Browsing by Subject "Colombia"
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Item A 1,500-year record of late Holocene temperature variability and recent warming from Laguna Chingaza, Colombia(2012-08) Bixler, Curtis William; Shanahan, Timothy M.Rapid tropical glacier retreat over the last 50 years has been well documented, and has received significant media attention. Many studies suggest these changes are due to rising global surface air temperatures, however disentangling the effects of temperature and precipitation has hampered scientific consensus. Furthermore, because of the shortness of the instrumental record, it is difficult to assess the larger significance of the climate changes associated with the decline of tropical glaciers. Here, we present a locally calibrated, independent temperature reconstruction for the past 1,500 years from Laguna Chingaza, Colombia based on distributions of branched Glycerol Dialkyl Glycerol Tetraethers (brGDGTs) in order to assess the controls on long term temperature variability in the tropical Andes, and their relationship with growth and demise of Andean glaciers. Comparison of reconstructed temperatures with the instrumental record suggests that our proxy record faithfully records decadal to century scale trends in temperature. The largest temperature decline over the last 1,500 years was a decrease of 2.5 ± 0.3 °C during the Little Ice Age (LIA), reaching lowest temperatures during the mid-17th century, and is broadly consistent with terrestrial temperature reconstructions throughout the tropics and the higher latitudes. The structure and timing of temperature changes at Laguna Chingaza are remarkably similar to recent terrestrial temperature reconstructions from elsewhere in the tropics, including sites in the tropical Pacific and equatorial Africa, suggesting that these changes are widespread in the tropics. Together, these records suggest that warming over the last few decades is unprecedented over the last 1,500 years, including the Medieval Climate Anomaly (800-1150 AD). Comparison of these temperature changes with records of Andean glacier limits suggests that temperature is the dominant driver of glacial retreat, particularly over the past few decades. Additionally, paleotemperatures inferred from LIA and recent glacial equilibrium line altitudes (ELAs) underestimate past changes in temperature when compared with brGDGTs reconstructions, suggesting that changes in precipitation complicate the use of glacier ELAs to reconstruct past temperatures. The coupling of temperature and ice extent in South America suggests that with projected future warming, the health of tropical glaciers could be in jeopardy, significantly impacting the communities and ecosystems that depend on them.Item A study on the chains of strategic interactions between civilians and belligerent organizations over resources, in the midst of the Colombian armed confrontation (1990 – 2010)(2017-08-10) Ponce De Leon, Alejandro; Auyero, Javier; Young, Michael P.Based on interview and survey data, this document explores the logics of these interactions as well as their aggregate outcomes. Unlike customary accounts that portray civilians as mere subjects of belligerent’s power or receptors of their violence, the study of how belligerents and civilians solve what I coin as the “Resource Dilemma” reveals that, rather than passive actors, civilians are strategic in making a set of decisions, resort to social, cultural and economic capitals, and have the capacity to negotiate the terms of their subjection. As such, this document explores how, why and when civilians cooperate, negotiate, prevaricate, or resist with a belligerent organization’s demand for resources.Item Analysis and evolution of the ICT educational program in Colombia(2016-05) Daza Gomez, Miguel Felipe; Resta, Paul E.; Hughes, Joan EThis Master’s report represents the culmination of a study; wherein I set out to evaluate the evolution of the Information and Communication education policies in Colombia. I conducted the original self-study with a historical analysis of the technical policies in Colombia since 1930, tracing the connection between policymaking and the implementation of national educative programs. Based on primary sources from the Ministry of Education, Ministry of Information Technologies and Communications, Colombian National Development Plans, and the Decennial Plan of Education, I was able to identify changes in the Colombian legislation regarding the development of ICT education policies. The Colombian development of ICT education policies is an interesting case, as since in 1991 the educative system is decentralized meaning that municipal governments should be accountable of the adoption and integration of educative policies created by the Ministry of Education in Bogotá. The regional adoption of national policies is done through the strategic coordination between the Ministry of Education and the Regional Education Secretaries. This Master’s report presents a historical analysis that describes the socio-economic impact of ICT on the