Nationalism and globalisation are two topics of great debate. In an increasingly connected world, these concepts are contrasted as opposites unable to coexist with a rise in one there must be a fall in the other. In this study, these concepts are explored alongside Olympism through the medium of the Olympic Games. Historically, the Olympics are structured around nations/nation-states, and national teams, while still attempting to promote universalism, internationalism, and the unity of humankind. This work aims to explore how and why nationalism, Olympism, and globalisation are expressed in the Olympic Movement through a case study of the London 2012 Olympic Games and what the outcomes of these actions are. Backed by an interpretivist paradigm, this study focused on selected events in the lead-up to the London Games, starting in the summer of 2011, and culminated with a prolonged period of observation at the London Games, both at Olympic venues and the live site at Hyde Park. Throughout the course of data collection there was a focus on not only the institutions staging the Games but also the spectators taking part in them.

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, there exists a near total consensus regarding the desirability of democracy. Many see the push towards democracy as encouraged by the increasing interconnectednessusually referred to as 'globalization'-between countries and peoples. Civil societies around the world are often regarded as the primary beneficiaries of globalization. Simultaneously, they are frequently represented by policy-makers, academics and development practitioners, as the new agents of democratization, particularly in the struggle against authoritarian regimes. This thesis seeks to answer two sets of questions: 1. Does civil society contribute to democratization? If so, how? And if not, why not? 2. Does globalization help or hinder the democratization process? In response, this thesis argues that civil society plays a key role in contributing to democratization, but it does not necessarily do so. Indeed, certain sections of civil society playa role in maintaining authoritarianism. Secondly, globalization both helps and hinders democratization. This is nothing to do with globalization's intrinsic qualities, but rather due to the way that actors within civil society perceive glo baliza tion. I present here a case study of Egyptian human rights NGOs, as a sector of Egyptian civil society struggling for democratic governance. Following a survey of the current literature on globalization, democratization and civil society, Chapter 1 introduces the theoretical and conceptual elements of the thesis, which are based on Gramscian notions of hegemony and civil society. Chapter 2 locates the historical problem of democracy in Egypt within the hegemonic power relations that have developed in the post-colonial era. This chapter represents the emergence of Egypt's first human rights organization as pushing the boundaries of the hegemonic consensus. Chapter 3 demonstrates that, despite the shared origins and objectives of the Egyptian human rights NGO community, different human rights NGOs pursue different strategies in attempting to bring about democratization. These different strategies depend upon the positions of human rights activists vis-a-vis the post-colonial hegemonic consensus. Chapter 4 examines the way in which human rights NGOs conflict with other sections of civil society because of the former's resistance to the hegemonic consensus. Furthermore, civil society opposition to human rights NGOs leads to calls for their control and, consequently, the strengthening of authoritarianism. Chapter 5 examines further how authoritarianism may be strengthened as a result of globalization. It also considers the problems faced by human rights NGOs and other civil society actors in building a wide-based coalition for democratization that challenges the bases of the hegemonic consensus underpinning authoritarianism. In the final chapter, I suggest some implications for this research inrelation to how we conceive politics and political strategies in the struggles of non-state groups for democratization

Educational discourses, practices and institutions are increasingly shaped today by forces and envoys of a globalised world. Research suggests that functional integration into a neo-liberal world economy compels many nation-states to eschew indigenous educational priorities in favour of a globally structured agenda for education. This thesis explores the emergence of new educational policy responses to this agenda, with a particular emphasis on the practice of policy ‘borrowing’. While numerous studies have explored educational issues including curricular convergence and mass schooling in the context of policy borrowing, few have explored health education from a similar theoretical perspective. This thesis applies the Globally Structured Agenda for Education (GSAE) approach to the study of Uganda’s efforts to borrow an abstinence-only educational intervention as the nation’s primary HIV/AIDS prevention strategy. Uganda is regarded by many AIDS researchers and public health professionals as one of the world’s most compelling success stories in the battle against HIV and AIDS. From the early 1990s until 2003, the Ugandan government actively promoted a comprehensive approach to HIV prevention, encouraging Ugandans of all ages to observe the ‘ABCs’ of sexual health (Abstain, Be Faithful, use Condoms). Unlike the vast majority of its sub-Saharan counterparts, Uganda then experienced a rapid and extraordinary decline in rates of HIV prevalence. In 2004, however, the government of Uganda abruptly abandoned the popular ABC approach in favour of ‘policy borrowing’ PEPFAR, the model of sexual health education advocated by the United States. This exclusively promoted the benefits of abstinence until marriage. The sudden shift in education policy and public discourse in Uganda is the focus of this research. Two forms of documentary analysis are used. The first explores the borrowing process in detail, examining the interests and motivations underlying cross-national policy attraction, decision-making, implementation and ultimately, indigenisation in Uganda. The second explores the social, educational and health consequences of an abstinence-until-marriage approach in the context of Uganda’s localised AIDS epidemic. A discourse-historical approach is utilised to examine the ways in which language and rhetoric establish a narrative correlation between premarital abstinence and HIV prevention in Uganda, and to analyse the extent to which public discourse legitimately reflects the social, economic and epidemiological conditions in-country. The findings suggest the discourse on HIV/AIDS prevention in Uganda focuses mainly on (i) the severity of the national epidemic, (ii) the scope, nature and success of the ABC approach, (iii) the virtues of pre-marital abstinence, and (iv) the prophylactic inefficiency of condom use. The various arguments in support of abstinence-until-marriage education are found to be largely motivated by the political ambitions and economic aspirations of key power elites in Uganda. This finding suggests the neo-liberal, capital-driven imperatives of a global education agenda have indeed come to supersede local health needs in Uganda. The study concludes that Uganda’s efforts to halt the spread HIV/AIDS through abstinence-until- marriage education fail to adequately address the prevention needs of the nation’s adolescents and adults. This is evidenced by the fact the largest percentage of HIV-positive persons in Uganda are married, divorced and/or widowed women. Rather than marriage being seen as – in the American model – a ‘safe haven’ from the virus, it is instead the very place where Ugandans are most at risk. This has profound implications not only for education and health policy-making in Uganda, but also raises serious questions about the efficacy and relevance of ‘borrowing’ policies whose origins, ideologies and political contexts emanate from elsewhere.

