Recent debates in comparative industrial relations scholarship have raised significant questions about the impact of changes in the international economy on national patterns of industrial relations. Globalisation, it has been argued, creates pressures for convergence that will increasingly undermine national diversity in industrial relations institutions and outcomes. At its most extreme, the globalisation thesis predicts �a universal race to the bottom� of labour standards. This globalisation thesis has been broadly criticised in the comparative industrial relations literature. Rather, a growing body of comparative industrial relations literature has pointed to evidence of continued diversity, despite the common pressures associated with changes in the international economy. This literature has focussed on the importance national level institutional variables play in explaining diversity and suggested that differences in national level institutional variables are likely to produce cross-national divergence rather than convergence. While the institutionalist approach represents an important corrective to the globalisation thesis, it has difficulty explaining similarities in patterns of industrial relations changes, despite institutional differences across countries, and is largely unable to explain changes in the institutions themselves. This thesis argues that these limitations of the institutionalist approach reflect its intellectual origins in comparative politics. The major contribution of this thesis is the development of an interaction approach the relationship between international economic change and the domestic institutions of industrial relations. This alternative theoretical approach, which is drawn from concepts in the political economy tradition in industrial relations and the international political economy literature, identifies four key variables the shape the relationship between international economic change and the domestic institutions of industrial relations: namely, the international economic regime; the national production profile; the accumulation strategy of the state; and the role of institutional effects. The thesis tests the explanatory power of the interaction approach by focussing on the comparison between two closely matched countries- Australia and New Zealand- during three periods of significant economic change in the international economy: the end of the nineteenth century; the immediate post world war two period; and, in the late 1960s. It shows that each of these periods a focus on changes in the international economy and how they impact the interests of employers, workers and the state helps explain both similarities and differences in industrial relations developments in the two countries. In doing so it demonstrates the importance of what appear to be small differences between the cases. The ability of the interaction approach to account for similarities and differences across three time periods in two most similar countries suggests that it may have broader application in cross-national comparison and that may provide the basis for a more general reassessment of the relationship between the contemporary wave of globalisation and industrial relations institutions and outcomes.

Abstract The International Baccalaureate in Australia and Canada: 1980 - 1993 This dissertation is a study of the International Baccalaureate(IB) in the education systems of Canada and Australia. The IB has been described as a world movement. The number of global institutions and social movements are increasing greatly in the 1990s. The thesis looks at the historical development of the IB, recent developments of the IB in Canada and Australia and develops the claim that the IB has become a provider of global cultural capital. The theoretical paradigm adopted is that of Pierre Bourdieu. Conclusions of the study are: 1 in Australia and Canada the IB is as important for the 'symbolic imposition' it bestows on holders of the IB as it is for the stated intentions of educating the whole person. 2 the IB functions as an agent of 'reproduction' rather than as an international laboratory for experiment both in curriculum and examining methods as originally intended by the founders of the IB. 3 students participating in the IB increase their potential for advantage in the 'global field'.

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) / Abstract: Globalisation, Gender and Teachers’ Employment This thesis examines the nexus between globalisation and patterns of gendered employment in the education industry in New South Wales, Australia. Globalisation has had an impact on employment and gender relations in Australia through economic restructuring, through the transformation of the labour market and through public sector reform. A number of theories of globalisation recognise its impact on employment practices, but many fail to examine its impact on gender relations. This study brings the gendered aspects of globalisation into focus. The changing nature of employment in the education industry is located within the broader context of globalisation and economic restructuring in Australia. Using statistical information from the Australian Bureau of Statistics and other sources, this thesis traces the impact of globalisation on the Australian economy, labour market and, in particular, the public sector. The thesis also traces historically the institutional changes in Australia that have contributed to the globalisation process. A field study was undertaken to examine casual teachers’ experiences of globalisation, economic and labour market restructuring and public sector reform in New South Wales. Interviews were conducted with 20 casual school teachers working in the New South Wales public education system. Men and women teachers, working in rural and urban locations, were asked about their experiences of globalisation and its impact on gender relations in the workplace and in the home. Although household and workplace structures in Australia are changing as a result of globalisation, these structures remain gendered. Gender relations in the household continue to structure access to the workplace. There are elements of systematic discrimination in the treatment of casual teachers in public education in New South Wales, and teachers are penalised for adopting non-standard forms of work. Globalisation has individualising and peripheralising impacts on casual teachers; however, they have developed mechanisms for resisting these aspects of globalisation. Although individuals are formed by and respond to the structural conditions created by globalisation they are able to make choices about employment patterns and gender divisions between home and paid work.

