TY - THES A1 - Le Noan, Anne-Clémence T1 - Changing the way social inequality in education is treated in France and Germany: Schule macht stark (2019) and Les contrats locaux d’accompagnement (2020) as contrasting examples of layering N2 - France and Germany are among the OECD countries where social origin most strongly affects educational achievement. While the structural causes of this phenomenon have been widely studied, the institutionalization of its policy treatment and the room for manoeuvre available to policymakers to bring change in these two contrasting education systems remain underexplored. This dissertation addresses this gap through a comparative analysis of two recent policies targeting schools in disadvantaged areas: Schule macht stark in Germany and les contrats locaux d’accompagnement in France. Drawing on process-tracing, the analysis of documents and 50 interviews, and grounded in neo-institutionalist theory, this research shows that these policies exemplify layering: strong veto players constrained policymakers to implement change through the addition of experimental initiatives rather than through reform of existing policies. These shifts affected policy orientations—toward greater efficiency in France and greater equity in Germany—policy instruments—via the strengthening of New Public Management—and governance levels—with the involvement of the federal tier in Germany. In France, changes were rapid but short-lived, marked by the political instrumentalization of experimentation. In Germany, they were slower but more enduring, supported by academic expertise. In both cases, broader initiatives—Conseil national de la refondation and the Startchancen-Programm—have continued these trajectories, illustrating the relevance of the layering approach. T3 - Dissertations submitted to the Hertie School - 04/2026 Y1 - 2026 UR - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:kobv:b1570-opus4-61674 U6 - https://doi.org/10.48462/opus4-6167 N1 - Shelf mark: 2026D004, 2026D004+1 ER - TY - THES A1 - Wilkins, Katherine T1 - The New ‘NORMal’? How innovative actors are reshaping the global approach to controlling corruption N2 - This dissertation explores the evolving global anti-corruption regime and examines the interplay between norms and strategic interests in shaping responses to corruption. While traditional narratives portray anti-corruption policy as a normative undertaking, in this dissertation I argue that states’ responses to corruption are meaningfully shaped by the pursuit of geopolitical interests. At the theoretical level, this dissertation contributes to the rationalism-constructivism debate in international relations theory. Drawing on March and Olsen’s dual logics analytical framework, this dissertation introduces a model of bounded decision-making in which norms serve as boundary conditions for responses, but interests shape their scope and intensity. In this model, states attempt to balance norms and interests by prioritizing interest-driven actions while still seeking to maintain normative legitimacy within the international system. Examining the recent decade of anti-corruption rulemaking and a key case of enforcement, this dissertation offers evidence that states may introduce or enforce anti-corruption rules as an instrument of geopolitical strategy. These findings have broad implications for international cooperation on corruption. Additionally, this dissertation contributes to the theoretical understanding of norm development within the analytical framework of network governance theory, which posits that complex global challenges can be effectively addressed through decentralized approaches to governance. This research further examines the role of non-state actors in anti- corruption governance, offering new evidence of how non-state actors navigate norm development, and examining these processes in the context of broader governance trends, especially the shifting relationships between state and non-state actors. These findings support the arguments of network governance theory on the role of non-state actors in global governance, demonstrating how they are shaping norms, including normative constraints on state decision-making. The empirical findings of this dissertation highlight the complexity of anti-corruption governance in a competitive global environment. By emphasizing the role of geopolitical interests in shaping responses to corruption, this research counters the prevailing narrative of anti-corruption as an exclusively normative field. These findings have significant implications for policymakers and anti-corruption advocates, calling for a nuanced understanding of state interests and the influence of non-state actors for advancing global anti-corruption efforts in an increasingly competitive international environment. T3 - Dissertations submitted to the Hertie School - 03/2026 Y1 - 2026 UR - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:kobv:b1570-opus4-61661 U6 - https://doi.org/10.48462/opus4-6166 N1 - Shelf mark: 2026D003; 2026D003+1 ER - TY - THES A1 - García-Corral, Paulina T1 - Framing attributions: A methodological and conceptual contribution to the study of explanations in political discourse N2 - As humans, we think of the social world in causal terms, seeking to answer questions that help us make sense of what happens around us, predict future outcomes, and address current issues. The way we communicate displays our causal reasoning, as it is through language that we share how we think the world works, and also attempt to control how others perceive who is responsible of social issues and how to fix them. Therefore, analyzing the use of causal expressions in the public sphere is crucial to better understand political discourse and its downstream effects on political opinion, attitudes, and behavior. In this dissertation, I develop a framework to identify and extract expressions of causal attributions from political text, drawing on techniques from computational linguistics. To do this, I design a coding scheme and create a corpus annotated for causal language in the political domain. I test the corpus on a broad range of pre-trained language models on the task of identifying and parsing expressions of causality: from smaller transformer-based models such as Bert, to modern Large Language Models, like GPT-4. Additionally, I introduce an evaluation strategy tailored to test if a model’s causal extraction is done through linguistic parsing or by leveraging causal patterns learned during pre-training. After interpreting experimental results, I develop a framework to parse expressions of causal attributions in text, adapted for political methodology. With this novel measurement tool, I empirically examine the constructions of causality used in the coverage of two international conflicts. I demonstrate the method’s capabilities and ease of use for political science research. With insights from the case study, I conceptualize “non attribution”, and posit it as a unique framing practice, complementary to responsibility framing. With it, I argue that the omission of causal attributions is a distinct frame, and not a neutral absence in news coverage. With this dissertation, I extend the current scholarship on causal language modeling, and show how new text-as-data methods can be used to scale and examine discourse to identify novel concepts, and extend previous work in political communication. T3 - Dissertations submitted to the Hertie School - 02/2026 Y1 - 2026 UR - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:kobv:b1570-opus4-61241 U6 - https://doi.org/10.48462/opus4-6124 N1 - Parts of the dissertation have been published: A. Garcia Corral, P., Bechara, H., Zhang, R., & Jankin, S. (2024). PolitiCause: An Annotation Scheme and Corpus for Causality in Political Texts. In N. Calzolari, M.