municipal elections of 2016. Her campaign contained the demands of women and sexual minorities, black people and favela residents. With 46,502 votes, she was the fifth most voted-for council member. The councilwoman was assassinated on March 14, 2018, after leaving an event of black feminist activists. Her death was followed by rallies in several Brazilian cities. Many of the core organisers of these mass mobilisations were black women, and their actions ensured media visibility for the case. In the general elections of 2018, three cabinet members of Marielle Franco were elected to the State Legislative Assembly of Rio de Janeiro (Alerj), defending her political legacy. The primary sources of the thesis comprise of speeches, campaign material, interviews and articles of Marielle Franco as well as public hearings, reports and other records of her term which lasted for fifteen months. The data also includes material produced by black women’s movements following the councilwoman’s assassination. The thesis approaches this material through counter-narrative methodology, which aims to integrate marginalised communities’ voices and perspectives into the research agenda. The aim of the research is to contextualise the political career and agenda of Marielle Franco as a ‘black woman from the favela of Maré’. To that end, the research draws from an intersectional theoretical framework, deploying it as an analytical tool. Intersectionality theorises the relationships between socio-cultural categories and identities. This thesis applies the intracategorical approach, entailing an in-depth study of a particular social group. The analysis focuses on low- income black women. Brazilian black women are disadvantaged by multiple sources of oppression: their race, class and gender. They often work in the informal sector and are disproportionately affected by poverty. Race and gender discrimination prevent them from accessing positions of power. In 2016, the year when Marielle Franco was elected, black women comprised of more than 25% of the population, but represented only 5% of all elected councillors. Their exclusion from political institutions, where decisions concerning their lives are taken, render low-income black women vulnerable to governmental neglect and violations of their and their family members’ fundamental human rights. The election of Marielle Franco was considered as a breakthrough in local politics and seen as an opportunity to change oppressive power structures. The analysis reveals that the councilwoman empowered black women and favela residents to participate party politics in multiple ways. Franco brought their voices, bodies and demands into the institutional domain, and her powerful speeches voiced the concerns of black mothers resisting the state violence within their communities. She also asserted solidarity as part of an alternative political practice of black feminists. Besides being a councillor, Franco was also a scholar and a front- line human rights defender. The analysis also found that Franco’s conception of human rights was based on the praxis developed in the Human Rights Commission of Alerj and centered on the black women of the favelas and urban outskirts. The counter-narratives deployed by Franco emphasised the legacy of feminist movements, including their leaders and symbols. She campaigned for recognising and valuing social differences and fought against all forms of discrimination within political institutions. Her politics and narratives continue to inspire young Brazilian women, particularly black women from the favelas and the urban peripheries.
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(2016)My master’s thesis discusses the last waves of resistance to of the traditional pagan Roman aristocracy and the new, now already quite established Christian aristocratic class in the beginning of the fifth century. Paganism had lost ground in Rome and had begun to merge into the growing wave of Christianity. My primary source is the case of a Roman pagan senator, Volusianus, and the correspondence he had with Bishop Augustine, with the aid of their mutual friend Marcellinus. Volusianus will represent in this thesis the side of the pagan aristocrat that comes from tradition and long ancestory, and even though born in a Christian Empire, he is brought up as a pagan and more importantly, a future senator of Rome. Volusianus shares the same concern pagan members of his class have felt ever since the removal of the pagan Altar of Victory from the Senate House, a symbolic sign from the imperial rule what religion is preferred: The Rome of his fathers is not the Rome he lives in. I will be using as additional sources the Third Relatio from senator Symmachus on behalf of re-instating the Altar, and also Saturnalia by Macrobius, a text written after Volusianus’s correspondence. As the Third Relatio will show the state of shock among the senators for this attack on their way of life, Saturnalia is a nostalgic view on a lost cultural heritage and an homage to the men who were seen as upholding all that is glorious about Rome, including Volusianus’s father. I will mostly focus on the reactions of the pagans. The Church could not succeed without the Roman super elite, and the Christian Emperor needed the Senate, as did the Senate need the Emperor. Why then, in a time that would seem to encourage conversion to Christianity was paganism and upholding it a matter of such devotion to these men who were, after all, imperial officials in a Christian Empire? Senators like Volusianus seems to show no great enthusiasm for Christianity, in fact he seems to look down on it slighty. But at the same time he is not zealous against it, and lives and works among his Christian family members and collegues. The concern Volusianus has is that of a Roman official; He is not sure Christianity is rational and not just tales of magicians and strange moral codes, a foreign religion that is simply not fitting for the educated citizen. He fears that Christ’s teachings are a way for foreign powers to take advantage of Rome and they would ruin her reputation as a formidable enemy. For him, Christianity does not seem to be anything terribly evil to avoid, but certainly not the best choice for the Empire. By looking at his social, cultural and philosophical background we can have a clearer insight into how Christianity in the beginning of the fifth century was seen by the very members it needed to impress
