This thesis presents original data on Greece’s domestic debt from1824–1927 and assesses its role during the country’s first century of borrowing. It finds that the loans issued by the National Bank of Greece consistently played a minor role, averaging 10–25% of the overall outstanding debt. The developments in borrowing, repayment, and default coincided with changes in the foreign debt or macroeconomic conditions. The major defaults that occurred in 1843 and 1893 were triggered at the extraordinarily high debt burden levels of 200–300% of GDP. Additionally, an empirical analysis finds that the interest rate prices of the foreign debts align closely with structural fundamentals such as GDP and trade balance, whereas the prices on the domestic debt do not. This supports the hypothesis that the National Bank, as both a commercial lender and the country’s debt manager, engaged in a mild form of financial repression by subsidizing its loans to the state and provided funding regardless of the perceived credit risk. The domestic debt was cheaper, but also of a much smaller magnitude reflective of the country’s incomplete asset market structure, and at no point did it match the foreign debt’s ability to fund the state’s needs. The domestic market’s credit constraints may partly explain why the country accepted costly political and economic interventions in return for access to international financial markets.

In the past decades, the immigrant population in Montreal has undergone rapid growth, blurring the historical divide between Anglophone and Francophone populations. What does this demographic transition mean for hockey fan culture in Montreal? Can hockey reshape interracial relations? Will current Canadiens followers be eager to include new, non-Francophone supporters? Should the Montreal Canadiens expect to see a rise in fan attendance with a more ethnically diverse team? I consider these questions in relation to the perspectives of Montreal residents (via field interviews), literature review, and examining possible correlations between trends in demographics in Montreal and fan participation. Principal findings: (1) Most Montreal residents consider themselves Montreal Canadiens fans and find it easier to relate to a stranger over a common team affiliation than common ethnicity. (2) Old and new immigrants do not encounter obstacles when wanting to root for the Canadiens, and very few people, if any, feel the need to find another team that will accept them. (3) In general, Montreal residents are not looking for a more ethnically diverse team. While some Canadiens fans reminisce of the old traditions and nationalistic symbols of the roots of the franchise, there is something to be said for the entire fan base being at a point where they can judge players based on their skill, and not their ethnic origins.

Algeria was a French colony from 1830–1962 but there has been surprisingly little scholarship done that compares French rule of Algeria with the regime that preceded it, the Ottoman regency of Algiers, which lasted from 1520 to 1830. In my thesis, I will demonstrate that the French administration of Algeria was more stable and better received by the native population when the French appropriated Ottoman strategies of governance and cultivated alliances with Algerian elites. My focus will be on the time period spanning 1830, the year of the French invasion, to 1901, the year in which Algeria’s national boundaries were solidified and internal resistance to the French regime was temporarily subdued. My research findings at Harvard and at the Archives nationales d’outre mer have indicated that, in the first two decades following the invasion, there were concerted attempts made by the French military administration and the Algerian upper class to establish a hybrid form of governance that merged aspects of the Ottoman military oligarchy with those of the French constitutional monarchy. I will argue that, while French gubernatorial practices initially mirrored those of the Ottoman administration, they later diverged from them, a point or rupture that coincides with the transition from the French military to civil administration. Whereas the French military selectively used Ottoman administrative techniques to rule the colony, these policies, which were staunchly supported by generals like General Thomas Robert Bugeaud (1784–1849), were gradually abandoned after the end of the limited occupation (1830–1841). After this time, the design and enforcement of the French colonial program passed to the French civil administration, which ignored the demands of the native population and catered almost exclusively to settlers’ interests. An examination of the effects that these gubernatorial transitions had on the Algerians will reveal that the French failed to capitalize on the initial goodwill of the elite Algerian class and lost an opportunity to establish a truly stable colonial government. Instead, by devising laws that reduced the political power of Algerian merchant elites, landlords, and bureaucrats, the French inadvertently contributed to a rise of fundamentalism and nationalism in the colony.

This thesis explores the rising salience of public opinion for the potential yet highly uncertain enlargement of the European Union to include Turkey. Although historically European integration and enlargement have proceeded independently of the preferences of relatively quiescent citizens, this modus operandi has come to an end. Through planned referendums and EU issue voting, public spheres in Europe have recently and will continue to exert significant constraining influence over major EU decisions. This thesis addresses the thorny issue of Turkey’s bid for EU membership in light of such recent trends. Whereas ten countries achieved accession in 2004 through the fulfillment of the ‘Copenhagen criteria’ set forth by the EU Commission, I argue that Turkey faces de facto additional barriers on top of standard economic, political, and legal requirements. I find that, in its deeply controversial bid for accession, Turkey is subject to an unprecedented layer of ‘public opinion’ conditionality that operates outside the scope of traditional criteria applied to candidate countries. Drawing from recent scholarship, archival research and Eurobarometer survey data, I focus not on the viewpoints of EU leaders or of the Turkish people, but rather on the distinctive factors and concerns that steer reactions to Turkey’s candidacy in European national public spheres. I first track the rising significance of public opinion in EU-related decision making and note the commitment of France and Austria to hold referendums to eventually decide the fate of the Turkish candidacy. I then address historical and contemporary forces fueling widespread public rejection of Turkish accession, with an emphasis on France, Germany, and Austria. The thesis identifies historical tension and contemporary fears of the dissolution of national identity as the main drivers of cultural protectionism in public spheres. Turkey’s candidacy is thus inextricably intertwined with the intractable identity crises Western European societies are faced with today. The salience of culture and identity as obstacles to accession should not be denied but rather recognized, analyzed and fully debated in the context of the democratization of EU decision making.