-Y. Kan, V. Hoste, A. Lenci, S. Sakti, & N. Xue (Eds.), Proceedings of the 2024 Joint International Conference on Computational Linguistics, Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC-COLING 2024) (pp. 12836–12845). ELRA and ICCL. https://aclanthology.org/2024.lrec-main.1124/ B. Garcia-Corral, P., Bechara, H. D., Manohara, K., & Jankin, S. (2025). Causally fooled in the name of being honest? Evaluating causal extraction in LLMs for political text. In C. Wartena & U. Heid (Eds.), Proceedings of the 21st Conference on Natural Language Processing (KONVENS 2025): Workshops (pp. 36–53). HsH Applied Academics. https://aclanthology.org/2025.konvens-2.4/ N1 - Shelf mark: 2026D002, 2026D002+1 ER - TY - THES A1 - Tiedemann, Silvana T1 - Essays in empirical energy economics: Real-time electricity pricing, energy saving rewards, and auctions in the energy transition N2 - The transition to a sustainable energy system requires a balance between climate protection, economic efficiency, and energy security. This dissertation contributes to understanding how to achieve these policy goals by evaluating the effect of real-time pricing on demand-side flexibility, financial incentives for energy savings, and auction-based steering of the national capacity mix. The two articles in the first part examine the challenges of estimating the response of electricity demand to real-time pricing. Despite theoretical expectations that dynamic pricing allows for flexible electricity consumption, empirical analyses show that consumers respond little to short-term fluctuations. However, they may systematically adjust consumption, providing a form of demand flexibility that is not captured by some econometric models. Moreover, time dynamics can bias results if not properly addressed. This work therefore advances our understanding of how to isolate different types of responses and how to interpret empirical findings. The article in the second part examines financial incentives for energy savings, focusing on gas saving rewards implemented during the European energy crisis of 2022/23. Analyzing micro-level consumption data, this research employs a matched control group design and the presently developed Double/Debiased Machine Learning estimator to show that direct financial incentives significantly reduce gas consumption. The two articles in the third part evaluate auctions to manage the national capacity mix. An evaluation of Germany’s coal phase-out auctions shows that the mechanism was designed to balance competing policy objectives, resulting in relatively low compensation costs but increasing the carbon intensity of the remaining coal fleet. The study of renewable energy auctions estimates bidders’ true costs and mark-ups, revealing significant heterogeneity in bidding strategies based on firm size and market experience. Overall, this dissertation provides empirical evidence for designing effective policies to advance the energy transition, drawing on econometric and causal methods. The findings underscore the need for tailored incentive structures and market mechanisms that are consistent with policy objectives, consumer behavior, and market dynamics. T3 - Dissertations submitted to the Hertie School - 01/2026 Y1 - 2026 N1 - List of publications: Tiedemann, S., & Müller-Hansen, F. (2023). Auctions to phase out coal power: Lessons learned from Germany. Energy Policy, 174, 113387. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enpol.2022.113387 Tiedemann, S. (2025). How to estimate and interpret the response of electricity consumers to real-time pricing. SSRN. http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.5140165 Tiedemann, S., Sgarlato, R., & Hirth, L. (2023). Price elasticity of electricity demand: Using instrumental variable regressions to address endogeneity and autocorrelation of high-frequency time series. arXiv. https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2306.12863 Lamp, S., Samano, M., & Tiedemann, S. (2025). Firms' bidding behavior in a new market: Evidence from renewable energy auctions. SSRN. http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4780866 Amberg, M., Kalkuhl, M., Koch, N., Ockenfels, A., & Tiedemann, S. (2025) Managing an energy crisis: Large-scale evidence of residential natural gas savings through financial rewards. SSRN. http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.5747645 N1 - Shelf mark: 2026D001, 2026D001+1 ER - TY - THES A1 - Gao, Lin T1 - Polyphony in Motion: The Sustained Multivocality of Social Entrepreneurship in China N2 - Sustained multivocality – the coexistence of divergent interpretations of the same phenomenon – is a common yet under-theorized condition in field evolution. This dissertation examines how the multivocality surrounding the concept of social entrepreneurship persists and even deepens in China, despite conditions that typically favor convergence. The study focuses on three key intermediary organizations in China, which interpret social entrepreneurship in increasingly distinct ways, despite all emerging from the field’s early discourse and facing pressure from powerful forces to forge consensus. This study employs a qualitative research design to unpack the processes and mechanisms through which the multivocality not only persists but also deepens over time. The study contributes to our understanding of meaning-making and field evolution in three ways. First, it develops a relational frame typology, identifying four types of frames – elastic, normative, ideological, and pragmatic – each carrying distinct relational implications. It advances the literature by demonstrating that frames are relation-laden constructs and, once enacted, position actors relationally within the field and shape the opportunity space for future meaning-making. Second, building on and extending the insights from the framing and sensemaking literature, it conceptualizes meaning construction as a multifaceted, situated, and relational process in which actors construct meanings through the simultaneous interpretation of the self, the object, and the context. Central to this process is the self-context orientation, which refers to how one perceives and positions oneself in relation to the context. Third, it explains that sustained multivocality emerges from the dynamic interplay between actors’ places in the context, or the situated self, and their choice of frames. Drawing on Bakhtin’s concept of polyphony, it then theorizes sustained interpretive divergence not as a temporary disarray or failure of power to converge, but as a durable and generative form of order. Polyphony, as theorized here, offers a lens for understanding how order can emerge through divergence, moving beyond the consensus-driven paradigm and the power-centric view. The study concludes by inviting a rethinking of consensus, relationality, and organizing in a world characterized by increasing fluidity, ambiguity, and ongoing change. T3 - Dissertations submitted to