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(2021)In the light of increasing socio-ecological crises, there has been a surge in the promotion of, and investments in, renewable energy in the Global South. Previous theories and research, largely framed around conservative and liberal paradigms, have hailed these developments as a breakthrough. Yet, just sustainability theorists have pointed to logically plausible problems in these alternatives, suggesting that they do not go far enough and could, indeed, worsen the present crises. From these critiques, the conservative and liberal advocacy of a shift towards a low-carbon society does not, and cannot, automatically guarantee just sustainabilities. Although controversial, neither conservative, liberal, nor just sustainability theorists have empirically ascertained these claims about the nature of sustainable development. Africa’s largest wind power plant, the Lake Turkana Wind Power (LTWP) project in Kenya, provides a useful case study for this purpose. In addressing this lacuna, this thesis attempts to answer two fundamental questions related to the project. First, which are the dominant discourses on the LTWP project in Kenya? and second, what are the prospects of these discourses to drive just sustainability in Kenya? To address these questions, a range of rich data was collected, consisting of eight semi-structured interviews with key informants in Kenya and Finland, written documents including 12 news and feature articles, two policy documents and one company impact assessment. The data was systematised using critical discourse analysis (CDA) set within a political-economic framework of just sustainabilities in which wind power is dialectically linked to the dominant fossil fuel system built on global inequalities. Based on this methodology, this thesis argues that not only is the LTWP project not regarded as an environmental sustainability initiative, it is mostly understood as satisfying economic needs. More fundamentally, as the LTWP is realised within the dominant capitalist frame, guided by a reliance on market forces, new technologies and a search for new frontiers of capital accumulation, processes that are erected on, and typically drive, local and global inequalities, it does not address wider concerns of inclusion, raised by representatives for local communities in Northern Kenyan in the semi-structured interviews. Analytically, this evidence shows that mainstream conservative and liberal theories of development and energy are insufficient for analysing the transition from fossil to alternative fuels, let alone provide a canvass for a total liberation of the Global South. Clearly, the political economy of LTWP also calls into question the objectives of donor nations involved in the project as financiers. This evidence provides further basis to put the case for understanding alternative energy projects, particularly the LTWP under study, within a much broader framework of alternative, radical theories of just sustainabilities centred on concepts such as just land.
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(2016)This thesis investigates the political economy of monetary sovereignty in the post-Bretton Woods era of monetary governance. It examines whether monetary sovereignty matters for the macroeconomic policy space of contemporary states. It asks further whether monetary sovereignty ought to matter in the present global age. According to the standard view in the field of Global Political Economy, the current policy space of states is very narrow compared to the Bretton Woods period. In contrast to this position, however, the chartalist Post Keynesians argue that the recent decades in fact have seen a strengthening of the monetary sovereignty of states. Because the chartalists do seem to make an impeccable argument, it appears paradoxical that there nevertheless has been a recent tendency towards homogenous, slow-growth economic policies in the majority of states. This apparent paradox is resolved in thesis by reconciling these contradictory-looking positions: while monetary sovereignty has generally strengthened, the possibilities of states to exercise it often have not. Given this predicament, a possible way to enable the conduct of experimental macroeconomic policies in the future is proposed. The approach of the study is informed by a realist philosophy of science. Hypotheses of Post Keynesian economics and Global Political Economy are tested and revised in the spirit of iconic modelling. It is suggested that a realist approach provides a solid basis for moving towards a flexible theoretical synthesis capable of illuminating the political economy of monetary sovereignty from both explanatory and normative point of views. Several arguments are put forward. First, the Global Political Economy literature on the macroeconomic policy space of contemporary states has largely failed to integrate the core and valid insights of the chartalist economics. The strengthened monetary sovereignty matters for the ability of many states to conduct progressive economic policies. Second, while the chartalists are correct about the economics of monetary sovereignty, several monetary sovereignty-undermining processes and institutional developments of the post-Bretton Woods macroeconomic governance regime often tend to trump the practical potentials and theoretical considerations of Chartalism. Third, because the neo-Gramscian approach helps to illuminate the constitutionalization of the present consensus on macroeconomic policy – a process that is shown to constrain the possibility of many states to exercise their monetary sovereignty –, it can fruitfully supplement chartalist economics of monetary sovereignty. The neo-Gramscian view on the nature of these processes, however, has to be revised and updated to make it consistent with the Post Keynesian framework underpinning chartalism. Fourth, it is argued that the current consensus view of macroeconomic policy has failed and is likely to be replaced by an alternative set of governance ideas in the near future. It is suggested that in order to exercise monetary sovereignty effectively and in a way that contributes to transformative and cosmopolitan democracy, nation states may not be the optimal entities to exercise monetary sovereignty in the future. A chartalist case for the supranational exercise of monetary sovereignty is put forward.