development of a knowledge-based society that supports economic growth in innovation and research. Continuously, is a historical description of the Colombian educative system, analyzing decisions made by policymakers to modernize the ICT infrastructure and teacher training in public schools to increase the quality of Colombian public education through the use of technology. The implementation of technology in public schools has been supported by the conjunct efforts of the Ministry of Education and Ministry of Information Technologies and Communication through the program “Computadores para Educar” (Computers to Educate). The program Computers to Educate had facilitated computers, tablets and teacher training to public schools across Colombia. An alliance between public and private sector had facilitated the creation of open-source content in the five Innovation Centers around the country, who creates the content for the national portal “Colombia Aprende”. This national portal facilitates content on science, language, math, and other areas to teachers and students. Colombian Policymakers had also utilized UNESCO ICT Competency Framework for Teachers to create an own competency framework for Colombian teachers.Item Armed Conflict and the Organizing Process of Black Communities in the Colombian South Pacific(2010) Restrepo, EduardoItem Campaigning with empty pockets : why the liberal party wins regional elections In Colombia(2010-08) Gamboa Gutierrez, Laura; Greene, Kenneth F., 1969-; Hunter, WendyIn the past decade, party systems have collapsed in Venezuela and Peru. Scholars have suggested that Colombia may be following a similar fate. I argue it is not. Despite loosing national elections the Liberal Party still wins subnationally. Regional clientelistic networks, based on goods that do not depend upon the central state, help provide votes to those candidates who have been in politics the longest. The latter are likely to be liberal politicians, with privileged positions within the party. They get nominated, thus, they have no reason to defect. Because they distribute goods that are independent from the national state, they also have little incentive to promote national candidates. Consequently, the LP wins within the regions but is unable to attain control of national offices. As long as it keeps doing so this party is unlikely to disappear.Item Careful crackdowns : human rights and campaigning on public security in Latin America(2012-05) Uang, Randy Sunwin; Hunter, Wendy; Weyland, Kurt; Dietz, Henry; Madrid, Raul; Greene, KennethCrime and violence are regularly seen as being ripe for politicians to turn into campaign issues and win votes. This study argues, in contrast, that success on public security is not so automatic: human rights values constrain the use of security and the winning of votes on it. Even in Latin American countries, where voters' concerns about rampant crime and violence are among the highest in the world, considerations of human rights combine with low trust in security forces to restrict the viability of the issue in key ways. Examination of presidential campaigns in Colombia in 1994, 1998, 2002, and 2010 supports this claim. Success on security is a two-step process: invoking the issue and then gaining voter support on the topic. Usability depends on the absence of recent repression and the degree of organization of security threats. Then, winning votes on it depends on having a civilian background, a campaign that balances security with other issues, and messages of careful enforcement. These messages of careful enforcement promise targeted, deliberate use of security forces' enforcement activities in a way that pays attention to human rights, rather than promising unbridled enforcement, increased punishment, or programs of long-term prevention. This study therefore shows how candidates are forced to walk a fine line between promising to establish order and promising to protect basic rights and liberties. These findings are powerful, providing an understanding of public security in electoral campaigns that maintains a much closer fit with empirical reality than existing research. The results also provide a critique of the sociological school of vote choice and points to ways in which ownership of the issue of security may be leased away. Furthermore, because the results are driven by the spread of human rights values, the results demonstrate the importance of quick shifts in political culture as a factor that explains changes in political patterns.Item Cenozoic structural evolution of the eastern margin of the Middle Magdalena Valley basin, Colombia : integration of structural restorations, low-temperature thermochronology, and sandstone petrography(2011-08) Sánchez, Carlos Javier, M.S. in geological Sciences; Horton, Brian K., 1970-; Mann, Paul; Ketcham, RichardStructural analysis of surface and subsurface data from the Middle Magdalena Valley basin and Eastern Cordillera fold-thrust belt to construct a kinematic model for its Cenozoic structural and stratigraphic evolution. The La Salina west-vergent thrust system