The growing accessibility to the global community has allowed historically marginalized groups the opportunity to assert their positions on a global stage. The difficulty of States to enforce necessary protections of land and representation has allowed the entrance of new powerful international organizations with expansive networks to play a role in domestic policies. The largest indigenous group in Panama, the Ngöbe, has suffered from poor unification and political organization, weakening their position vis-à-vis the State. Recently, under the perceived threat of a large development project, the hydroelectric dam Chan 75, some Ngöbe groups have been able to make connections to bring awareness to their conflicts by appealing to distant sympathizers through international networks. These linkages are limited in their ability to force a change in national policy; however, these efforts are not in vain. The outcomes of the continuous negotiations that occur in the space of the physical development site are continuously changing to create the opportunity for the greater participation of the Ngöbe, who benefit from the leverage provided by international norms and vigilance.

Dans ce travail de thèse, nous nous intéressons au phénomène d'émergence du patrimoine européen. Dans une démarche interdisciplinaire, il s'agit d'aborder les processus d'appropriation, de médiation et de transmission du patrimoine comme européen dans le cadre particulier des Itinéraires Culturels du Conseil de l'Europe et selon une posture interculturelle. Grâce à un ensemble d'analyses communicationnelles et organisationnelles du Programme des Itinéraires Culturels du Conseil de l'Europe, mais aussi de trois cas d'Itinéraires Culturels (Via Regia, Via Francigena et Saint Martin de Tours), il s'agit d'appréhender le processus de patrimonialisation à l'échelle européenne en questionnant notamment les enjeux de sens, de visibilité et de lisibilité, de représentation et de légitimation qu'une construction européenne du patrimoine commun aux membres de réseaux transnationaux peut comprendre. Enfin, il s'agit de comprendre aussi comment, dans le cadre d'une labellisation de projets européens, la publicisation du patrimoine peut être le lieu de résistances vis-à-vis des institutions, qui peuvent alors influencer les discours sur les éléments patrimonialisés. / In this dissertation, we are focusing on the phenomenon of the emergence of European cultural heritage. In an interdisciplinary and intercultural approach, it is about getting into the processes of appropriation, mediation and transmission of cultural heritage considered as European in the specific framework of the Cultural Routes of the Council of Europe. Based on a set of communicational and organisational analyses of the Program of the Cultural Routes of the Council of Europe, but also of three cases of Cultural Routes (Via Regia, Via Francigena and Saint Martin of Tours), this works aims at comprehending the process of making heritage at a European level by questioning, among others, the meanings, the visibility and legibility plans, and the representation and legitimation strategies that are at stakes when members of transnational networks build a European sense of common heritage. Finally, it is also about understanding how, in the framework of the procedure of giving a label to European projects, publicizing heritage can be a place of resistance against institutions that can then influence the discourses about the heritage items.

This dissertation explains why Taiwan and South Korea experienced democratic breakthrough in the late 1980s, when Singapore failed to do so. It explains this variation in democratic outcomes by specifying the causal mechanisms underpinning the international-domestic political interface of democratic development in these cases. New empirical evidence discovered in the course of this research has confirmed that transnational networks of nonstate and substate actors were an indisputable source of external pressures on the authoritarian governments of Taiwan, South Korea and Singapore during the late 1970s and early 80s. Foreign human rights activists, Christian missionaries and ecumenical workers, members of overseas diaspora communities, journalists, academics and students, along with legislators in key democratic countries allied to the target governments, were found to have raised the international profile of political repression by flagging them as reprehensible human rights abuses. Within the context of an international normative environment where human rights was increasingly considered a legitimate international concern, these transnational actors generated a negative international opinion of the target governments. Such grassroots pressures had the potential to raise the cost of political repression for these target governments with the effect of curbing repressive state behavior, thereby protecting key domestic actors with the potential to effect democratic breakthrough. The extent to which these external pressures could effectively constrain repressive state behavior depended, however, on the immediate geopolitical circumstances of each case. Geopolitical circumstances were also important because they could affect the strength of the protection regime. Thus, the exposition of the transnational protection regime as the causal mechanism underpinning the international-domestic political interface of democratic development requires that we specify the exact role of agency within the international normative and geopolitical contexts in which they operate. This dissertation develops such an abstracted causal model for the purposes of application in other cases and for policy analysis.