the Hertie School - 16/2025 Y1 - 2025 UR - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:kobv:b1570-opus4-60259 U6 - https://doi.org/10.48462/opus4-6025 ER - TY - THES A1 - Koh, Allison T1 - Platformed Power Plays: Authoritarian Adaptations in Foreign Social Media Spaces N2 - Social media platforms profoundly influence our perception of the world, shaping the way we receive and spread information. They shed light on crucial issues such as political violence and police repression, thereby holding governments accountable for their repressive actions. However, the governments implicated in such cases often attempt to curtail the impact of these digital platforms. They restrict domestic access to international communication channels, impose internet blackouts during political unrest, and intimidate dissidents into silence. Despite these efforts, states persistently grapple with the challenge of controlling the global narratives being spread on foreign social media platforms that lie just beyond their reach. In this cumulative dissertation, I attempt to answer the question of how repressive regimes control information flows in foreign social media spaces, even when they cannot exercise direct provision over these platforms. I argue that states “play by the rules” of the foreign social media spaces that they intend to influence, which often entails producing content that aligns with liberal democratic norms. In doing so, they evade sounding the alarm for foreign governments and the international community to sanction them. In a constantly evolving landscape of transnational social media regulation, states also benefit from foreign platforms that recently became havens for contentious political activity. In the conceptual work of this dissertation, I offer a broad overview of how states deal with diaspora dissent on foreign platforms. To empirically test my expectations on how regime supporters exploit platform governance vulnerabilities, I analyze pro-PRC actors’ responses to Uyghur regime critics in exile on Twitter. To test my expectations on recent shifts in the global regulatory landscape of foreign social media spaces, I leverage a recent change in Twitter’s policies for government and state-affiliated media. Overall, the evidence presented in this dissertation supports the notion that limited information control in foreign social media spaces can pose obstacles for contemporary governments who aim to engage in digital authoritarian practices. However, there remain vulnerabilities in platform governance that make it possible for states and their proxies to target key regime threats and manipulate the global public sphere as part of their foreign policy. Ultimately, this has important ramifications for policies aimed at transnational social media regulation and mitigating the online facets of global authoritarianism. T3 - Dissertations submitted to the Hertie School - 15/2025 Y1 - 2025 UR - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:kobv:b1570-opus4-60240 U6 - https://doi.org/10.48462/opus4-6024 N1 - Shelf mark: 2025D015, 2025D015+1 ER - TY - THES A1 - Wriedt, Vera T1 - Bordering Belonging: Colonialism, Nationality and Expulsions in the European and African Human Rights Systems N2 - This thesis investigates how the European and African regional human rights systems reproduce or counteract border coloniality in their drafting of norms and subsequent caselaw on matters of nationality and expulsions. Rather than taking the European human rights system as a yardstick to emulate, the analysis critiques its restrictive moves, whilst highlighting transformative contestations of exclusion in the African human rights system. In the European system, the colonial clause built into the 1950 European Convention on Human Rights was further refined in its 1963 Protocol 4 to distinguish between metropolitan and non-metropolitan territories with regard to entry and expulsion. These differentiations reverberate in caselaw that denies the right to nationality and legitimises collective expulsions based on tropes of danger and culpability, whereas judgments upholding the rights of people on the move across borders appear as outliers. In the African system, the anti-colonialism shaping the drafting of the 1981 African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights was followed by innovative interpretations reading the right to nationality into the right to recognition of legal status, as well as holistic protection against collective expulsions linked to related rights, but the jurisprudence is limited. Despite epistemic shifts away from the denigration of former colonial subjects crossing borders and moves towards the expansive interpretation of some rights, both systems operate within the limits of codified human rights law, in which many structural elements of border coloniality engrained in statist migration law remain unchallenged and perhaps unchallengeable. By providing the first juxtaposition of these issues in the European and African human rights systems, the thesis contributes to comparative international human rights law, critiques of the coloniality of international law, and border regime studies. T3 - Dissertations submitted to the Hertie School - 14/2025 Y1 - 2025 UR - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:kobv:b1570-opus4-60236 U6 - https://doi.org/10.48462/opus4-6023 N1 - Shelf mark : 2025D014; 2025D014+1 ER - TY - THES A1 - Groß, Greta Frederike T1 - Narrating for Democratic Resilience: Morality and Future Orientation in Political Communication N2 - This dissertation examines how political communication shapes democratic resilience under conditions of compounding crises. It starts from the premise that liberal democracies confront an external crisis of global threats such as climate change and an internal crisis of democratic legitimacy, expressed through affective polarization and institutional short-termism. Both dynamics constrain democracies’ capacity for problem-solving and raise questions about the role of political communication in shaping public understanding and collective action. The dissertation studies two communicative obstacles to democratic problem-solving: the difficulty of engaging across affectively polarized groups and the challenge of articulating shared future-oriented narratives. Three empirical studies investigate how democratic actors navigate these barriers and how specific narrative strategies may help to overcome them. Chapter 2 compares the moral rhetoric used by Jacinda Ardern and Boris Johnson in their parliamentary communication before and during the COVID-19 crisis. Drawing on the idea that political messages employing a broad moral repertoire may appeal across partisan lines, the chapter develops a scalable measure of moral diversity. Automated content analysis reveals limited differences between both leaders and no substantial increase in moral diversity during the crisis. The findings indicate unexploited potential to build more inclusive and persuasive crisis communication. Chapter 3 uses a survey experiment in Germany to test whether moral reframing—aligning policy messages with recipients’ moral values—can decrease affective polarization. Varying the message framing, issue domain, and messenger characteristics, the study shows that moral reframing increases openness to cross-partisan policy proposals among respondents on both the political