This thesis is a critical examination of the „new vision‟ strategies that the Libyan government undertook in order to promote the deeper integration of the Libyan economy into the global economy of the Modern Orientalist World-System (MOWS). This process has been taking place since the lifting of the trade embargo on Libya by President Bush in April 2004. A crucial part of this new vision strategy was the promotion of human capital development amongst the Libyan population and with a particular emphasis upon English Language Acquisition (ELA). The argument, derived from neo-liberal thought, is that for Libya to transform itself it must embrace neo-liberal ideas that will see the government adopt the role of the enabling state, preparing Libyans for employment in a newly established private sector. ELA, the learning of what is called „global English‟, is the central part of the new vision human capital development goals. The assumption here is that by developing the English language skills of Libyans it will enhance their job prospects with foreign firms arriving in Libya. This strategy is being pursued in the aftermath of a state directed ban on the learning of English that was first decreed in 1986 and the consequences of which placed a significant obstacle in the way of the immediate employment prospects of a generation of young Libyan graduates. If the state developmental strategy now embraced by the Libyan government is to be successful then it must promote the rapid improvement in the second language skills of its young people (specifically „global English‟) if they are to take advantage of the opportunities offered by a newly opened economy. However, this strategy is fraught with dangers for the government as liberalising the Libyan economy weakens the control of the state over society. Thus the thesis addresses a number of key questions regarding the relationship between human capital (language skills) and the sociology of development; of human capital as a concept in the „modern Orientalist world-system‟; and the changing nature of state-society relations in Libya as the government attempts to integrate it more firmly into the MOWS. To what extent can the Libyan government transform its economy and society in a way that enhances its position in the MOWS rather than simply rendering it more dependent upon the power of the core?

This research addresses how socioeconomic status impacts the ways that students with learning disabilities and their families interact with the school system and the consequences of these interactions. This will inform policy on special education, and college level services and accommodations for students with learning disabilities. In addition to exploring general patterns of college attendance for students with learning disabilities, this research will include an analysis of what factors best predict college attendance and persistence for students with learning disabilities. Specifically, the forms of capital framework including economic, social, and cultural capital along with habitus are used to understand issues of access and success in college. The primary findings of this study include a) the intersection of socioeconomic status and disability create an extreme form of stratification in college attendance for students with learning disabilities, b) each form of capital is significantly related to college attendance, c) measures of habitus are some of the strongest predictors of college attendance, d) forms of capital best predict college attendance at four-year colleges and universities and are less predictive for other forms of post-secondary education, and e) current models of college persistence may not be accurate for this population of students.

Human capital development is a prerequisite for a knowledge-based economy and for sustaining economic growth. Capability and capacity in the management of new knowledge and technology is determined by the quality of human capital. With globalization, Malaysia faces ever increasing competition in trade and investment. Therefore, the workforce will have to be equipped with a strong base in education and training. Efforts should, therefore, be made to ensure that the education and training system has the capacity to enhance the quality of intellectual capital as well as expanding the human resource base. In mainstream human capital theory, the basic principle is to measure the quality of human capital through some measure of educational achievement, such as years of schooling. It is generally assumed that more years in schooling improves the quality of human capital. Thus it is assumed by policy makers that an increased level of education will impact directly on labour market productivity. Concomitantly, policy makers argue that increasing the level of schooling will give an impact on wages. One of the obvious methods to assess the impact of investment in education is to calculate the rate of return to education. The overall impact of education on wages for society is described as the social rate