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(2012)The ageing population of the developed world questions the financial sustainability of the pay-as-you-go pension system, which redistributes income from the current working population to the retirees. The development has spurred a debate in the public and in academia regarding the future of the system. This thesis analyzes the political support of the pension system and the potential for reform, with a focus on the conflict of interest between young and old generations. The political support of the pension system is analyzed by surveying the two main theoretical modelling approaches of pension systems, and by analyzing one model of each approach in detail. In the majority voting approach, a pension system arises when at least half of the population has economic reasons to support it. Conde-Ruiz and Galasso (2005) model a pension system as the result of the support of retirees and low-income workers. The latter support the system because of its redistributive component that redistributes from rich to poor. The interest group approach focuses explicitly on the political competition between groups in society. If the elderly lobby is powerful enough, pension transfers that redistribute from young to old emerge as a result. In the model of Mulligan and Sala-i-Martin (1999), a pension system arises as the result of time-intensive competition. As the young are likely to become old and the old have lower labour productivity, the old have a larger incentive to use their time for political competition. An alternative interpretation is that the elderly are more single-minded, i.e. they have less diverse political goals. In addition to analyzing the two models above, the paper discusses them from an empirical and methodological point of view. Specifically, the controversial issue of applying economic methodology on political science is discussed. Finally, the thesis surveys political economy models that focus on the political sustainability of pension system reforms. Although the predictions on the potential for reform are pessimistic, recent empirical research suggests that the outlook may not be as gloomy as the models predict. Sources: Conde-Ruiz, J.I., Galasso, V., 2005: Positive arithmetic of the welfare state. Journal of Public Economics, 89, 933-955. Mulligan, C.B., Sala-i-Martin, X., 1999: Gerontocracy, Retirement, and Social Security. NBER working paper 7117, National Bureau of Economic Research. citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.200.5865&rep=rep1&type=pdf. Date: 26.4.2012.
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(2016)This Master’s Thesis discusses the politicization of social movements through the case study of the Chilean university student movement between the years 2011 and 2017. The main objective of this research is to identify the effects of the politicization of the national university movement on the educational reforms carried by the government from 2014 onwards. The term politicization shall be related to the movement’s levels of embedded autonomy across time and is assumed to be essential to the changes taking place at the political dimension. The research was carried through an extensive analysis of both primary and secondary data, including more than 170 news articles; books written by two former student leaders; organizational and governmental reports; public and private statistics; and six reform bills. The collected data was examined through a diachronic incorporated comparison and a temporal qualitative comparative analysis (QCA). This Master’s Thesis main theoretical framework is aligned with Markus Kröger’s Theory of Contentious Agency and his notion of embedded autonomy within the state. Through a temporal qualitative analysis of five contentious mechanisms that define the level of embeddedness of social movements, it was possible to analyze the strategies used by the Chilean university student movement on a yearly basis, since 2011, and relate it to their overall influence on the national educational agenda. The findings presented point out to the embeddedness of the university student movement within the State – and therefore its politicization - from 2014 onwards, mainly as a result of the mobilization space and efforts from the previous years. I assume that the effects of the politicization of the Chilean university student movement, in line with its embedded autonomy post-2014, can be verified through the approval of four educational reform laws that addressed some of the students’ main demands, including: increasing public spending on higher education and strengthening public universities; implementing new criteria for access to public universities; gradual universal gratuity in higher education; criminalization of profit in the education system; recognition of education as a right; and progressive advancements on students’ participatory rights in state-controlled universities.