This dissertation explains why Taiwan and South Korea experienced democratic breakthrough in the late 1980s, when Singapore failed to do so. It explains this variation in democratic outcomes by specifying the causal mechanisms underpinning the international-domestic political interface of democratic development in these cases. New empirical evidence discovered in the course of this research has confirmed that transnational networks of nonstate and substate actors were an indisputable source of external pressures on the authoritarian governments of Taiwan, South Korea and Singapore during the late 1970s and early 80s. Foreign human rights activists, Christian missionaries and ecumenical workers, members of overseas diaspora communities, journalists, academics and students, along with legislators in key democratic countries allied to the target governments, were found to have raised the international profile of political repression by flagging them as reprehensible human rights abuses. Within the context of an international normative environment where human rights was increasingly considered a legitimate international concern, these transnational actors generated a negative international opinion of the target governments. Such grassroots pressures had the potential to raise the cost of political repression for these target governments with the effect of curbing repressive state behavior, thereby protecting key domestic actors with the potential to effect democratic breakthrough. The extent to which these external pressures could effectively constrain repressive state behavior depended, however, on the immediate geopolitical circumstances of each case. Geopolitical circumstances were also important because they could affect the strength of the protection regime. Thus, the exposition of the transnational protection regime as the causal mechanism underpinning the international-domestic political interface of democratic development requires that we specify the exact role of agency within the international normative and geopolitical contexts in which they operate. This dissertation develops such an abstracted causal model for the purposes of application in other cases and for policy analysis.

All Norwegian regions are represented with permanent offices and are engaged in different activities in the EU capital. This thesis investigates the regional and network level of EU policy-making, and asks the questions of what Norwegian regions are doing in Brussels; if are they are able to influence EU policy; and what effect participation in transnational policy networks have on their abilities to influence EU policy. To answer this, it applies a theoretical framework comprised of multi-level governance and the policy network approach to conduct an analysis of empirical data collected through interviews with different actors in Brussels. The present thesis argues that participation in transnational policy networks improve Norwegian regions' abilities to influence EU policy through being 'representations of scale'.

This PhD dissertation is concerned with highly skilled new Chinese migrants (HSNCMs) in the UK and their transnational (or trans-boundary) careers and business practice between China and Britain. The research subjects are those HSNCMs who have established careers and business connections between China and the UK since 1990. This research pays special attention to relationships between the transnational practice of HSNCMs, brain circulation (or their knowledge exchange with China) and China’s globalisation. Three main topics are discussed in this dissertation: First, it examines the states’ engagement which has a direct impact on transnational mobility of HSNCMs in the UK. Second, it analyzes transnational network building of OCP associations (professional associations of HSNCMs) linking between HSNCMs and China. Third, it discusses individual transnational career and business activities and identity construction of HSNCMs in order to understand China’s brain circulation in the UK context. The main theoretical object of this paper is to combine brain circulation studies with the theoretical framework of transnational migration studies. The findings of this research show that states’ policy engagement (especially China’s initiatives) is very powerful. Through transnational network building of OCP associations, HSNCMs integrate their personal development into the national projects of Mainland China. For individual HSNCMs, their transnational practice is diverse in terms of their different social backgrounds. For most HSNCMs with trans-boundary careers and business practice, their transnational identities are combined with Chinese consciousness. They have set up strategies to develop their careers and business between the sending country and receiving country. The multiple interactions between HSNCMs and China, therefore, have produced a significant impact on the brain circulation of HSNCMs and the globalisation of China.

This dissertation examines and writes the early history of distribution and exhibition of moving images in Southeast Asia by observing the intersection of transnational itinerant entertainment and colonialism. It is a cultural history of turn-of-the-century Southeast Asia, and focuses on the movement of films, people, and amusements across oceans and national borders. The starting point is two simultaneous and interrelated processes in the late 1800s, to which cinema contributed. One process, colonialism and imperialism, separated people into different classes of people, ruler and ruled, white and non-white, thereby creating and widening a colonial binary. The other process was bringing the world closer, through technology, trade, and migration, and compressing the notions of time and space. The study assesses the development of cinema in a colonial setting and how its development disrupted notions of racial hierarchies. The first decade of cinema in Southeast Asia, particularly in Singapore, is used as a point of reference from where issues such as imperialism, colonial discourse, nation-building, ethnicity, gender, and race is discussed. The development of film exhibition and distribution in Southeast Asia is tracked from travelling film exhibitors and agents to the opening of a regional Pathé Frères office and permanent film venues. By having a transnational perspective the interconnectedness of Southeast Asia is demonstrated, as well as its constructed national borders. Cinematic venues throughout Southeast Asia negotiated segregated, colonial racial politics by creating a common social space where people from different ethnic and social backgrounds gathered. Furthermore, this study analyses what kind of worldview the exhibited pictures had and how audiences reproduced their meanings.

