One of the defining characteristics of early European colonial endeavours within the Americas is the discursive practice through which Indigenous peoples were transformed into ideological subjects whose proprietary rights and powers to be self-determining were subordinated to those of settler peoples. In this thesis, it is argued that a similar process of misrepresentation and disenfranchisement occurs when it is suggested that the material and financial poverty plaguing many rural First Nations can be eradicated through their direct and extensive involvement in natural resource extraction industries based on capital driven market economies. As is shown by the author’s participatory research conducted with members of Skownan Anishinaabek First Nation involved in local food production practices, the key to overcoming cycles of dependency is not simply the monetary benefit engendered by economic development projects. Rather it is the degree to which community members recognize their own nationhood oriented value systems and governance principles within the formation and management of these initiatives. The thesis concludes with an examination of one such community led enterprise in Skownan, which ultimately coincides with the political aims of the Indigenous food sovereignty movement.

This thesis provides a qualitative research of asylum seeking of unaccompanied children in Sweden. Children who find themselves traveling borders without company of a family member are in a very vulnerable position. In this thesis, the experience of unaccompanied children undergoing an asylum process in the Swedish jurisdiction is presented and the consequences of this process are also presented. With the creation of territorial boundaries embodied with an institution of state sovereignty, unaccompanied children finds themselves in a position of statelessness which produces a situation of rightlessness as they find themselves outside their own territories. This research suggests that, the territorial system provides great examples of unaccompanied children in a situation of statelessness even when they find themselves inside a new community. Even in this new state they do not automatically gain access to the community, instead through migration system, they must undergo investigations and procedures to prove that they have the rights to belong to that current community, a procedure that contributes to stress and other negative factors to the health of these children. From the findings of the interviews with unaccompanied children undergoing the process of seeking asylum and also unaccompanied children in hiding, it is seen that the asylum seeking process in the condition of unaccompanied children is characterized by the paradoxical system of national states, territorialism, totalitarianism, state sovereignty and an effort of maintaining human rights. The suggestion is that, the paradigm of territorialism and state sovereignty deprives unaccompanied children from what one in the Arendtian sense would call the right to have rights. As their journey to a new community starts off as a position of statelessness and with a 50% chance of returning back to that position. Their position slowly emerges from unaccompanied children, to a stateless adultescence and lastly to a forgotten undocumented adult.

The thesis aimed to investigate the current situation of food security and initiatives by main actors in Dhaka, Bangladesh, with urban poor in focus. A qualitative study with the actors of food security and the urban poor is the basis of this research’s result complementing with previous studies on this topic. Income of the urban poor in Bangladesh is very low compare to the food price which is one of the main reasons why urban poor are not food secure in Dhaka city. There are many organizations working on income generating approaches in urban Dhaka but the work is too small to have an impact on the current situation of food security. Lack of social safety net is another reason identified for food insecurity in urban Dhaka. The government is provided low priced rice and wheat to the urban poor yet again this only covers 1 percent of the urban slums. Due to lack of resource sustainable development is not included in in the process of ensuring food security in urban Dhaka.

The political sovereignty of indigenous Southern Californians has deep history of disenfranchisement and paternalism. A steady decline characterized the political authority and autonomy from the 18th century to 1850 when indigenous tribes of Southern California were in proximity of Spanish Missionaries and later, Mexican ranchers. Following the inclusion of California into the Union, this decline turned into a sharp drop. This paper looks at the history of these people under the three above-mentioned time frames and then analyzes how tribal gaming is effecting the current political sovereignty of Southern Californian Tribes. Special attention is given to the Barona Casino in San Diego to put into context, how tribal gaming is serving as a catalyst for change in the relationship between the California state government and tribal governments.

In 1987, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled in California v. Cabazon Band of Mission Indians. A landmark decision, the case carried significant ramifications for tribal sovereignty and the creation of the Native American gaming industry. In response to the decision, the United States Congress passed the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act the following year. Since the Supreme Court ruled in Cabazon, Native American gaming has grown into a multi-billion dollar industry and the most significant source of revenue for many tribes across the country. Given the complexity of Native American law and the controversial nature of casino gaming, the industry has resulted in many contentious legal battles between tribes and parties ranging from state governments to private corporations. As the Cabazon decision was the breakthrough for reservation gaming, this thesis will examine the Supreme Court’s rulings regarding tribal gaming and how they affected the Native American gaming industry and the doctrine of tribal sovereignty.