My thesis considers the distinctive characteristics of contemporary artistic production and display in Scotland from the 1960s to the present. The main objective is to make manifest the diversification of global sites of contemporary art away from traditional centres by examining less exposed aspects of art practice in Scotland. My methodology is driven by a set of case studies of artist-run initiatives (ARIs), which provide models of enquiry into alternative methods of production and display of contemporary art and that demonstrate the role of ARIs in producing art scenes, and not merely representing those that already exist. I focus on counter-histories of self-organised ARIs and their legacies, and adopt a genealogical approach to examine how recent praxis and infrastructures came into existence and how their initial impetus intersected with their historical conditions. Anthony Giddens’ structuration theory is employed to examine local forms of power and infrastructure, as well as the wider, global structures of the art world. The emphasis is on how ARIs and established institutions can and do negotiate with each other and in recognising the interpenetration of different scales of art institutions. I apply a bifurcated approach in order to bring Scotland into dialogue with anthropological discussions of cultural globalisation. I ask how locality, nationalism and globalisation are configured in (visual) culture generally and as applied specifically to a Scottish context. This is underpinned by a consideration of Scottish Devolution as a disintegration of hierarchical domination, which correlates to the ideologies of artist-run practice. Finally, I propose the eradication of top-down delivery in favour of horizontal distributions of knowledge and practice via self-organisation.

This thesis seeks to analyse to what extent, in what ways and with what success does the Chinese government seek to manage its interaction with sport globalisation in Olympic Movement, football and basketball? Held et al's (1999) conceptualisation of globalisation provides the major theoretical framework for the analysis. In order to analyse the behaviour of the Chinese state we adopt Houlihan's (1994) concepts of 'reach' and 'response' which focus attention on global actors and pressures external to the country and state (reach) and the capacity of states to determine their response. A set of quantitative and qualitative indicators of globalisation have been identified. Data were collected from a number of sources including official government documents, news media, and a series of 32 interviews with Chinese officials. The analysis reveals that the Chinese government has demonstrated a desire and a capacity to manage the impact of the Olympic Movement, global football and basketball on domestic sport practices; and second, the Chinese government has attempted, with reasonable success, to manage the impact of commercial interests on Chinese domestic football, basketball and other Olympic sports practices, elite athletes and professional clubs. However, a number of tensions exist: first, between the priorities of commercial clubs and national teams' development; and second, between the highly paid and internationally mobile 'star players' and the centrally controlled elite development system.

published_or_final_version / abstract / Geography / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

La présente thèse a pour objet l’étude du régionalisme. Ce dernier se réfère ici à des régions mondiales constituant une dimension médiane entre le niveau étatique et le système mondial. Notre analyse porte donc sur les nouvelles expériences régionales qui ont émergé dans le contexte de la globalisation néolibérale et de la post-guerre froide. Le régionalisme est analysé en tant qu’objet des relations internationales et l’étude de cas choisi est celui du régionalisme latino-américain, et plus précisément le Marché commun du Sud (MERCOSUR). Une importante partie des travaux consacrés à l'explication du régionalisme partent d'une approche essentiellement endogène accordant une attention distraite aux déterminants exogènes. Pour comprendre la nature du nouveau régionalisme, il faut le situer dans une perspective globale qui tient compte de l’interrelation entre les niveaux national, régional et global. Bien que le régionalisme renvoie à des logiques internes propres, le phénomène est fortement conditionné et façonné par l’extérieur du fait qu’il évolue en interaction directe et constante avec le monde économique et politique international, et qu’il fait l’objet de politiques menées par des acteurs dominants de l’arène mondiale. Les déterminants extérieurs sont donc essentiels pour comprendre l’évolution du régionalisme. Dès lors, la thèse se propose de répondre à la question suivante : comment et en quoi la nature et l’évolution du régionalisme se trouve façonnée par le cadre exogène et comment ce dernier interagit avec les facteurs d’ordre interne ? Pour répondre à cette question il convient de resituer le MERCOSUR dans le cadre du triangle atlantique (Amérique du Sud/Union européenne/Etats-Unis) qui lui-même doit être placé dans le contexte plus large de la globalisation néolibérale.

