The Decolonization of Phenomenology: Dialogical Universality in Cesaire, Fanon and Hountondji

De Schryver, Carmen Northwestern University ProQuest Dissertations & T 2022 해외박사(DDOD)

Contemporary decolonial criticism and critical phenomenological thought may be characterized as proceeding from a disenchantment with the philosophical aspiration towards universality. The overarching argument put forward in this dissertation is that there is, to the contrary, an intimate and even necessary connection between the decolonization of philosophy and the affirmation of philosophical universality. By way of an engagement with the Africana tradition of phenomenology—a tradition which culminates in the thought of Paulin J. Hountondji—I make a case for the pertinence of a conception of universality I term “dialogical universality” to debates about pluralizing the canon, academic decolonization, and communication across geographical and cultural frontiers. In the first half of this dissertation, I look at Hountondji’s transformation of the Husserlian project of phenomenology as universal science. Therein I employ a novel comparative methodology I call “reading from the margins”: rather than beginning with Husserl’s thought and interpreting Hountondji’s intellectual output by those lights, I invert the traditional order of reading. That is, I begin with the concerns characteristic of Hountondji’s thinking, and re-interpret Husserlian phenomenology from this perspective. This subtle methodological shift is motivated by decolonial concerns regarding the reification of European thought as pivotal, even when it is considered in dialogue with traditions from the Global South. I thus resist the suggestion—still dominant in the Hountondji scholarship—that his philosophical trajectory is entirely explicable by reference to the European “canon”. On my methodology, the very terms “canon” and “margin” begin to shift in meaning: “reading from the margins” is thus self-destructive in that its ultimate aim is to reconstitute what is considered canonical in the first place. One of the central contributions of my dissertation is, in this sense, methodological in nature: “reading from the margins” is offered in the spirit of an inaugural example of a decolonial approach to the history of philosophy. Beyond suggesting itself as a decolonial framework, “reading from the margins” enables substantive interpretive interventions foreclosed on the standard approach. Within the context of Chapter One, the interpretive upshot of my methodology is to throw into relief a Hountondjean heresy vis-a-vis Husserlian phenomenology. This chapter sets into action the methodology of “reading from the margins” by beginning with an exegetical consideration of Hountondji’s thought on its own terms, focusing on his critique of what he calls ethnophilosophy. The central argument put forward in this chapter is that the critique of ethnophilosophy may be extended to Husserl, insofar as Husserl remains beholden to an ethnophilosophical logic which identifies Europe as the unique site of universal thinking while casting the colonized world in the mold of the particular. It follows that the standard picture whereby Hountondji is simply an heir of the Husserlian project of phenomenological thought must be challenged. This then raises the question: why retain the name “phenomenology” if its founder is subject to such a criticism? Chapter Two answers this questions through an investigation into the relationship between the Husserl’s methods and the entrance of Eurocentrism into his work. This chapter makes two interrelated arguments. First, I follow Hountondji in focusing on the phenomenological method of a reduction that puts out of play all presuppositions as an important resource for developing a decolonized conception of universality. I then, second, explore two different ways of accounting for Husserl’s failure to fully effect the reduction. Drawing upon Merleau-Ponty, I first consider the possibility that Husserl’s method is insufficiently empiricist. I then consider Derrida’s criticism of this Merleau-Pontyian view which focuses instead on the way that Husserl is at his most Eurocentric when he is at his most empiricist, i.e., when he abandons the explicitly transcendental orientation of phenomenology. I thus show that Eurocentrism does insinuate itself in Husserl’s methodological framework—not, however, in a manner that renders phenomenology simply irredeemable. Given the opposition between these two insightful criticisms, however, I argue that the challenge for a decolonial version of phenomenology is considerable; for, in order that it avoid Eurocentrism, it would need to both realize phenomenology’s transcendental ambitions and yet remain in contact with concrete, empirical intersubjectivity. One of the issues that arises in considering Merleau-Ponty’s proposal for a more empirical and consequently