left and right. The results inform debates on the effectiveness and limits of depolarizing communication strategies in divided societies. Chapter 4 analyzes temporal narratives in German parliamentary discourse from 1991 to 2024 to assess how often and under which institutional conditions politicians refer to the future. The findings show that future-oriented rhetoric clusters in the early stages of legislative periods and is more prevalent among governing parties, suggesting that electoral incentives contribute to democratic myopia and reduce attention to long-term challenges. Overall, the dissertation advances research on the communicative foundations of democratic resilience by highlighting narrative approaches that may help solving contemporary crises. T3 - Dissertations submitted to the Hertie School - 13/2025 Y1 - 2025 UR - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:kobv:b1570-opus4-60199 U6 - https://doi.org/10.48462/opus4-6019 N1 - Shelf mark: 2025D013, 2025D013+1 ER - TY - THES A1 - Ramirez-Ruiz, Sebastian T1 - The Evidence Interface: How policymakers encounter, engage with, and make sense of scientific knowledge N2 - While evidence can be a critical input for policymaking, our understanding of how it flows from research and expert communities to elite decision-makers remains remarkably limited. Studying these flows, and the relationships that underpin them, is inherently difficult. They are fragmented, politically mediated, and largely unobservable. This dissertation addresses these challenges by advancing a data-extensive computational social science approach, drawing on alternative (largely unstructured) data sources to systematically observe and characterize elite–evidence interactions. This project consists of four studies, involves the creation of new data infrastructures, and provides a foundation for future research and a proof of concept for investigating these dynamics. The first study analyzes behavioral data from nearly 3,700 legislators across 12 countries to examine how elected officials follow and interact with academic researchers on Twitter, revealing that engagement is rare and shaped by partisanship and educational background, though exogenous shocks such as the COVID-19 pandemic can increase attention to medical expertise. The second study maps the evidence cited in 1.2 million policy documents across 185 countries, demonstrating the persistent dominance of research produced in the global North and highlighting systematic epistemic asymmetries in policy-relevant knowledge. The third study introduces the Bundestag Expert Witness Tracker (BEWIT), capturing all public expert hearings in the German Bundestag from 2009 to 2024, and shows how political gatekeeping and transparency reforms shape which experts inform legislative processes. The fourth study develops and validates the INSPIRE instrument, a psychometrically robust measure of scientific evidence consumption literacy for public policy contexts, providing a framework for assessing individuals’ capacity to engage with complex evidence. Together, these studies offer new perspectives on who gets seen and heard, what kinds of expertise gain traction, and how institutional and individual factors can shape evidence use in practice. T3 - Dissertations submitted to the Hertie School - 12/2025 Y1 - 2025 UR - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:kobv:b1570-opus4-60150 U6 - https://doi.org/10.48462/opus4-6015 N1 - Parts of this dissertation have been published: I. Ramirez-Ruiz, S. (2025). Politicians from 12 countries rarely engage with researchers on social media, but this can change when expertise gains salience (No. wqbe4_v1). OSF Preprints. https://doi.org/10.31219/osf.io/wqbe4_v1 II. Ramirez-Ruiz, S., & Senninger, R. (2025). Policy documents across 185 countries predominantly rely on evidence from the Global North (No. w8q3y_v1). OSF Preprints. https://doi.org/10.31219/osf.io/w8q3y_v1 ER - TY - THES A1 - Harter, Anina T1 - Essays in Applied Microeconomics: How Shocks and Institutions Shape Policy Preferences and Public Spending N2 - This dissertation in applied microeconomics studies how political institutions and external shocks shape individual policy preferences and public spending. It comprises three self-contained chapters. Chapter 1 investigates the role of legislative institutions in the allocation of public funds. Chapters 2 and 3 analyze the impact of disruptive events on individual preferences for health policies. Chapter 1 studies how legislative institutions shape distributive policy outcomes. Specifically, it examines the allocation of federal grants by the German Bundestag’s budget committee. Using a difference-in-differences design, the analysis shows that gaining a seat on the budget committee doubles the average grant amount allocated to a legislator’s electoral district. This committee benefit in the allocation of grants is driven by internal committee hierarchy, rather than affiliation with the government or incentives from mandate types. Chapter 2 examines how individuals’ previous experience of disruptive events shapes demand for current crisis remedies. Using a model of experience-based learning and micro-level survey data from 19 countries, this chapter finds that individuals who have been exposed to disasters or armed conflict are more willing to get vaccinated against COVID-19. A case study using survey data from Russia reveals that this effect is conditional on trust in government. Chapter 3 analyzes how a single disruptive event can alter individuals’ preferences for abortion policy. It studies the 1976 Seveso chemical disaster which sharply increased perceived risk of industrial toxic exposure, particularly for pregnant women. Using pre-accident data on industrial plant locations and municipality-level voting, this study finds that proximity to hazardous industry reduced support for a restrictive abortion policy. T3 - Dissertations submitted to the Hertie School - 11/2025 Y1 - 2025 UR - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:kobv:b1570-opus4-60126 U6 - https://doi.org/10.48462/opus4-6012 N1 - Parts of this dissertation have been published: Chapter 1 Harter, A. (2025). Legislative institutions and distributive politics: Evidence from Germany’s federal budget committee. Berlin School of Economics Discussion Papers; No. 75. https://doi.org/10.48462/OPUS4-5942 Chapter 2 Borisova, E., Gründler, K., Hackenberger, A., Harter, A., Potrafke, N., & Schoors, K. (2023). Crisis experience and the deep roots of COVID-19 vaccination preferences. European Economic Review, 160, Article 104607. