This study seeks to address a number of important questions with regard to children in public care, commonly referred to in the UK as ‘looked-after’ children. Firstly, the study aims to identify whether there are child or placement characteristics that explain the observable variations in rates of children ‘looked-after’ between local authority areas. Secondly, it seeks to investigate the impact of poverty and social inequality on the likelihood of children becoming ‘looked-after’. Using a social inequalities lens the study seeks to identify whether there is a ‘social gradient’ in the rates at which children enter public care. Finally, the research aims to identify factors that predict a child who has experienced a period of being ‘looked-after’ re-entering care. Using six years of administrative data on children ‘looked after’ in Wales the study was undertaken using quantitative analyses of secondary data relating to approximately 15,000 ‘looked-after’ children. The research was undertaken using descriptive statistics, linear regression and binary logistic regression. The study identifies a relationship between neighbourhood level deprivation and the likelihood of children becoming ‘looked-after’. There is clear evidence of a ‘social gradient’ in the numbers of children entering care, with a corresponding increase in rates of children ‘looked-after’ for each step increase in neighbourhood level deprivation. Whilst both age and predominant category of need of children entering care are statistically correlated to a local authority’s overall rate of children ‘looked-after’, there are a number of differences not related to overall rates, which suggest differences in local social work practice. Logistic regression analysis results show that the length of a child’s initial period in care (stays of < 90 days) and their age group (11-15 years) were associated with an increased likelihood of returning to care. The implications for child welfare policy and practice are considered.

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This study is a mixed methods study, conducted in a therapeutic faith community, using quantitative (CGI, SCL-90-R and WHODAS-II) and qualitative interview data that generated a theory of congruence. Early findings demonstrated that context changed the dynamics of the relationship between the researcher and the participants. This led to dissemblance in responses to the outcome measures. A critical realist ‘value laden’ approach was used which challenges the existing tendency to privilege quantitative over qualitative data by proposing that context and subjectivity are involved in all aspects of interpersonal research. The theory of congruence proposes that the key to personal positive change is the ability to recognise personal incongruence. Incongruence was identified as a fragmented self, social isolation, crisis of faith and lack of environment ‘fit’. Becoming congruent was identified in three areas, a whole self, a social self and a spiritual self. The process of becoming congruent with self begins with external sources that are relationships and environment. These relationships have been termed salugenic (health-producing) relationships, which are voluntary, volitional and mutual. Such relationships resist hierarchy, promoting positive power and autonomy. The theory of congruence proposes that individuals who have been socially isolated learn how to form salugenic relationships that facilitate salugenic emotion. A congruent environment is where individuals feel they belong, find hope, safety and freedom. It is also a place that is congruent with their beliefs. The combination of congruent relationships and environment leads to the process of finding congruence with self within the context of having personal choice. The participants in this study were incongruent with professionalised and structuralised services that can be too rigid to meet the needs of the emotionally and mentally ill. Congruence theory can be applied by any organisation to prioritise structure, relationship and choice that rehumanises mental health care.

This thesis examines the history, political economy, and global response to HIV/AIDS in Africa. It is particularly interested in how Africa’s colonial past and postcolonial struggles with European science and law influenced these issues. It therefore explores the many ways that the colonial encounter coloured how scientific knowledge about HIV/AIDS travelled to and was read and contested in Africa. In addition, it sets out how this encounter informed the political economy of debates about access to and the global governance of generic HIV/AIDS drugs in the continent. It draws on an interdisciplinary and theoretically-informed scholarship to unpack these issues. However, it aims not to produce new theoretical insights or make original theoretical contributions to this scholarship. Rather, it seeks to contribute to and fill-in gaps in the historiography of HIV/AIDS in Africa and scholarship on the global governance of generic HIV/AIDS drugs. Accordingly, it examines two areas that have not received adequate, academic attention in these areas. Firstly, Project SIDA—the first major research project on HIV/AIDS in Africa; and, secondly, the World Health Organization Prequalification Programme for Generic HIV/AIDS drugs—the primary, regulatory regime that governs the production, certification, and importation of generic HIV/AIDS drugs in the continent. It situates these subjects within a wider discussion about the colonial encounter and postcolonial struggles in Africa around European science and law. It argues that the encounter influenced how Project SIDA, and the scientific knowledge that it produced, was read and contested in Africa. It also contends that postcolonial struggles, especially around the global patent regime, informed the political economy within which the Prequalification Programme emerged and, importantly, the technical capacity of African generic manufactured to certify their generic drugs for HIV/AID treatment programmes in the continent.

