How can political science account for the decision of African states to strengthen their ties with China, often at the expense of other alliances and often in the face of economic risks? This thesis explores this question in the context of relations between Ethiopia and China, especially in the context of investments made by Chinese sovereign wealth funds in the Ethiopian economy. To begin to answer this question this thesis recasts the China-Africa debate to focus on African, i.e. Ethiopian, agency. The focus is on how Ethiopia's political leaders make foreign policy decisions and on the factors that shape their preferences. This focus reveals the influence of cognitive variables on their foreign policy decisions; the influence of their guiding ideology, 'revolutionary democracy,' is especially key. An analysis of Ethiopia's formal institutions demonstrates they are inadequate to explain the policy choices of Ethiopian leaders; they have been designed to reflect the concepts of revolutionary democracy. Using the language of prospect theory, a descriptive theory of decision-making under risk, this thesis contends that Ethiopian leaders select foreign policy options by weighing their possible outcomes as gains or losses relative to revolutionary democracy as their reference frame. Ethiopian leaders sanctioned China's finance of the Ethiopian Telecommunications Corporation despite the monopoly it gave to China and its impact on Ethiopia's debt. They formed a front company between Ethiopia and China's military industrial complexes despite its negative effects on economic development. They opened Ethiopia’s regions to Chinese capital although capital flows only to state-owned enterprises. Yet in each case, ideological objectives were advanced. This examination demonstrates how non-structural factors play a critical role in a bureaucratized state. Theoretical frameworks that account for these factors, like prospect theory, are therefore valuable to more robust understandings of Ethiopia, and Africa's, deepening relations with China.

Morocco is oftentimes praised by academics, development workers, and women’s rights activists as a trailblazer for the empowerment of women in the Middle East and North African region. Its reforms in the realm of family legislation and progress made in human development place the country at the helm of liberalising Arab Muslim-majority societies, even more so after the Arab Spring and Morocco’s peaceful transition to a ‘new’ constitutional order. However, a closer look at women’s rights discourses, legal reforms, its texts and implementation, and the public attitudes towards the enhancement of women’s rights reveals a less empowering situation. The purported goals of the Family Code, as the extolled document showcasing Morocco’s attempt at ameliorating (married) women’s rights, of ‘doing justice to women’ while ‘preserving men’s dignity’ mask the reformed law’s reconsolidation of patriarchal family relations. Many legal grey areas within this particular law, as well as clashing principles emanating from other laws such as the Penal Code, allow judges and the ʿaduls (religious notaries) to exercise discretion and apply the law as they see fit and, to a large extent, as it conforms to their and the community’s vision of the ideal moral order. Moreover, because ‘doing justice to women’ affects men’s and family’s honour, the project of the enhancement of women’s rights has had as a result retraditionalisation of family relations and hierarchical gender structures. Nowhere is this more poignant than in the status of educated single adult girls from provincial areas. They may be poster girls for the development community, but they are pitied by their own communities because they fail to become complete women––married (non-employed) mothers. The story of Morocco’s professed progress is a story of empowering its citizens, but one which does so on paper only. It is also a story which hides the salient details of poorly written reformed laws, obstructed access to justice, continuing widespread misogyny, material poverty and social marginalisation, and cohesive socio-economic programmes, which are rarely followed through.

This thesis consists of a short introduction and three self-contained analytical chapters. Chapter 1 focuses on the question of learning gaps and divergence in achievement across countries. I use unique child-level panel data from Ethiopia, India, Peru and Vietnam to ask at what ages do gaps between different populations emerge, how they increase or decline over time, and what the proximate determinants of this divergence are. I document that learning gaps between the four countries are already evident at the age of 5 years and grow throughout the age trajectory of children, preserving country ranks from 5 to 15 years of age. At primary school age, the divergence between Vietnam and the other countries is largely accounted for by substantially greater learning gains per year of schooling. Chapter 2 focuses on learning differences between private and government school students in India. I present the first value-added models of learning production in private and government schools in this context, using panel data from Andhra Pradesh. I examine the heterogeneity in private school value-added across different subjects, urban and rural areas, medium of instruction, and across age groups. Further, I also estimate private school effects on children's self-efficacy and agency. I find modest or insignificant causal effects of attending private schools in most test domains other than English and on children's academic self-concept and agency. Results on comparable test domains and age groups correspond closely with, and further extend, estimates from a parallel experimental evaluation. Chapter 3 uses panel data from the state of Andhra Pradesh in India to estimate the impact of the introduction of a national midday meal program on anthropometric z-scores of primary school students, and investigates whether the program ameliorated the deterioration of health in young children caused by a severe drought. Correcting for self-selection into the program using a non-linearity in how age affects the probability of enrollment, we find that the program acted as a safety net for children, providing large and significant health gains for children whose families suffered from drought.