multicultural form of phenomenology is that it is naive, within a “post”-colonial context, to assume that non-domineering form of contact between cultures—requisite for philosophical communication with universal aims—is possible. Chapter Three focuses on this problematic by elucidating the arguments made by Cesaire and Fanon regarding the incompatibility between colonialism and the aspiration to universality. Beyond making this conceptual argument, this chapter contributes to the scholarship on these thinkers by (i) emphasizing the universalistic dimension of the Negritude tradition and (ii) reconsidering Fanon’s relationship to that tradition of thought. Chapter Three also involves an important feature of the decolonial methodology carried out in this dissertation, since the turn to Cesaire and Fanon is motivated by Hountondji’s own construction of his philosophical inheritance. With the conceptual terrain thus laid out, Chapter Four moves on to think through a decolonial, phenomenological conception of universality which I call “dialogical universality”. I develop this notion through a close reading of Fanon and Hountondji and their respective discussions of how the universal emerges within, but is not for that reason vitiated by, particular sites of dialogical exchange. One key intervention made in this chapter is thus to challenge the still commonly presumed opposition between the particular and the universal. Here, I set out the conditions that dialogical settings would have to meet in order to be conducive to the sharing of universalizing insight. Although both Fanon and Hountondji direct our focus to the manner in which the universal is already on the horizon within localized, intra-African debates, an implication of their fallibilistic views of the universal is that such debates eventually be expanded to the trans-cultural. Herein lies the crux of the indissociability claim: I argue that dialogical universality depends upon the in principle inclusion of all particular perspectives. This speaks to the provisionality and revisability of any proposition claiming universal status, for no claim meets this demanding standard so long as there are others who have yet to provide criticism of it in dialogue. I argue that this does not invalidate universality, speaking instead to the endlessness of the debate. Yet Fanon and Hountondji are not equally consistent on this point. In the fifth and final chapter, I argue that it is in Hountondji’s thought that we find the most thoroughgoing commitment to the view that claims demanding universal assent arise within all contexts. Against Fanon’s suspicions regarding the possibility for endogenous systems of knowledge to rise to universal validity—and, indeed, against the pessimism attending these suspicions—Hountondji’s positive valuation of endogenous epistemes provides an important counter and supplement. In doing so, I argue that Hountondji (i) draws on his distinctive interpretation of Cesaire, an interpretation at odds with Fanon’s and (ii) enacts a radical version of the phenomenological reduction as a suspension of methodological biases which surreptitiously favor European scientific and philosophical paradigms (a methodological bias to which Fanon falls prey). In so doing, I argue that Hountondji’s work offers a resolution to the dilemma with which Chapter Two concluded: it is attentive at one and the same time to the exigency that universality be developed through encounters with concrete others as well as the demand that whatever is empirically actual at any time not prejudge a sense of what is possible. Hountondji thus maintains the transcendental vector of Husserlian phenomenology in his attempt to break through embedded presuppositions that dictate what can be a source of universal insight. The conclusion brings the various strands of this dissertation together by way of a reflection on the connection between the conception of “dialogical universality,” the method of the reduction, and the decolonial strategy of “reading from the margins” utilized in the dissertation. I show that “reading from the margins”, inasmuch as it is undertaken from the positionality of someone who (like myself) is culturally situated within the European tradition, itself enacts a version of the reduction. This is because it intentionally puts out of play the presumptive favoring of the European canon still perpetuated by a number of comparative approaches. Because the strategy of “reading from the margins” operates to deflate the overblown status of the European philosophical tradition in global philosophical research, it contributes to the production of a more egalitarian conversational space—one of the conditions of dialogical universality. My proposed strategy and the phenomenological method of the reduction are thus shown to be intimately connected to the central concept proposed and defended in this dissertation.