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.euroecorev.2023 N1 - Shelf mark: 2025D011; 2025D011+1 ER - TY - THES A1 - Minetto, Francesca T1 - Shaping Brussels from the outside in: The role of international institutions in EU policymaking N2 - As global governance becomes increasingly complex, interconnected, and contested, this dissertation examines a dimension that remains largely overlooked: the relevance of international institutions on the EU’s legal order. While the EU’s role as an international actor and exporter of norms has received significant scholarly attention, far less is known about how this outward engagement generates feedback effects that shape policymaking within the Union itself. This dissertation shifts the focus from the well-established image of the EU as a global rule-shaper toward a more reciprocal and layered understanding of its embeddedness in international institutional structures. My research foregrounds the EU’s role as a recipient of external policies, standards, and forms of expertise—raising new questions about the implications of this embeddedness for the EU legal order and its internal policymaking dynamics. Theoretically, the dissertation focuses on international institutions as epistemic authorities and standard-setters that feature in EU policymaking and its legislative processes. I draw on insights from policy diffusion, epistemic communities, EU external governance and EU actorness to advance a relational understanding of how external frameworks become internalised in the EU legislative process. Empirically, the dissertation makes three key contributions. First, it demonstrates through large-scale citation analysis that international institutions consistently function as evidence providers in EU policy documents, and that their inputs are not sporadic or symbolic but structurally embedded within EU knowledge practices. Second, it introduces the EUxII database—an original dataset covering over 1,400 legislative files—that enables the systematic mapping of international institutional presence across EU lawmaking. Third, it shows that nearly one in four legislative proposals reflects substantive policy import, meaning external policies stemming from international institutions are incorporated into EU legal texts. The findings reveal clear patterns in when and how policy import occurs: legislative proposals are more likely to draw on external models under conditions of institutional expansion, global alignment pressure, or heightened uncertainty. These dynamics challenge conventional accounts of EU actorness and policy diffusion by demonstrating that the EU is not only a source of global governance innovation but also a structured recipient of transnational expertise. By tracing this underexplored “outside-in” dynamic, my dissertation contributes to broader debates in European integration, EU actorness, inter-organisational influence and policy diffusion. It offers a data-rich, theoretically grounded account of how international institutions shape the EU’s legislative output, and in doing so, repositions the EU as a polity co constituted by its global institutional environment. In a context of contested multilateralism, this entanglement is both functionally significant and normatively consequential. T3 - Dissertations submitted to the Hertie School - 10/2025 Y1 - 2025 UR - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:kobv:b1570-opus4-60004 U6 - https://doi.org/10.48462/opus4-6000 N1 - Parts of the dissertation have been published. Paper 3: Minetto, F. (2025). Does the EU ever import its policies? The overlooked role of international institutions. Journal of European Public Policy, 1–35. https://doi.org/10.1080/13501763.2025.2570885 N1 - Shelf mark: 2025D010; 2025D010+1 ER - TY - THES A1 - Molina, Stefania T1 - The influence of family dynamics on the well-being of adults and children N2 - This cumulative dissertation examines how family dynamics—such as union dissolution, cohabitation, and repartnering—shape the well-being of adults and children in Germany and Colombia. It situates these family changes within broader social transformations across Europe and Latin America, emphasizing how socioeconomic inequality, gender norms, and cultural contexts influence diverse family structures. A distinctive contribution lies in integrating partnership quality and intimate partner violence (IPV) as key dimensions linking family dynamics to individual and child well-being. Drawing on both cross-sectional and longitudinal data, the dissertation presents five empirical analyses. The first study investigates how mothers’ partnership status and experiences of physical IPV during pregnancy are related to infant health in Colombia. Using data from the Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS), it finds that cohabiting and separated mothers face higher IPV risks, highlighting IPV as a critical determinant of family and child outcomes. The second study examines women’s economic independence and the risk of IPV during separation in Germany, using data from the German Family Panel (pairfam). Results show that employment and higher education reduce IPV risk, while women with minor children remain particularly vulnerable. The third study employs an intersectional approach to analyse divorce and mental health in Germany. Results show that women are more likely than men to receive a mental health diagnosis following divorce, especially at older ages, and that low income increases the likelihood of mental illness for both men and women. The fourth study explores how partnership quality and separation relate to parental mental health, showing that separation can relieve depression for those leaving low-quality partnerships but may exacerbate it for fathers exiting high-quality ones. The fifth study assesses how family structure and parental partnership quality affect children’s socio-emotional well-being, finding that children in stepfamilies report greater difficulties, although higher parental esteem mitigates some negative effects. Together, these findings underscore the complex interplay between family structures, partnership quality, and well-being. The dissertation calls for policies that promote gender equality, prevent IPV, and support families through transitions to enhance both adult and child well-being. T3 - Dissertations submitted to the Hertie School - 09/2025 Y1 - 2025 UR - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:kobv:b1570-opus4-59685 U6 - https://doi.org/10.48462/opus4-5968 N1 - Parts of the dissertation have been published: Chapter 2 Molina, S. (2025). Unmarried motherhood and infant health: The role of intimate partner violence in Colombia. Demographic Research, 52, 141–178. https://doi.org/10.4054/DemRes.2025.52.6 Chapter 3 Molina, S., Wagner, L., & Kreyenfeld, M. (2025). Women’s economic independence and physical intimate partner violence (IPV) during separation. PLOS ONE, 20(6), e0326529. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0326529 Chapter 4 Molina, S., Alonso-Perez, E., & Kreyenfeld, M. (2025). Divorce and Mental Health: Is Late Divorce Particularly Harmful for Women with Low Earnings? Social Indicators Research. