A growing literature speaks to how non-state actors (both corporations and civil society) increasingly play roles in global governance such as lobbying inter-state deliberations or filling governance gaps in the provision of public goods. Far less analysis, however, has been devoted to how such actors attempt to supply new and original global policy processes altogether. How does a non-state actor acquire sufficient authority to become an anchor of global governance. Over the past forty years, the World Economic Forum (WEF), a business-funded and business membership non-profit foundation, has also gradually emerged as a standing site of multi-stakeholder interactions and negotiations. It convenes diverse actors through its various summits, facilitates joint initiatives among them, and attempts to shape procedural and substantive norms at the global level. Does the WEF's role as a bridge among state and non-state actors make it a legitimate site of multi-stakeholder global policymaking. What does the WEF story tell us about the conditions under which organizations can serve to anchor global policy processes within a multi-actor world society. This dissertation provides an anatomy of the WEF and account of how its functions have evolved in its first four decades. It argues that as the WEF has transitioned from a primarily business-driven management forum into a fuller multi-stakeholder vehicle, it has acquired sufficient recognition and authority to become a unique non-state hub of global policy processes. It attempts to demonstrate this through a detailed analysis of how the WEF's roles have expanded to encompass various convening, facilitation, and norm entrepreneurship activities. It also examines whether the WEF's evolving mission statements and business models have empowered it to adapt to its multiple constituents' priorities while affording it increasing neutrality among them and independence from any one of them. Can the WEF (and similar multi-stakeholder bodies) move beyond being considered supplements to the existing inter-governmental organizations which anchor the international society of states towards being the main legitimate sites for world society interactions. This analysis contributes to the empirical literature on new global governance instruments as well as pluralist accounts of the evolving global policy architecture.

The State of Kuwait is has been a member of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) since its establishment in 1980. Kuwait is a geographically small but oil-rich country, whose economic development in recent years is the result of an increase in both the production and prices of oil, which now accounts for almost 90% of exports. Meanwhile Kuwait imports almost all its local market needs from abroad. In 2010 the Kuwaiti government passed a development plan which was intended to diversify the Kuwaiti economy and promote non-oil economic sectors. Kuwait has an open economy, and is an ally of its GCC neighbours and the West. It is a member of the World Trade Organisation, which helps to enhance the country’s exports and imports. At the same time Kuwait is committed to advancing Economic and Monetary Integration with the GCC countries, and put into practice the guidelines which will make the Currency and Economic Union successful. This study will extend the literature on Economic and Monetary Integration in the context of the GCC monetary union. A literature review of the theory of Optimum Currency Areas (OCA) examines the development of exchange rate policy and monetary unions. Investigating and assessing Kuwait’s national interest in joining the GCC currency union is the main objective of this thesis. The study applies both quantitative and qualitative approaches to estimating the likely costs and benefits. In the study annual published data is used to analyse the country’s main economic structure and indicators, and semi-structured interviews are used to ascertain the opinions of Kuwaiti nationals working in financial institutions concerning monetary union. The conclusion of our study is that Kuwait is ready to join the GCC monetary union, the benefits of membership outweighing the costs. Having an oil-based economy like that of other GCC countries will make it easier for Kuwait to join the GCC monetary union. In addition, Kuwait imports products from abroad to meet local demand and controls inflation through its exchange rate regime. The Central Bank of Kuwait (CBK) is the sole authority managing the country’s monetary policy and the financial sector. However, GCC monetary union will subordinate the CBK to the Gulf Central Bank and reduce its flexibility to use its own monetary tools.

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This study aims to explore the ideological implications of globalization, asking whether the global diffusion of guidelines and economic schemes leads to a parallel diffusion of interpretations, hopes and ideologies. I focus on the globalization of clinical trials sponsored by pharmaceutical companies to assess the efficacy and safety of new therapeutic compounds. I analyze the ways in which this globalization has been framed by the members of ethics committees, which are bodies responsible for assessing clinical research proposals submitted by both multinational companies and local researchers. I focus on the situations of South Africa and Brazil, two countries that have witnessed an important expansion in the number of global clinical studies conducted in their territories. My theoretical framework is the theory of communicative action proposed by German sociologist Jürgen Habermas. According to this theory, social actors can be either self-oriented and frame the social context as an instrument (instrumental rationality), or take other actors into account and search for intercomprehension (communicational rationality). Even though the presence of these two rationalities was detected in my study, it was seen that rationalities are composed by sub-groups, specks of rationalities, which I propose to name mentalities. The description and interpretation of the seven mentalities identified in my study (pragmatic, bioethical, technical, healing, communitarian, analytical and critical) is the main task undertaken in this thesis. Interpreting mentalities is important to understand the political debates taking place in South Africa and Brazil (and, potentially, other countries). To engage in debates, social actors frequently mobilize claims and ideas gleaned from different mentalities. Over the last decades, the bioethical, technical and healing mentalities have acquired an important force and legitimacy. However, discordant discourses continue to be voiced, drawing on the ideological tools provided by the analytical and critical mentalities. Thus, ethics committees can be seen as a political arena, reproducing broad social debates.

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One of the widely-held propositions in the literature on the problems facing developing countries is that these countries experience short-term fluctuations in their export earnings which have adverse effects on their domestic economies. There is a strong prima facie case for this proposition. Several arguments point to an almost inevitable instability in proceeds from primary products, which account for a high proportion of total exports from the developing countries. Demand for primary products imported into the developed countries is, it is alleged, subject to frequent, sharp, short-term variations and the situation is aggravated by the low price elasticities of demand for such commodities. Moreover, variations in the world supply of individual primary products and the low price elasticities of supply appear to contribute to the instability in proceeds. Exports from the developing countries tend to be concentrated on a few markets or on a narrow range of primary commodities. Thus, fluctuations in earnings from one source need not be offset by compensating changes in proceeds from another source. Where exports represent a large part of national outputp significant fluctuations in export earnings may cause difficulties on several fronts. A developing country's ability to import capital equipment and other "input imports" essential to its growth efforts are determined principally by its export earnings. Export instability may introduce, therefore, uncertainties which hamper investment and domestic growth. Goverment revenues often depend heavily on the yields of taxes on foreign trade which may be strongly influenced by changes in export earnings. It follows that government expenditures may be subject to marked variations. Increases in incomes, consequent upon upward changes in export proceeds, may exacerbate inflationary tendencies by raising demand for both domestically produced and imported consumer goods, the supply of which tends to be price inelastic in the short-run. At the level of the individual peasant farmer, lower cash income, resulting from decreases in export earnings, may inflict considerable hardships, even starvation. Failure to prevent these consequences of export instability is usually ascribed to the absence of effective policy measures. This thesis is concerned with the question of export fluctuations in the context of the Ethiopian economy and its purpose is threefold. Firstly, it sets out to establish, using available data, the impact on the Ethiopian economy of changes in those variables which are conventionally thought to be affected by export fluctuations. Secondly, it attempts to identify those factors responsible for the export instability experienced by Ethiopia. This investigation involves a consideration of the importance of the various factors outlined above and of the emphasis customarily laid upon certain of these factors. The possible effects on fluctuations in Ethiopian export earnings of changes in tariff barriers and changes in international price competitiveness are also examined. Thirdly, those policy measures available to an individual government concerned with the problem of export instability are discussed in the light of the findings on the consequences and causes of changes in Ethiopian export proceeds.