Designing Dynamic and Modular Biomolecules and Assays to Interrogate and Control Protein Fate

Sykora, Daniel J Northwestern University ProQuest Dissertations & T 2022 해외박사(DDOD)

Cancer has long been the second-leading cause of death in the United States and represents the leading cause of death in midlife (age 40–60). While the prognosis for many cancers has vastly improved over the last thirty years, many cancers remain elusive due to the late-onset of symptoms, the specific organ systems they affect, the primary sites of metastasis, and, of course, the type of tumor (e.g. solid v. blood) and the subsequent oft-immunosuppressive tumor microenvironment. Biological therapeutics (i.e. biologics) have revolutionized the way we treat cancer due to their inherent ability to successfully target overexpressed antigens—often, proteins expressed on the surface of cancer cells—while minimally affecting healthy cells. The most common biologic is the immunoglobulin G (IgG) monoclonal antibody (mAb), a Y-shaped protein secreted by plasma B cells of the adaptive immune system. However, there is an inherent inability to easily optimize the structure of an IgG for maximal efficacy, and this lack of programmability can contribute to issues biologics often face such as low tumor penetration, nonspecific immunogenic responses, rapid clearance, and high dosage requirements. To modulate the structure-function of biologics to improve cancer treatment, mitigating the dosage of non-discriminatory traditional chemotherapy in the process, our lab has developed a protein assembly platform technology known as ‘megamolecules’ (Chapter 1) which uses rapid, specific, and irreversible enzyme-inhibitor reaction chemistries to covalently bring fusion proteins together. The megamolecule approach provides atomic-level precision over the synthesis of protein scaffolds, and these scaffolds can modulate inherent properties of biologics such as binding specificities, affinities, orientations, and stoichiometries with relative ease. In Chapter 2, this next-generation, modular assembly strategy was utilized to develop a library of therapeutics towards breast cancer research, building off our lab’s initial demonstration of synthesizing, characterizing, and utilizing megamolecules to create mimics of the mAb trastuzumab. While trastuzumab—often in combination with the mAb pertuzumab—has shown moderate success in the clinic for HER2+ breast cancer patients, immune tolerance typically results, leading to a transiently efficacious drug. Thus, there is sufficient room to improve upon this well-researched mAb. I used megamolecules to investigate how HER2-targeting scaffolds can be modulated to interrogate biologic properties such as binding affinity, avidity, net internalization rate of the megamolecule-receptor complex, and downstream inhibition of cell proliferation. Increasing the binding valency of our megamolecule scaffolds from 2 to 3 only modestly improved binding affinity and had no effect on increasing megamolecule-HER2 endocytic rate nor the inhibition of cell proliferation. Creating bispecific (biparatopic) scaffolds that targeted two different epitopes on HER2 was the only way to significantly increase net internalization rate by cross-linking domains I and IV on the HER2 extracellular domain. Interestingly, scaffolds that only presented the trastuzumab Fab domains were the only candidates that showed significant inhibition of proliferation. Here, even adding an extra nanobody towards domain I within scaffolds that had two trastuzumab Fabs completely abrogated the inhibition of cell proliferation seen with scaffolds that had two trastuzumab Fabs alone. Next, Chapter 3 explores the utility of the megamolecule platform as a proof-of-concept reversible protein switch. Here, we utilized synthetic chemistry to build terpyridine-terminated small molecules that irreversibly reacted with one of our megamolecule enzymes, cutinase. Once incorporated into a megamolecule scaffold, two terpyridine groups could reversibly coordinate upon addition of bivalent transition metals (e.g. Ni2+, Co2+, Zn2+). Strategically positioning each terpyridine group at opposing ends of a linear megamolecule scaffold allowed for quaternary-scale domain cyclization, which could be quantitatively discerned through Forster Resonance Energy Transfer (FRET). Ultimately, I demonstrated that terpyridine coordination—and therefore, FRET signal—was dependent on addition of specific divalent transition metals, which could be reversibly sequestered by addition of excess ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid (EDTA). The specific FRET response was unique to the length of each sensor as well as the individual metal ion; the data strongly correlated with long-standing literature of terpyridine-metal and EDTA-metal coordination kinetics. Longer scaffolds had faster coordination kinetics (i.e. kon) towards the bidentate complex, which, again, were unique to each individual metal. Coarse-grain modeling and small-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS) showed good agreement with experimental results, suggesting that the megamolecule platform’s flexibility for synthesis of various protein scaffolds could be utilized within a protein sensor framework. While the treatments for cancer are varied and complex, appropriate diagnosis and favorable prognoses rely on early and accurate detection. In Chapter 4, I utilized surface chemistry techniques to pattern single cells into specific shapes that, when stained for their actin cytoskeleton, could discriminate between cancer and non-cancer cells with a feature-extraction machine learning algorithm. High-resolution (60X) confocal microscopy imaging against the actin cytoskeleton without any patterning was sufficient to discriminate between two cell populations in the instances where phenotypes were quite distinct, which ran against our initial hypothesis of always requiring shape normalization a priori. In fact, patterning cells into shapes for algorithmic discrimination was only effective when cell lines had similar, overlapping phenotypes. This work demonstrates a compelling proof-of-concept incorporation of high-resolution confocal microscopy into quantitative machine learning workflows. In Chapter 5, I present a co-author project from earlier in my PhD, which provided a necessary breadth to my five years at Northwestern. This published work interrogated phosphatase activity and specificity from various cancer and non-cancer cell lysate utilizing our platform technology known as SAMDI. Here, high-throughput, modular peptide arrays were treated with cell lysate, and we were able to demonstrate that phosphatase activity and specificity were conserved across cell lines, cancer states, and species. Furthermore, phosphatases in the lysate were universally more active towards phosphorylated threonine than serine on our peptide arrays, which may contribute to the reported differences in phosphorylation seen across the phosphoproteome. This work is important because most research in the field focuses on activity and specificity of kinases. In Chapter 6, I shortly reflect on my PhD, the major conclusions of my work, and discuss potential research projects for future students.

