[pt] Esta pesquisa investiga como o conceito interdisciplinar do Antropoceno está sendo incorporado à política internacional para abordar preocupações com possibilidades para o nosso futuro global. Isso é feito por meio da análise de documentos-chave do PNUD, que vem utilizando esse conceito ao longo dos últimos anos para orientar a reformulação de suas estratégias de Desenvolvimento Humano. Em um cenário de intensas crises globais, o Antropoceno vem ganhando espaço na teoria das Relações Internacionais como diagnóstico da insustentabilidade dos atuais arranjos sociais, políticos e econômicos; e um ponto de partida teórico para os esforços de reconstrução. Por meio de discussões sobre o Antropoceno, vários pontos estão sendo avançados por estudiosos de RI: desde a ideia de que precisa haver uma mudança nas visões cosmológicas até a ideia de que entidades naturais como florestas devem ser determinadas como atores em arenas de tomada de decisão internacional. Esta tese visa complementar essa literatura, trazendo para a discussão as mudanças programáticas e políticas já apontadas por um ator internacional relevante. Com isso, pretendo colaborar para tornar essa discussão teórica mais robusta, e espero também apontar possíveis rumos que a política internacional poderia seguir na incorporação de preocupações antropocênicas com a sustentabilidade da vida no planeta. / [en] This research investigates how the interdisciplinary concept of the Anthropocene is being incorporated into international policy to address concerns with possibilities for our global future. This is done through an analysis of key documents by the UNDP, which has been using this concept over the last few years to orient a reformulation of its Human Development strategies. In a scenario of intense global crises, the Anthropocene has been gaining space in International Relations theory as a diagnosis of the unsustainability of current social, political and economic arrangements; and a theoretical start point for reconstruction efforts. Through discussions around the Anthropocene, multiple points are being advanced by IR scholars: from the idea that there needs to be a shift in cosmological visions, to the idea that natural entities such as forests should be determined as actors in international decision-making arenas. This thesis aims to complement that literature by bringing into the discussion the programmatic and policy shifts already being pointed to by a relevant international actor. With that, I intend to collaborate to make this theoretical discussion more robust, and hopefully also point to possible directions that international policy could follow in the incorporation of Anthropocenic concerns with the sustainability of life in the planet.

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This research is aimed at discussing the impact of participatory communication on empowering, increasing agency, and mobilizing citizenship that fosters social change. I conducted my fieldwork with a group of 21 youth (seven women and 14 men), with ages ranging from 15 to 30 years, who reside in Ataúro, Timor-Leste. This group participates in a community wall-newspaper founded in 2008. The methodologies applied were participant observation and qualitative interviews. The text is divided into three chapters; the first explores the societal structure and the constructing of youth, and the process of resignification of youth roles and identities from the work of young people in the community newspaper. In the following chapter, the internal dynamic of the newspaper group is analysed through the participatory communication framework, elaborating on empowerment processes and showing how this promotes changes and continuities in traditional structures. Finally, the last chapter looks at interactions of the group with their community and the way the negotiation between new and traditional practices develops. Youth are more empowered and the changes occurring throughout the participatory process suggest that ruptures and continuities between conserving and changing traditional practices, and the perception of ‘youth’ in the community, are occurring.

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The purpose of this study was to examine the effectiveness of water and sanitation service delivery in resource-limited settings using two different social theories (modernization and world system). Understanding that barriers to effectiveness are rooted in global structures that tend to present at local levels helps redefine the problem leading to comprehensive policies and practices. The guiding research questions included an identification of an effectiveness gap in services delivered in developed countries compared to those in developing countries. This study included a survey of water and sanitation professionals gauging their opinions on trends within the sector. Survey respondents demonstrated that the sector tends to align with localized (i.e. modernist) approaches. This may explain the perpetuation of differential patterns in water and sanitation access and associated diseases and deaths in developing countries. Through a case study of Partners In Health (PIH), a medical-oriented non-governmental organization used as a proxy for water and sanitation organizations, this work illustrated why personal and organizational philosophies and perspectives influence how we organize and act. It concludes with a discussion of engineering decision making through the lenses offered by modernization and world system theories; presents an organizational structure that allows organizations to overcome theoretical and geographic boundaries; and offers a set of recommendations learned from PIH and those the sector does well. This research shows how water and sanitation organizations, practices, and policies that consider local and global forces are more effective at delivering services in developing countries than those focusing solely on local forces. / Ph. D.