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(2020)The thesis looks at corporate social responsibility and its political discourse in Finland. Corporate social responsibility has gained a lot of public attention during the last decades. Especially the unethical behaviour of multinational corporations has increased the demands for corporate accountability. Anthropologists have observed the chameleon-like character of corporate social responsibility phenomenon. The phenomenon seems to always transform according to the criticism it receives. Thus, anthropologists have questioned the efficiency of corporate social responsibility in addressing the social and global problems caused by corporations. Lately there has been increasing demands to legislate corporate social responsibility. The purpose of this thesis is to analyse the current public discourse on the legalisation of corporate social responsibility, and to discuss whether there is a possibility that this discourse will facilitate change in corporate behaviour. By examining this latest shift in the corporate social responsibility discourse, the thesis also critically evaluates the existing anthropological research on corporate social responsibility. The thesis is based on an ethnographic fieldwork that has been conducted in different public events addressing corporate social responsibility in Helsinki, Finland. The fieldwork was conducted between October 2018 and November 2019. The data for this thesis has been gathered through participant observation, unofficial discussions, online ethnography and the international policy documents underlying the discourse, such as UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights and OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises. The data is analysed through the existing anthropological research on corporate social responsibility. But in order to gain new insights, this thesis draws also from other anthropological research that has addressed global governance. By drawing from the existing anthropological research on corporate social responsibility, the thesis argues that the global guidelines underlying the current discourse aim to establish a symbolic authority on the issue of corporate responsibility to respect human rights. But these guidelines do not set any strict requirements on corporations as they are voluntary. Instead, they promote a post-political ideology of collaborative action and consensus. But the thesis suggests that instead of foreclosing the political discussion on controversial topics, these guidelines actually move political conflicts into other locations. The thesis shows how corporations and other actors in the society negotiate the norms for corporate behaviour. It shows how Finnish corporations appeal to their size in order to displace and diminish their responsibility. However, this thesis argues that also other actors than corporations displace responsibility according to their interests, which is contrary to what the previous anthropological research has suggested. But simultaneously the actors aim to build consensus through partnerships, business case reasoning and development rhetoric, whose discursive power has already been recognised by the existing anthropological research. But the thesis suggests that, in addition to these, the actors in Finland build consensus through national rhetoric and by appearing morally higher and more conscientious than actors outside of Finland. Thus the discourse in Finland frames the issue of corporate respect for human rights as a cultural problem. To address this cultural problem, corporations embrace the development discourse, and thus human rights education is framed as the corporate responsibility of the Finnish corporations. The thesis has also shows how the discourse on the possible law is dominated by the practical problem of making the law. Thus, the thesis suggests that there is a risk that the law will not have much sanctioning power. The corporations can strategically utilise the human rights due diligence process to discharge responsibility, as they can show that they are trying to address the issues in their supply chains. Despite of the critical analysis of the current discourse, the thesis has argued that the public corporate social responsibility discourse, guidelines and legal technologies nonetheless foster change and increase ethical awareness of the corporations. Thus, the thesis argues that the existing anthropological research on corporate social responsibility has been too preoccupied with the focus on the discourse and practices of multinational corporations and the topics of power and inequality. These perspectives have resulted in overly critical analysis that assumes that the corporate social responsibility discourse always privileges corporations. Thus, the thesis argues that the existing anthropological research on corporate social responsibility diminishes the transformative capabilities of corporate social responsibility discourse and practice.
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(2022)Taking the Social Democratic Party of Finland (SDP) as a case study, this thesis contributes to the understanding of how the SDP and centre-left parties more generally were neoliberalised, this is to say how they became to embrace the idea that society is best organised through markets and competition. Drawing from the work of Stephanie Mudge, the thesis focuses on party experts, those party actors oriented towards producing truth-claims of society, hence affecting the way parties conceive the world and speak. Expert’s knowledge, however, is contingent on their social locations. They are often also situated in professional fields that tend to condition which ideas count as legitimate, making their positions explanatory relevant with regards to parties’ disposition and rhetoric. Methodologically the work draws from the tradition of historical sociology and Pierre Bourdieu’s theory of social fields. The material utilised consists of (auto)biographies; past historical and social scientific research; reference works; SDP’s archival documents; and historical newspaper and magazine writings and interviews. The central argument is that Mudge’s account—taken as the work’s hypothesis—of the neoliberalisation of centre-left parties in “core countries” (the UK, the US, Sweden, and Germany) is inadequate in the case of the SDP embedded in Finland’s peripheral context. Mudge asserts that a central driver in the parties’ neoliberalisation was the interdependence between the political field of the party and the field of economics, which developed as interwar economic disruption incited an intense search within economics for novel