Garment sector trade unions have proved largely powerless to combat hypermobile transnational capital’s systematic extraction of surplus value from the newly industrialized Global South. Optimized conditions for accumulation coupled with the 2005 phase-out of the Multi-Fibre Agreement (MFA) have meant a radical geographic reconfiguration of the globalised garment industry heavily in favour of capital over labour. The thesis approaches the global garment sector from multiple vantage points across the world with the goal of uncovering the obstacles to workers' organisation, examine workers' strategies of resistance, and analyse the changing composition of labour and capital within the clothing commodity chain. The thesis highlights five distinct but interconnected case studies including a transnational workers campaign from a garment factory in Honduras; a history and present-day feasibility of establishing a transnational collective bargaining from El Salvador to Turkey to Cambodia; the prospects for a countermovement in the organizing strategies at the bottom of the clothing commodity and supply chain in Bangalore; the growth of a 'full package' denim manufacturer in changing the relationship between 'buyers' and 'suppliers' on the outskirts of Bangalore; and finally a continuation of this analysis the case of a strike at a monopoly footwear supplier in China. The central research question is: How do workers build power and establish workers' rights in the globally hypermobile garment sector? Ultimately, what is demonstrated within this thesis is that the actions of garment workers shaped and circumscribed the actions of capital in the sector, and as capital transformed new landscapes for accumulation new vistas for opposition begin to emerge.

In meiner Dissertation untersuche ich, inwiefern sich der Zugang zu individuellen Absicherungsmöglichkeiten auf die informellen Unterstützungsnetzwerke zwischen Haushalten auswirkt. Diese Forschungsfrage ist vor dem Hintergrund der rasanten wirtschaftlichen Entwicklung vieler vormalig einkommensschwacher Länder von besonderer Relevanz. Sowohl um Voraussagen machen zu können, wie diese Entwicklung die soziale Struktur verändert als auch um Wohlfahrtseffekte spezifizieren zu können, ist es wichtig die Beziehung zwischen dem Zugang zu individuellen Absicherungsmöglichkeiten und der Nutzung informeller Unterstützungsnetzwerke zu verstehen. In dieser Arbeit erforsche ich diese Beziehung unter drei Gesichtspunkten. In der ersten Studie, untersuche ich die Struktur des Unterstützungsnetzwerks eines Fischerdorfes in den Philippinen. Ausgehend von einem theoretischen Netzwerkmodell, analysiere ich die Faktoren, die dazu führen, dass zwei Haushalte sich im Falle eines Schocks auf den jeweils anderen verlassen, wobei der Fokus auf dem Zugang zu alternativen Absicherungsmöglichkeiten liegt. In der zweiten Studie untersuche ich gezielt, inwieweit die Bereitschaft jemanden zu unterstützen davon beeinflusst wird, ob dieser Zugang zu individuellen Absicherungsmöglichkeiten hat. Dies wird mit Hilfe eines lab-in-the-field-Experimentes, das im ländlichen Kambodscha durchgeführt wurde, analysiert. In der dritten Studie verknüpfe ich die Unterstützungs-Entscheidungen aus dem Experiment mit dem tatsächlichen Unterstützungsnetzwerk der Experimentteilnehmer und untersuche, ob die Struktur der persönlichen sozialen Netzwerke das Verhalten im Experiment erklären kann. Zusammengefasst zeigen die drei Studien, dass mit dem Zugang zu individuellen Absicherungsmöglichkeiten Anreize abnehmen können, in informelle Unterstützungsnetzwerke zu investieren oder altruistisch Unterstützung zu gewähren. Dies hat direkte Auswirkungen auf die lokale Sozialstruktur. / In this thesis, I investigate how access to resources can affect the formation of informal support arrangements between households. This question is of particular relevance in the light of the rapid economic development that many former low-income countries recently experienced, which goes hand in hand with increasing possibilities for the population to cope with hardships individually. An understanding of the relationship between informal support and access to alternative risk management resources is crucial in order to make predictions about how this development can affect the social structure, and to specify welfare effects. In the thesis, I investigate this relationship from three different angles. First, I study the structure of mutual support arrangements in a fishing village on the Philippines (Chapter 2). Based on a model of strategic link formation I investigate which factors explain that two households engage in a mutual support arrangement with a focus on the role of households' alternative resources. In a second study, I investigate how the willingness to provide support can be affected by the availability of alternative resources, in particular individual insurance (Chapter 3). This is analyzed based on a lab-in-the-field experiment conducted in Cambodia. Different to the first study, the second study focuses on social preference motivated support. The last study conceptually links the first two studies. I relate the subjects' support decisions observed in the experiment back to the subjects' engagement in mutual support arrangements in real life and thus put the behavior in context to the social structure (Chapter 4). In summary, the studies show that with access to individual risk management options, the incentives to engage in mutual support arrangements as well as social preference motivated support can reduce, which has a direct impact on the local social structure.

