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Through official and academic circles a particular understanding of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) had spread: an almost devastated terrorist group whose interests in profiting from drug trafficking clouded its political objectives. Its transnational networks were either underestimated, perceiving they didn’t offer much to the organization; or overestimated, believing that every Latin American agent on the Left of the political spectrum was part of a conspiracy against the Colombian state. The dissertation proposes a different narrative to explain the importance of transnational networks and structures, especially how they may serve as a base for FARC to survive. The Colombian insurgency is here addressed as a typical case of a kind of organization in which political and criminal interests are blended. It further develops the concept of ‘commercial insurgencies’, opposing a vision of the insurgency as a monolithic entity, to explain it as a system of interconnected individuals with diverse functions and interests who constitute its three dimensions: political, military and criminal. It is here argued that commercial insurgencies exploit specific elements through the environment to embed its nodes beyond the borders of a single state. These include sympathy from individuals, support from national governments, connections with political and social organizations, alliances with armed actors, the exploitation of empty spaces, and the secretive placement of nodes. Common single-variable explanations to the embedment of insurgents, such as support from a foreign allied government, are insufficient as an objective account of this phenomenon. Furthermore, given certain environmental processes, survival of insurgency elements may contribute to the reconstitution and re-emergence of the organization. In this sense the challenge of the counterinsurgent is two-fold: the insurgency is multidimensional, and it tends to be transnational. Consequently, for an offensive to be successful it needs to address all the dimensions simultaneously and to control the effects of elements existing beyond borders.

In this study, I examine how the BBC and ITV News at Ten covered the Mid Staffordshire hospital scandal between 17 March 2009 and 17 March 2014. The analysis focuses on the construction of healthcare and deviance in TV health news storytelling, and the institutional and individual social actors involved in the process. The failings themselves included the mistreatment and sometimes death of hundreds of patients at a local hospital in Stafford. These events led to an institutional scandal, where not only the local institution but the entire NHS, its culture and its leadership were identified as deviant folk devils. Drawing on approaches from sociology, criminology, journalism and media studies, I analyse the case study from a social constructivist perspective. The theoretical and conceptual framework includes storytelling, discourse, encoding and scandal, whilst the methodology combines analyses of TV news content with interviews with BBC and ITV news workers. Thereby, I engage with the reports themselves, the process of encoding them, and the power relations involved. The production of TV health news was negotiated between health and political specialists, who used different narrative strategies, such as interviews, to make the storytelling engaging. As for the TV coverage of the Mid Staffordshire hospital scandal, it went through four different phases: activations, reactions, amplification and justice. Each phase had its characteristics in terms of social actors and scandal processes, which served to drive the storytelling forward until the narrative became fixed by 2014. As such, I found that the process of scandalising the NHS reflects deeper and ongoing social changes regarding the media’s construction of powerful institutions and individuals as well as the wider issue of trust in authorities.

Research on former-intimate harassment has focused on associated perpetrator behaviour, particularly physical aggression ( e.g., Coleman, 1997), and on the impact of harassment on victims ( e.g., Sheridan, 2001 ). The current research aimed to contribute to a wider understanding of former-intimate harassment by simultaneously investigating behavioural, dispositional and personality variables, and their roles in harassment perpetration and victimisation, using questionnaire based studies. Study 1 (N = 160 undergraduates; 73 males) assessed whether three levels of harassment (non-, minor or severe) were associated with physical aggression, control, and personality traits. Personality characteristics of, and relationship behaviours engaged in by victims of former-intimate harassment were also investigated. The harassment groups significantly differed on: perpetration of control, physical aggression, and harassment victimisation, and on neuroticism. Discriminant Function Analysis (OF A) correctly identified 66% of cases (n = 83). There were no sex differences in harassment victimisation rates. The majority of victims also reported perpetrating harassment, indicating harassment mutuality. Harassment victimisation was associated with physical aggression and control victimisation, as were victims' use of these behaviours during the intimate relationship, and victims' psychoticism scores. Study 2 aimed to classify the three harasser groups based on undergraduates' responses to measures of jealousy, dependency, attachment, perpetration and victimisation of relationship aggression, and harassment victimisation (N = 177; 50 males). Groups significantly differed on: preoccupied attachment, jealousy, emotional reliance, verbal aggression and harassment victimisation, and physical aggression perpetration. DFA correctly classified 61 % of cases (n = 107). The findings demonstrated the prevalence and mutuality of harassment, and develop understanding of behavioural and dispositional variables that theoretically distinguish harassers. Study 3 investigated a sample of offenders incarcerated for crimes other than harassment, to contribute to understanding of the disparity between the large number of victims' reports of harassment and the relatively few cases proceeding to court. Male prisoners (N = 95) completed the measures from Study 2, and a measure of personality disorder (PD) tendencies. Harassment was common, and groups differed significantly on: harassment victimisation, relationship aggression perpetration and victimisation, fearful attachment, antisocial, schizotypal, and borderline PDs. DF A correctly classified 63% of cases (n = 48). Study 4 utilised crime survey data to examine stalking vi timisation in a large scale population. Victims of stranger stalkers were more likely to be men, and were significantly older than victims of intimate stalkers, who were more likely to be women. Men and women were equally likely to be stalking victims, although men experienced significantly more stalking acts than women did. Generally, there were no sex differences in disclosure of victimisation to a number of sources. Many victims reported that police and government agencies were not responsive enough regarding 'domestic violence'. Five broad conclusions can be drawn from the research findings, relating to: {l) the prevalence of harassment; (2) mutuality of harassment; (3) behavioural associations with harassment; ( 4) traits and dispositions of harassers and victims; and (5) disclosure of, and responses to, victimisation. Implications, limitations, and future research considerations are discussed.

