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

M.Comm. / This study will quantify the economic impact of the FTA negotiated between SA and the EU. Two simulations are undertaken. The first simulation focus on the bi-lateral elimination of import tariffs between SA and the EU on non-agricultural products (industrial products). The second simulation considers the bi-lateral elimination of import tariffs on non-agricultural and agricultural products between SA and the EU. The quantitative analysis can only handle a limited number of arguments of the FTA. Notably, financial assistance, development, and social and cultural co-operation are examples of issues that will not be dealt with in a quantitative manner in this study. The goal of this study is to undertake an empirical analysis of the free trade agreement (FTA) between South Africa (SA) and the European Union (EU) using an applied equilibrium model.

Thesis (Ph.D. (International Relations))--University of the Witwatersrand, Faculty of Humanities, 2016 / This thesis examines the efforts of the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) and the Southern African Development Community (SADC) to promote regional integration between 1980 and 2015 in the areas of trade and security. The conceptual framework provides a focused review of general and specific literature on two key concepts of regional integration: divergence, and convergence. Throughout the thesis, the core focus is on the divergence and convergence of COMESA and SADC. The thesis articulates two analytical frameworks: the neoclassical economics approach, and the neoclassical realist approach. A historical account focuses on the history of the Preferential Trade Agreement (PTA) of 1981 that evolved into COMESA by 1993. A history of Southern Africa’s Frontline States (FLS), which evolved into the Southern African Development Coordination Conference (SADCC) in 1980, and later into SADC in 1992, is then provided. The thesis discusses apartheid South Africa’s involvement in the Eastern and Southern African regions. The thesis provides a discussion on the debate on the rationalisation processes of these two organisations: COMESA and SADC, between 1991 and 1997. The thesis next expands on the regionalisation processes of COMESA and SADC between 2008 and 2015. The main actors and factors assessed involve South Africa’s market-led regional approach, its regional developmental role and its economic impact on both regions since it joined SADC in 1994. The thesis expands on the two main regional integration approaches adopted by the COMESA–EAC (East African Community)–SADC Tripartite bloc (created in 2008) of variable geometry and trade liberalisation, as it moved towards its Tripartite Free Trade Area that was signed in June 2015. The thesis also provides definitions and assumptions of two new theories deployed to strengthen the research: i) neoclassical economic regional integration, and ii) neorealist security convergence, which are applied in the thesis. The thesis thus expands on how COMESA and SADC (as both institution and member states) manage multiple memberships. A central argument of the thesis is that multiple memberships have become a stumbling block for convergence. In furtherance of this argument, the thesis explains the benefits of regional integration schemes. Therefore assessed, is how developing countries are likely to be better served by “North–South” than by “South–South” free trade agreements. The analysis is expanded by a discussion of economic convergence in the neoclassical economic approach of open trade in regional trade agreements within the Southern African Customs Union (SACU) – whose five members all belong to SADC - with the presence of a regional hegemonic state: South Africa. To further expand the concept of regionalism to encompass security cooperation, the thesis finally assesses COMESA and SADC’s managing of regional security since the 2008 Tripartite Agreement, by employing the concept of regional security complexes. / MT2017