Detta är en kvalitativ studie vars huvudfokus belyser hur två etniska folkgrupper, ”assyrier/syrianer” samt bosniaker förhåller sig till sin etniska identitet utanför ursprungslandet och hur dem ser på att leva i diasporiska grupper. Studien behandlar även betydelsen av transnationella nätverk och förbindelser över nationsgränser. Diasporiska grupper har kommit att utveckla transnationella nätverk som överskrider nations gränser och människor liv påverkas dagligen direkt samt indirekt av att leva mellan två identiteter. Det finns människor i samhället som drar nytta av denna kulturella rikedom som finns inom etniska och kulturella föreningar men det finns även dem som ser begräsningar inom samhället genom att ha två identiteter. / This is a qualitative study whose primary focus illustrates how the two ethnic groups, assyrians/Syriac and the bosniaks relate to their etnich identity outside their country of origin, and how they look at living in diaspora communities. The study also addresses the importance of transnational networks and connections across national borders. Diasporic groups have come to develop transnational connections that excess nation´ borders and human lives are affected daily direct and indirect of living between two identities. There are people in society who benefit from this cultural richness that exists within ethnic and cultural associations, but there are also those who see the limitations of the society having two identities.

Anhand von drei Untersuchungen, die jeweils als eigenständige Artikel in Fachzeitschriften publiziert wurden, werden unterschiedliche Aspekte der Rolle der Familie auf das Partnerwahl- und Partnerschaftsleben bei türkischstämmigen Personen untersucht. In einem ersten Artikel werden die Determinanten einer familiären Einflussnahme auf die Partnerwahl untersucht. Hierzu werden Hypothesen zum Einfluss des Bildungsgrades, der ethnischen Zusammensetzung des sozialen Netzwerkes und des Geschlechts untersucht. Ein weiterer Artikel untersucht, wie sich die familiäre Einflussnahme auf die Partnerwahl auf die spätere Partnerschaftsqualität auswirkt. Der dritte Artikel hat die familiären transnationalen Netzwerke als Untersuchungsgegenstand. Dabei wird analysiert, wie ein familiäres Netzwerk, das sich über mehrere Nationalstaaten spannt, auf die Wahrscheinlichkeit einer transnationalen Partnerschaft auswirkt.

A partir dos conceitos de regime internacional e de governança global, busca-se compreender a influência dos governos subnacionais no âmbito das negociações multilaterais intergovernamentais, no que diz respeito à efetividade do regime internacional da mudança climática. O indicador de influência foi desenvolvido levando em consideração a criação e implementação das agendas políticas domésticas. Dessa forma, destacam-se as grandes cidades como atores subnacionais públicos, reunidas nas Redes de Cidades líderes contra as mudanças climáticas, entre elas a Rede C40. A transformação de atores públicos locais em agentes de mudança no âmbito transnacional, por meio da constituição de uma rede, abre novas perspectivas teóricas para a discussão acerca do papel de atores subnacionais nas Relações Internacionais, o que deve repercutir sobre o debate a respeito das abordagens teóricas nas subáreas de regimes e de governança global. / Following the conceptual framework of global governance and international regimes, we tried to demonstrate the relevance of subnational governments towards the conclusion of the international negotiations and the effectiveness of the international regime on climate change. This influence can be measured by their role in the domestic agenda setting, in the decision-making process and in the implementation of public policies, as well as in the increase in cooperation agreements with non-state actors. The Climate Leadership Group, the C40 network, gathering the largest cities in the world, have become an important international player, transforming itself into a new transnational actor in the Climate Change arena, which is going to have a influence on scholars of international regimes and global governance.