marks the boundary between the Paleogene foreland basin of the Middle Magdalena basin and the Eastern Cordillera fold-thrust belt. New low-temperature thermochonological and sandstone petrographic analyses provide constraints on ages of thrust deformation and sediment dispersal. Apatite fission track (AFT) and U-Th/He thermochronological results show the timing of three structural events along the La Salina fault system: (1) late Eocene-early Oligocene (~43–35 Ma) initial hanging wall exhumation; (2) continued middle Miocene (~15 Ma) exhumation; and (3) continued but more rapid late Miocene (~12–3 Ma) hanging wall exhumation. Vitrinite reflectance results provide estimates of maximum burial depths for the hanging wall of the La Salina fault ranging from 4 to 6 km., this depth of burial estimates constrain the basin geometry during its late Eocene to late Miocene evolution. The eastern hanging wall of the La Salina fault displays a broad anticline-syncline pair affecting Cretaceous to Eocene strata with no significant faulting, whereas the western footwall contains a complex series of tight, thrust-related folds in Eocene-Quaternary strata. For foreland basin province, a proposed triangle zone accommodates a small amount of east-west shortening (< 1000 m) along the frontal thrust system by east-vergent backthrusting within a broader passive-roof duplex. East-west shortening in the Cenozoic stratigraphic section was also accommodated by detachment folding, which produced localized areas of steep dips. In the proposed kinematic restoration, the most recent phase of deformation represents out-of-sequence reactivation of the La Salina fault that is consistent with irregular crosscutting relationships of some footwall structures. Earliest exhumation by ~45–30 Ma in the Eastern Cordillera fold-thrust belt province matches (1) an increased proportion of sedimentary lithic fragments; and (2) a high degree of compositional maturity (Q88F4Lf8). Exhumation since ~15 Ma in the foreland province coincides with (1) the highest accumulation rates observed for the upper Miocene Real Group; and (2) a decrease in compositional maturity (Q55F8Lf36).Item Challenges and opportunities for the development of shale resources in Colombia(2013-12) Rodriguez Sanchez, Juan Camilo; Fisher, W. L. (William Lawrence), 1932-After the success of shale gas development in the United States, countries around the world are looking within their own territories for the possibility of replicating the U.S successes in order to achieve financial and/or energy security objectives. Such enterprise has shown to be not as easy as it might have been perceived to be. Some countries like Argentina, China and Poland, where large reserves of shale resources have been identified, have struggled to obtain beneficial results from their shale operations, with the result that even the more optimistic operators are now showing more caution and are reviewing everything before making any commitments to operate in countries with identified shale resources. Colombia, a country with strong oil and gas roots in its economic history, is actively attempting to attract operators to explore and produce their shale resources. If successful, these efforts have the potential to bring increased foreign investment to the country, while also improving Colombia’s oil and gas reserves, which have been declining over the last five years. This thesis, will address the challenges and opportunities of the development of shale resources in Colombia that operators will face by reviewing several critical aspects of the process. This thesis begins with a discussion of the geology of shale resources in Colombia, followed, first, by a review and analysis of the fiscal and contractual regime established in Colombia for the oil and gas industry, then, second, a risk analysis of possible Colombian shale operations, then third, a financial analysis of a possible shale project and, finally, ends with a summary of the challenges and opportunities an operator could face based on the analysis of the previous topics.Item Charting A New Human Rights Discourse 'from the Territories': Social Movements and Peace in Cauca, Colombia(The Bernard and Audre Rapoport Center for Human Rights and Justice, 2018) Rodríguez, Patricia M.Peace with social justice has been elusive in Colombia, despite the series of laws and the latest peace negotiations to end the armed conflict that started in the 1960s. Instead of accepting top-down state-led legislation as the final word, grassroots movements in Cauca came together locally, regionally, and nationally to demand adherence to a minimal set of policies that brought human rights, peace, and social justice to the foreground of politics. What might civil society-centered debates over these policies and legislation mean in terms of challenging more mainstream human rights approaches and asymmetries of power in Colombia? This work draws on field research and secondary research to bring light to how solidarity-based communities and groups think about and construct alternative notions of territorial