of return and for the individual as the private rate of return. The major concern of this thesis is to assess the impact of investment in education on individuals. Thus I use a household income survey to estimate the private rate of return to Malaysian education from 1995 to 2004. A recent important strand in human capital literature is concerned with the role of education in emerging economies. This study is not as well established as in developed economies. Malaysia, as one of the High-Performing Asian Economies (HPAEs) over the past two decades, has experienced a steady growth with continuous improvement in the education system. Data and infonnation collected on Malaysian education and earnings serve to provide an important indicator of the benefits from investment in education for this important economy. Previous data and analysis on returns were hampered by relatively few observations and other data inadequacies. This thesis offers estimates based on a consistent set of household income surveys from 1995 to 2004. Thus, the estimation is more consistent compared with previous fmdings. Moreover, this thesis estimates the returns using both a standard and an alternative approach, i.e. Instrumental Variable (IV) that has never been applied to the Malaysian data. This is important because the latter estimation not only reduces the potential bias but also shows the impact of school reform on the returns. Additionally, returns to education using IV estimation are rarely compared between emerging economies and the developed countries. Such an analysis provides an indication of how important the human capital investment and educational reform have been at the current stage of development. Our results also provide new methodology for developing economies in estimating returns to education. The standard approach to estimating returns is based on homogenous returns to education - everyone gets the same return to the same qualification. Our results from this homogenous returns model shows the private rate of return to education in Malaysia is about the world average. However, endogeneity in schooling, omitted variables and other factors, such as ability will produce potential bias in estimation. The heterogeneous returns model allows for varying returns across individuals. This thesis clarifies differences in returns to different individuals. The exogenous impact in the Malaysian education system. i.e. the schooling reform is used as an instrument. The results reveal that the returns from IV estimation were higher than the standard approach. This result adds to literature by showing that OLS may underestimate the returns to education in the context of a developing country. The literature on rates of return paints a complex picture of the theoretical frameworks, methods and even results of such studies. Many of the benefits of education are not easily measured and are often not even recognized by rate of return studies. It is important for rate of return studies to acknowledge the methodological limitations and explain that rates of return are only an imperfect proxy to education benefits, which should ideally be used in conjunction with other measures of educational results.

Cette étude s’inscrit dans le cadre plus large des travaux menés par le groupe de recherche Drug, Alcool and Violence International (DAVI) qui cherche à préciser la nature des liens qui se tissent entre l’alcool, les drogues et la violence chez trois groupes de jeunes - étudiants, décrocheurs, contrevenants - des villes de Montréal, Toronto, Philadelphie et Amsterdam. Elle explore plus spécialement les dimensions du capital social, familial, individuel et délinquant comme étant des voies d’explication possibles de la relation constatée entre la consommation d’alcool et de drogues et la manifestation de gestes de violence chez les jeunes de la grande région montréalaise fréquentant le milieu scolaire secondaire. Trois objectifs spécifiques de recherche sont poursuivis soit : 1) déterminer, à travers une recension des écrits scientifiques, les modalités formant les dimensions du capital social, familial, individuel et délinquant; 2) cerner empiriquement dans les données, quelles sont les modalités à disposition permettant de rendre compte de la contribution du capital social, du capital familial, du capital individuel et du capital délinquant dans l’explication de la relation alcool/drogues et violence chez les jeunes; et 3) vérifier si les dimensions à l’étude influencent a) la consommation par les jeunes d’alcool et de drogues; b) la manifestation par eux de comportements délinquants, et plus spécialement de comportements violents, et c) la relation entre alcool, drogues et violence chez les jeunes fréquentant le milieu scolaire secondaire montréalais en fonction de ces dimensions. L’échantillon de type aléatoire est composé de 995 répondants (garçons et filles ) qui se répartissent dans huit écoles secondaires francophones et deux écoles secondaires anglophones provenant des secteurs public ou privé et de milieu