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-025-03721-8 N1 - Shelf mark: 2025D009; 2025D009+1 ER - TY - THES A1 - Koranyi, Kinga T1 - The Power of the Weak: Strategic Framing and Selective Compliance in Asymmetric Redistributive Negotiations N2 - This dissertation investigates how weaker actors navigate power asymmetries in political negotiations, challenging conventional expectations that material capabilities determine outcomes. Through three interconnected studies examining different contexts of asymmetric bargaining, I demonstrate how seemingly disadvantaged actors employ sophisticated strategies to secure outcomes that defy power-based predictions. The first paper reveals how fiscally weaker Canadian provinces enhanced their bargaining positions in redistribution negotiations through strategic framing, employing communitarian appeals and coercive tactics despite structural disadvantages. The second paper examines Hungary’s selective compliance with unprecedented EU rule of law sanctions, demonstrating how the government conducted sophisticated cost-benefit analyses balancing economic impacts against political costs. The third paper uncovers Hungary’s dual-level communication strategy toward EU sanctions, revealing stark contrasts between public rhetoric and private negotiation approaches. Together, these studies advance a more nuanced understanding of bargaining power that extends beyond material capabilities to encompass strategic dimensions. Weaker actors systematically enhance their positions through strategic framing, which shapes how negotiations are perceived across multiple audiences, and strategic cost calculations, which identify areas for selective engagement to maximize leverage while minimizing disadvantages. The findings reveal how seemingly disadvantaged actors transform structural weaknesses into bargaining advantages through sophisticated negotiation approaches. T3 - Dissertations submitted to the Hertie School - 08/2025 Y1 - 2025 UR - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:kobv:b1570-opus4-59514 U6 - https://doi.org/10.48462/opus4-5951 N1 - Parts of the dissertation have been published: Chapter 2 Koranyi, K. (2025). Power of the weak? Framing strategies in fiscal redistribution negotiations. Regional & Federal Studies, 35(4), 511–536. https://doi.org/10.1080/13597566.2023.2295407 Chapter 3 Koranyi, K. (2025). The limits of EU rule of law financial sanctions: How economic and political costs shaped Hungary’s selective compliance strategy. Journal of European Public Policy. https://doi.org/10.1080/13501763.2025.2553752 N1 - Shelf mark: 2025D008; 2025D008+1 ER - TY - THES A1 - Finnerty, Joseph T1 - Article 18 of the European Convention on Human Rights: A Conservative Contribution to Responding to Authoritarian Practices through International Human Rights Law N2 - Combining dogmatic legal doctrinal and quasi-critical approaches, this dissertation investigates the role that Article 18 of the European Convention on Human Rights has played in the European Court of Human Rights’ response to authoritarian practices across the Member States of the Council of Europe. Through its examination of 121 Article 18 judgments, the dissertation maintains that the provision has an important role to play in the Court’s response to authoritarian practices. It employs a three-dimensional analytical framework to constructively critique the Article 18 case law in the context of autocratisation across three papers. This framework encompasses the following dimensions of the doctrine: (1) substantive interpretation of Article 18 by the Court (interpretation); (2) the evidentiary approach employed by the Court to determine the existence of ulterior authoritarian purposes under Article 18 (evidence and proof); and (3) the remedies that flow from the identification of ulterior authoritarian purposes under Article 18 (remedies). Each dimension of analysis enables the dissertation to delineate a limiting force, restricting the potential of Article 18 as an effective response mechanism to authoritarian practices. The dissertation further articulates normative recommendations to mitigate or remove these limitations and unlock the full potential of Article 18 in the context of autocratisation. T3 - Dissertations submitted to the Hertie School - 07/2025 Y1 - 2025 UR - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:kobv:b1570-opus4-59092 U6 - https://doi.org/10.48462/opus4-5909 N1 - Parts of this dissertation have been published: Ch. 2 Finnerty, J., & Çalı, B. (2025). The Travaux Préparatoires and Progressive Treaty Interpretation: Article 18 of the European Convention on Human Rights. European Journal of International Law, chaf029. https://doi.org/10.1093/ejil/chaf029 Ch. 3 Finnerty, J. (2023). When is a State’s ‘Hidden Agenda’ Proven? The Role of the Merabishvili’s Three-Legged Evidentiary Test in the Article 18 Strasbourg Case Law. European Convention on Human Rights Law Review, 4(4), 447-472. https://doi.org/10.1163/26663236-bja10077 Ch. 4 Finnerty, J. (2024). How Should the European Court of Human Rights Remedy Violations of Article 18 echr? The Case for Remedial Realignment. European Convention on Human Rights Law Review, 5(3), 380-399. https://doi.org/10.1163/26663236-bja10100 N1 - Shelf mark: 2025D007; 2025D007+1 ER - TY - THES A1 - Hansum, Romy T1 - Implementation of cohesion policy funds in the EU member states – who gets what, when and how? N2 - This cumulative dissertation investigates which driving forces shape the national distribution of EU cohesion policy funds. Despite the important role that distributive policies play in the EU’s governance framework, drivers beyond administrative and government capacity have been neglected in previous EU implementation research. Consequently, this dissertation aims to contribute to a more detailed understanding of the national implementation phase of EU funds. Adopting a political science perspective, three concepts are tested for EU distributive policies that have so far been primarily applied to domestic funds, namely vote-buying strategies, policy continuity, and non-demand. The three separate analyses explore on the distribution of cohesion policy funds across regions, budgetary priorities, and beneficiaries. Cohesion policy funds are chosen as a relevant and appropriate case due to their important financial volume, their long-standing implementation in all member states, and their interesting variance in implementation during the Covid-19 pandemic. The dissertation draws on qualitative and quantitative methods, spanning from interviews conducted in one region to statistical analyses including all EU member states. The findings are threefold. First, the analysis shows that vote-buying strategies do not explain the allocation of cohesion policy funds across EU regions. Despite the extraordinary discretion of the national governments in the studied Covid-19 recovery programme REACT-EU, electorally opportune regions are not targeted with these cohesion policy funds. Second, policy continuity characterizes the budgetary choices of national governments during the implementation phase. Even though the national political and socioeconomic context changes, national governments largely adhere to past budgetary priorities. Third, a lack of applications from potential beneficiary organisations can be a challenge despite adequate administrative capacity. Non-demand mainly results from unawareness of the offers, a too high administrative burden, and a low need for additional funding. In brief, the findings indicate that even with adequate government and administrative capacities, inherent processes and third parties have a larger impact on the distribution of EU funds than deliberate political actions and strategies. The results of the dissertation provide avenues for future EU implementation research but are also of interest for reforms of the cohesion policy funds and the development of new EU distributive policies. T3 - Dissertations submitted to the Hertie School - 06/2025 Y1 - 2025 UR - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:kobv:b1570-opus4-58950 U6 - https://doi.org/10.48462/opus4-5895 N1 - Parts of the dissertation have been published: Chapter 2: Hansum, R. (2025). The Role of Electoral Interests in the National Distribution of EU Covid‐19 Funds. JCMS: Journal of Common Market Studies, 63(4), 1027–1051. https://doi.org/10.1111/jcms.13711 Chapter 3: Hansum, R. (2025). Continuity amid change: Explaining budgetary choices in the national implementation of EU cohesion policy funds. European Union Politics, 14651165251365553. https://doi.org/10.1177/14651165251365553 Chapter 4: Hansum, R. (2025). 