ways to control the economy via public spending and demand management. This also led to an influx of academic economists with a “Keynesian ethic” to centre-left parties. The interdependence, however, allowed for economics’ politicisation from the 1960s onwards, this then influencing the field’s reorientation away from Keynesianism and towards monetarism and subsequently leading to the emergence and triumph of new party experts possessing a “neoliberal ethic”. Relatively stable interwar economic development, the bourgeoisie’s post-Civil War dominance in the society and academia, and the Finnish economics’ “backwardness” meant that no comparable need for seeking novel solutions existed nor was there responsiveness for the ideas developed abroad. Consequently, no interdependence between the SDP and economics developed in interwar or immediate postwar years. In the 1960s economic experts did gain a central position within the party. But these experts were not connected with the academia nor did the SDP embrace “Keynesian” prescriptions, the party and its experts instead banking on the combination of economic planning and export-led growth strategy. Neither was evidence found of economics’ politicisation as a left-wing discipline. Instead, it was oft precisely the SDP’s economic experts that critiqued “Keynesian” academic economists. In sum, arguably no interdependence between economics and the SDP developed either in this period. Instead, a new hypothesis is posited as an alternative account, namely that the SDP’s neoliberalisation can be better accounted for through the interdependence that developed between the bureaucratic field’s economic institutions and the party. Conjecturally, the interdependence, owing, among other things, to the SDP’s political appointments to the state, was politicised and the ideas of economic planning and the state’s control of the economy’s important elements were discredited in the context of the 1970s economic downturn. The interdependence, however, also led to novel kinds of experts—the state economists—gaining a powerful position within the SDP and making their interpretation of the economy common sense in the party. These experts perceived that their role in politics was to advance the “general interest” of the nation and the amorphous “people”, not any segment of it. With the export businesses hegemonic in society, in effect, this meant an emphasis on their profitability, cost competitiveness, and inflation and subsequently wage repression and budget constraint. The affinities between neoliberal notions and this policy conception and the habit in the Finnish state to conceive the world in terms of “external necessities” meant the state economists possessed great responsiveness to neoliberal ideas. While gaining preliminary support from evidence this hypothesis requires further work on several counts.
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(2017)The politics of land acquisitions in the time of convergence of multiple capitalist crises recently have received international scholarly attention. However, land grabbing has arguably resulted in inevitable resistance, conflicts, and the inability of the landless to adapt with a new socioeconomic transformation after dispossession. This is due to unequal power between a powerful, compatible interests, and predatory state-capital alliance, on the one side, and powerless rural local people affected by the land acquisitions, on the opposite side. This thesis problematizes the current mainstream assumptions around land grabbing, and generate additional insights about the politics of land acquisition, and outcomes in the context of the post-socialist contemporary Vietnam. This is done by critically unpacking the interactive triangular matrix of state-capital-resistance, and corresponding outcomes during the implementation phase of land acquisition at local level. The particular focus is put on various roles deployed by state actors at the local level who justify, adjudicate, and implement land investment; and by societal groups, especially business, and resistance agents, to assert control over land for many purposes in the context of the post-socialist Vietnam. Drawing from the two-case studies in contemporary Vietnam, the thesis argues that the outcomes of large-scale land acquisition are diverse, complex, and far beyond the dominant assumptions, as showed in both “exceptional” case studies. While one case is characterized by the lack of resistance and inclusive development outcomes of land acquisition that benefits all involved parties; the other is associated with an unprecedented collective protest by rural people at the beginning, that significantly slowed down the project. The thesis argues that in order to understand the unexpected outcomes of land investment, i.e. why some investments are implemented more “successful” than others, it is necessary to deeply examine the dynamics of interactive roles by state-capital-resistance in micro-land politics of land acquisition. This study reveals a centrality of the “developmental local state mediators”, either proactively or reactively, in the land politics that largely explains the conflict resolution/prevention, and inclusive outcome in both case studies. The “developmental local state mediators” are characterized by the high level of the authoritative capacity/power to enforce the state‟s autonomous goals, and infrastructural capacity/power to deeply, and intensively engage with different, normally conflicting, social groups in order to facilitate the alignment of interests among them. This thesis sheds light on the importantly supportive roles by business actors in conflict presentation, particularly by directly participating in mediating process as team members, and indirectly financing the process. It also indicates surprising findings that even in the context of a hybrid land regime in Vietnam where land is owned by the state constitutionally, and the state, therefore, plays decisive roles in land acquisition, a combination of different strategies by a dynamics of segments within resistance (such as militant protest, communication, and networking) which resonates closely to theory of “rightful resistance”, led to the resistance having their demands answered. Fieldwork was conducted in two case studies in Hanoi city, and Thanh Hoa province. Primary data was collected by interviews, focus groups, and participant observations with key informants. Secondary data, such as records, interviews, images, videos, and documentation, were provided by various key stakeholders such as journalists, landless people, investors, and local officials.
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