I argue that a country’s preferences in an international trade negotiation ultimately reflect the domestic distribution of power across economic sectors not only in the field of the market, but also in the field of society. Fields correspond to arenas of power. Whereas in the market societal actors have economic capital (EC), their position in society determines their identity capital (IC). The more a sector is associated to the dominant conception of national identity, the higher is its IC. Both types of capital impact a sector’s political power (PP). IC manifests itself in the phase of ratification either instrumentally, when in dispute in the political field, or structurally, if embedded in state institutions. Hence, when IC is instrumentalised, only if the coalition in government espouses a social paradigm to which a sector is mostly associated it will be able to convert its level of IC into PP. As ratification shadows negotiation, constraints in this latter phase tend to be false positives in explaining the formation of the national interest. The hypothesis on the role of IC in shaping the weight of sectors’ preferences in trade negotiations is tested along with a process of theory-building through a multi-method structured-focused comparison. For the comparison, two countries were chosen as their societies are diverse in terms of identity, yet each represents a variety of the effects of IC. Brazil and India have identity-based social cleavages that are expressed in structural and instrumental terms respectively. They are key players in the World Trade Organisation’s (WTO) multilateral system of trade, having participated of the Doha Development Round of trade liberalisation. Brazil expressed interest for liberalisation as the mostly racially-diverse sectors had offensive demands. In turn, protectionist demands prevailed in India, as defensive sectors are associated to the dominant secularist paradigm of national identity.

This design project takes the form of an illustrated story told from the perspective of a young adult middle-class Swede who feels uncertainty in the face of larger issues in the world. Where do all our stuff come from? Is he buying unethical products? Is he actively making a situation worse elsewhere through his choices? How would you even know, when the consequences of such actions might only become evident far, far away from Sweden? How do you relate to this? What should you do? As the protagonist wants for answers, he decides to try and find out what the situation is really like, and what could be done about it. But, as he would soon find out, the answer is not a simple one… In this work-in-progress story, a middle-class Swede must contend with the fact that he’s part of a subset of humanity that in large part benefits off of the thankless work that may be found in the so-called Global South. In his investigation, he seeks to find answers to important questions. What’s the nature of this economic relationship between the Global South and the Global North? Is it really enough to buy ‘more sustainable’ products to relieve the impact on environments and societies? What are the hidden perspectives and stories that those in the Global South experience every day? How can one try to be a good person and create positive change in the world when faced with overwhelming systemic issues on a global scale? Through the story, the nature of global wealth disparity is illuminated as the Swede tries to make sense of global power relationships in relation to labor and production, and so too offers a reader who may be having similar worries an opportunity to learn. As uncomfortable truths are revealed, a greater systemic issue becomes evident. As economic growth takes precedence over social and environmental wellbeing, who wins and who loses – and where? This is the written thesis section of the project, which seeks to elaborate on the different concepts included in the story, as well as surrounding it. Aspects such as the purpose of the project and target audience are gone over, emphasizing the need to communicate complex subjects to wider audiences while avoiding the act of oversimplification of the issues presented. The methodology of the work is presented, and aspects of the design process are documented. The project cumulates into a digital exhibition with other design students, where a work-in-progress version of the comic book is presented digitally for reading. The end of the thesis features a reflection of the result and the design process in order to identify where improvements could be made, as well as the answers the author of this thesis found in relation to the project questions. In summary, there seem to be an indication that working collectively as opposed to individually may be more effective towards creating positive change, in opposition to individual-focused solutions. Finding appropriate solutions to issues may not have to be found immediately, but may be found through a process affected by several different people in a collective that are able to contribute with their differing skills and knowledge to locate the most appropriate path forward. / <p>Here is an updated version, using the template of the front page that was suggested.</p>