Demystifying Rare Cosmic Transients with Multiwavelength Observations

Hajela, Aprajita Northwestern University ProQuest Dissertations & T 2022 해외박사(DDOD)

The field of time-domain astronomy has seen significant advancements in the latest years as increasingly sensitive, deep and wide-field surveys of the sky at all wavelengths are being carried out more and more frequently. Furthermore, the addition of gravitational wave detectors around the world has opened an entirely new window to view (or 'hear') the Universe in. With these advancements, we are positioned at an ideal time to investigate fundamental physics and produce breakthrough science. This dissertation showcases the benefits of capitalizing on these recent advancements through systematic exploration of multi-wavelength observations of some rare relativistic transients, with a particular focus on X-rays and radio observations where the synchrotron emission, produced by the interaction of relativistic outflows with their ambient medium, dominates. Synchrotron emission is encoded with the information of the fundamental properties of the transient event such as the total energy of the explosion, and the density profile of the surrounding medium.In this work, I have reported interpretation from our targeted multi-wavelength campaigns of two peculiar events, namely: GW 170817, and ASASSN-15oi, along with discussing the prospects of discovering transients in blind radio surveys at sub GHz frequencies that might be missed at earlier times because of 1) dust obscuration, or 2) geometric considerations of relativistic outflows. GW 170817 is the first and the only multi-messenger event to be observed to date, with both a gravitational wave, and an electromagnetic counterpart. Multi-messenger astronomy is an emerging field and provides us with a wealth of new information that was impossible to investigate before the discovery of GW 170817. In particular, observations of multi-messenger events provide ways to constrain the poorly known equation of the state of the densest matter in the Universe, to test the principles of general relativity, and to constrain the Hubble constant independently of the conventional methods. ASASSN-15oi, on the other hand is an unusual tidal disruption event exhibiting multiple radio flares ~ years after the discovery. This behavior is unprecedented. While tidal disruption events are now commonly observed at early-times, the physical processes potentially occurring at later times, such as accretion state changes, or an off-axis jet coming into our line of sight are still largely unexplored.The following are the fundamental questions that have driven the work in this dissertation: 1) What are the different kinds of outflows produced by the different classes of relativistic transients?, 2) What are the physical conditions that enable some systems to harbor a relativistic jet, while others do not?, 3) What are the unique properties of an engine to power a jet?, 4) What is the structure of those jets?, 5) What is the makeup of the environment around the sites of these explosions? This will help towards improving our understanding of 1) the accretion physics, 2) the mechanism of launching of the jets, 3) the diversity in the energetics and structure of jets and outflows within the same class of events and also across different systems. These are all relevant and potentially universal to many other astrophysical systems as well including γ-ray bursts (GRBs), X-ray binary systems (XRBs), and, Active Galactic Nuclei(AGNs).