favorisé ou défavorisé se trouvant sur les territoires des villes de Montréal, Laval et Longueuil constituant « la grande région de Montréal ». Les participants devaient répondre à un questionnaire composé de 138 questions dont la grande majorité sont fermées. Les données sociodémographiques caractérisant le jeune et son environnement, ses rapports avec sa famille, ses amis, l’école, son quartier, sa consommation d’alcool et de drogues, l’existence dans sa vie de comportements violents dont il aurait été auteur ou victime, la manifestation de gestes de délinquance ou de troubles de comportement sont les principales dimensions de la vie du jeune sondées par le questionnaire utilisé. D’entrée de jeu, spécifions que peu importe les substances consommées, très peu d’étudiants en font un usage problématique et que l’on ne note aucune propension à la délinquance chez la majorité des élèves de l’échantillon En somme, les analyses amènent à conclure à l’existence de relations statistiquement significatives entre la consommation d’alcool, de marijuana et de drogues dures et la propension à la délinquance et aux troubles de comportement, ces relations étant de force variable allant de modérée à forte. Toutefois, il faut bien noter que ces relations ne touchent qu’un petit nombre des élèves du secondaire participant à notre étude, comme ce fût le cas dans d’autres études. Plus spécifiquement, le capital familial paraît influencer seulement la consommation de marijuana. Ainsi, plus le degré de supervision parentale diminue, plus la fréquence de consommation de marijuana augmente. Le capital individuel produit un impact plus important sur la consommation d’alcool, de marijuana et de drogues dures, les troubles de comportement, et la propension à la délinquance. Ainsi, plus le capital individuel est affecté négativement, plus la consommation d’alcool, de marijuana et de drogues dures de même que la propension à la délinquance et aux troubles de comportement seront importants. Le capital social, quant à lui, explique davantage la consommation de marijuana que la consommation d’alcool et de drogues dures ou encore la manifestation de troubles de comportement et la propension à la délinquance. Finalement, le capital délinquant paraît influencer la consommation d’alcool, de marijuana et de drogues dures. Son influence se fait ressentir également, mais dans une moindre mesure, sur la manifestation de troubles de comportement et la propension à la délinquance. À notre grande surprise, la dimension du capital familial qui se révèle être particulièrement influente dans les écrits scientifiques ne ressort pas dans nos analyses comme nous l’avions envisagé. Nous attribuons cet état de fait aux limites imposées par l’utilisation d’une banque de données constituée initialement à d’autres fins que celles visées dans notre étude, et dans laquelle les facteurs reliés au capital familial, identifiés dans les écrits, n’étaient pas tous présents. Nul doute à que la consommation de substances psychoactives et la propension à la délinquance et aux troubles de comportement sont des comportements présents dans la population juvénile. Les modèles généralement utilisés pour expliquer les comportements déviants à l’étude ne produisent pas de résultats probants en ce qui concerne les écoliers, une population de jeunes d’ailleurs rarement étudiée à cet égard. Le modèle d’explication au cœur de nos analyses, mettant à contribution les dimensions du capital social, familial, individuel et délinquant, paraît prometteur surtout en ce qui concerne le capital délinquant, et ce, en dépit des limites imposées par la banque de données utilisée. À la lumière des résultats obtenus, il semble que l’explication de la cooccurrence de la consommation de substances psychoactives et de la propension à la délinquance et aux troubles de comportement soit multifactorielle. Les principaux facteurs contributifs sont ceux du capital délinquant pour la consommation d’alcool, de marijuana et de drogues dures de même que pour la propension à la délinquance alors les troubles de comportement se révèlent davantage expliqués par les facteurs composant le capital individuel. Nous estimons que la combinaison des dimensions du capital familial, individuel, social et individuel constitue une voie d’explication prometteuse de la relation alcool/drogue et violence chez les jeunes. Il nous apparaît dès lors qu’un instrument de collecte de données spécifiquement conçu pour en explorer le potentiel explicatif devrait être à la base de prochaines recherches en ce sens. / The topic of this study joins the wider frame of the works led by the research group Drug, Alcohol and Violence International (DAVI) which tries to clarify the nature of the links between alcohol, drugs and violence amongst the youth (students, dropouts, offenders) from Montreal, Toronto, Philadelphia and Amsterdam. The study investigates more specifically the dimensions of social, family, individual and delinquent capital as being possible ways to explain the relationship between alcohol and drug