Public works

This dissertation focuses on the construction of the Trabzon-Bayezid road in northeastern Anatolia during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. On a micro-level, this work focuses on the social history of the road and narrates the stories of various actors (such as …

Through a study of irrigation and water usage, this dissertation examines the function and eventual demise of a system of Ottoman imperial natural resource management and balance over the course of the long eighteenth century (1650 to 1820). Using both Arabic and Ottoman Turkish…

This dissertation examines the impacts and functioning of a community led public works intervention in Yemen, the Labor Intensive Public Works Program (LIWP). LIWP was designed using the "twin-track" approach of combining short-term relief with long-term investments. The program…

This dissertation examines how voters reward politicians for the provisioning of a new service. Using new data on the expansion of access to electricity under the Tennessee Valley Authority, this study asks if voters reward politicians based on how much benefit they receive from…