The turn of the century brought with it a period of stability, both for the global macroeconomy, but also for the consensus view of how monetary policy could and should operate within it. Policymakers and academics widely agreed that control of the short-term nominal interest rate was sufficient to achieve price stability and moderate the worst of the economic cycle. However, more recent history has shown this view of the world to be a best overly simplistic, and at worst, dangerously flawed. Short-term interest rates have become constrained by their lower bound and monetary policymakers have turned to a range of alternative, unconventional policy measures in pursuit of their objectives. This thesis looks to investigate some of the reasons why the previous paradigm failed and starts to assess the range of innovations that have come in to play as part of the fundamental reassessment of the policy framework. It does this from the point of view of theory, but also empirically, employing econometric techniques to quantify the impacts of recent large-scale asset purchase programmes by central banks. Finally, it looks to develop a detailed model which begins to address some of the limitations of the pre-crisis paradigm by including a role for money which can be created by either policymakers, or the financial sector.

Leadership is present in wide variety of human interactions from organisational hierarchy to online charitable fundraising. Consequently, the subject has been studied in a multitude of fields from biology to history. In behavioural economics, the existence of leadership has been tested experimentally as a potential solution to social dilemmas with varying success. However, the majority of previous experimental studies have examined only one form of leadership where leadership where only one group member can exhibit it. In psychological research, there is an evolving interest in the concept of shared leadership, where leadership is shared among multiple group members. Likewise, Derek Sivers (2010) emphasised the importance of a first follower, who is a person who acts directly after the leader and makes the leader's actions more credible. This thesis tests the impact of first followership on solving social dilemmas and examines further the topic of shared leadership. Chapter 2 studies whether the introduction of a first follower increases total investment in a linear public good game both theoretically and experimentally. Four investment sequences are considered including two new additions to the literature: the First Follower game and the Two Leader game. The already established Leader game and Sequential game are implemented as control treatments. The First Follower game has three investment stages; in the first stage, a leader invests, in the second stage a first follower invests and the rest of the group simultaneously invest in the third stage. The Two Leader game has only two investment stages; in the first stage, two leaders simultaneously invest in the first stage and then the rest of the group simultaneously invest in the second stage. The four investment sequences are ranked according to their expected total investment. No one investment sequence is always found to be superior, and thus the ranking is dependent on the strategic behaviour of early movers, namely leaders and first followers. In the experiment, the First Follower game had the highest total invested in the public good and Two Leader, the second highest. These results suggest that shared leadership or first followership may be superior to a one leader structure. Specifically, in the First Follower game, leaders set a better example by investing significantly more than leaders in other treatments, and first followers exhibit higher levels of reciprocity than later followers. All investment sequences were imposed exogenously to create a simple initial testing ground for introducing the first follower. Chapter 3 expands on the endogenous leadership literature by comparing the efficiency of a game with two investment stages, a two-day treatment to a game with three investment stages, a three-day treatment. Using a novel experimental design, each group member chooses what investment stage they would like to invest during. Therefore, the number of group members investing on day one, equivalent to leaders, is unrestricted, hence one can also explore how many group members are willing to lead. Willingness to lead is greater in both treatments than observed in previous studies. Nevertheless, the proportion of leaders is significantly higher in the three-day treatment, this result leads to significantly higher total investment in the three-day treatment. Leader investment and total investment in these treatments, where there is endogeneity over the timing of investment choices is compared to the treatments from Chapter 2 where timing is exogenously imposed. Endogenous leaders are found not to invest significantly more than exogenous leaders, and similarly there is no significant difference in total investment. Nevertheless, the treatments with three investment stages, namely three-day and First Follower, have the highest levels of leader investment and overall total investment. Chapter 4 extends the design of Corazzini, Cotton and Valbonesi (2015) to consider a real-time environment; this adjustment makes the game more akin to real world crowdfunding and competitive lobbying (Austen-Smith and Wright, 1992). Like Chapter 3, individuals choose when they would like to invest rather than a set exogenous investment sequence imposed on them as in Chapter 2. Two treatments are executed, a multiple public good treatment with four identical threshold public goods and another with only one threshold public good. It is hypothesised that the real-time environment increase efficiency in reaching a threshold in the presence of multiple threshold public goods. The experimental evidence implies otherwise; the multiple public good treatment leads to significantly lower levels of efficiency stemming from the inefficiency caused by group members investing in multiple projects when only one project can be fully funded.