Methods for the Imaging, Analysis, and Display of Layered Media

Fiske, Lionel D Northwestern University ProQuest Dissertations & T 2023 해외박사(DDOD)

This dissertation is a review of three projects I worked on during my time in the Computational Photography Lab at Northwestern University. First, a source separation problem for the X-Ray Fluorescence images of painted works of art is addressed through the incorporation of Hyperspectral Reflectance data. Following this, a discussion of Optical Coherence Tomography and its applications to cultural heritage science is presented. A rigorous analysis of the depth resolved attenuation coefficient in the presence of speckle is performed and a Bayesian model for the signal is derived. Finally, the problem of speckle in fast temporally multiplexed holographic displays is addressed. In this, the impact of quantization on the reconstructed image quality is analyzed and quantization aware optimization methods to reduce speckle are surveyed.

Assessing the Physiology of Swallowing Impairment: Measuring the Measurement Method and Characterizing Diagnostic Impairment Profiles

Clain, Alexander E Northwestern University ProQuest Dissertations & T 2023 해외박사(DDOD)

Swallowing impairment or dysphagia has many possible causes with severe sequelae. One major mediator of the relationship between causes and sequelae is the physiologic impairment of the swallowing mechanism. Assessing the physiology of swallowing impairment is of great importance so that treatment can target physiology to mitigate sequelae. The assessment of swallowing physiology is primarily conducted through Modified Barium Swallow Studies (MBSS), where Videofluoroscopy (VFS) of a patient swallowing an x-ray opaque bolus is recorded and interpreted by a Speech Language Pathologist (SLP). On the one hand, the goals of this assessment are objective as they are aimed at understanding physiologic biomechanics of impairments. On the other hand, the methods of this assessment are subjective in that clinicians must choose what boluses to give, what physiologic aspects of the swallow to assess, and how to score impairment for those physiologic aspects. The Modified Barium Swallow Impairment Profile (MBSImP™©) is a measurement method that standardized the subjective elements of the assessment, and subsequently enjoyed widespread clinical uptake. This widespread uptake of MBSImP resulted in the accumulation of over 50,000 patient records in a Swallowing Data Registry (SDR), a dataset that forms the basis for the analyses of this dissertation. This SDR is used in Chapter 1 to test the degree to which MBSImP's standardization of the subjective side of MBSS has resulted in a valid and reliable measurement tool. Chapter 2 leverages MBSImP and the SDR to conduct a high-level comparison of the physiologic impairment profiles of five diagnoses commonly associated with dysphagia.

Structure theorems in dynamics and their applications

Sun, Wenbo Northwestern University ProQuest Dissertations & T 2016 해외박사(DDOD)

We study structure theorems in the topological and ergodic setting, and use them to provide various applications in dynamical systems, combinatorics, and number theory. (Abstract shortened by ProQuest.).