In today’s global religious landscape, many beliefs and practices have been dislocated and thrust into unfamiliar cultural environments and have been forced to adapt to these new settings. There has been a significant amount of research on this phenomenon as it appears in various contexts, much of it centred on the concepts of globalisation/localisation and appropriation. In this dissertation, the same process is explored in relation to the traditions of contemplative prayer from within Eastern Orthodox Christianity known as the Jesus Prayer and hesychasm. These prayer practices have traveled from a primarily monastic Orthodox Christian setting, into general Orthodox Christian usage, and finally into wider contemporary Western culture. As a result of this geographic shift from a local to a global setting, due mainly to immigration and dissemination of relevant texts, there has been a parallel shift of interpretation. This shift of interpretation involves the way the practices are understood in relation to general conceptions of authority and tradition. The present work attempts to explain the divergence of interpretations of these practices by reference to the major themes of authority and tradition, and to several secondary themes such as appropriation, cultural transmission, “glocalisation,” memory, and Orientalism. By looking at accounts of the Jesus Prayer and hesychasm from a variety of sources and perspectives, the contentious issues between accounts will be put into a wider perspective that considers fundamental differences in worldviews.

The subject of this thesis is financial globalisation in historical perspective, and its key contribution is to demonstrate the J-curve as an alternative depiction of financial globalisation since the classical Gold Standard period. As a preliminary and essential step, some definitions and clarifications on globalisation are provided in a literature review. Then, fundamental issues are considered to assess financial globalisation, so that both the goals and the boundaries of the thesis are clearly stated. Throughout the historical period in debate, there were two waves of financial globalisation: the first one occurring during the 1870-1914 period, and the second lasting from the end of the Bretton Woods agreements until the present day. The dominant approach in economics asserts that the degree of commercial and financial integration corresponds over time to a U-shaped pattern, i.e. markets presented high levels of integration during the forty years before WWI. Then, this integration collapsed in the years between the wars, recovering gradually after the Bretton Woods agreements until it reached again in the 1990s the same pre-1914 level of integration. The thesis approaches this model focusing on the financial side. Then, according to the U-curve, contemporary financial globalisation is not unprecedented. This thesis proposes an alternative view. In contrast to the mainstream U-curve, the empirical data provided indicates that today’s financial integration is unprecedented and more pervasive in some key financial markets than it was during the pre-1914 era. The empirical evidence provided proposes that a J-shaped pattern is a more appropriate way to interpret how financial markets have evolved since the late 19th century. The Jshape suggests that in some financial achieved a huge surge from the 1990s to 2005, surpassing the previous level of integration. So, in these markets, contemporary financial globalisation is unprecedented from the 1990s onwards. The J-curve does not mean that all financial markets became more globalised during the late 20th century in comparison to the Gold Standard era, but only some that presented the U-shape from 1870 to 1995. Qualitative aspects of the J-curve are examined. The different institutional frameworks underlying each historical period are discussed revealing that new institutional arrangements, policy changes, technological advances in ICT and a wide range of financial innovations are the key driving forces that have spurred today’s financial globalisation to higher levels than in the past. Finally, the last chapter assesses the key macroeconomic implications of this new era for the world economy.

The overall aim of the research project is to investigate the alms and the consequences of the 1988 Seoul Olympic Games. The Seoul Olympics took place over twenty years ago, and the event has had a significant impact on South Korean society which is best explained by reference to theories of globalization and mega events. The project uses qualitative methods and a variety of data sources to evaluate the domestic impact of the Games in relation to culture, politics, sport, and economics. The analysis is contextualised within an understanding of Korean history with specific reference to Japanese colonialism and relations between North and South Korea. Particular attention is paid to the decision by most of the Communist bloc to participate in the Seoul Olympics, despite a North Korean boycott. The thesis also examines the reasons that lay behind Seoul wiuning the right to host the Games, as well as the postGames consequences, both of which are addressed using empirical data drawn from interviews and documentary evidence. Having addressed the evidence within the context of wider sociological debate concerning globalisation, the thesis concludes that South Korea's political, economic, cultural and sporting interests were well served by the Seoul Olympic Games, and that hosting a mega-event of this scale helped to accelerate South Korea's modernisation process and its emergence on the global stage.