A dissertation submitted to the School of International Relations of the University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg in part-fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts, March 2017 / This thesis is situated within the study of International Relations. It centers on a critical analysis of the World Bank’s ideological framework towards its poverty reduction and development goals. It seeks to provide an understanding of the ideas, ideals, and values that form the basis of the Bank’s development thinking. Ideology plays an important role in this thesis, as the way the World Bank thinks of and pursues development is of great importance; it speaks to the ideology of development, not just within the Bank, but within the global structure of development. Literature that is reviewed in this thesis suggests that the Bank leans towards a neo-liberal ideology. The selected text for the analysis, The World Development Report: Attacking Poverty (2000-01) will also be analysed in order to review the principles that have been adopted by the Bank and the development community at large. In order to understand and explore the factors that influence the Bank’s ideological framework, this study employs two levels of analysis through a critical theoretical framework and discourse analysis as a methodological tool. The first level of analysis looks at internal sources of influence; the Bank’s voting and governance structure. The second level considers external sources of influence, such as intellectual culture and bureaucratic culture. As stated above, a critical analysis of the Bank’s key document, the World Development Report: Attacking Poverty (2000-01), will also be carried out. This thesis concludes that through internal sources of influences such as the unequal voting shares; powerful actors such as the United States have shaped the Bank’s thinking towards development, as the Bank’s view of development leans towards Anglo-American norms and values as well as interests. Through external sources of influence, the Bank has been dominated by an economic discourse, which Wade (2006) has termed ‘economic imperialism’. Through its hiring, promotion and research publications, the Bank has favored the discourse of economics. Through its financial power within the global arena, the Bank has the power to influence the development narrative, its ideas and values of development have been normalized and universalized within the development community. Its financial strength and research output, both within the Bank and the global arena, are some of its aspect that aid in the maintenance of the status quo in development, consequently, this has led to other views that are not in line with the Bank to be ignored and neglected. The Bank has also presented the neoliberal ideology as the best means to achieve development and alleviate poverty, this is evidenced through the Bank’s key text, as neoliberal principles such as privatisation and deregulation are presented as the only way to achieve development. This thesis also recognises that the Bank does not exists in a vacuum, it ideology, norms and values are also heavily influenced by events that take place on the international sphere, such as the economic crises of the 1970s that influenced the Bank’s position on poverty and development. / XL2018

Student Number: 9606978D Masters in Social Anthropology School of Social Sciences / This thesis is an examination of the ways in which people in Barkly East, a small town in the Eastern Cape, attribute feelings of belonging to the land they own and work. In a country such as South Africa, where the contestation of land is prominent and so integral to the political and social discourse, questions related to the idea of belonging are necessary and important. Significant questions addressed by this thesis are: Who belongs and why do they feel they belong? More importantly, the question of who does not belong, is addressed. In Barkly East a tug of war exists between groups and individuals who want matters to remain constant and those who need the status quo to change. What stands out, moreover, in this community, is its duality on many levels of society, which is played out both consciously and unconsciously. This duality is also manifested through social, racial and economic relations, and is supported by an unequal access to land. This thesis identifies three main elements which contribute to the creation of narratives of belonging in Barkly East. Firstly, history and the perception of history create strong links between personal and communal identity, which in turn reinforces and legitimises claims of belonging. Secondly, hierarchy in terms of gender and race plays an important part in this narration, as some residents are more empowered in this process due to either their gender or race. And three, the connection to the land that people appear to have, plays a definitive role in narratives of belonging. Those who feel they have a heritage in this place also feel a connection to the land. For this reason, land for these people embody, not only the physical space of ‘somewhere to belong to’, but becomes an integral ingredient to the act of belonging and even identity formation.

