Doctor of Philosophy / This thesis is concerned with the role of the United States investment insurance agency, the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC), in enforcing property and contract rights on behalf of United States (U.S.) infrastructure investors, pursuant to the deregulation of infrastructure markets across the developing world. Drawing on evidence from two recent high profile breach of regulatory contract disputes between OPIC insured U.S. energy companies and Indonesia and India respectively, the thesis finds that while legalized modes of dispute settlement have proliferated, the ‘rules of the game’— their efficacy in delimiting outcomes—emerge as a function of state power and interests, as states undertake to enforce or resist legal obligations. Second, and contrary to the image of U.S. foreign economic policy-makers as beholden to corporate interests, the thesis finds that the agency’s transformation from ‘aid to trade’ as underpinned the expansion of U.S. infrastructure investors to the developing world during the 1990s was driven by state officials consistent with evolving conceptions of U.S. national interests, central to which was the desire to expand markets for U.S. foreign investors and capital goods exporters. In this regard, the transformation of developing country infrastructure markets and the shift in the modes of resolving investor-state expropriation disputes as but one element of economic globalization and the ‘legalization’ of dispute settlement respectively are revealed as a function of U.S. material interests and power at the point of enforcement. The thesis contends, however, that the changes observed reflect not only U.S. power and interests but a specifically American conception of private property and contract rights so as to reveal OPIC investment insurance as a conduit for the diffusion of shifting property norms concerning regulatory taking (expropriation) from the United States to the world economy at large.

Doctor of Philosophy(PhD) / Globalisation in general and trade liberalisation in particular have impacted on many areas of industrialised governments’ foreign economic policy. Export support is an area which is inevitably affected by trade liberalisation, as governments are expected to decrease their intervention into exports in the name of barrier-free(er) trade. However, if one considers that the 1990s and 2000s have seen governments expanding their trade promotion agencies, increasing funding for export support provision and developing a range of new export support programmes, it is easy to recognise that government export support seems to have grown, rather than diminished over the past decade. This thesis investigates the complex influences of the world trade regime, to create a nuanced picture within globalisation theories - which ultimately explains the paradox of growing government support in the era of deepening trade liberalisation.

[Truncated abstract] The objectives of this study are threefold: Firstly, to consider the relevance (to subnational state development) and adaptability (to globalisation) of federalism from a Western Australian perspective. Secondly, to consider the way in which various State Governments in Western Australia have implemented economic development policies to benefit from the global political economy. Finally, it proposes alternative mechanisms for guiding long-term economic development policy decision-making in Western Australia. This final objective is addressed in light of the findings of the first two. It is recognised that incremental changes are possible in full knowledge of the embedded nature of the policy-making process in Western Australia . . . In the case of Western Australia, subnational autonomy does not herald the end of the nationstate so much as a new stage in globalisation. In terms of how the Western Australian State Government attracts capital and labour investment, its history as an independent colony and its physical isolation from the other colonies have created the initial conditions that frame the policy-making process, which includes a set of drivers influencing the decisions that are made by State agents. Overall, the State Government continues to reinforce the State’s role as a peripheral resource supplier to the national and global political economy. Within this context, however, alternative strategies can be proposed that may contribute to the long-term sustainable development of the State’s economy.

Thesis (M.Com.)(Hons.)--University of Western Sydney, Nepean, 1997. / Includes bibliography.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Wollongong, 2004. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references: leaf 316-336.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Melbourne, Dept. of Criminology, 2005. / Also presented as the author's thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Melbourne, Dept. of Criminology, 2005. Includes bibliographical references and index. Also available in a print form.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Carleton University, 2004. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 149-154). Also available in electronic format on the Internet.

"A substantial part of this work ... was submitted for the doctoral dissertation of the University of Bombay."

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2008. / The entire dissertation/thesis text is included in the research.pdf file; the official abstract appears in the short.pdf file (which also appears in the research.pdf); a non-technical general description, or public abstract, appears in the public.pdf file. Title from title screen of research.pdf file (viewed on June 11, 2009) Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 1997. / Typescript. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 154-159). Also available on the Internet.