This thesis investigates novel and unique avenues of corruption in an attempt to reach a better understanding of the causes of corruption. In particular, the thesis theoretically and empirically examines the implication of the military in politics in breeding corruption and the importance of financial development in reducing corruption. The thesis also improves our understanding of cross-country variations in inequality and economic growth by providing a deeper analysis of growth-inequality relationship with a particular focus on the role of globalisation and domestic policy reforms. To achieve this aim, the thesis contains four core chapters (essays) in addition to an introductory chapter, literature review chapter and a concluding chapter. The four core chapters can be viewed different from one another. The first two core chapters address the causes of corruption. In particular, the first of these two chapters assess the role of military in politics in determining corruption levels, and investigate how important financial development is for corruption. The other two core chapters provide deeper understanding of cross-country variations in inequality, poverty and economic growth. Recent theoretical developments and case study evidence suggests a relationship between the military in politics and corruption. In the third chapter, this study contributes to this literature by analyzing theoretically and empirically the role of the military in politics and corruption for the first time. By drawing on a cross sectional and panel data set covering a large number of countries, over the period 1984-2007, and using a variety of econometric methods substantial empirical support is found for a positive relationship between the military in politics and corruption. In sum, our results reveal that a one standard deviation increase in the military in politics leads to a 0.22 unit increase in corruption index. This relationship is shown to be robust to a variety of specification changes, different econometric techniques, different sample sizes, alternative corruption indices and the exclusion of outliers. This study suggests that the explanatory power of the military in politics is at least as important as the conventionally accepted causes of corruption, such as economic development. The importance of financial market reforms in combating corruption has been highlighted in the theoretical literature but has not been systemically tested empirically. In the fourth chapter, we provide a first pass at testing this relationship using both linear and non-monotonic forms of the relationship between corruption and financial intermediation. Our study finds a negative and statistically significant impact of financial intermediation on corruption. Specifically, the results imply that a one standard deviation increase in financial intermediation is associated with a decrease in corruption of 0.20 points, or 16 percent of the standard deviation in the corruption index and this relationship is shown to be robust to a variety of specification changes, including: (i) different sets of control variables; (ii) different econometrics techniques; (iii) different sample sizes; (iv) alternative corruption indices; (v) removal of outliers; (vi) different sets of panels; and (vii) allowing for cross country interdependence, contagion effects, of corruption. In the fifth chapter, we examine the impact of globalisation on cross-country inequality and poverty using a panel data set for 65 developing counties, over the period 1970-2008. The role of globalisation in increasing inequality in economies with financial markets imperfections has been highlighted in the theoretical literature but has not been systemically tested empirically. We provide a first pass at testing this relationship between globalisation and inequality in the presence of underdeveloped financial markets. Our study finds a negative and statistically significant impact of globalisation on poverty in economies where financial systems are relatively developed, however, inequality-reducing effect of globalisation in these economies is limited. The other major findings of the study are five fold. First, a non-monotonic relationship between income distribution and the level of economic development holds in all samples of countries. Second, both openness to trade and FDI do not have a favourable effect on income distribution in all selected developing countries. Third, high financial liberalization exerts a negative and significant influence on income distribution in developing countries. Fourth, inflation seems to distort income distribution in all sets of countries. Finally, the government emerges as a major player in impacting income distribution in developing countries. In the last core chapter, we analytically explore and empirically test the relationships between economic growth, inequality and trade. This study contributes in the existing literature by answering the question why growth effects of income inequality and trade are not definitely positive or negative. This study determines the positive effects of inequality and trade on growth both in the short run and long run. However, the growth effect of inequality is substantially influenced by the domestic context in terms of the prevalence of credit market imperfections. The study identifies credit market imperfections in low-income developing countries as the likely reason for a positive relationship between inequality and economic growth. Similarly, growth effect of trade is found to be negative in economies where inequalities are comparatively high. The results show that inequality does matter for economic growth, but in different ways for different regions at different levels of economic development. The inequality-growth nexus is significantly negative for the low-income group but strongly significantly positive for the high-income one. The findings of the study are robust to alternative econometric techniques, specifications, control of nonlinearity, inclusion of additional control variables, exclusion of outliers and sub-samples.

