This study seeks to contribute to an understanding of the patterns of environmental governance in Chile which is both an international model for natural resource-led economic development and an emblematic case of "free market" policy-making. It asks how the typical challenges of environmental governance--the coordination of multiple uses of land/seascapes and resources, the resolution of conflicts, and the reconciliation of competing claims--are addressed given the constraints on state regulatory capacity and authority associated with decades of neoliberal restructuring. My general research proposition is that in this context, property rights have become the key sites where the political and institutional logics of environmental and resource governance are expressed and contested. The dissertation consists of four appended articles that analyze different aspects and implications of this "property-centric" approach to governance. These cover the emergence of environmental legislation, the growth of private land conservation and the political and legal barriers it faces, the policy and political dynamics associated with the allocation of public coastal waters, and the role of property rights in shaping the development and regulation of aquaculture. The analysis draws on and integrates political ecology-oriented literature on environmental governance, legal property theory, and a focus on institutions for common resource management. From this theoretical foundation it develops a legal geographic approach that moves between a focus on formal policy-making and a ground-level view of law as it is interpreted and enacted in specific contexts. Research relied on a combination of primarily qualitative methods and materials including the review of archival and documentary sources, semi-structured interviews with key informants, participant observation, and the mapping of resource rights. Common or overlapping findings in the four studies provide support for several general conclusions regarding the relationships between environmental governance, neoliberalism, property rights, and the management of common resources. a) In the first place, and contrary to expectations, market-based environmental regulation (in a strict sense) has been limited in Chile. b) The legal frameworks which, following neoliberal prescriptions, are designed so as to avoid public deliberation and governmental interference in the economy have facilitated rapid growth in many areas but only by deferring key governance tasks. c) These same arrangements tend to displace and channel politics through property rights, and in the process produce a variety of unintended consequences. d) The privileged position of property rights has resulted in self-reinforcing and path dependent tendencies associated with the collective action of resource users in the pursuit of various political and economic ends. e) At the same time, this project documents the institutionally diverse nature of private property rights, including a multivalent orientation toward markets. f) Finally, the research documents how common property arrangements and ideas have emerged through efforts by various actors to address governance challenges in contexts as diverse as private land conservation and the management of salmon aquaculture production.

Over the course of the twentieth century, the quality, quantity and accessibility of health care services in Nicaragua were remarkably altered in accordance with the agendas of stakeholders in the national government and providers of "development aid", many of whose objectives were as much or more political as they were humanitarian. Much of the international health literature has focused on sociocultural factors that impact health care seeking, yet little research has been conducted on the political economic dimensions. This dissertation examines how sociocultural factors, political economy and social relations interacted in health care seeking decision-making among 50 poor and lower-middle-income households in Nicaragua, a country with high rates of poverty, child morbidity and child mortality. Attending to the ways that global and national policies were experienced in a local setting, the study provides an in-depth analysis of health care services in a country that has undergone three major regime changes within the last 25 years. How did the ideology of each regime influence health care, and how did the state influence both health staff and the lay population, especially with regards to people's expectations and understandings of the allocation of responsibility for health?The data indicate that health care services have significantly worsened during the recent years of neoliberal-oriented governance, concordant with an increase in economic insecurity. In conjunction with these macro-level processes, conditions of poverty have undermined people's ability to maintain longstanding reciprocal exchange relations and health care responsibilities. In ideology and praxis, the struggle between an ethos of solidarity and cooperation, versus one of individual competition and self-preservation, was engaged on a daily basis within and across extended households of kin, as well as between and among health care seekers and practitioners. Local level efforts to make up for the gap in government responsibility were limited precisely because the policies implemented by the government and international bodies undermined them. Neither the state nor civil society currently possesses the capacity to meet the basic health needs of the majority of Nicaraguans. For communities to thrive, the state must restore its safety net of health and other basic services.

This dissertation provides an analytical framework for understanding the left-indigenous cycle of extra-parliamentary insurrection in Bolivia between 2000 and 2005. It draws from Marxist and indigenous-liberationist theory to challenge the central presuppositions of liberal-institutionalist understandings of contemporary indigenous politics in Latin America, as well as the core tenets of mainstream social movement studies. The central argument is that a specific combination of elaborate infrastructures of class struggle and social-movement unionism, historical traditions of indigenous and working-class radicalism, combined oppositional consciousness, and fierce but insufficient state repression, explain the depth, breadth, and radical character of recent left-indigenous mobilizations in Bolivia. The coalition of insurrectionary social forces in the Gas Wars of 2003 and 2005 was led by indigenous informal workers, acting in concert with formal workers, peasants, and to a smaller degree, middle-class actors. The indigenous informal working classes of the city of El Alto, in particular, utilized an elaborate infrastructure of class struggle in order to overcome structural barriers to collective action and to take up their leading role. The supportive part played by the formal working class was made possible by the political orientation toward social-movement unionism adopted by leading trade-union federations. Radicalized peasants mobilized within the broader alliance through their own rural infrastructure of class struggle. The whole array of worker and peasant social forces drew on longstanding popular cultures of indigenous liberation and revolutionary Marxism which they adapted to the novel context of the twenty-first century. These popular cultures ultimately congealed in a new combined oppositional consciousness, rooted simultaneously in the politics of indigenous resistance and class struggle. This collective consciousness, in turn, strengthened the mobilizing capacities of the popular classes and reinforced the radical character of protest. At key junctures, social movement leaders were able to synthesize oppositional consciousness into a focused collective action frame of nationalizing the natural gas industry. Finally, throughout the left-indigenous cycle, ruthless state repression was nonetheless insufficiently powerful to wipe out opposition altogether and therefore acted only to intensify the scale of protests and radicalize demands still further. The legitimacy of the neoliberal social order and the coercive power required to reproduce it were increasingly called into question as violence against civilians increased.