Essays on Labor and Gender Economics

Truffa, Francesca Northwestern University ProQuest Dissertations & T 2022 해외박사(DDOD)

Chapter 1. Undergraduate Gender Diversity and Direction of Scientific Research (with Ashley Wong): Can diversity lead to greater research focus on populations underrepresented in science? Diverse researchers can bring new questions and perspectives, but exposure to diversity may also inspire scientists, regardless of demographic identity, to pursue new topics. This paper studies a new determinant of research ideas: the diversity of the academic environment. Between 1960 and 1990, 76 all-male US universities, including many elite and prominent research institutions, transitioned to coeducation. Using a generalized difference-in-differences design, we document a 42% increase in the number of gender-related research publications authored by scholars at newly coed universities. This increase is explained by a combination of a more diverse researcher pool in terms of gender and prior research interests, as well as a shift in the research focus of individual scientists towards more gender-related topics. A bounding exercise suggests that the direct effects of the policy on scientists' research focus can account for more than half of these gains. These findings suggest that a diverse academic environment can influence the direction of scientific research.Chapter 2. Peer Effects and the Gender Gap in Corporate Leadership: Evidence from MBA Students (with Menaka Hampole and Ashley Wong): Women continue to be underrepresented in corporate leadership positions. This paper studies the role of social connections in women's career advancement. We investigate whether access to a larger share of female peers in business school affects the gender gap in senior managerial positions. Merging administrative data from a top-10 US business school with public LinkedIn profiles, we first document that female MBAs are 24 percent less likely than male MBAs to enter senior management within 15 years of graduation. Next, we use the exogenous assignment of students into sections to show that a larger proportion of female MBA section peers increases the likelihood of entering senior management for women but not for men. This effect is driven by female-friendly firms, such as those with more generous maternity leave policies and greater work schedule flexibility. A larger proportion of female MBA peers induces women to transition to these firms where they attain senior management roles. We find suggestive evidence that some of the mechanisms behind these results include job referrals and gender-specific information transmission. These findings highlight the role of social connections in reducing the gender gap in senior management positions.Chapter 3. Pension Caregiver Credits and the Gender Gap in Old-Age Income (with Fabio Blasutto and Ashley Wong): We study a 2001 pension insurance reform in Germany that introduced additional caregiver credits for working mothers with children between the ages of 3 and 10. Using administrative social security data from Germany combined with a difference-in-differences design, we find that the reform leads to a 66.5% increase in yearly retirement contributions during the eligibility period. 66% of the total effect can be explained by a change in the labor market outcomes of eligible mothers, while the remaining 34% is the mechanical effect of the reform. We find a significant increase in employment earnings, driven by both an increase in employment and a switch from marginal to employment subject to social security contributions. This translates into a 9.1 percentage point (18.3%) reduction in the gender gap in lifetime non-marginal earning points. Finally, a simple life-cycle model predicts that the pension reform leads to a 9.8\\% increase in retirement income and a 12% reduction in the gender gap in old-age income.

Essays in Corporate Finance

van Straelen, Eileen Driscoll Northwestern University ProQuest Dissertations & T 2019 해외박사(DDOD)