L’Amérique Latine et les Caraïbes sont l’une des régions plus violentes du monde. Le niveau de violence est particulièrement élevé dans les plus grandes villes de cette région (UNODC, 2013). La compréhension des déterminants de la criminalité urbaine est donc un défi majeur pour ces pays. Cette thèse a pour but d’explorer le rôle de trois déterminants de la criminalité en Équateur: les inégalités économiques, la taille des villes et le role des émotions liés aux évènements sportifs tels que les matchs de football.Avant d’entreprendre cette analyse empirique, nous proposons une revue des littératures théorique et empirique sur les déterminants de la criminalité urbaine. Une conclusion importante est que les incitations économiques conduisant à des activités criminelles sont influencées par les schémas de localisation des criminels et des victimes. Partant de ce constat, la thèse propose d’entreprendre trois analyses empiriques à différentes échelles géographiques. Tout d’abord, nous explorons l'effet des inégalités de revenus sur le risque de victimisation en Équateur, en utilisant des données individuelles issues de l’enquête nationale de victimisation. Le principal résultat est que, contrairement aux prédictions, le coefficient de Gini a un effet négatif sur la probabilité d’être victime de vols. Ce résultat pourrait être lié à une ségrégation résidentielle élevée ou à un contrôle social élevé contre la criminalité. De plus, les estimations révèlent une relation croissante et concave entre le niveau de revenu des victimes et la probabilité de victimisation concernant les vols de véhicule, qui augmente avec un revenu mensuel jusqu’à 5,100 dollars, et puis diminue.Ensuite, nous testons l'existence d'une prime de criminalité urbaine (criminalité plus élevée dans les zones urbaines) en Équateur, à l’échelle des paroisses. Le principal résultat indique que la taille des villes a une influence non-monotone sur le taux d’homicide. La probabilité de constater un ou plusieurs homicides est plus élevée dans les paroisses les plus peuplées. Toutefois, le taux d’homicide diminue avec le niveau de population dans les paroisses où se produisent des homicides. Concernant les crimes contre la propriété, les résultats confirment l’influence positive de la population sur le nombre de crime par habitant. Enfin, nous estimons l’impact des matchs de football sur le nombre d'homicides et de crimes contre la propriété dans 16 cantons d’Équateur, à l’échelle intra-urbaine. L’objectif est d’étudier l’influence des matchs de football sur les profils temporels et géographiques des crimes, ainsi que l’impact des émotions (frustration et euphorie) liées aux résultats des matchs sur la criminalité. Les résultats indiquent que le nombre d'homicides augmente 0.18% avant le match, tandis que le nombre de crimes contre la propriété augmente 12% après le match, à proximité du stade. Les matchs de football entraînent également une diffusion spatiale de la criminalité dans des quartiers éloignés des stades. Les jours de matchs, les crimes contre la propriété diminuent 0.88% avant le match et les homicides diminuent 0.05% pendant le match, dans les quartiers éloignés des stades. Après le match, les homicides et les crimes contre la propriété augmentent de manière significative dans les quartiers éloignés des stades. Enfin, l'effet des émotions sur les homicides et les crimes contre la propriété n'est pas significatif au niveau agrégé, alors qu’il est significatif en ce qui concerne les homicides commis dans la capitale de l'Équateur, Quito. / Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) is one of the most violent regions in the world. Importantly, higher levels of violence prevail in most urbanized LAC cities (UNODC, 2013). Understanding the determinants of urban crime is therefore a major challenge for those countries. The purpose of this dissertation is to explore the role of three crime determinants in Ecuador: economic inequalities, city size, and the emotions caused by soccer events.Before conducting this empirical analysis, we first review the theoretical and empirical literature on urban crime determinants. An important conclusion is that economic incentives that lead individuals to commit crime are influenced by the location pattern of criminals and victims. Building on these considerations, we perform three empirical analyses at different geographic levels.First, we explore the effect of income inequality on victimization in Ecuador, using data at the individual level thanks to the Ecuadorian Victimization survey. The main result is that, contrary to the predictions, the Gini coefficient has a negative effect on victimization by robbery. This result could be related to a high residential segregation or a high social control against crime. In addition, we provide evidence for an increasing and concave relationship between the income level of victims and the probability of victimization by vehicle theft, which first increases with a monthly household income up to $5,100, and then falls.Second, we test the existence of an urban crime premium (higher crime in urban areas) in Ecuador, at the parish level. Our main result is that population exerts a non-linear influence on the homicide rate. The probability that a homicide happens is higher in larger parishes. However, the homicide rate decreases with population in parishes with positive homicides. By contrast, the results regarding property crimes confirm that the level of population increases the number of pecuniary crimes per inhabitant.Third, we explore the effect of soccer matches on the number of homicides and property crimes in 16 cantons of Ecuador, at the intra-city level. The aim is to test whether soccer matches alter the temporal and spatial patterns of crime, and the role of emotions (frustration and euphoria) resulting from soccer matches on crime. Results reveal that the number of homicides increases by 0.18% before the match whereas the number of property crimes increases by 12% after the match, near the stadium. Soccer matches also cause spatial spillovers of crime in locations distant from stadiums. On game days, the number of property crimes falls by 0.88% before the match and the number of homicides falls by 0.05% during the match, in these distant locations. After the game, the homicides and property crimes significantly increase in locations distant from stadiums. Finally, the effect of emotions on homicides or property crimes is not significant at the aggregate level but it is significant regarding homicides that occur in the capital of Ecuador, Quito.