The privatization of K-12 education in Canada is not new. The public and private sectors feel like natural elements of the Canadian education system because they have existed side by side since confederation. However, this thesis challenges that tradition and argues that private education undermines collective responsibility for education as a shared, public good by catering to private interests and isolating students from the public realm. Not only does private education reinforce the likelihood of socio-economic stratification, but the concept of a “public good” is increasingly destabilized as social services like education are privatized. Why, then, does the privatization of K-12 education continue to be an insignificant political issue in Canada? This question is particularly pertinent at a time when neoliberalism is in full swing in the United States, and all the time more apparent in Canada. Neoliberalism’s emphasis on the precedence of economic ideals over concerns for social welfare and democratic participation has transformed the way that we understand “value”. Drawing on a broad range of scholars including Charles Taylor, Richard Pildes, Janice Gross Stein, Henry Giroux, Francois-Lyotard and Michel Foucault, this thesis argues that the values involved in the very concept of private education reinforce, and are reinforced by, neoliberal views about the place of the individual within society, and that these values are detrimental to the concern for education as shared, public good.

The Canadian healthcare system has become increasingly decentralised as a result of neoliberal policy leanings. Many responsibilities have shifted from federal to provincial to regional health authorities. As a result of their heavy workloads and strained budgets, these regional health authorities have begun striking up new community partnerships. This thesis examines the role that lay institutions play within the Canadian healthcare system via a case study of Dalhousie University’s handling of the 2009/2010 H1N1 pandemic. Document analysis and participant interviews reveal how the institution worked to protect the health of its population, why it was inclined to take on this responsibility, and how doing so impacted the everyday work of Dalhousie University employees. Based on this case study, the thesis argues that the capacity of lay institutions and their employees to respond to health crises is likely to depend on a number of factors, which has important public health implications.

Discourse used in the field of conservation, be it of animals, land masses or marine zones, matters in that discourse and practice are mutually constitutive and discourse will therefore ultimately influence how conservation is practiced. Conservation discourses have shifted over time depending on the broader political economic climate. At present, neoliberal conservation discourse is gaining traction amongst terrestrial conservationists and has both proponents and detractors; however, it is less clear whether marine conservationists have similarly adopted the discourse of property rights, markets and incentives. Marine conservation is a newer pursuit, and has tended to follow in the path of its terrestrial counterpart. It is therefore of consequence whether and how the neoliberal discourse is beginning to impact marine conservation. While some academic literature has focused on neoliberal discourse in marine environments, to date it has been narrow in scope, mostly focusing on the privatization of fisheries and the role of neoliberalism in the privatization of marine protected areas (MPAs). However, the versatility of neoliberal approaches to conservation suggests that the impact may be much more widespread than this. With the potential to align itself with previously dominant discourses such as fortress conservation and community-based conservation, neoliberal conservation stands to gain traction. This thesis addresses the lack of attention given to neoliberal conservation in marine environments by conducting a collaborative event ethnography (CEE) of the Tenth Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD-COP10). The CBD-COP10 is a forum where a diverse array of actors from the public, private and civil society sectors come together to discuss the future of the field of conservation. It is here that ideas about conservation are both conceptualized and contested, and those that become dominant discourses can ultimately influence how conservation is undertaken in practice. The research finds that as with terrestrial conservation, a wide range of marine actors are indeed invoking neoliberal conservation discourse. At the CBD-COP10, neoliberal discourse and its related practices were rarely challenged and often lauded, from NGO and government partnerships with the private sector, to economic valuation, to the drive towards a ‘green economy’. By revealing this usage, this thesis contributes to scholarship by addressing the lack of attention to the impact of neoliberal conservation discourses in the marine realm. It also shows that the study of discourse can be a useful mode of understanding how marine conservation is conceptualized. It helps to illuminate the power channels through which discourse travels and how a particular discourse can become dominant, which is important to understand because dominant discourses can ultimately impact how conservation is practiced. / SSHRC; Research supported by the US National Science Foundation (award nos. 1027194 and 1027201)