Based on a critical ethnographic study, the present work explores understandings of resistance, power and social change among activists in the post-Occupy movement in New York City. The research asks how activists understand, experience and define resistance in relation to power and social change, and explores the meaning of resistance for those engaged in it. Here, the research focusses in particular on anarchist and anarchist-inspired resistance, or direct action politics. It analyses how the principles and tactics of direct action are defined by activists; and asks, in consideration of spatio-temporal dimensions (immediacy and future-orientation, and separation and confrontation), what constitutes direct action as 'resistance'. Furthermore, this analysis starts from the assumption that tracing down the relationship between ontology, epistemology and methodology in movement activity allows for the development of an understanding of how shared experiences and conceptions of social reality and social change influence activists' resistant practices. Here, the research asks how resistant practice and theory is shaped in the post-Occupy movement's collective processes of knowledge production and through their large variety of knowledge practices. These are characterized by the interplay between theory and practice - by 'doing resistance' in as much as reflecting, discussing, and negotiating - that aims to achieve a radical (re-)imagination of what it means to be and act political. The work situates both collective processes of knowledge production and activists' conceptualizations of resistance within the (recent) history of New York City's social movements, and within conflicts around housing and gentrification, which have been identified as core struggles of the post-Occupy movement. Here, the research shows how activists' conceptualizations of resistance, power and social change are implemented in concrete resistant practices in the city using a variety of examples, among them the work of the New York City Anti-Eviction Network (NYCAEN). Theoretically, the research utilizes an interdisciplinary approach, while focusing on a combination of anarchist philosophy and cultural criminology. Here, the research aims to contribute to current debates in cultural criminology that seek increased theoretical and analytical clarity of the concept of 'resistance'. It is argued that the analysis of the methods of resistance employed, and discussed, in the post-Occupy movement helps to understand and conceptualize resistance in cultural criminology by linking activists' own theorizing with academic theorizing. This also allows for a re-consideration of the influence of anarchist philosophy on cultural criminological understandings of resistance, which contributes to necessary theoretical clarifications while at the same time challenging the criticism that cultural criminology suffers from a general failure to consider political resistance in its theory and research.