O objetivo primário desta tese é identificar como as empresas multinacionais (EMNs) agem como negociadoras nas relações econômicas internacionais (REI). A hipótese geral a ser verificada é de que as EMNs buscam influenciar os Estados e suas coalizões utilizando-se de seu poder estrutural e de seu poder brando, nacional e transnacionalmente, de modo a afetar os interesses dos Estados e de suas coalizões. A efetividade da defesa de seus interesses depende, basicamente, da confluência dos interesses dos Estados e das empresas e da vulnerabilidade dos Estados em relação às atividades das empresas bem como a capacidade relativa das coalizões que as empresas buscam influenciar. Dentro desse contexto, na parte I deste trabalho, proponho uma breve discussão sobre o papel das EMNs nas Relações Econômicas Internacionais contemporâneas, identificando quatro grandes cortes teóricos: Marxismo, incluindo vertentes neo-marxistas como a Teoria da Dependência e o Sistema Mundial Moderno; Neo-Realismo, incluindo a Teoria da Estabilidade Hegemônica, o Neoliberalismo, incluindo a Interdependência Complexa e; a visão delineada por Susan Strange. Como conclusão desta discussão, justifico o meu corte teórico fundamentalmente ligado à interdependência complexa e ao xadrez de três níveis de Nye (Neoliberalismo), pelo seu desenho teórico que permite ver a ação das EMNs como independente e não submissa à ação dos Estados, ao mesmo tempo que aceita a centralidade da ação dos Estados na regulação do sistema econômico internacional. Em seguida, reconheço a limitação do poder de influência das EMNs através de uma extensão do modelo Frieden-Rogowsky, onde proponho que; (a) os setores prejudicados pelo processo de internacionalização tendem, tanto em nível nacional quanto em nível transnacional, a se opor a ações políticas das EMNs e; (b) regimes autoritários tendem a ser menos vulneráveis em relação à ação política das EMNs. Finalmente, na Parte II, realizamos dois estudos de caso relativos ao nosso modelo de negociações de empresas EMNs no contexto da política internacional: as negociações sobre o estabelecimento de um regime de propriedade intelectual no contexto da Rodada Uruguai do GATT (General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade) e o Protocolo de Cartagena de Biosegurança , instrumento complementar à Convenção de Biodiversidade (CBD) que regulamenta os organismos geneticamente modificados (OGMs). Uma importante conclusão da tese é que a influência das EMNs nas negociações econômicas internacionais depende largamente das estruturas dos processos de negociação, onde fóruns multilaterais e multitemáticos tendem a favorecer a influência das EMNs em comparação a fóruns monotemáticos. Outra importante contribuição teórica foi explicar as circunstâncias em que as EMNs operam como negociadores das REI, através da influência, se utilizando de poder estrutural e brando, buscando formar coalizões transnacionais e buscando incentivar a formação de coalizões entre Estados que defendam os seus interesses em contextos intergovernamentais. Ou seja, este trabalho explica um pouco da dinâmica da relação do chamado terceiro xadrez (transnacioal) com o segundo xadrez (econômico) das relações internacionais. / The main objective of this thesis is to identify how the multinational companies (MNCs) act as negotiators in the international economic relations (IER). The main hypothesis is that the MNCs try to influence the States and their coalitions, nationally and transnationally, through its structural power as well as its soft power. The defense of their corporate interests depends on the confluence of their interests with those of the states as well as the state\'s vulnerabilities to the corporations activities. Moreover, the MNCs should be able to influence the strongest state\'s coalition in the multilateral process of negotiation. In the first part of this work I propose a brief discussion of the role of the MNCs in the contemporary IER through four theoretical cuts: Marxism, including neo-marxists theories such as the Dependency Theory and the Modern Wold System; Neorealism, including the Hegemonic Stability Theory; neoliberalism, including the Complex Interdependence and; the Susan Strange\'s approach. As a conclusion of this part I justify my theoretical preference related to the Complex Interdependence and the three level chessboard of Nye (Neoliberalism) since its allows us to understand the MNCs preferences as independent of those of the states. At the same time, these models recognize that states still play a central role in the regulation of the international economic system. I recognize the limitations of the MNCs influence power through an extension of the Frieden-Rogowsky model, where I propose that: (a) the sectors damaged by the process of internationalization tend, nationally and transnationally, to oppose to the political actions of the MNCs and; (b) authoritarian regimes tend to be less vulnerable to the political actions of the MNCs. The part II of the thesis shows the role of MNCs in two case studies: the negotiations that led to the creation of an international regime of intellectual property in the Uruguay Round of GATT (General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade) and the negotiations of the Cartagena Protocol of Biosafety, a complementary instrument of the Biodiversity Convention (CBD), which regulates the genetically modified organisms (GMOs). An important conclusion of this thesis is that influence of the MNCs depends on the structure of the negotiation process. Multilateral and multi-issues processes tend to increase their influence in comparison to single-issue negotiations. Another important theoretical contribution was to explain under which circumstances the MNCs are able to act as negotiators in the IRE, through influence, utilizing its structural and soft powers, by forming transnational coalitions and by helping the formation of state\'s coalitions willing to defend their interests in intergovernamental negotiation processes. Therefore, this work partially explains the relationship between the third chessboard (transnational) and the second chessboard (economics) of international relations.

