Browsing by Subject "Intervention"
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Item Open Access Clash of discourses: the US national debate on relations with Haiti, 1789-2004(Bilkent University, 2008) Pakin, EsraThis dissertation is a historical-comparative analysis of the rhetorical forms and frames that have shaped United States-Haitian relations, departing from the predominantly action-oriented perspective of international relations literature. The study expounds continuity and change in official foreign policy discourse as “The United States” and “Haiti” were reinterpreted through time. It also displays how these constructions of “self” and “other” have been contested within the public and political domain. This work is a contribution not only for its elaboration on the mostly unattended public, press and congressional critique of Haitian policy, but also for shedding further light on the role of African Americans in U.S. foreign policy making.Item Open Access Coercion by fear: securitization of Iraq prior to the 2003 war(Sage Publications, 2019-10) Baysal, BaşarThe Iraq War was one of the most prominent events of the early 2000s. The prelude to the war halted the sense of optimism that captivated International Relations as a discipline after the end of the Cold War. The United States initiated this war following a lengthy securitization process. This study focuses on analyzing the securitization process in Iraq prior to the 2003 war. To that end, the article investigates the securitization process by asking, “How, within what context, and when did the securitization of Iraq take place?” For the study, 85 speeches made by President Bush are analyzed to examine how the president presented Iraq as an existential threat. The study also examines the kinds of arguments used by the Bush administration in securitizing Iraq. This study contributes to the literature on the 2003 Iraq War and security studies by applying Securitization Theory to the Iraq case by incorporating two essential contributions to the securitization analysis: context and audience(s).Item Open Access Designing intervention strategy for public-interest goods(Bilkent University, 2016-09) Demirci, Ece ZelihaPublic-interest goods, which are also referred as goods with positive externalities, create benefits to individual consumers as well as non-paying third parties. Some significant examples include health related products such as vaccines and products with less carbon emissions. When positive externalities exist, the good may be under-produced or under-supplied due to incorrect pricing policies or failing to value external benefits and that is why a need for intervention arises. A central authority such as government or social planner intervenes into the system of these goods so that their adoption levels are increased towards socially desirable levels. The central authority seeks to design and finance an intervention strategy that will impact the decisions of the channel in line with the good of the society, specified as social welfare. A key issue in designing an intervention mechanism is choosing the intervention tools to incorporate. The intervention tools can target the supply or demand of the good. One option for the intervention tool is investment in demand-increasing strategies, which affects the level of stochastic demand in the market. Second option is investment in strategies that will improve supply of the good. Alternatives for this option include registering rebates or subsidies and investment in yield-improving strategies when production process faces imperfect yield. As several real life cases indicate, central authority operates under a limited budget in this environment. Thus, we introduce and analyze social welfare maximization models with the emphasis on optimal budget allocation. We model the lower level problem, which represents the channel as a newsvendor problem. We then utilize bilevel programming for modeling the environment incorporating the role of central authority. After obtaining single level equivalent formulations of the problems, we analyze and solve them as non-linear programs. Our first problem is to analyze an intervention strategy, which uses only subsidy issued per unit order quantity. We explore the subsidy design problem for single retailer and n retailers cases. We show that all of the budget will be used under mild conditions and present structural results. Also, we analyze subsidy design problem for two echelon setting, where the central authority gives subsidy both to retailer and manufacturer. We consider centralized and manufacturer-driven problems and present numerical results. In the remaining part of the thesis, we focus on joint intervention mechanisms in which two intervention tools are applied simultaneously. First, we study a joint mechanism composed of demand-increasing strategy and rebate. We present two models and associated structural properties. First model aims to find optimal budget and allocation of it among intervention tools. We deduce that rebate amount may be independent of investment made in demand-increasing strategies and improvement pattern of demand. Second model decides on the optimal allocation of a given budget between intervention tools. We show that central authority will allocate all budget under mild conditions. Furthermore, we use real-life data and information of California electric vehicle market in order to verify the proposed models and show benefits of taking such an approach. We also explore the application of the joint mechanism under a given budget for exponentially distributed demand family and fully characterize the optimal solution. The analysis of the solution reveals that designing an intervention scheme without considering an explicit budget constraint will result in budget deficit and excess money transfers to the retailer. As the second modeling environment we consider a joint mechanism consisting of demand-increasing strategy and yield-improving strategy in a setting where yield uncertainty exists. We introduce lognormal demand and yield models that take into account the investments made for improving them. We test the suggested model with a case study relying on the available estimates of US influenza market. The results indicate that addressing both demand and yield issues by the proposed mechanism will increase vaccination percentages remarkably.Item Open Access The effects of mindfulness based yoga intervention on preschoolers’ self-regulation ability(Bilkent University, 2019-07) Önoğlu Yıldırım, EdaThis thesis taps into one of the significant developments that has effects on children’s academic and social life; self-regulation. Children develop this ability from early childhood to middle childhood. Research has shown that this ability can be enhanced via appropriate interventions and the current study uses mindfulness based yoga as a way to enhance preschoolers’ self-regulation ability. To have a comprehensive measure of self-regulation, a child battery was developed by the researchers. This battery includes tasks that measure cognitive flexibility, interference control, working memory, motor control, and delay of gratification. In addition to this child battery, mother and teacher reported executive function (EF) scales were used. The intervention was conducted with 45 preschoolers; of these; 24 were in the yoga group and 21 were in the waitlist control group. The intervention group of children took yoga 2 times a week for 12 weeks for a total of 15 hours of yoga per child. Both in pre-test and post-test children were tested and the intervention