DPIR MPhil students awarded Department’s latest thesis prize
A host of students have received the Department’s latest MPhil thesis prize for 2024-25 for getting the highest thesis mark in their cohort.
MPhil students Elina Dilger, Benedetta Giocoli, Conrad Kunadu and Juliet Paiva all received the highest mark in their thesis for their degree programme.
Further details of the award recipients and their theses are below:
Elina Dilger – MPhil Politics: European Politics and Society; thesis title: ‘Mixed Signals: The European Central Bank’s Climate-related Speeches and Their Effect on Financial Markets.’
She said:
“I am very humbled and thankful to receive the MPhil thesis prize from Oxford’s Department of Politics and International Relations. I am especially grateful to my wonderful cohort: the discussions of our theses, the daily crosswords, lunch, and ice cream breaks kept me sane and allowed me to return to work with a fresh mind. The other European Politics students have been an amazing support network and an inspiring friend group, from whom I have learned so much and who have also helped me to get through the most challenging times of thesis writing.
“I am also thankful to the Department, which gave me the academic freedom to write a political economy thesis that perhaps sometimes ventured a bit too far into the field of economics, with a mixed-methods design that utilised qualitative, computational, and classical quantitative methods. My thesis examined the evolution of the European Central Bank’s speeches on climate change and assessed their impact on financial markets. This contributed to a broader understanding of the political actions of technocratic institutions, such as the ECB, and their effects on the real world.
“Lastly, all of this would not have been possible without the financial support of the German Academic Scholarship Foundation and the German Academic Exchange Service, which jointly have fully funded my studies at Oxford. Without this support, I would not have been able even to start my academic journey in the UK. It has made an enormous difference.”
Benedetta Giocoli – MPhil Politics: Comparative Government; thesis title: ‘Determinants and Mechanisms of Pre-Adult Political Socialisation Within the Family: Evidence from Britain.’
She said:
“I am honoured to receive the MPhil thesis prize in Comparative Government. I am especially grateful to Professor James Tilley, who has been an incredibly generous supervisor over the past two years. Without his guidance and mentorship this research would not have been possible.
“My thesis examined political socialisation within the family, focusing on the ways in which parents influence their children’s political attitudes. Understanding how this process works is very important because attitudes developed before adulthood tend to shape political behaviour later in life. I find that parents influence children’s political development mainly by communicating their political preferences directly, rather than relying on children observing and imitating these preferences on their own.
“I look forward to expanding this project during my DPhil. I hope to delve deeper into the psychological mechanisms of parents’ political influence and expand my focus to other venues of political socialisation, such as neighbourhoods and schools.”
Conrad Kunadu – MPhil International Relations; thesis title: ‘’Proteins to Paradigms: How Technology Shapes the Bioweapons Governance Regime’.
He said:
“It's an honour to receive this prize for my research. I'm grateful to all the support I received from those I worked with, those I interviewed for my thesis, my supervisor, my thought partners, my loved ones, as well as the ESRC GUDTP and BAF scholarships that made this possible.
“My thesis employs a mixed-methods content analysis to explore four cases of biotechnological developments and one null case in order to understand how biotechnological developments have contributed to the securitisation of bioweapons. I ultimately find that biotechnological developments have driven only modest securitisation, with a central dynamic being that the ubiquitous, processual, and dual-use nature of synthetic biology endogenously creates pressures that preclude securitisation.
“This research was an experiment in conducting policy-relevant yet academically rigorous research, and I'm thrilled it paid off. I'm ultimately motivated to work on the governance of emerging technologies and the utilisation of technology as a tool of governance, and my findings have greatly shaped how I think about the challenges and opportunities for biotechnology governance. I'm excited to continue learning, researching, and working towards tackling what I believe are some of the world's most pressing problems."
Juliet Paiva – MPhil Politics: Political Theory; thesis title ‘Deep Disagreement in Democracy: A Case of Testimonial Injustice in Democratic Discourse.’
She said:
“I am honoured to receive the G.A. Cohen Prize in Political Theory for my MPhil thesis. My thesis critiqued the “post-truth” account of democratic decline, which claims that the many epistemic issues in contemporary democracies, such as deep disagreement over factual matters, boil down to a problem of the formation of beliefs by individuals. In response, I argued that groups in political life can disagree about facts in epistemically legitimate ways, and that the real problem for democracy is not necessarily this factual disagreement, but the process of sharing testimony. Therefore, we must focus our attention on the problem of testimonial injustice in democratic discourse, where epistemic practices are discredited on the basis of group identity.
“No recognition of this sort would be possible without the guidance and support of my supervisor, Paul Billingham. His attention and intellectual generosity pushed this project to be better at every step, and I will always be very grateful for his detailed feedback. I am also grateful for the support of my family, my dear friends in Hertford College, and the rest of my MPhil cohort! I look forward to continuing this work as a PhD student at Harvard University.”