Google Translate’s mission is “to enable everyone, everywhere, to understand the world and express themselves across languages” (Pitman, 2021). But are algorithms capable of leading us beyond the translation of the word toward an understanding of the world? Computational linguistics research has been interested in assessing this kind of real-world effects of technology and invited other disciplines to join their effort. With this purpose, this study examines the ways the algorithmic agency (Maly, 2022) elicits a ‘movement of meanings’ (Silverstone, 1999) when mediating news reports from English to Portuguese – the official language of Brazil, the country with the greatest use of Google Translate (Turovsky, 2016). For that, it investigates how algorithms convert appraisal and semiotic elements that carry ideological stances. The bilingual sample consists of six news articles on the U.S. Capitol attack published in U.S. outlets, two each of right, center, and left political leaning, along with their translations obtained through Google Translate. The analytical framework encompasses Fairclough’s (2003) CDA methods that allow an exploration of how discourses embedded in these texts represent the social phenomena that are being depicted. This lens is complemented by the Appraisal theory (Martin &amp; White, 2005) to investigate how value positions are constructed within texts through evaluation. A third analytical tool is necessary to engage with the ways in which meanings are moved from source to target texts. For this, van Leeuwen’s (2008) notion of recontextualization affords an assessment of the processes inherent to translations. The analysis showed that algorithms neutralized appraisal through lexical choices, changed semiotic elements through recontextualization, and blurred stances by standardizing the target language. The paper, thus, concludes that Google Translate constructed power by renaming reality and enacted it by reshaping evaluations, advancing research that seeks to examine algorithms’ impacts on digital discourse. Speaking from the epistemic locus of the Global South, this thesis proposes a critical reflection on the ideologies concealed by the self-proclaimed discourse of the universality of digital technologies.

Climate change is the worst long-term security issue humans has ever faced. The discourse around the problems and solutions connected to it are predominantly coming from the Global North. On the other hand, it is the Global South who are experiencing the impacts of a changing climate, in the form of floods, droughts, heatwaves, and lack of food, water, and energy. This asymmetrical relationship has rendered the Global South the vulnerable subjects in the current governmentality regime of climate change. Through a governmental lens, this paper analyses the similarities and differences in how climate change as a security and IR issue is problematized, and especially what solutions are seen as viable, across and between the North-South divide. This understudied relationship and its implications, is in this paper exposed and tackled. It shows that the Global North are slowly shifting the responsibility of coping with climate change away from the large GHG emitters, and on to the individuals in the Global South that are worst affected by the consequences of a changing climate. The recently updated NDCs within the Paris agreement supports this view and make up a key part of this paper.

This study examines political engagement among Syrian students at the University of Jordan who are either refugees, asylum seekers or children of Jordanian mothers. By adopting Ekman and Amnå’s conceptualization of political participation and analysing 15 semi-structured interviews, I find that the Syrian students are both engaged in manifest and latent forms of political participation. The engagement is mostly canalised through individual activities rather than collective activities. Most importantly, the engagement is less common in domestic issues than non-domestic issues. When the students are engaged in domestic issues, it is mostly in latent forms of political participation and in private activities not risking revealing their opinions to the general public. Interestingly, I find that the students are interested in Jordan public affairs but that this interest is not transformed into political action aiming to affect Jordanian political decisions. The pattern of political participation in several ways corresponds with the students’ perceptions of risks. The Syrian students associate political engagement in Jordan with perceived risks such as being deported back to Syria or facing racism. Respondents expressed that they were not politically engaged because of the risks that it could entail and engagement in activities connected to Jordan public affairs seems to be perceived as more of a risk compared to being engaged in non-domestic issues. This seems to be particularly true for activities carried out in public. My findings are important as they shed light on political engagement in authoritarian contexts in the Global South and among marginalised non-citizens.

Private military and security companies (PMSCs) are established actors in the global militaryindustry. The adaptation to utilize PMSCs as a complement to national militaries has increased their importance significantly. PMSCs have gained attention due to similarities with outlawed mercenary activity, causing legal implications and difficulties regulating them. However, the risks that PMSC recruits experience are not addressed sufficiently. Thus, this study aims to scrutinize and analyze how PMSCs recruitment relates to risk, which risks exist for the recruits, and how the recruits’ origin affects risks. By developing the idea of Risk-Transfer War with the Global South and Global North concept, the study gains insight into how Risk-Transfer can beextended to the private military industry. The study shows that economic, physical, and political risks are present for PMSC recruits, and the recruits from the Global South are the most affectedby them. The globalized private military industry enables countries that utilize PMSCs which recruit from the Global South, to get a cheaper, more flexible workforce with fewer politicalimplications. However, the Global South recruits are paid less than their Northern colleagues, they are getting little to no recognition for their sacrifices while risking their lives for the secompanies in hopes of a better livelihood. By understanding PMSCs and their recruitmentprocesses better, we can adjust issues in current regulations.