<p>New technology and new innovations have for long been considered as a spring for growth. Conservation farming (CF) is a new production method introduced in rural Zambia and previous research shows that it increases yields and improves soil fertility. Even though the method is proven more efficient than conventional agriculture, only approximately 10 % of Zambia’s farmers have adopted the method. The purpose of this study is to discuss the implications of the introduction of CF on the capabilities of farmers and on economic growth. Furthermore, the study aims to explore why CF, which is proven to be more economically efficient than the conventional method, is not adopted to a larger extent in Zambia.</p><p>A qualitative study of 25 farmers, farming with either CF or conventional methods, was performed in the region of Mumbwa, Zambia. The results were divided depending on whether the farmers were using the new method or not. To analyze the selected material theories were chosen that regard economic growth and technological change, the adoption process of new innovations, incentive creation and the expansion of capabilities.</p><p>The two groups showed differences in age, the size of their land, how many crops they grew and to what extent they were working for others or hiring labor. The conclusion from the small sample of farmers is that the farmers using CF had been able to expand their capabilities in different ways. They had food for all the year, the new method allowed them to plan their time better and it was more environmentally sustainable than the old method. The negative aspect of CF is that it is not compatible with the old method in terms of social norms. CF leads to a more efficient use of capital and labor and therefore it can increase the economic growth. In terms of a new innovation, CF seems to have a relative advantage over the old method but it must be spread to a larger group of farmers to reach a breakthrough. To create a higher adoption rate of the method the farmers’ perception must be taken into account.</p> / Minor Field Study (Sida)