ordering and socio-economic rights. Civil society-led proposals center on demands for a “particular sort of state” to confront their dispossession (Bebbington et al. 2015, 265). At the local level, civil society-based territorial governance approaches that stress “flexible authority structures” (and not rigid rules that abide by state-led equations regarding multiculturalism, justice and territoriality) in the negotiation over territorial ordering can be a big part of the strategy of building conviviality, or coalitions. They also provide the basis on which to propose broader demands related to human rights on the ground, in a context of continued violence.Item The collective El Sindicato, 1976-1979 : intervening in conceptualism in Latin America(2011-05) Rodríguez, María Teresa, 1983-; Giunta, Andrea; Tarver, Gina M.Conceptual practices developed in Colombia towards the end of the 1960s and into the 1970s. Even a cursory look at surveys of Colombian conceptual art shows that the collective El Sindicato, active between 1976 and 1979, secured its space in these accounts with its 1978 work Alacena con zapatos, which won the top prize at the XXVII Salón Nacional. However, Alacena con zapatos was neither the only, nor the most significant, contribution of El Sindicato to the development of conceptual practices. The collective’s rich oeuvre, while concise, was nonetheless remarkable in its interventions on public spaces as a means for social change. A number of factors have led to the critical misunderstanding and, ultimately, the historiographical neglect of these interventions. This thesis problematizes these factors in order to reframe and expand El Sindicato’s role within the narrative of Colombian art. To elucidate El Sindicato’s contributions, and taking into account that much of Colombian conceptual art remains unknown in the United States, this thesis also registers Colombia’s artistic field as it stood in the 1970s. In all, my project situates El Sindicato’s practices within the broader narrative of Conceptualism as a means to both enrich our understanding of contemporary art in Colombia and help expand the familiar boundaries of the map of conceptual art.Item Colombia's history of modern architecture revisited through the housing agency Instituto de Crédito Territorial : 1939-1965(2018-10-10) Sanchez Holguin, Victoria E.; Lara, Fernando Luiz; Cleary, Richard; Irazabal-Zurita, Clara; Lopez, Sarah; Mondragón, HugoThis dissertation examines the housing program of the Colombian state agency Instituto de Crédito Territorial (ICT) implemented in the mid-twentieth century. Three case studies of housing projects located in the city of Bogotá serve as a means to critically assess the agency’s contributions to modern architecture in that country and the major transformations this agency and its housing program experienced during the period of the study: Muzú (1949), Centro Urbano Antonio Nariño - CUAN (1952) and Ciudad Kennedy (1961). This dissertation sheds light on the ideas and beliefs that animated the stakeholders—technicians, agency leaders, and politicians—intervening in the building of low-cost housing, as well as on the implications of their assumptions about the populations to be housed in the ICT projects, i.e. low income and middle class sectors. This exploration is based on minutes of the ICT’s board of directors meetings, and supplemented by a wide range of additional primary sources, including, but not limited to, blueprints, photos, publications, technical national periodicals, and regulations. A multidimensional analysis and interpretation of these sources emanating from different authors and stakeholders involves different fields of inquiry, such as politics, socio-economics, architecture, and urban planning. Drawing from postcolonial theory, this dissertation revisits the visible, official narratives around concepts such as progress, modernity, and modernization, in order to question the emancipatory discourse of modern architecture. This dissertation argues that the ICT's housing program emerged as a significant contribution to the advancement of modern architecture in Colombia through unexpected and, until now, unexplored ways and actors. Simultaneously, this work illuminates the intersections of the housing program with the government's political agenda and with the geopolitical dimension of international cooperation programs promoted by the United States. These intersections, mediated by rationales of development and modernization’s discourse, lay bare the power relations underlying the housing program and explain its social component. Through its social programs, the agency sought to "educate" and "civilize" the future inhabitants of the housing projects, in order to make them compliant with the logics and goals of policies nurtured by the discourse of development.Item Colombia, Web archive of the Consejo Nacional Electoral(2012) Consejo Nacional Electoral de ColombiaItem Comparative Studies of the "Japanese Peace Corps" and U.S. Peace Corps: Program Terminations in El Salvador and Colombia(LLILAS Benson Latin American