consumption and the demonstration of violence amongst the youth from Montreal frequenting a high school environment. To do so, we pursue three specific research objectives: 1) to determine, through a review of the litterature, the modalities of the social, family, individual and delinquent capital; 2) to empirically encircle in our data, which modalities can be used to account for the contribution of social, family, individual and delinquent capital in the explanation of the relationship between alcohol/drugs and violence amongst the youth; and 3) to verify if the studied dimensions influence a) the consumption of alcohol and drugs amongst the youth; b) the emergence of delinquent behaviour and more specially violent behaviour, and c) the relationship between alcohol, drugs and violence amongst the youth frequenting Montreal high schools. Our random sample consists of 995 respondents (boys and girls) from eight French-speaking and two English-speaking schools from both the public and private sectors and from privileged and underprivileged environments in the cities of Montreal, Laval and Longueuil, also called the Greater Montréal. Participants had to answer a questionnaire consisting of 138 questions, the great majority of which were closed. The sociodemographic data characterizing the youths and their environment, their relationships with their families, their friends, their school, their district, their alcohol and drugs consumption, the existence in their life of violent behaviour (being the aggressor or the victim), the demonstration of criminal gestures or behavioural disorders are the main dimensions of their life sounded by the questionnaire. From the outset, let us specify that regardless of the substance, very few students use them in a problematic fashion and that no inclination to crime was noted in the majority of our sample. In fact, our analysis brings us to conclude the existence of statistically significant relationships between the consumption of alcohol, marijuana and hard drugs and the inclination to crime and behavioural disorders, these relations being of variable strengths, going from moderate to strong. However, it is necessary to note that these relations touch only a small portion of high school students participating in the study, as was observed in other studies. More specifically, family capital appears to influence only marijuana consumption. So, the less parental supervision is present, the more marijuana consumption increases. We notice that individual capital produces a more important impact on alcohol, marijuana and hard drug consumption, on behavioural disorders and on the inclination to crime. So, as individual capital is negatively affected, the more the consumption of alcohol, marijuana and hard drugs as well as the inclination to behavioural disorders and crime will be important. The share capital, better explains the consumption of marijuana than that of the alcohol and hard drugs or better still, the demonstration of behavioural disorders and the inclination to crime. Finally, the delinquent capital appears to influence alcohol, marijuana and hard drugs consumption. Its influence is felt also, to a lesser proportion, on the demonstration of behavioural disorders and the inclination to crime. To our surprise, the dimension of family capital which is particularly influential in scientific papers does not stand out in our analyses as we had envisioned it. We attribute this to the limits of the data bank used which was established for purposes other than those aimed in our study, and in which factors connected to family capital were not all present. There is no doubt that the consumption of psychoactive substances and the inclination to behavioural disorders and to crime are found amongst the youth. The explanatory models, generally used to explain deviant behaviours, do not produce convincing results for high school students, a population of young people rarely studied in this respect. The model at the heart of our analyses which puts to contribution the dimensions of share, family, individual and delinquent capital seems promising, especially with regards to delinquent capital, and this, in spite of the limits imposed by our data bank. In light of the results, it seems that the incidence of the concurrence of the consumption of psychoactive substances and the inclination to behavioural disorders and to the crime is multifactorial. The main contributory factors are those of the delinquent capital for the consumption of alcohol, marijuana and hard drugs as well as the inclination to behavioural disorders and to crime which are better explained by the component factors of the individual capital. We consider that the combination of the dimensions of family, individual, social and individual capital constitutes a way of explaining the relation alcohol / drug and violence amongst the youth. It appears to us that a data collection instrument specifically designed to investigate the explanatory potential should be at the basis of the next research.