'Why organizations leave money on the table: explaining non-demand for EU funds'. Regional & Federal Studies. https://doi.org/10.1080/13597566.2025.2485052 N1 - Shelf mark: 2025D006; 2025D006+1 ER - TY - THES A1 - Garten, Felix T1 - Hierarchical Networks in Finance and Trade: How Do Digital Platforms Shape Foreign Markets? N2 - The digital economy has reached a point where the globalization of trade and finance is increasing, rather than decreasing, power structures between states, as complex interdependence theory suggests. In this cumulative dissertation, I shed more light on digital platforms that have built infrastructures and act as intermediaries between states. I define these platforms as hierarchical networks because they build power structures between states that shape foreign markets. To understand the underlying mechanism, I provide answers to the guiding research question: How do hierarchical networks of digital platforms shape foreign markets? Using a unique network structure approach, I explore new angles in the political economy and international relations literature. I develop four theoretical types that describe varying degrees of market power shaped by economic dependence and the regulatory environment. To further understand the conditions, I use these theoretical types to select suitable cases for the analysis of hierarchical networks. In chapter 2, Nora Kurzdorfer and I show that the EU is an example of the Autonomous Sphere. The EU has a strong regulatory framework that limits the spread of digital hierarchical networks. In chapter 3, I show that Malaysia and Singapore are examples of the Center-Controlled Sphere, where China’s hierarchical network shapes the markets according to the interests of the Chinese government. In chapter 4, I show how countries that are part of the Sovereigntist Sphere, can use the nature of hierarchical networks to shield against Chinese or US-American payment platforms that countries economically depend on. In this dissertation, I use a mixed methods approach. In chapter 2, Nora Kurzdorfer and I build a theoretical framework guiding a case study that explores both quantitative and qualitative data on the eWTP Belgium. In chapters 3 and 4, I use comparative studies to analyze semi-structured interviews and several background conversations with policy makers, regulators and business experts working in the FinTech sector in India, Malaysia and Singapore. I show that hierarchical networks of digital platforms in finance and trade build new market infrastructures that either create dependencies or that shield from dependencies on US-American or Chinese networks. These networks therefore align with the existing order or build an alternative order. T3 - Dissertations submitted to the Hertie School - 05/2025 Y1 - 2025 UR - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:kobv:b1570-opus4-58060 U6 - https://doi.org/10.48462/opus4-5806 N1 - Shelf mark: 2025D005; 2025D005+1 ER - TY - THES A1 - Simstich, Anna T1 - Ministerial policy autonomy in executive policy formulation N2 - Bureaucratic influence on public policies is both necessary and potentially problematic for democratic governance. However, surprisingly little is known about how ministerial bureaucracies exercise their policy autonomy (or influence potential) in executive policymaking. This dissertation investigates under what conditions policy bureaucracies have high policy autonomy in policy formulation. It focuses on the role of lead ministerial departments in policy formulation in parliamentary democracies. From an organizational perspective and in a case-oriented research design, it analyzes two dimensions of ministerial policy autonomy: 1. Under what conditions lead ministries successfully realize their policy preferences in policy proposals and 2. under what conditions these ministerial policy proposals prevail throughout executive coordination. Based on comparative case studies on the design of a technical, low-salience waste policy provision in the French and German environment ministries, this study finds that ministerial drafts do not always reflect the policy position of the lead ministry. Instead, the realization of ministerial policy positions in ministerial drafts depends on their ability to mobilize political support or expertise in favor of their policy proposal. They do so based on their organizational interests in anticipation of opposition from political executives and stakeholders. Second, based on a fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis of German policy proposals, this dissertation finds that technical and low-salience ministerial policy proposals tend to prevail throughout executive coordination. In contrast, coalition partners hold each other to account in executive coordination on politically salient cross-cutting reforms leading to major edits of ministerial drafts. Overall, the findings indicate a surprisingly moderate ministerial policy autonomy in consensual parliamentary systems of government. The relative policy autonomy of the policy bureaucracy and political executives over policy proposals depends on the type of policy, i.e. their complexity, political salience to the coalition government, and alignment with bureaucratic interests. This points to a functioning democratic control of ministerial bureaucracies in policy formulation. Further research is needed, however, to better understand the substantive policy preferences of policy bureaucracies, how they exercise their organizational role of balancing political preferences, stakeholder interests, and professional expertise and how the organizational structure, politicization and civil service systems of ministerial bureaucracies affect ministerial policy autonomy in practice. T3 - Dissertations submitted to the Hertie School - 04/2025 Y1 - 2025 UR - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:kobv:b1570-opus4-57630 U6 - https://doi.org/10.48462/opus4-5763 N1 - Shelf mark: 2025D004; 2025D004+1 N1 - List of publications: Simstich, A. (2025). Bureaucratic politics in customized implementation of the EU Single-Use Plastics Directive in France and Germany. Journal of Public Policy, 1–25. doi:10.1017/S0143814X2500011X ER - TY - THES A1 - Goedeking, Matthias T1 - Weak Ties, Strong Threats? Building and Undermining Inter-Ethnic Coalitions in Civil Wars N2 - This dissertation examines how ethnic groups cooperate against the state in civil wars and how the state strategically responds to this threat of multi-ethnic rebellion. Through three papers, I demonstrate that, first, ethnic groups frequently form coalitions in civil wars when structural conditions facilitate trust-building; second, states preemptively co-opt small ethnic groups when they could serve as bridges between potential challenger groups; and third, governments strategically direct economic investments toward excluded groups that occupy central positions in ethnic networks to prevent conflict diffusion. Leveraging group-level data on ethnic power relations, settlement patterns, and economic development at a global scale, I show that rather than being isolated actors, ethnic groups exist in networks of ties