This dissertation is a wide-ranging study on real estate and the effect of financial constraints on economic activity.In the first chapter, I use granular data on home builder housing developments to provide new evidence that firms spread negative revenue shocks across projects via their internal capital markets. I analyze this question in the context of the 2006-2009 housing crisis. I show that home builders who experience large asset write-downs in one area, subsequently sell homes in unaffected, healthy housing areas at a discount, in order to raise cash quickly. In response to a 10% decline in the value of distant projects, builders cut prices of homes in unaffected counties by 2.2%. Consistent with the theory of internal capital markets, financially constrained firms are more likely to cut prices of homes in healthy areas in response to losses in unhealthy ones. I also find that firms smooth shocks across projects only during the crisis and not during the boom. Lastly, I show that when builders cut prices they also sell homes more quickly. These results suggest an important role for firm internal capital markets in spreading negative economic shocks across space.In the second chapter, Efraim Benmelech and I test the effect of politicians on house prices using a unique dataset of housing sales merged to politicians' residences and time in office. To address the likelihood that politicians will tend to live in growing home price areas, we separate politicians who move into neighborhoods from current residents who win elections, and identify the effect from current residents only. We find that house prices increase 1.4% in a zipcode when a resident wins an election. Politicians may influence surrounding home values via several channels. One way this could occur is through corrupt use of public resources for the politicians' personal benefit. For example, if politicians assign more police officers to patrol their own block, then house prices near a politician's home will be higher. Alternatively, politicians may target public goods to their local district in hopes of ensuring reelection, or residents may derive utility from living close to a famous or well-protected person. To distinguish between the possible channels driving the home price response, we gather data on local public goods. We find that crime rates fall in a zipcode by 1.9% when a resident wins an election. Our results suggest that politicians cause their neighbors' home values to rise via re-directed public services.In the third chapter, I study the effect of the collapse of the asset backed securities market on student enrollment. The high cost of college has led students to increasingly finance undergraduate education with a combination of federal and private student loans. Private student loans are financed by both bank and non-bank lenders. Non-bank private lenders, such as Sallie Mae, raised capital for student loans by issuing asset backed securities. When the housing crisis led to the collapse of the Asset Backed Securities (ABS) market in 2007, non-bank private student lenders were forced to curtail lending due to lack of financing. This paper investigates the effect of this contraction on enrollment outcomes. In particular, I investigate the effect amongst the schools whose students were most dependent on private loans: selective colleges and for-profit universities. To determine the effect on enrollment outcomes, I exploit geographic variation in dependence on non-bank financing before the crisis. I find that test scores at selective colleges more exposed to the ABS collapse decline during the crisis, as high ability financially constrained students chose to attend less expensive schools. I further find that tuition declines at for-profit schools more exposed to the ABS collapse. These results suggest that the contraction in the ABS market led students to alter their enrollment decisions, having a long-lasting impact on human capital accumulation.

Distributed Power: Climate Change, Elderhood, and Republicanism in the Grasslands of East Africa, c. 500 Bce to 1800 Ce

Fitzsimons, William Northwestern University ProQuest Dissertations & T 2020 해외박사(DDOD)

This dissertation examines the longue duree political history of Ateker-speaking agro-pastoralists in the semi-arid plains of today’s Uganda – Kenya – Ethiopia – South Sudan borderlands. Today’s Ateker-speaking communities include the Karimojong, Teso, Turkana, Toposa, Dodos, Jie, Nyangatom, and Jiye. Over the past millennium, Ateker-speaking communities developed a diversity of political institutions – including age-class governments (asapan) and neighborhood congresses (etem) – that enabled them to build durable polities and expand territorially while incorporating new groups. These Ateker political configurations were distinct from better-studied kingdoms and chieftaincies in the region because they were decentralized and accorded power to office-holders on the basis of factors other than lineage or kin affiliation. Highlighting these Ateker cases, this dissertation argues for the inclusion of an new paradigm of political “republicanism” in the historiography of precolonial Africa. African republicanism is contrasted with another dominant political paradigm, that of “Wealth-in-People.” A distinction is drawn between the former, in which the government is a public good or res publica, and the latter, in which governance is constituted by networks of relationships that people both “belong in” and “belong to.” The significance of this difference for broader historical study is elaborated in Chapter One. Because documentary records are virtually non-existent for the setting under consideration, other historical sources are drawn upon to support the dissertation’s argument. Chief among these is historical linguistics, but archaeology, paleoclimate science, comparative ethnography, and oral traditions also play a role. Strands of evidence from each of these methods are woven together to explore changes and continuities in Ateker politics, society, and economics between c. 500 BCE and 1800 CE.