The climate crisis is an urgent threat towards people and planet, and rapid changes are needed to decarbonize the planet. The energy sector is in a current transition to renewable-based energy, which also includes a shift to electric cars. Electric cars are motivated to be the future, which will be beneficial for the economy and the environment. The industry has also received criticism, several human rights violations occur in the supply chains of the electric cars and that it is an industry that risk increasing global inequalities. This study explores the complexity of the car industry’s transition to renewable energy, based on case studies of Volvo, Mercedes, and Volkswagen, and their sustainability work related to the supply chains of electric vehicles batteries. The purpose is to show the relation between companies and power structures, as an exemplification of the possibilities for a just energy transition from fossil fuel-based energy to renewable-based energy. The findings shows that the transition is shaped by economical values, which risks broaden the gap between Global South and Global North. It emphasized that it is an issue that needs a collective effort to change the Status Quo, to create sustainable solutions based on the three pillars of sustainable development beneficial for all, not only the Global North.

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<p>The global HIV/AIDS pandemic has emerged alongside a changing world order marked by the growing power and authority of business, new constraints on public authority and policy autonomy, and new global hierarchies, inequalities, and contradictory tendencies. These conditions have helped midwife new configurations of public and private power, authority, and relations and shaped normative and operating environments for global health governance. In these contexts, public-private partnerships emerged as an institutional experiment, ostensibly to address health governance gaps and failures, including access to HIV and AIDS medicines in the global South. This study investigates the growth and roles of private authority in health governance through the lens of four case studies of public-private partnerships intended to enhance access to HIV and AIDS medicines in the global South. The study reveals that public-private partnerships in health emerged from this history as institutional experiments, yet not convincingly as functionalist responses to governance gaps and failures. The history demonstrates that private business actors opted to engage in partnerships in the contexts of a convergence of social, political, and commercial pressures, and normative and structural transformations in the world order. The case study partnerships emerged as accommodation or <em>trasformismo </em>strategies which offered concessions in an attempt to neutralise and co-opt social contestation around treatment access, without succumbing to demands for deeper structural and legislative reforms. These strategies offer bilateral, narrow, and tactical contributions in a framework of poor design, governance, accountability, and equity considerations and obligations, and are ultimately unconvincing in their commitment or capacity to expand access to HIV and AIDS medicines. Ultimately, public-private partnerships in health present practical, strategic, and normative consequences that necessitate new approaches to reform and/or serious reconsideration of their role and prospects in global health governance.</p> / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

This thesis examines the discourses surrounding the subject of climate change, with particular emphasis on the discourse(s) of the emerging social movement for climate justice. Positioned within the social constructivist and critical research paradigms, the methodology involves a Foucauldian-inspired discourse analysis in which discourse is defined as a historically-situated, materially-embodied, and power-imbued set of statements and rules that comprise a unique and coherent representation of the world. A review of the climate change-related literature reveals four primary discourses on the phenomenon of rising greenhouse gas emissions: early scientific, climate modernization, climate change denial, and climate justice. The statements and rules of these four discourses, as well as the theoretical trends and sociopolitical, economic, and ecological factors affecting their historical development are described. A deeper analysis using 26 primary documents representing every major climate justice organization reveals that rather than a single coherent discourse, the climate justice movement encompasses four individual sub-discourses: global, peasant-oriented, Indigenous, and civil rights. Focussed on climate-related inequities in developing countries of the Southern Hemisphere, the global discourse constructs climate change as a problem of the structures and logic of the globalized capitalist economy. The peasant-oriented discourse emphasizes inequities to peasant farmers, and represents climate change as largely the result of industrialized agriculture and food systems. With specific concern for the wellbeing of Indigenous communities, the Indigenous discourse locates the cause of climate change in the “violation of the sacred” and the loss of harmony with Mother Earth. The United States-based civil rights discourse primarily emphasizes the rights and interests of African American communities and constructs climate change as a problem of externalized ecological costs and failure to incent a “green” economy. The relations of power between the four climate justice sub-discourses and the prevailing climate modernization discourse are tentatively explored on the basis of three indicators of strength (internal coherence, material foundations, and adaptive capacity), on which basis several questions related to discursive resistance are proposed as possible avenues of future research. / Thesis (Master, Environmental Studies) -- Queen's University, 2012-10-11 09:45:29.397