This thesis provides an original investigation into the status of violent veterans in the United Kingdom post 9/11. Drawing upon a series of interviews conducted during 2011-2014, it frames the problem through the focused lens of Veteranality. Veteranality is understood here to be the regulation and rehabilitation of veteran offenders within the criminal justice framework, with a conscious attempt to understand the limitations of governing regimes by foregrounding questions of political agency. It looks directly at the tensions and conflicts veteran offenders experience as they move from a war paradigm to one of criminal justice on domestic soil. Central here is the ethical decision to “give voice” to the veterans by allowing them to narrate their own experiences prior, during and after war, which proves crucial to the study. As violent veterans expose the limits of juridical approaches to their crimes, so they add further empirical weight to the claims that times of war and peace are less easily demarcated and set apart. Embodying the normalisation of violence in new security terrains, their testimonies present significant challenges and demand a thorough rethinking of the violence of warfare in the 21st Century.

This thesis explores the nature and extent of convergence and divergence in cannabis control in England & Wales and the Netherlands through an examination of the policy-making process. Over the past couple of decades a number of sociological theories of crime control have pointed towards converging tendencies in the growth of ‘punitiveness’ across advanced Western countries. One of the most influential accounts put forth has been David Garland’s The Culture of Control which suggests that the transition to late-modernity has brought with it new and reconstructed risks and threats, and ambivalent strategies of responding to issues of crime and security. However, despite the usefulness of such bodies of work which attempted to map the ‘master patterns’ of crime control, there is a need to empirically examine how a culture of control unfolds across different national and subnational spheres. An under-examined area of criminological research is the very nature of policy development and negotiation, with tendencies to read off policy outcomes without a deeper exploration of how such responses come into being and unfold across different national and subnational spaces. The area of drugs policy, and specifically regarding cannabis, provided an interesting focus in which to test and build upon The Culture of Control, and particularly so in England & Wales and the Netherlands who have traditionally exhibited differences in their approaches to cannabis policy. Recent policy changes regarding cannabis suggest a toughening of approaches in both jurisdictions, with the reclassification from Class C to Class B in England & Wales in 2009, and the modifications to the ‘coffeeshop’ gedoogbeleid (‘tolerance policy’) in the Netherlands in 2012/13. A thematic analysis was conducted on empirical data from ‘elite’ semi-structured interviews (n=62) as well as key policy documents. The findings suggest that there have been convergent patterns in the way in which problems and policy alternatives have been constructed and molded to fit particular political agendas which shifted policy in a more repressive direction; but there are crucial differences in institutional and political cultures which still generate significant points of divergence across and within these jurisdictions. Consequentially, although ‘contrasts in tolerance’ may not be as marked as once described before (Downes 1988), there are still key components of the policy process in the Netherlands which more readily enable resistance against overly punitive policy movements, and foster the potential for a more pragmatic approach towards cannabis control.

This thesis examines trends and issues in the policing of money laundering in Dubai focusing on the role of Dubai Police in money laundering control. It acknowledges that money laundering is a global phenomenon and Dubai is not an exception. It explores the existing governmental initiatives aimed at addressing money laundering and the financing of terrorism. Whilst the unit of analysis in this thesis is the Emirate of Dubai, the thesis also considered the impact of regional (GCC) and international legislations and regulations (UN and FATF) on the policing of money laundering in Dubai. It is argued in this thesis that the major problem with policing of money laundering in Dubai is the lack of accountability of the AMLSCU that plays a leading role in the fight against money laundering. In addition, the information sharing amongst various government agencies and financial institutions is extremely poor. Where information pertaining to money laundering cases is shared, they are inconsistent and haphazard. Consequently, the government is facing problems to effectively combat money laundering in the Emirate. Other factors identified as major impediments are the lack of national database of money laundering cases which can be shared amongst the Police, the Customs Authority and the AMLSCU of Central Bank of UAE. The thesis also argues that poor training and lack of multi-agency/ interagency working is making the work of Dubai police difficult. Finally, it is argued that an a formal, integrated and intelligence-led information sharing model such as the UK National Intelligence Model (that draws on the importance of multi-agency working, information sharing and accountability) can serve as a more effective approach to the policing of money laundering in Dubai.