Cette thèse porte sur les déterminants fondamentaux du dynamisme du capital-risque. Notre démarche de recherche vise essentiellement à identifier les facteurs qui ont conduit au développement phénoménal de cette activité aux États-Unis et qui seraient susceptibles d'expliquer le retard de l'Europe en matière du capital-risque. On peut inférer de ce travail plusieurs conclusions. D'une part, l'existence d'un marché financier national dédié aux valeurs technologique ne peut être considérée comme le principal facteur expliquant l'avantage comparatif des États-Unis en termes du capital-risque. D'autre part, la demande et la performance anticipée constituent les fondements et la spécificité du capital-risque américain. Leur faiblesse dans les pays européens peut expliquer le retard de ces derniers. Nous avons également mis en évidence l'importance de l'environnement scientifique et technologique pour le dynamisme du capital-risque. Un résultat qui peut d'un coté, expliquer le retard des pays européens qui souffrent d'insuffisances en termes de dépenses en R&D. De l'autre, il peut rendre compte du succès de deux modèles de capital-risque basés sur la stratégie de recherche et développement, à savoir la Suède et Israël. / He thesis focuses on the determinants of venture capital dynamism. Our approach aims not only at identifying factors that led to the phenomenal development of this activity in the United States, but also at explaining why Europe still cannot catch up in terms of venture capital. Several conclusions can be inferred from this thesis. On the one hand, an active financial market cannot be regarded as the main factor explaining the comparative advantage of the U.S. in terms of venture capital. On the other hand, other more important factors may explain the superiority of U.S. venture capital as well as the European countries delay. Estimates conducted to highlight the importance of demand and of the expected performance for the venture capital dynamism. These two factors represent the strengths and the specificity of the U.S. venture capital. The estimates have also highlighted the role of scientific and technological environment, that can explain the delay of European countries which suffer from shortcomings in R&D spendings and, might illustrate the success of two venture capital models based on the research and development strategy: Sweden and Israel.

La contraction de la liquidité et la paralysie des marchés interbancaires durant la crise de 2007 ont conduit à la dégradation des bilans des banques. En même temps les prêts bancaires et la production ont souffert de la baisse de demande. Le quasi-effondrement de Bear Steams et la faillite de Lehman Brothers peuvent être tous les deux caractérisés comme des chocs de liquidité qui ont eu un impact plus important sur les entreprises non financières étant financièrement fragiles. Entre 2008 et 2009 le Trésor américain a injecté des liquidités dans les institutions financières dans le cadre du Capital Purchase Program (CPP). Les résultats montrent que le CPP a favorisé les grandes banques dont la faillite potentie~e pouvait accroitre la ftagilité d'ensemble du secteur. Une telle répartition des fonds du CPP a été efficace du point de vue du contribuable car la probabilité de non-remboursement des fonds de sauvetage a été réduite au minimum. Cependant, les banques de petite taille qui avaient été effectivement exposées au marché hypothécaire et aux prêts non productifs se sont wes refuser l'aide financière. Enfin, l'efficacité du CPP a été analysée dans le chapitre 4 en termes de restauration d'offre de prêts bancaires. L'augmentation du niveau de capitalisation est associée à des taux de croissance de prêts plus élevés. Pendant la crise les banques-bénéfciaires du CPP ont montré les taux de croissance de prêts plus élevés que les banques qui n'ont pas bénéficié du CPP. En plus les banques-bénéficiaires du CPP qui ont rachetés leurs actions auprès du Trésor américain ont octroyé plus de prêts que les banques-bénéficiaires qui n'ont pas remboursé les fonds du CPP. / The drying-up of liquidity and freezing of the interbank markets during the crisis of 2007 1ed to the debasement of banks' balance sheets. At the same time, both bank lending and business production suffered from the drop in consumer demand. The near-collapse of Bear Stearns and failure of Lehman Brothers are both characterized as liquidity shocks that had a greater impact on financially fragile non-financial firms. In the second half of 2008, after a series of bankruptcies of large financial institutions, the U.S. Treasury poured capital infusions into domestic financial institutions under the Capital Purchase Program (CPP), thus helping to avert a complete collapse of the U.S. banking sector. Government regulators had to distinguish between those banks deserving of being bailed out and those that should be allowed to fail. The results of this study show that the CPP favored larger financial institutions whose potential failure represented higher degrees of systemic risk. This allocation of CPP funds was cost-effective from the point of view of taxpayers, as such banks reimbursed the government for their CPP bailouts sooner than expected. In contrast, smaller banks that were heavily into mortgage-backed securities, mortgages, and non¬performing loans were less likely to be bailed out. Finally, the effectiveness of the CPP is analyzed in chapter 4 in terms of restoring banks' loan provisions. Banks that have a higher level of capitalization tend to lend more both during the crisis and in normal rimes. Moreover, bailed-out banks that repurchased their shares from the V.S. Treasury provided more loans during the crisis than those banks that did not.

