Public Policy Theses and Dissertations 2015-10-07T17:55:41Z The Effect of Stress on Developmental Trajectories: Empirical Evidence from Peru The Effect of Stress on Developmental Trajectories: Empirical Evidence from Peru Bendini, Maria Magdalena In this dissertation I examine the relationship between early childhood development (ECD) and stress. In the first chapter I conduct a comprehensive and systematic analysis of the various streams of research that have pushed the frontier of knowledge on the formation of human development in recent decades to compose a holistic portrayal of development that takes place during early life, analyze the role of quality parental care and stimulation as enabler or inhibitor of ECD, and discuss how stress can set children on sub-optimal developmental trajectories. The essay highlights the direct and indirect channels through which stress can affect ECD and the extent to which poor children are particularly vulnerable to it. The second chapter investigates empirically the link between maternal depression and children’s physical growth during early life in Peru. I find suggestive evidence that maternal depression negatively affect childhood growth, and that the size of such effect is not trivial. Evidence in this essay suggests that maternal depression hinders maternal engagement, which in turn could lead to sub-optimal care practices that lead to worse nutritional outcomes. The third chapter is concerned with the relationship between maternal depression and child cognitive development in Peru. Results indicate that while the effect of temporary cases of maternal depression in the sample is negligible and statistically insignificant, the effect of chronic cases of depression is sizable and statistically significant, and persists over time. When the impact of maternal depression is analyzed separately by gender and maternal education level, there is evidence of worse effects for boys, as well as for children of mothers with incomplete primary school. All three chapters discuss the policy implications of the current knowledge of the effect of stress on ECD, which, even if incomplete, is compelling enough to warrant intensifying efforts to shelter children from stress, particularly during early childhood and in low-income settings. 2015-01-01T00:00:00Z Turkey's New Foreign Policy Orientation, A Threat to the West? Turkey's New Foreign Policy Orientation, A Threat to the West? Iltebir, Elnigar Turkey, a staunch US ally and NATO member during the Cold War, experienced a transformation of its domestic and foreign policy in the last decade. It pursued a more independent and assertive foreign policy in the neighboring region, leading the critics to charge Turkey with abandoning the Western alliance and to question its commitment to strategic partnership with the United States and the EU. This dissertation uses a series of case studies on Turkey’s foreign policy in the Middle East and the Eurasia region to answer the question of whether the recent changes in Turkish foreign policy represent a fundamental reorientation of the country away from the Western alliance and to examine the dominant factors driving Turkish foreign policy during this period. The study concludes that Turkey’s foreign policy transformation in the last decade represents a significant change in the direction of autonomy, but not a fundamental reorientation of the country away from the West. The study also finds that while international factors played an important role in preparing the ground for Turkey’s foreign policy change, domestic factors, particularly Turkey’s economic interests, its new foreign policy elite and their vision, and Turkish public opinion, have been the main drivers of its foreign policy change. 2015-01-01T00:00:00Z Essays on the Relationship Between Income and Life Satisfaction in the United States Essays on the Relationship Between Income and Life Satisfaction in the United States Swenson, Kendall This dissertation presents three essays concerning the relationship between income and life satisfaction in the United States. The first essay examines whether the receipt of income assistance from public and private sources predicts life satisfaction. It identifies a negative association between the receipt of income assistance from government and private sources and life satisfaction, and finds that the association remains significant even after controlling for family income and other factors. The negative association between the receipt of income assistance and life satisfaction continues to exist across most of the income distribution, although the correlation is more uncertain for respondents in the very lowest income quartile. Another noteworthy finding from this essay is that income assistance from non-governmental sources is just as predictive of lower life satisfaction scores as is assistance from government means-tested welfare programs The second essay examines whether consumption is a better predictor of life satisfaction than is income. The essay finds that income and consumption are both predictors of life satisfaction, but that several other factors are even more predictive of well-being. In the full regression models health, marriage, and unemployment are much more predictive of life satisfaction than either income or consumption. The third essay examines the link between childhood family incomes and future life satisfaction. To analyze this topic, longitudinal data from the PSID is used to obtain mean family incomes when people were ages 13 to 17 between 1968 and 1994 and examines the life satisfaction of these individuals as adults in 2011. The primary finding from this essay is that the family incomes of youths are not strongly predictive of their future life satisfaction scores. 2015-01-01T00:00:00Z WHEN COERCION BACKFIRES: THE LIMITS OF COERCIVE DIPLOMACY IN IRAN. WHEN COERCION BACKFIRES: THE LIMITS OF COERCIVE DIPLOMACY IN IRAN. Mohseni Cheraghlou, Ebrahim Coercive diplomacy is a deceivingly attractive strategy. If it can be made to work, it has the potential of achieving foreign policy objectives with considerably fewer costs. But when adopted in unconducive circumstances, the strategy has the potential to backfire and make peaceful resolution of conflicts more difficult. Since 2002, when the full scope of Iran's nuclear program and ambitions were revealed to the public, the United States has primarily relied on coercive diplomacy to force Iran to accept limitations and oversight that go beyond the NPT and Iran's safeguards agreement. This dissertation assesses how Iran's nuclear policy and program has been affected by US and UNSC sanctions. It argues that not only has coercive diplomacy failed to persuade Iran to accept binding selective constraints on its fuel cycle activities, but it has also triggered a series of reactions that have strengthened Iran's determination to advance, enhance, and expand its nuclear fuel cycle program. The findings of this dissertation corroborate the conclusions of most other scholars that have studied coercive diplomacy. Indeed, the recurrent failure of coercive diplomacy is rooted in the strategy's neglect of the reality that national-level decisions are the resultant of the pulling and hauling of various forces within the target state and that in dealing with objectionable policies of states, one must seek to weaken the forces that promote and strengthen those that oppose the objectionable policy. In the case of Iran, sanctions have done the opposite. They have intensified Iranian distrust of the US and the post-war international order and have consequently augmented the forces in Iran that promote and have weakened those that oppose Iran's nuclear fuel cycle program. Taking the factors that drive and shape Iran's nuclear policy, this dissertation argues that the proliferation risks of Iran's nuclear program could be resolved more quickly, reliably, and effectively through arrangements that are based on mutually acknowledged rights and equitable principles than through arrangements based on coercion. 2015-01-01T00:00:00Z