This thesis investigates the impact of corruption by government officials on firm level and macroeconomic growth in the context of Bangladesh. I revisit and extend the existing body of work on cross-country analysis of the impact of aggregate level of corruption on macroeconomic growth. However, the macroeconomic impacts are not necessarily mirrored at the micro level. As Nguyen and Van Dijk (2012 p.2935) observe, ‘country-level research does not help us to understand the determinants of the level of corruption that individual firms face and why and how the level of corruption varies across firms within a country’. To see how firm growth is affected by the corrupt behaviour of government officials in Bangladesh, I conduct a detailed study of the firm level bribing practices using both primary and existing survey data. The cross-country study has been carried out using two data sets; first, a cross-section of 119 countries using averages over 2000-2011 and second, a panel data set for a subsample of these countries over 1985-2013. I use both CPI (constructed by Transparency International) and ICRG index (constructed by the PRS group) as measures of corruption for this impact study. In several instances, the panel data model provides more efficient estimations and also works as a robustness check of the results obtained from the cross-section analysis. Corruption is found to have a positive but small impact on economic growth. This positive impact of corruption on macroeconomic growth supports the so-called East Asian paradox, a term coined to highlight the co-existence of high corruption and high growth in East Asia. This study adds to the existing body of work by examining the effects of corruption on growth by interacting it with freedom status and executive recruitment quality . I analyse the average marginal effect of explanatory variables on the estimated growth with respect to corruption, freedom status, executive recruitment quality and their interactions. It is found that the effect of corruption varies when the freedom status changes from below average to above average and when executive recruitment quality changes from below average to above average, which is in line with the hypothesis. Unlike the cross-country studies, there is very little work on firm level impacts, barring the notable exception of the work by Fisman and Svensson (2007) on industrial sector firms in Uganda. I use two different sets of data for this analysis. For the first exercise, I carried out a survey of 250 firms in Bangladesh and for the second study I use Bangladesh Enterprise Survey data collected by the World Bank. The analyses in these two studies are done using the same methods, and the problems, for example, the problems of heterogeneity and endogeneity are solved in the both in a similar fashion. The first firm level analysis presented in chapter 5 is suspected to suffer from small sample bias and endogeneity, and the instrument used in the Instrumental Variable method is weak. The second firm level analysis overcomes this small sample bias and endogeneity problems. I find that the impact of corruption of government officials on firm growth is negative but small. The important finding that comes out from these two pieces of empirical work on the effect of corruption is that a particular segment of the industrial sector may be benefiting from bribery but it does not necessarily mean that other segments or sectors or the industrial sector as a whole benefits from bribery. Corruption does not have an enormous effect on firm’s growth and perhaps the emphasis that is sometimes put on corruption is misplaced. The analysis is based on the existing firms, firms which survive under the current climate of governance. It may well be that if corruption was to decline, then a different set of firms would emerge. A comprehensive and analytic discussion on the growth trajectory and corruption scenario of Bangladesh has also been presented in the thesis, for which in-depth interviews have been taken from firm owners and managers, and people who have expert knowledge in the concerned areas.

China has attracted considerable attention in recent years with its rise as an international economic power. The year 2008, in particular, brought China into the spotlight through a series of dramatic events, amongst which the Tibet riots in March 2008 (in conjunction with the Olympic torch relay) were arguably the most controversial. This resulted in clashes between competing perspectives both on television screens and on the streets in the form of student protests. This study investigates 1) how the sampled British news media (both mainstream television news and elite press) covered and interpreted the Tibet riots, as well as 2) why British and Chinese students (both having been in the UK when the riots occurred) perceive the riots and issues related to the Tibet Question in different ways. This study finds that the availability of news sources (especially those providing specific details) affected the sampled British news media to a large degree in presenting the ethnically-targeted feature (i.e. the violence mainly targeting Han Chinese-owned businesses and Han Chinese passers-by). The ethnically-targeted feature was also interpreted in various ways by inferring the sources of rioters’ grievances from, for instance, characteristics of the targets and policies that might affect people living in Tibet. This study also finds that while British participants tended to focus on the clashes between protesters and authorities, Chinese participants knew a lot about the scale of the damage and casualties. They also draw on different structures of knowledge and experience to infer the motivations of the rioters, as well as to trace the sources of their discontent. On this basis, this study identifies the factors that have caused differences between British and Chinese participants in their perceptions and understanding of these events.