University of Macau / Faculty of Social Sciences. / Department of Government and Public Administration

Submitted by Filipe dos Santos (fsantos@pucsp.br) on 2019-03-19T12:32:32Z No. of bitstreams: 1 William Daldegan de Freitas.pdf: 6718593 bytes, checksum: b93fabf100ab52efc7d87eda42bf41c8 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2019-03-19T12:32:32Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 William Daldegan de Freitas.pdf: 6718593 bytes, checksum: b93fabf100ab52efc7d87eda42bf41c8 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2019-02-25 / The hypothesis defended here is that BRICS is a processual and dynamic phenomenon, adequate to the contemporary international order. As a processual phenomenon, it is understood that there is not a specific definition, much less the intention, regarding the format or the institutionalization to be achieved. It is a dynamic group, due to the perception of its members, which does not mean that there are limitations to their international strategies and initiatives. For this, the annual declarations of the BRICS summits, between 2009 and 2018, were analysed, through the historical methodology used in the analysis of documents and bibliography. The usage of software – AntConc e VOSviwer –, to count words and word association, enabled the construction of a textual analysis model and yielded results that prove the proposed hypothesis: the absence of formalization of the BRICS derives from the interest of its members, by preserving their independence and autonomy in the establishment of projects and policies, without harming their coordination as group. Moreover, the absence of formalization, above all, allows the creation of a bank and a reserve fund and fills the empty spaces, in a stimulus of the enlargement of the international order, without defying it / A tese aqui defendida é de que o BRICS é um fenômeno processual e dinâmico, adequado à natureza da ordem internacional contemporânea. Enquanto processual, entende-se que não há definição, tampouco intenção, quanto ao formato ou institucionalização a serem alcançados. Trata-se de um grupo dinâmico, devido às percepções dos seus membros, sem que isso signifique limitações em suas estratégias e iniciativas internacionais. Para tanto, foram analisadas as declarações anuais de cúpula do BRICS, entre 2009 e 2018, por meio da metodologia histórica no emprego da análise documental e bibliográfica. A utilização dos softwares – AntConc e VOSviwer - para a contagem e associação de palavras permitiu a construção de um modelo para análise textual e gerou resultados que comprovam a tese proposta: a não formalização do BRICS deriva do interesse de seus membros, ao preservar a independência e autonomia na condução de projetos e políticas individuais, sem que isso acarrete prejuízo para sua articulação enquanto grupo. Além disso, e sobretudo, permite a criação de um banco e de um fundo de reservas e a ocupação de espaços vazios, num estímulo ao alargamento da ordem internacional, sem contestá-la

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The first chapter of the thesis offers a short theoretical view on relations among small and big states. The second chapter deals with political relations of Estonia and Russia. The chapter also describes beginnings of independent Estonian political scene as well as Russian reactions on the newly given situation. The third chapter looks at security dimension of the Estonian-Russian relations. In the fourth chapter the readers can find information about ethnic minorities in Estonia with emphasis on the Russian minority. The whole mninority issue is put into political, economic, diplomatic and security context. The fifth chapter describes mutual conflicts between Estonia and Russia which appeared in recent past and their consequences on both internal and international political scenes. Economic relations between Estonia and Russian Federation are described in the sixth chapter where one can also find comparison of the basic macroeconomic aggregates and quantification of mutual trade. A part of this chapter is also an analysis of competitiveness of Estonia and Russia. The seventh chapter deals with the reality of mutual crossborder cooperation between Estonia and Russia.