This thesis aims to provide a more critical framework for the assessment of future technologies and therefore social directions and to help to bring an understanding to the relationship between global political economy, corporate power, ideology, science and technology. This is essential given the many issues facing contemporary society – issues of sustainability and humanity’s place in the broad ecology, of the need for a diversity of economies, societies and cultures, of the need for greater economic equality and equity across the globe. The relationship between globalisation, science and technology, democratic governance and citizens is explored using the case of genetic engineering technologies. The thesis draws on a conceptual framework provided by the theory of political economy to facilitate the assessment of the impact of a technology on society . It provides a critical framework for looking at individualised, sectoral and short term interests versus the often conflicting interests of what is termed the ‘common good’. The juxtaposition of the neo-liberal, conservative and contemporarily dominant world view with that of the more radical, political economy stance exposes the tension between these two ways of viewing human history and the future of humankind.

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In the aftermath of the earthquake in Haiti 2010 a second disaster hit the small Caribbean country. This time in the shape of a cholera epidemic, imported by Nepalese UN soldiers. The disease outbreak culminated in a previously unpresented lawsuit against the United Nations in which their principle of absolute immunity was questioned. This study highlights the complex causal paths that preceded the legal dispute, by investigating three hypotheses on why the controversy with the UN got out of hand and could not be resolved through other means. The findings imply that the framing of the Haitian state as fragile and corrupt led to a shift in the perception of responsibilities. As the government was rendered incapable, international organizations were expected to provide health and well-being to the Haitian people. This however proved to be an expectation they could not live up to. The case of Haiti illustrates a good example of the difficulties in the delivery of large-scale humanitarian aid and how this can undermine existing institutions if implemented unwisely.

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This thesis is a comparative case study of the Suffragette movement and the Gulabi Gang, two women’s movements using violence as a political strategy to fight patriarchal structures. Studying vigilante women’s movements is important as the current literature on the relationship between women and violence is deficient, focusing on women as victims of violence but neglecting the idea of women as contributors to violence. This study therefore aims to challenge the idea of female pacifism and to acknowledge women as rational, and sometimes violent, actors. This will be done by comparing the Suffragette movement and the Gulabi Gang, two most-different cases of vigilante women’s movements, with the purpose to find the motivations behind their strategic choice of violence. The study is of an explorative kind, aiming to contribute to the existing theories of vigilantism with why some women’s groups have felt compelled to step outside of traditional stereotypes and norms attributed to women to achieve their goals. The result shows that the existing theories explaining the motivations to vigilante actions coincide with the Suffragettes and the Gulabi Gang. They are however also proven to not adequately explain why some women’s movements use violence. This study therefore contributes, to the existing theories, with the conclusion that women’s movements use violence, generally seen as a masculine strategy, to shock and surprise the people and the decision-makers. The use of violence, in other words, creates a disturbance in the societal structures as a result of women generally being unexpected to use such strategies. It furthermore creates opportunities for the groups to increase the attention devoted to them in ways that would not have been possible if the groups would use more feminine strategies.

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This thesis examines how four different women's rights organizations in Nicaragua are arguing against the current abortion prohibition (2018). The thesis is based on a qualitative text analysis where an analytical framework has been developed to categorize the different arguments that were found. Moreover, the thesis compares how the relevant organizations are arguing compared with how they argued ten years ago (around 2008). Various ways of arguing against the law were found among the organizations. Some based their arguments on the health-related issues the prohibition leads to. Others focused on a rights-based approach and argued against the law based on feminist theory. Regarding the time comparison, some interesting differences were found. In general, the organizations analyzed in this thesis had a more positive relation to feminism than the ones that seemed to be ruling ten years ago which was a difference note-worthy. Another clear difference was that the "modern" organizations were more supportive of an unlimited access to abortion and not only access to therapeutic abortion, which was more frequent among the organizations earlier.