Studies and Collections, 2013) Kawachi, KumikoItem Creating spaces of shared citizenship and social control : redefining invisible borders through urban design interventions in Las Independencias, San Javier, Medellín(2018-05-07) Todtz, Evan Thomas; Sletto, BjørnMedellín, a city once plagued by violence, has recently become a global model for more equitable urban planning and urban design practice. Initiated during the mayoral administration of Sergio Fajardo (2004-2007), a progressive planning tool known as the Integrated Urban Project (PUI) guides physical design interventions in the urban peripheries where historic state absence had led to extreme levels of violence and socio-economic inequities. Collectively denoted as social urbanism, these new institutional and mobility projects seek to disrupt the existing geographies of violence, referred to by local residents as invisible borders (fronteras invisibles), while newly created public spaces aim to promote a culture of shared citizenship (cultura ciudadanía) between neighborhood residents. Given the state’s intent to shape and exert control over the socio-spatial relationships of residents within contexts of urban informality, this thesis seeks to contextualize the planning and design of new public spaces within the everyday lived experiences of neighborhood residents by presenting a case study along the public escalator system in the neighborhood sector of Las Independencias, San Javier. Based on a “quasi” design ethnography research methodology, including researcher observations and local resident interviews, the thesis provides a detailed description of physical and social characteristics of new urban common spaces. The public escalator system was designed to disrupt existing geographies of violence by creating new spatial connections and an institutional presence in Las Independencias. However, this mobility infrastructure also erodes the social vibrancy of the stairway, a dynamic social space within contexts of urban informality. By supporting only unidirectional movement (up or down) and removing the stairway’s potential for residents to gather, the escalators generate a pass-through space by design. Furthermore, the design favors social gathering in highly controlled public platforms between escalator segments, limiting the potential uses of these spaces to what the state deems acceptable and desirable. Ultimately, the design and surveillance of the public escalator system paradoxically works to provide residents with enhanced mobility, accessibility and socio-economic opportunities while simultaneously strengthening the state’s institutional presence in the sector, limiting the potential to reflect embedded local cultural values and practices.Item Decentralization of education in Colombia : its operation and effects on education performance and inequality(2020-08-13) Tellez Canas, Santiago Alejandro; Von Hippel, Paul T.; Rodríguez Ward, Victoria; Ward, Peter; Weyland, Kurt; Linden, LeighThe distribution of functions and decision-making over the educational system is different all over the world. In some countries, most of the responsibilities lie with the national government, while in other countries schools or local authorities enjoy high levels of autonomy. This dissertation aims to assess the effects of decentralization of education in education expenditures, performance and inequality. Second, it aims to evaluate if political competition and local administrative capacity are mechanisms that explain that relationship, and moreover to understand how those factors relate to the output and outcomes of interest. The dissertation focuses in Colombia for its historical experience with decentralization, and more importantly, because in 2001 it adopted a reform which granted autonomy to large municipalities with respect to education management. To provide a comparative perspective to the results for Colombia, the dissertation also includes a comparative analysis of seven Latin American countries. The dissertation finds that in the case of Colombia, decentralization increases education expenditures and inequality but does not have any effect on education performance. For municipalities with high levels of political competition, decentralization does not have a different effect on expenditures, but in some estimations it appears to decrease performance, and decreases education segregation, while for those with low levels of political competition, it only has a differentiated effect on education expenditures that municipalities make with their own resources. The quantitative chapters of the dissertation also show that levels of local administrative capacity, as measured by the percentage of income generated by municipalities out of total revenue, only have an effect on the latter type of expenditures, but do not produce differentiated effects on performance or inequality. The dissertation also shows, through a qualitative exploration, that even though the stated purpose of the 2001 reform was to decentralize decision-making, it appears to have sparked a growing trend to