Prior studies have shown that students who are the first in their families to attend college fail to persist in college more so than their continuing-generation (CG) counterparts do. Prior research on this phenomenon has helped to identify various factors that contribute to the lower college persistence of first-generation (FG) students. For example, social capital has been identified as a factor that improves student persistence in college. Prior studies have shown that FG students tend to enter college with lower social capital than their CG student counterparts do. Additionally, while in school, FG students tend not to engage in behaviors that can help them in the creation of social capital. There has been growing research on how Internet communication technologies (ICTs) may be used as a resource in the creation of social capital. Specifically, there have been several studies that have examined how the Internet has provided opportunities for the creation of both bonding (relationships with persons inside one's cultural network, like family and close friends) and bridging (persons outside one's cultural network) forms of social capital. This study used a non-experimental design approach to compare the differences in technology-enabled bonding (TEBD) and technology-enabled bridging (TEBR) behaviors of FG and CG students. This study also used a predictive design approach aimed at predicting the persistence in college of first-year students based on the contributions of TEBD and TEBR behaviors, as well as socioeconomic status (SES) and high school grade point average (GPA). Finally, this study sought to develop and validate an instrument that could reliably measure the TEBD and TEBR behaviors of college students for use in future studies. A sample of 316 full-time first- to second-year students at a small, private, college in the Midwestern United States were surveyed on the dimensions of their TEBD (emotional support, access to resources, and sociability behavior) and TEBR (involvement in campus activities, contact with others unlike themselves, sociability behaviors, and academic activities) behaviors, as well as three dimensions of SES (parental education, parental income, and parental occupations) and high school GPA. Findings of this study showed there was no significant difference in the TEBD and TEBR behaviors of FG and CG students, which in itself is significant. Additionally, this study found high school GPA and one dimension of SES (parental income) to be positive predictors of student persistence in college. This study also found one dimension of TEBD (access to resources), one dimension of TEBR (contact with others unlike themselves), and one dimension of SES (parental occupation), to be negative predictors of student persistence in college. This study made the following three important contributions: 1) the development of an instrument for measuring TEBD and TEBR behaviors of college students; 2) an investigation of the differences in TEBD and TEBR behaviors of FG and CG students; and, 3) an investigation of key constructs that contribute to student persistence from their first-to-second year of college. Recommendations for future research were made which included extending this research to 1) include other types of technology communication devices, such as cell phones; 2) examine the contributions of TEBD and TEBR to persistence in college between semesters; 3) improve the methodology for collecting survey data; and 4) investigate if there are significant differences between FG and CG students on the amount of time spent online engaged in social and academic activities, as well as examine if time spent online is a predictor of student persistence in college.

M.Com (Economics) / Please refer to full text to view abstract

Freud parlait au siècle dernier de Malaise dans la civilisation (Freud, 1929), notre siècle ne cache-t-il pas un malaise tout aussi profond ? En effet, nous pouvons penser que la somme des contraintes aujourd'hui dépasse la capacité d'adaptation des individus et de leurs réseaux familiaux et sociaux ; le recours aux addictions devient alors pour beaucoup une stratégie de survie ou un mécanisme de contrôle pour garder un équilibre psychosocial. Tout se passe dans la réalité de la prise en charge des addictions en lien ou pas avec un trouble psychiatrique ou inversement, comme si l'individu agissait dans un ensemble social vide. Or, le contexte social - et Freud a été un des premiers à le démontrer - interagit selon la tradition interactionniste sur tous les comportements déviants. Notre travail a pour objectif de mettre en lumière les apports des sciences sociales et plus particulièrement de la sociologie dans la compréhension des addictions. En effet, il est admit aujourd'hui que les approches purement médicales qu'elles soient somatiques ou cognitives, n'ont su répondre aux attentes des patients et des professionnels de santé. Nous proposons donc au travers de cette étude de démontrer que l'approche sociologique des addictions peut nous aider à la fois à comprendre pourquoi un individu à un moment de sa vie se laisse prendre dans un comportement à risque et comment nous pouvons essayer de l'accompagner à retrouver un état de plaisir.L'enjeu est de comprendre l'addiction au travers de l'histoire sociale de l'individu. nous savons que nous pouvons modifier nos comportements pour préserver notre état de santé. / In the last century, Freud spoke of "Discontents in Civilisation" (Freud, 1929), our century not hide a deeper malaise ?Indeed, we can think that the sum of the constraints, now exceed the adaptive capacity of individuals and their family and social networks, that the use of addictions become so much a survival strategy or a control mechanism to keep a psychosocial balance. Everything happens in the reality of the management of addictions related or not with a psychiatric disorder or vice versa, as if the individual was in an empty social world. However, the social context - and Freud was one of the first to demonstrate - interacts according to interactionist tradition on all deviant behavior. One of our aims is to highlight the contributions of the social sciences and especially sociology in understanding addictions. Indeed, he is admitted today that purely medical approaches, somatic or cognitive, haven't met the expectations of patients and health professionals. We therefore propose to demonstrate through this study that the sociological approach to addictions can help us both to understand why an individual at a time of his life gets caught in a risky behavior and how we can try to help him regain a state of pleasure. The challenge is to understand the addiction through the social history of the individual. The various models proposed so far are failures for normative reasons. However, we know that we can change our behavior to preserve our health. We propose a model of care that takes into account both an individualized management over the long term and the social history of each.