This dissertation provides an in-depth study of police transformation in Georgia, Kyrgyzstan and Russia since the collapse of the Soviet Union. It draws upon interviews with police, NGO workers, politicians and international practitioners, and employs a comparative-historical approach. Contra to democratic policing approaches, advocating the diffusion of police power and implementation of police reform concurrently with wider democratisation, reform was relatively successful in Georgia after the 2003 Rose Revolution because of state-building. The new government monopolised executive power, fired many police, recruited new personnel, raised police salaries and clamped down on organised crime and corruption. Success also depended on the elite's political will and their appeal to Georgian nationalism. Prioritisation of state-building over democratisation limited the reform's success, however. The new police are politicised and have served elites' private interests. Reform has failed in Kyrgyzstan because of a lack of state-building. Regional, clan and other identities are stronger than Kyrgyz nationalism. This has hindered the formation of an elite with capacity to implement reform. The state has limited control over the police, who remain corrupt and involved in organised crime. State-building has not precipitated police reform in Russia because of the absence of political will. The ruling cohort lacks a vision of reform and relies on corruption to balance the interests of political factions. The contrasting patterns of police reform have a number of implications for democratic police reform in transitioning countries: First, reform depends on political will. Second, institutionalising the police before democratising them may be a more effective means of acquiring the capacity to implement reform. Third, such an approach is likely to require some sort of common bond such as nationalism to legitimate it. Fourth, ignoring democratisation after institutionalisation is risky as reformers can misuse their power for private interests.

Master of Regional and Community Planning / Department of Landscape Architecture/Regional and Community Planning / Jason Brody / As effects of social and environmental conflicts perpetuate globally, fewer nations in the world appear to be at settled peace. The on-set of natural disasters and socio-political conflicts continue to force the United States Government to be increasingly called upon to provide resources that secure unstable regions during times of conflict. One method the government uses to securing its international neighbors is through the deployment of US Army reconstruction teams. These teams assist in transforming a negatively impacted foreign nation into a peaceful and functioning sovereignty within itself and its region; however, in order to begin reconstruction and engage in long term stability for the best interest of the host-nation, the Army must scrutinize current decision-making techniques to assure that basic human rights are instilled and local inhabitants have a means to sustain those efforts. This research sets out to define a planning model which supplements Army doctrine concerning post-conflict reconstruction, mainly FM 3-07 Stability Operations. It looks to incorporate academia, professional experience, and government resources with indigenous leadership in order to define a process to reconstruct infrastructure for a foreign nation during a time of need. More importantly, it looks to enforce those measures which endorse the basic human rights of society to instill security in post-conflict regions.

This thesis sets out to critically examine the field of higher education development, as one which is focused on socio-economic inequality and welfare, and determines educational purpose in poorer, or ‘developing’, countries accordingly. My question is whether mainstream development approaches to higher education are really contributing to the provision of more equal education services, or whether they risk reintroducing inequality by treating the priorities of poorer countries differently. To investigate whether there are educational values or purposes common to universities globally irrespective of socio-economic imperatives, I begin the study with a historiographical look at their growth in terms of both ideas of its purpose, and how purpose is realised in actuality. I then trace the emergence of the discourse of international development, and the role that higher education has come to play within it, showing how the field of international higher education development has simplified the notion of university purpose for its own devices. The thesis then looks at underlying assumptions about human nature, defined as the problem of humanism, common to both transcendent ideas of university purpose as well as the development discourse. To avoid the limitations of these assumptions, I argue that a theoretical approach is required that can engage with questions of hybridity and multiplicity in both the history and future of universities, without reducing those questions to abstract ideas. The approach I propose draws upon the dialogism of Mikhail Bakhtin, whose multi-layered understanding of language prevents any one understanding of another person, or of human nature more generally, being considered final. The educational implications for such an approach are finally explored in the concept of academic freedom, which is traditionally conceived of as a right, but is here reconceptualised also as a responsibility.

The thesis examines how the social construction of African women in development discourse transformed from the 1970s to the 2000s, focusing in particular on the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA). From the 1970s to the 1990s representations of African women were based on women’s economic potential. The mainstreaming of gender in the 1990s resulted in women being represented as agents of change. This approach gave women an opportunity to play roles in decision-making but led to policies that failed to challenge the established institutions. The emphasis on women as agents of change opened doors to some African women but with implications for the women’s movement. Only some middle-class women appear to benefit but their gains have been marginal in comparison to the gender inequalities that persist. The thesis uses secondary sources and interviews with development practitioners in Ottawa to understand the representation of African women as agents of change.