recentralization of funding and decision-making. Despite this trend, with respect to the little autonomy municipalities have, those with resources and technical capacity are able to use to to experiment with new programs and initiatives. However, that does not appear to be the case for most autonomous municipalities. In those municipalities, political capture of autonomy for politicking and clientelism and the lack of administrative capacity hamper the use of autonomy to improve education performance and reduce inequality. Finally, the comparative exploration of seven Latin American countries largely confirms the findings of Colombia that the association between decentralization and performance and inequality tends to be weak.Item Deconstructing climate smart agriculture : why resource distribution and power matter in addressing climate change in Colombia(2018-12-20) Zavala, Patricia Ann; Weaver, Catherine, 1971-The focus of this thesis is on farmers and climate-focused agricultural development. This thesis first describes the objectives international development framework called Climate Smart Agriculture (CSA) which aims to improve farmers’ livelihoods, increase resiliency to climate change while also reducing greenhouse gas emissions. It then explains the evolution of the CSA approach and prevailing criticisms. Using an in-depth case study of three farming communities in Colombia and insights from interviews of IGO staff instrumental in the conceptualization of CSA, I find that CSA promulgated by the major IGO’s such as the UN Food and Agriculture Organization often overlooks the role that resource distribution and power plays for smallholder farmers that are attempting to adapt to climate change. This leads to numerous problems in CSA implementation and has practical implications for sustainability and success. Qualitative fieldwork provides observations that suggest that the countries in the Global North benefit disproportionately from CSA policies, which thus far have not disrupted the systemic inequalities in food trade and international agricultural policies that perpetuate dependencies in the Global South. I argue that CSA is misguided in its attempt to improve farmers’ livelihoods. The CSA concept overlooks the context of the political infrastructure, reifies systemic inequalities and thus has little positive consequence or impact, especially for farmers that are engaged in broader struggles for equitable resource distribution and food sovereignty. I provide a recommendation to modify the CSA concept to improve outcomes.Item Education for the alleviation of poverty : a comparative study of conditional cash transfer programs to improve educational outcomes in Nicaragua and Colombia(2009-05) Stackhouse, Shannon Alexis; Lincove, Jane Arnold; Reyes, Pedro, 1954-The importance of education for individual well-being, social cohesion and economic growth is widely accepted by researchers and policymakers alike. Yet there exist vast numbers of people around the world, largely poor, who continue to lag behind wealthier people, often within their own nations. Conditional cash transfer programs were created to encourage investments in education and health by subsidizing their cost and changing household preferences. The programs increase short-term income as well as future wage potential, thus decreasing short-term and long-term poverty, as well as the poverty that is passed from generation to generation. Begun in Mexico and Brazil, the conditional cash transfer model is being replicated in many countries, but its replicability across socioeconomic and political contexts is far from clear. The present study adds to the research on conditional cash transfer programs through a comparative quantitative analysis of the effects of two programs on key educational outcomes in Nicaragua and Colombia. Using secondary panel data for the Nicaraguan Red de Proteccion Social and the Colombian Familias en Accion programs, a model reflecting demand constraints to education is used to determine the relative impacts of individual and household characteristics in the schooling decision, as well as to measure program impact in some of the most impoverished communities in the two countries. The empirical analysis is situated within a description of the historical, political and demographic contexts into which the programs were introduced. The results indicate that both programs increased enrollment and attendance, with lesser but still positive effects on retention. These effects were stronger for boys in Colombia, as was the importance of schooling expectations in determining enrollment. The study suggests that conditional cash transfer programs should be effective in other settings in which low educational attainment is caused largely by a lack of household resources.Item Ending civil war in Colombia(2015-05) Popa, Stoica Cristinel; Givens, Terri E., 1964-; Weyland, KurtCivil war is one of the most studied phenomena in political science. Its impact on human lives and economic development makes it one of the most destructive events known to mankind. Yet no scholarly