that shape both their ability to become part of threatening inter-ethnic rebellions and state responses to this threat. The findings contribute to our understanding of ethnic politics by highlighting the role of inter-ethnic relations in driving minority group behavior and ethnic politics. T3 - Dissertations submitted to the Hertie School - 03/2025 Y1 - 2025 UR - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:kobv:b1570-opus4-57464 U6 - https://doi.org/10.48462/opus4-5746 N1 - Shelf mark: 2025D003; 2025D003+1 ER - TY - THES A1 - Michel, Cynthia L. T1 - Social policy expansion in Latin America amidst limited capacities N2 - . T3 - Dissertations submitted to the Hertie School - 01/2025 Y1 - 2025 UR - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:kobv:b1570-opus4-56813 U6 - https://doi.org/10.48462/opus4-5681 N1 - The following paper has been published: III. Unraveling How Intermediary-Beneficiary Interaction Shapes Policy Expansion: The case of Paid Domestic Workers in Mexico • Published as: Michel, C. L. (2024). Unraveling how intermediary-beneficiary interaction shapes policy implementation. Regulation & Governance. https://doi.org/10.1111/rego.12592 N1 - shelfmark: 2025D001 + 2025D001+1 ER - TY - THES A1 - Kürzdörfer, Nora Marie T1 - The End of the Golden Weather? — Addressing the Geoeconomic Shift in Global Trade Governance N2 - . T3 - Dissertations submitted to the Hertie School - 13/2024 Y1 - 2024 UR - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:kobv:b1570-opus4-56588 U6 - https://doi.org/10.48462/opus4-5658 N1 - shelfmark: 2024D013 + 2024D013+1 ER - TY - THES A1 - Arend, Tom T1 - Voting With Your Wallet? Essays on Accountability and the Economic Vote N2 - . T3 - Dissertations submitted to the Hertie School - 12/2024 Y1 - 2024 UR - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:kobv:b1570-opus4-56114 U6 - https://doi.org/10.48462/opus4-5611 N1 - shelfmark: 2024D012 + 2024D012+1 ER - TY - THES A1 - Frank, Emily T1 - Bureaucracy as Borders: Refugees’ Experiences of Citizenship at Government Offices N2 - . T3 - Dissertations submitted to the Hertie School - 11/2024 Y1 - 2024 UR - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:kobv:b1570-opus4-56104 U6 - https://doi.org/10.48462/opus4-5610 N1 - shelfmark: 2024D011 + 2024D011+1 N1 - A part of this dissertation has been published: Chapter 2 Frank, E. (2025). “Why It’s Different?”: Hierarchies of (Non-) Belonging in German Refugee Categorizations. Journal of Immigrant & Refugee Studies, 1–16. https://doi.org/10.1080/15562948.2025.2529497 ER - TY - THES A1 - Ramos, Vincent Jerald R. T1 - Essays on the Causes and Demographic Consequences of Employment Uncertainty N2 - . T3 - Dissertations submitted to the Hertie School - 10/2024 Y1 - 2024 UR - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:kobv:b1570-opus4-55990 U6 - https://doi.org/10.48462/opus4-5599 N1 - Parts of the dissertation have been published. Chapter 2: Ramos, V. J. (2024). Extreme Lockdowns and the Gendered Informalization of Employment: Evidence from the Philippines. Work, Employment and Society. https://doi.org/10.1177/09500170241247121 Chapter 4: This version of the article has been accepted for publication, after peer review (when applicable) and is subject to Springer Nature’s AM terms of use (https://www.springernature.com/gp/open-science/policies/accepted-manuscript-terms), but is not the Version of Record and does not reflect post-acceptance improvements, or any corrections. The Version of Record is available online at: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10680-023-09656-5 Kreyenfeld, M., Konietzka, D., Lambert, P., & Ramos, V. J. (2023). Second Birth Fertility in Germany: Social Class, Gender, and the Role of Economic Uncertainty. European Journal of Population, 39(1), 5. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10680-023-09656-5 N1 - shelfmark: 2024D010 + 2024D010+1 ER - TY - THES A1 - Naujoks, Tabea T1 - The division of labor in couples with children: A dyadic analysis in the German context N2 - This cumulative dissertation examines how couples with children in Germany divide paid and unpaid work and identifies several factors related to a more egalitarian division of labor. In the first paper, I focus on the division of paid work in couples with children, comparing female same-sex and different-sex couples, which constitutes an empirical novelty. Discussing the applicability of division of labor theories to same-sex couples, I further exploit the historically shaped gender culture of East and West Germany. Based on the German Microcensus (2010-2019) and using pooled OLS regressions, I show that female same-sex couples divide paid work more equally than different-sex couples. Comparing East and West Germany, I find a similarly equal division of paid work among same-sex and different-sex couples in the East, while different-sex couples in the West specialize more. The analysis highlights the importance of the cultural context and normative explanations of the division of labor. The second paper turns to childcare, the intersection of the paid working life with the father’s contribution to childcare being a key concern of researchers and policymakers. The COVID-19 pandemic and the short-time work scheme provided a “natural experiment” for investigating this nexus. Based on IAB-HOPP data and multinomial logistic regressions, we show that fathers in short-time work take over more care responsibilities than fathers continuously employed with regular working 1 hours. The findings indicate that policies targeting men’s working hours can affect the gendered distribution of childcare within couples. The third paper focuses on the methodological problem of analyzing the division of unpaid work in couples often from one partner’s perspective only. Therefore, I examine the determinants of ‘perception gaps’ (defined as the mismatches between partners’ responses). Based on pairfam data, I analyze respondents’ reports on housework and childcare during the transition to first parenthood and show that a substantial perception gap exists, with 30% regarding housework and 25% concerning childcare. Results of the logistic regressions indicate that perception gaps are lowest among couples where the woman is employed or highly educated. These findings clearly underline the importance of a dyadic perspective on the division of labor in couples. T3 - Dissertations submitted to the Hertie School - 09/2024 Y1 - 2024 UR - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:kobv:b1570-opus4-55381 U6 - https://doi.org/10.48462/opus4-5538 N1 - Part of this dissertation has been published: Chapter 3 Journal article: Naujoks, T., Kreyenfeld, M., & Dummert, S. (2022). The division of child care during the coronavirus crisis in Germany: How did short-time work affect fathers’ engagement? Journal of Family Research, 34(1), 67-98. https://doi.org/10.20377/jfr-717 Pre-print: Naujoks, T., Kreyenfeld, M., & Dummert, S. (2021). The Coronavirus Crisis, Fathers’ Short-Time Work, and the Division of Child Care in Couples. Working Paper. Hertie School. https://doi.org/10.48462/opus4-3870 Chapter 4 Naujoks, T. (2024). The division of housework and childcare from a dyadic perspective: Discrepancies between partners’ reports across the transition to parenthood. Demographic Research, 51, 927–964. https://doi.org/10.4054/DemRes.2024.51.30 N1 - shelf mark: 2024D009 + 2024D009+1 ER -