The modern state system has a specific answer to the question of where and how political action can occur: in the state and through citizenship. State sovereignty underpins the basic discourse of who belongs and who speaks in political communities, which is said to have important implications for those without claim to citizenship, namely the refugee. Giorgio Agamben‘s Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life is an important discussion of how the logic of sovereignty produces the refugee in the contemporary international state system. However, I will argue in this paper that this narrative, like many others, eclipses moments of refugee agency and reproduces the refugee in apolitical terms by binging a particular conception of the political to bear. This paper critically engages with the writings of Immanuel Kant and Giorgio Agamben to explore how this discourse of political community (state) and political identity (citizenship) has emerged historically and is continually reinforced. I argue that these narratives fail to see the politicality of so called spaces of abjection which are continually reshaping and reforming perceived understandings of the political.

This work looks at the 2009 Iranian show-trials through modern discourses of biopolitics, sovereignty, and history. I argue that, understood as a theatrical phenomenon, the show trials are situated within the Foucauldian mode of biopower. The latter entails a shift from a politics of death to the preservation of the bios. The show-trials also perform a particularly modern narrative of state sovereignty and teleological history. To consider them in this way requires a rethinking of Michel Foucault’s theory so as to include juridico-philosophical discourse within a biopolitical framework. I propose that, as a performative act, the confessions transform the very thing they are confessing. Through the work of Jean Baudrillard and Jacque Derrida, I argue that the confessions make possible a reconceptualization of the political space of sovereignty as simulacrum and that of the political time of history as hauntology. / Graduate

This dissertation examines the history of humanitarianism in international relations by tracing the relationship between moral obligation and sovereignty from the 16th century to the present. Its main argument is that moral obligations and sovereignty are mutually constitutive, in contrast to a widely held assumption in international relations scholarship that they are opposed to each other. The dissertation’s main theoretical contribution is to develop a framework, using a genealogical method of inquiry, for understanding the relationship between sovereignty and the shifting boundaries of moral obligation during the Westphalian period. This approach makes it possible to identify both elements of continuity and change in the history of humanitarianism and practices of sovereignty. The first chapter demonstrates how the extant literature on sovereignty and humanitarianism fails to adequately account for how states have participated in the construction of new moral boundaries even as they have sought to assert their own sovereignty. Chapter two lays out the dissertation’s theoretical framework, first by outlining an identity-based understanding of sovereignty in relationship to moral obligation, and then discussing the genealogical method that is used in three case studies. The following three chapters contain the dissertation’s empirical contributions, which are three historical cases that represent pivotal moments in the history of moral obligation and sovereignty. Chapter three examines the assistance offered by Elizabeth I to Huguenot refugees from 1558-1603, and relates England’s moral obligations towards Huguenots to the emergence of a sovereign English confessional state. Chapter four examines the relationship between British abolitionist arguments against slavery in the 19th century, and justifications for the extension of empire. Chapter five examines the emergence and evolution of the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) doctrine since 2001, whose advocates posit a modified conception of sovereignty that is explicitly tied to moral obligation. The concluding chapter discusses how the dissertation accounts for both the rise of humanitarianism and the persistence of sovereignty in international relations, as well as provides some reflections on areas for future research.

This thesis analyses the issue of sovereignty in the Arab Middle Eastern context with a special reference to three cases: Jordan, Kuwait and Iraq. The basic argument of this thesis is the inapplicability of Western sovereignty in the related cases. The thesis will discuss that Western sovereignty which was brought to the region has been limited by certain facts. Instead, what we have is a hybrid sovereignty model in which both modern and primordial patterns co-exist. The thesis will also trace the history of Western sovereignty in the region since the early periods of colonization and modernization, and will seek to answer such questions as how the failure of colonially brought Western sovereignty affects Arab politics in different levels.

This dissertation explores the relationship between state sovereignty and major instances of crimes against humanity committed in the latter 20 th century. In order to examine this dynamics of this relationship, the author analyzes the history and theory of the concept of sovereignty and examines five case studies of crimes against humanity: Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge, Argentina during the military junta from 1976 to 1983, the breakup of the former Yugoslavia, Rwanda in 1994, and the ongoing conflict in the Darfur region of Sudan. State sovereign power is shown to be an important facilitating factor in these atrocities as well as a major source of contention during the civil conflicts in which these crimes have taken place. International efforts to control or mitigate the damaging effects of state sovereignty, including humanitarian intervention, the International Criminal Court, and the promotion of democratization, are shown to be largely ineffectual and often end up strengthening state sovereignty.