and waitlist control groups were compared with one another. Results of the child battery has shown that children who were in the yoga group performed better on working memory but none of the other aspects of EF that were measured revealed a difference. Teachers reported no difference between the two groups. Lastly, mothers evaluated that the two groups were different in terms of positive affect such that children in the yoga group were evaluated as higher.Item Open Access The elevator ride: in fact and fiction(Bilkent University, 2016-05) Mirza, NarjisThe Elevator is the intersection of space, time, and sound. Space that designs a democratic communication and interaction among people from all walks of life, time that is amplified and in motion, and sound, that is in isolation. The focus of this study is to observe the function of elevators in fact and fiction. The actual physical experience of elevators will offer us facts about this mechanical ride, and the fantastical use of elevators in the fictional realm is a story of endless imagination. This paper is accompanied with visual artwork, in the form of a two channel video installation that presents the intervention of an artist, and a camera, inside an elevator.Item Open Access The English school theory of international relations and peacebuilding : an analysis of peacebuilding interventions in Liberia and Sierra Leone through the world society framework(Bilkent University, 2015-12) Halistoprak, Burak ToygarAlthough the world society (WS) framework appears to be an important cornerstone in the theoretical triad of the English School (ES), it is the least developed concept amongst others (Buzan 2004). This dissertation's objective is to contribute to the literature which aims to develop and revitalize the WS framework, which is one of the three pillars of the ES of International Relations (IR). It uses this theoretical approach in the analysis of peacebuilding intervention practices. The dissertation proposes three specific parameters which constitute the progress from the international to world society framework. In this regard, changes in the (1) normative context, (2) agency and (3) identity appear as themes which differentiate the WS framework as a distinct theoretical category. The dissertation develops the argument that the progress from the international to world society overlaps with the change in the nature of intervention which have been evolving from traditional peacekeeping to new peacebuilding. The empirical sections of the dissertation focus on the peacebuilding experiences in Liberia and Sierra Leone. These cases are analyzed with specific references to the parameters emphasized in the theoretical chapters. Both qualitative analysis and quantitative content analysis methods are employed in the empirical chapters. According to the results, I suggest that the peacebuilding interventions are better understood and explained through the lenses of the WS framework compared to the international society framework which remains rather state-centric in terms of its normative context and agents. The results also challenge several long established arguments in the peacebuilding literature which suggest that the normative center of the peacebuilding is built upon the understanding of human/individual security.Item Open Access The policy challenge with floating exchange rates: Turkey's recent experience(Springer New York LLC, 2005) Selçuk, F.This paper evaluates the developments in the Turkish economy in light of the Central Bank of Turkey's (CBT) policies during a recent period of floating exchange rate system (March 2001-July 2003). It is found that the CBT was effective in containing volatility and reducing the average inflation rate while there was a strong recovery of output. However, there are accumulated risks in the economy. Particularly, the extreme appreciation of the Turkish lira during this period and the record level of real interest rates give the impression that the current state of the economy is fragile. Unless the government accelerates the structural reform process and pursues sound fiscal policies to reduce the public sector borrowing requirement and the debt ratio, an adverse shock to the system may trigger a reversal of fortune. © 2005 Springer Science + Business Media, Inc.Item Open Access A prenatal coparenting intervention with unmarried father-mother dyads: fidelity of intervention delivery by male-female community mentor teams(Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, Ltd., 2017) Salman-Engin, S.; Little, T.; Gaskin-Butler, V.; McHale, J. P.Background: Most prenatal preventive interventions for unmarried mothers do not integrate fathers or help the parents plan for the development of a functional coparenting alliance after the baby's arrival. Furthermore, properly trained professionals have only rarely examined the fidelity of these interventions. Purpose: This report examines whether experienced community interventionists (home visitors, health educators, fatherhood service personnel) with no formal couples' therapy training are capable of pairing together to deliver with adequate fidelity a manualized dyadic intervention designed for expectant unmarried mothers and fathers. Methods: Three male and four female mentors (home visitors, health educators, fatherhood personnel) working in paired maleY female co-mentor teams delivered a seven-session BFiguring It Out for the Child[curriculum (six prenatal sessions, one booster) to 14 multirisk, unmarried African American families (parent age ranging from 14 to 40). Parental well-being and views of fatherhood were assessed before the intervention and again 3 months after the baby's birth. Quality assurance analysts evaluated mentor fidelity (adherence to the curriculum, competence in engaging couples with specified curricular content) through a review of the transcripts and audiotapes from the sessions. Mentors also rated their own adherence. Results: Although the mentors overestimated adherence, quality assurance analyst ratings found acceptable levels of adherence and competence, with no significant maleYfemale differences in fidelity. Adherence and competence were marginally higher in sessions that required fewer direct couples' interventions. Parents reported satisfaction with the interventions and showed statistically significant improvement in the family dimensions of interest at 3-4 months posttreatment. Conclusions/Implications for Practice: Findings support the wisdom of engaging men both as interventionists and as recipients of prenatal coparenting interventionsVeven in families where the parents are uncoupled and non-co-residential.Item Open Access UN peacemaking efforts in intrastate conflict : the role of neutrality(Bilkent University, 2009) Rizzuto, Natalie M.The object of this thesis is to find out how the United Nations (UN) can best achieve a successful outcome in its peacemaking efforts in civil conflicts; specifically it focuses on the question of neutrality or bias in the UN’s peacemaking attempts. By largely using content analysis of UN resolutions and some basic statistics, the findings of this thesis show that the UN is less likely to be successful in the peacemaking of civil conflicts when it is biased. Furthermore, the UN is found more often to be biased than neutral in resolutions pertaining to peacemaking attempts in civil conflicts. These results indicate that, although the UN gains its legitimacy and role in the world from its perceived neutrality, this is not the case and this may have implications for its future intervention efforts in civil conflicts.