Societies frequently implement land use policies to regulate resource extraction or to regulate development. However, two important policy questions remain unresolved. First, how effective are land use regulations? Second, how do land use regulations affect socioeconomic conditions? Three issues complicate the evaluation of land use policies: (1) overt bias may lead to incorrect estimates of policy effects if implementation is nonrandom; (2) the policy may affect outcomes in neighboring unregulated lands; and (3) unobservable differences between regulated and unregulated lands may lead to biased assessments. Previous evaluations of land use policies fail to address these sources of bias simultaneously. In this dissertation, I develop an approach, using matching methods, which jointly accounts for these complications. I apply the approach to evaluate the effects of Costa Rica s protected areas on land use and socioeconomic outcomes between 1960 and 2000. I find that: (1) protection prevented the deforestation of only 10 percent or less of protected forests; (2) protection resulted in reforestation of only 20 percent of non-forest areas that were protected; (3) protection had little effect on land use outside protected areas, most likely because, as noted above, protected areas had only small effects on land use inside protected areas; and (4) there is little evidence that protected areas had harmful impacts on the livelihoods of local communities: on the contrary, I find that protection had small positive effects on socioeconomic outcomes. Furthermore, the methods traditionally used to conduct such evaluations are biased. In contrast to the findings above, those conventional methods overestimated the amount of avoided deforestation and erroneously implied that protection had negative impacts on the livelihoods of local communities. This dissertation contributes to policymaking by providing empirical measures of protected area effectiveness. Although annual global expenditures on protected areas are about $6.5 billion, little is known to date about the returns on these investments. This study also indicates that policymakers should give careful consideration to current proposals to compensate communities living in or around protected areas: contrary to widely held assumptions, the findings suggest that protection may not have harmful effects on socioeconomic outcomes.

This thesis within economics is examining the impact that remittances could have on the level of new small and medium sized enterprise start-ups. Remittances could be seen as a capital flow and would therefore increase the level of new SME start-ups but is this really the case? A model is developed with a panel data set over 45 countries all across the globe over a two year period. Six businesses environment variables are included in the regressions to see how the businesses environment affects the level of new SME start-ups. This model is also used when testing if the relationship between remittances and the level of new SMEs are stronger in the middle income countries than in the lower income countries. The descriptive statistics shows that both remittances and the number of new SME`s have increased from 2003 to 2005. The level of new SME`s have increased with a larger percentage share in the middle income countries relative to low income countries. The results from this thesis are somewhat difficult to interpret. Although there seems to be the case that remittances are not affecting the level of new SME start-ups when including all the countries in the same regression. As the countries are divided into two groups one can see a stronger relationship between remittances and the level of new SME started in the low income countries than in the middle income countries. One can also see that credit right and the cost of starting a new business is strongly related to the level of new SME.

Although matters of faith, religion and spirituality are central to the lives of millions of people in the global South. and many faith based organizations are actively involved in development. few northern academics in the field of international development make explicit reference to religion's role in development. and, if they do, the subject is often subsumed under another category, such as culture. This study seeks to shed light on the interface between religion and international development in Canadian academic institutions: to what extent is the influence -- for good or ill-- of religion or development acknowledged in their programmes, publications, and curricula? This is accomplished by means of an analysis of references to religion in the Canadian Journal of Development Studies (CJDS) and Canadian Development Reports as well as in the course offerings of International Development Studies (IDS) departments at Canadian universities. Findings show that only about 1% of article titles and 2% per cent of abstracts mention the subject of religion in its broadest definition over the twenfy five year history of the CJDS. Of 2,684 IDS courses offered (including courses cross-listed with Religious Studies departments), some 3% mention religion in their titles, and 8% in course descriptions. However, upon closer examination, only a handful of courses directly analyze the relationship between religion and development. Findings from this research are further interrogated in surveys and interviews with key informants, in order to uncover some of the reasons for what is perceived to be a lacuna in IDS teaching and research. Various recommendations are advanced: positivistic biases in academia need to be acknowledged, more research should be devoted towards an area currently understudied, and northern academics must be challenged to consider the religious reality of southern life, for, in Robert Chambers' words, "Whose reality counts?" Clearly the religious dimension of global life needs to be afforded a sharper focus in the programmes, publications and curricula of IDS departments at Canadian academic institutions. / Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2005.