consensus has emerged over what causes a civil war to be brought to a resolution. This master's report, relying on a case study of Colombia, shows that two of the most popular theories for explaining the continuation of civil war, the international context and the availability of drugs or other resources, are inaccurate. Instead, the continuation of civil war depends on the state's capacity to obtain military success against the armed groups and it's capability to guarantee the safety of the demobilized rebels. This report uses Weber’s concept of state capacity as the monopoly over the use of legitimate violence.Item Essays on three looming policy crises in Latin America(2022-08-12) Rojas Álvarez, Alfonso José; Ward, Peter M., 1951-; Waxman, Andrew R.; Stolp, Chandler; Powers, Dan; Garnier, LeonardoThis dissertation is structured as three papers which seek to contribute to the increasing body of literature on three looming crises in Latin America, in topics identified as the core of public policy debates in the region for the upcoming decade. The first paper explores the relationship between levels of air pollution and safety incidents in Medellín, Colombia, during the period 2017-2019. Using an empirical strategy, I find a positive relationship between PM₂.₅ pollution levels and both property and violent daily incidents at the neighborhood level, after accounting for weather and location characteristics. These findings constitute a valuable tool for cost-benefit analysis of the environmental crisis in Colombia that uses an approach focused on its effects on safety that is currently absent in the conversation. In the second paper, on the crisis of chronic disease, using the Mexican Health and Aging Study 2018 we compare total out-of-pocket expenses for physician visits and medication among older adults living with diabetes in Mexico, stratified between urban, semi-urban, and rural localities. We find that although the healthcare safety net program (Seguro Popular) has improved access to care, older Mexicans affiliated with it have far higher out-of-pocket expenditures for medications than those on employer-based plans in all localities. Across all groups, the uninsured bear the highest burden of expenditures, highlighting continued need to address health inequities for the most underserved populations. Finally, the third paper on the rental markets’ crisis, follows the need to increase research on the availability of non-ownership alternatives in the region. It explores the effectiveness of an ease-of-eviction policy in Costa Rica by using household surveys to explore rental volumes before and after changes in regulation, while putting the country’s rental markets in broader perspective compared to OECD countries and their varying levels of eviction restrictions. The salience of these papers is greater today than ever, as Latin American countries face both present and looming policy crises on multiple fronts. Tackling these issues effectively will require a combination of public innovation, rigorous academic research, and interdisciplinary approaches to complex policy challenges.Item Exile within borders : a study of complinace with the international regime to proetct internally displaced persons(2015-05) Cardona-Fox, Gabriel; Weaver, Catherine, 1971-; Hutchings, Robert L; Stolp, Chandler W; Elkins, Zachary; Betts, AlexanderThe UN Guiding Principles for the Protection of Internally Displaced Persons (GP), introduced before the UN General Assembly in 1998, are the cornerstone of the international regime for the protection of internally displaced persons (IDPs). Much has been written about their unusual and unlikely development, yet very little is known about their effectiveness in altering state behavior towards their displaced populations. This dissertation takes a systematic and global look at patterns of commitment and compliance with the IDP regime and identifies forces that have driven states to comply with them. This dissertation addresses: (1) when and why countries voluntarily bind their sovereignty by instituting the GP into domestic law, and (2) if countries that have instituted the GP into law in fact comply with them. I tackle these questions using mixed methods. First, I present a large-n statistical analysis of all documented cases of displacement in the past twenty years to test the merits of competing theories of norm diffusion. Then I trace the evolution of Colombia’s response to internal displacement from denial of the crisis to deep compliance with the IDP regime. Both the first and second stages of the dissertation find that, above all, regional factors are key to the diffusion of IDP norms. This is evidenced by the clear pattern of regional clustering of commitment found in the statistical analysis and by the significant influence exerted by Latin American regional politics found in Colombia’s evolving response to its displacement crisis. This study should be of particular interest to policy practitioners and activists involved in addressing the problem of internal displacement and protecting the rights of IDPs.