This paper studies the policy changes that have led to the design and early implementation of the land restitution program in Colombia. I use the land reform literature to frame land reform efforts in Colombia within the larger ideological discussion on land reform. The study maps out the roles of the main actors that influenced the actions of government regarding land reform and their role in shaping the present policies affecting land restitution. The paper argues that although the land restitution program provides an opportunity to initiate a peace building process and should be seriously considered as a measure to compensate the victims of the armed conflict, the present rural development model is an impediment to its success. Although, the more progressive coalition was able to achieve the approval of the land restitution program, the success of the program relies entirely on the wider rural development model being currently embraced in the country. The present rural development model puts an emphasis on the exploitation of extractive resources and other mega projects responding to global market demands; while illicit crops continue to provide an easy and profitable livelihood opportunity for many in the countryside. Such development does not support the livelihoods of returnees and thus does not compliment the land restitution program. The success of the land restitution program thus remains in doubt. The reason is that powerful actors support a neoliberal development model that continues to dominate the political agenda.

No description available.

As neoliberalism has risen into ascendancy, cities have shifted their development approach, often in ways that produce problematic and heavily critiqued outcomes (Bond, 2005a; Leitner et al, 2007). In many instances, cities have taken on a development agenda characterised by the prioritisation of economic growth and improving the quality of life in cities (Pieterse, 2008). Thus, cities, often with limited resources and skills, face the challenge of negotiating between these imperatives. In this context, public private partnerships (PPPs) have emerged as a development mechanism through which local, redistributive, and global, economic, urban imperatives can be negotiated. Building on the theorisation of neoliberalism and urban development in the contemporary city, this thesis draws on the concepts of the ‘ordinary city’ (Amin and Graham, 1996; Robinson, 2002; 2006) and ‘entanglement’ (Sharp et al, 2000; Nuttall, 2009). The adoption of this theoretical approach facilitates an understanding of the relationship between neoliberalism and the negotiation of competing urban development imperatives in public private partnerships. This understanding is relational and freed from the constraints of developmentalist or global cities approaches, which have come to dominate theorisations of urban development. The empirical research concentrates on two public private partnerships in Durban, South Africa, namely; the Durban Growth Coalition and the eThekwini Municipality-Moreland Developments Joint Venture. These partnerships have produced significant interventions in the urban landscape since their inception in 1999 and 2002, respectively. In addition, the empirical investigation includes the Riverhorse Valley Business Estate and the Bridge City mixed use development. These projects have been implemented through the eThekwini Municipality-Moreland Developments Joint Venture. The empirical study predominantly relies on a qualitative analysis of semi-structured interviews with key stakeholders involved in these partnerships, their projects, and within the broader urban development arena of Durban. Documentary evidence and observation has further contributed to the empirical material examined in the research. The research findings reveal how actors in Durban enmesh and co-constitute the competing priorities of economic growth and post apartheid redress through a range of discourses. This discursive inter-relating of the imperatives produces their entanglement. In turn, this entanglement produces an ‘actually existing neoliberalism’ (Brenner and Theodore, 2002a). The form of this local version of neoliberalism is shown to be strongly shaped by the contingent conditions in Durban and the broader context of transition in South Africa. Furthermore, the examination of the two PPP projects brings to light the nuanced character of the ‘actually existing neoliberalism’ and how variably it is materialised within urban development. Through these findings, the thesis gives evidence of the active agency of places in the production of neoliberalism, and thereby challenges the assumption that cities, especially in the developing world, are simply passively responding to the global impulse of neoliberalism (Hart, 2002). As such, it responds to the need for new insight into how neoliberalism is produced at the local level, and addresses concerns for the lack of agency ascribed to cities in theorisations of neoliberalism (Larner, 2000, 2003; Brenner and Theodore, 2002a; Castree, 2005; 2006; Hart, 2002; 2006). Finally, conceptualisations of the binary relationship between the global and the local, and between competing urban development imperatives, are challenged (Hart, 2002). / Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2010.

Becoming an ally to Indigenous peoples, as a planner, depends on understanding the oppressive dynamics of colonialism and neoliberalism that invisibilize their everyday realities. Resisting these dynamics as an ally, and as a planner, also depends on becoming liberated from them, and to create spaces for collectivization, since only the collective has the power to resist the oppressive systems and discourses that characterize these ideologies. In Winnipeg, a coalition of Indigenous inner city community development practitioners (CLOUT) is effectively resisting these hegemonies. Contrasting this everyday resistance praxis is the practice of non-Indigenous city planners who are placated in their own everyday by the problems of difference and separation these hegemonies produce; effectively being thwarted in their ability to resist. Alliance building will remain a challenge between these two groups, that is unless the planners learn from CLOUT: become allies to each other, unlearn their euro-western way of thinking and learn the value of practices oriented towards integration, that in themselves counter the divisive nature colonialism and neoliberalism.