Search, Awareness and Standards in Platforms and Higher Education

Lam, Honn Tai Northwestern University ProQuest Dissertations & T 2022 해외박사(DDOD)

In most markets, consumers of goods and services have vastly more options available to them than they will consider closely. At the point of making a decision, consumers are choosing between only a small subset (i.e., a consideration set) of all possible alternatives. The preceding process that forms these consideration sets is the focus of this dissertation. Consumers themselves may optimally restrict their consideration set based on their preferences and search costs (i.e., cost of time). However, firms, platforms and governments all play a considerable role in influencing the consideration set of products that consumers choose between. This influence ranges widely, from awareness building through advertisements, to steering through recommendations and to legislative standards that completely remove options from the market. My dissertation investigates the process of search and information gathering that consumers undertake before choosing between alternatives and how external parties influence that process.On the Amazon.com marketplace, both Amazon and small businesses compete in offering retail products. However, Amazon chooses what products consumers see when they search. Products sold by Amazon may have a better position compared to small business products, but the effects on consumers and sellers are unclear. Policymakers have expressed antitrust concerns about this, suspecting "self-preferencing" and "gatekeeper" market power. To study this, I develop a model where heterogeneous consumers search for differentiated products arranged on an acyclic graph (i.e., tree). Firms price in response to consumer search and how their products are arranged—highlighting how search design determines market structure. The model endogenizes consideration set formation and recovers the correlated distribution of consumer preferences and search costs. Estimated on Amazon data, I show that not accounting for product arrangement (e.g., search results and BuyBox) leads to incorrect price elasticity estimates. I provide three results on market power and antitrust policies using counterfactual product arrangements. (i) To isolate the effect of Amazon's position advantage, I remove it through a "neutral" product arrangement. Profits shift from Amazon to small businesses, confirming Amazon's sizable market power. However, consumer welfare falls when consumers reduce their search intensity in response to reduced value from searching. This suggests Amazon's incentives and consumers' preferences are aligned, weakening the claim of self-preferencing. (ii) Banning the platform owner from also being a seller reduces consumer welfare through price rather than product variety. (iii) I propose an alternate policy, splitting the platform into an Amazon side and a small-business side. Giving consumers the ability to search for and "support small businesses" would alleviate the market power imbalance without harming consumers.Moving away from consumer goods markets, the higher education market likewise contends with issues of limited awareness, particularly for nascent online colleges. The share of US students enrolled in entirely-online college degrees has doubled in recent decades (from 5% in 2008 to 10% in 2015). The importance of online colleges as a differentiated product in the higher education market is likely to increase, particularly after the online learning experiment of the 2020 pandemic. However, awareness of this nascent product may be limiting its role in the higher education market. Additionally, policymakers concerned about tuition and student debt growth are interested in whether online degrees could put downwards pressure on tuition and increase access. The effect of online degrees on student choice, competition and post-graduation outcomes remains little studied. In theory, the online degree market should be highly competitive, as it lacks the geographic market power that in-person colleges wield and it is highly scalable. However, the extent to which online degrees are differentiated affects whether it simply expands the market or intensifies overall competition. I provide evidence that online colleges: (i) cater to specific segments of students (e.g., mature age students with family); (ii) deliver a wide range of post-graduation outcomes that are no worse on average than in-person colleges; and (iii) face stronger competition, but with little measurable spillover on in-person colleges. Finally, I provide causal evidence that advertising drives information search and enrollment for the advertised college. Interestingly, individual college advertising appears to have negative spillovers for broad information search (i.e., searching for all options).In the broader higher education market, minimum quality standards play an important role in restricting the consideration set of students, but these standards have received little attention. US Federal Student Aid is only extended to students enrolling at accredited higher education institutions, but the quality standards set by Accreditors is not well understood or studied. Due to historical reasons, 10 separate not-for-profit Accreditors grant accreditation to institutions in the US. Accreditors aim to set similar standards, but standards are multi-dimensional; often qualitative and quantitative; difficult to compare; and enforced with differing strictness. As such, standards may be lower (or higher) than desired by policymakers. I develop a simple revealed-preference estimation that recovers the ordering and relative strictness of quality standards set by each Accreditor. I find that the Accreditor singled out by policymakers in 2016 for accrediting now-bankrupt for-profit colleges does indeed have the lowest standards. My estimates are consistent with the common belief that National Accreditors set higher quality standards than Regional Accreditors. The estimated relative level and dispersion of quality standards should be of interest to policymakers looking to evaluate the effectiveness of the accreditation system.