Orientador: Divino José da Silva / Resumo: Este trabalho é de natureza teórica e busca analisar, filiando-se a uma perspectiva foucaultiana, alguns desdobramentos do biopoder no “século” do cérebro. Com os avanços das neurociências, principalmente a partir de 1990, fortaleceu-se um discurso acadêmico e laboratorial apregoando a equivalência entre o cérebro e o indivíduo e, com o passar do tempo, em virtude das mídias, da preocupação com o sofrimento psíquico e a saúde mental, entre outros – e ultrapassando seu espaço originalmente especializado –, esse discurso acabou por popularizar-se. Hoje o cérebro tornou-se uma espécie de “ator social”, um ponto de referência para os processos de subjetivação e condução da vida, seu funcionamento é correlacionado a praticamente todos os aspectos humanos: moral, inteligência, humor, desempenho, eficiência, educação, entre outros. O objetivo deste trabalho foi mostrar a inserção desse órgão na moderna lógica do homo oeconomicus e, paralelamente, sinalizar para o fato de que o governo atual da vida está exigindo o seu mapeamento e manipulação. Ao se apropriar de noções das neurociências cognitivas, como plasticidade e neuroquímica, a biopolítica contemporânea e seu ideal de aperfeiçoamento do indivíduo-empresa, amplamente divulgado pela racionalidade neoliberal, encontra no cérebro um dispositivo de modelagem subjetiva e, fundamentando-se nele, desenvolve tecnologias de gestão do self. Entre essas tecnologias destacamos o neuroaprimoramento farmacológico, a neuroascese e a neuroeduc... (Resumo completo, clicar acesso eletrônico abaixo) / Abstract: The present work consists of a theoretical nature and seeks to present, allying itself to a Foucalt’s perspective, some development of the biopower in the brain century. With the advance of the neuroscience, mainly since 1990, an academic and laboratorial speech strengthened to proclaim the equivalence between the brain and the individual and, as time passes, due to the media, the concern with the psychological suffering and mental health and so on – and exceeding its space originally specialized – this speech became popular. Today the brain became a sort of “social actor”, as a reference to subjectivation processes and life conduction, its performance is correlated to almost all humans’ aspects: moral, intelligence, humor, performance, efficiency, education, etc. The main goal of this work was to show the inception of this organ in the homo oeconomicus modern logic and, alongside, point out to the fact that the current management of life is demanding its mapping and handling. Overtaking the neuroscience cognitive notions, such as plasticity and neurochemistry, the contemporary biopolitics and its improvement ideal of the individual-enterprise, widely spread by the neoliberal rationality, it finds in the brain a subjective framing device and, bases itself in it, develops technologies of self-management. Among this technologies drugs neuroimprovement, neuroascesis and neuroeducation stand out, it supports the theses that the contemporary project of life’s neuromanagement got q... (Complete abstract click electronic access below) / Doutor