Southeast Asia is the rising star of the global market, however, contrary to its impressive economic achievements, many countries in the region have suffered diverse social problems because of economic growth. Given that a key mechanism to hold businesses accountable is their disclosure practices, this study is looking to expand the understanding of the influences of institutional environment and corporate governance on Corporate Social Responsibility Disclosure (CSRD) in six Southeast Asian countries: Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Philippines and Vietnam. A multi-theoretical framework, including institutional theory, agency theory, stakeholder theory and legitimacy theory, was applied. For the purpose of this study, 2013 annual reports of 30 largest companies in the stock exchanges of the six countries were collected. The final sample consists of 171 companies. Firstly, empirical findings of CSRD levels across the countries showed that Thailand has the highest level of disclosure, followed by Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Philippines and finally Vietnam. There were significant differences between the extent of CSRD of the two countries with highest disclosure (Thailand and Indonesia) and the lowest disclosure group (Philippines and Vietnam). The findings are interesting in a sense that the levels of CSRD do not reflect the stages of economic development, and therefore, the differences in CSRD levels could be attributable to the impact of other institutional factors. Secondly, in relation to internal determinants and based on the existing literature and the context of Southeast Asia, six corporate governance practices were identified to examine the impact of corporate governance on CSRD. The results of OLS regression supported the negative impact of block ownership and the positive impact of board size as well as the presence of CSR committee on CSRD. Contrary to the theoretical and empirical expectations, board gender diversity was found to have significantly negative relationship with CSRD, and board independence had no impact on CSRD. These differences could be explained by the context of the study where the presentation of women on board is very low and independent directors might not be wholly independent. Thirdly, in order to examine the impact of the institutional environment on CSRD in a comprehensive way, institutional theory, the Scott’s institutional framework (1995) and existing literature are used to identify relevant institutional factors that potentially influence CSRD. The effect of six institutional factors representing the three pillars, regulative (legal origin and mandatory disclosure), cultural-cognitive (uncertainty avoidance and masculinity cultural dimensions), and normative (the adoption of GRI standard and membership of CSR-related associations), were evaluated in this study. The empirical results indicate that mandatory disclosure, uncertainty avoidance dimension and the adoption of GRI standard have positive impact on CSRD, while the masculinity dimension has negative relationship with CSRD. The findings imply that institutional environment influences CSRD through all the three pillars with some institutional factors have greater impact than others. The study, therefore, has contributed empirically to the existing literature by providing deeper insights into CSRD levels in Southeast Asia, identifying the effectiveness of corporate governance practices in emerging economies and the Asian context, particularly in relation to CSRD, including further examination of the role of diverse external determinants on CSRD. Theoretically, the study is one of a few that have attempted to quantify institutional environment into measurable institutional factors. These factors, hence, could be re-used in future research to advance understanding on the role of institutional environment in shaping a country’s CSRD practice.

In an era where global climate change, ecological degradation and the depletion of natural resources have become increasingly prevalent, the need to identify ways in which we can pursue more sustainable ways of living and conserve an ecological balance has become of great importance in society. The pernicious effects that society’s (global) food production and consumption practices have on the environment is one prominent area of concern. Much of the existing literature that has explored environmentally responsible consumption has been preoccupied with developing an understanding of the environmentally responsible consumer, the social, symbolic and political significance of environmentally responsible consumption and the potentiality of alternative food systems to alleviate the environmental consequences of our globalised food system and other issues concerned with sustainability on a broader level. Conversely, very few studies have drawn attention to everyday practices and the ways in which consumers engage with environmental issues on an everyday, practical level. This is crucial to gaining an insight into the ways in which we can envisage change and naturalise more environmentally responsible ways of living into routine, everyday consumption practices. To remedy this gap, this thesis explores the practice of allotmenteering from a practicetheoretical perspective and attempts to advance our understanding of the ways in which consumers engage with environmental issues on a day-to-day basis. Based upon an ethnographic approach, this study develops a rich, in-depth understanding of embodied, (mainly) skilled practitioners, processes of ‘doing’ allotmenteering and other practices embedded in the practice of allotmenteering. This study contributes to the field of environmentally responsible consumption by demonstrating how allotmenteers engage in environmentally responsible consumption patterns unintentionally. More specifically, it shows how these consumption patterns transpire through allotmenteers’ close intimate engagement with nature and through the ways in which they personally invest themselves; their time, energy and effort into processes of nurturing and domesticating nature. Thirdly, it shows how the practice of allotmenteering has the potential to trigger more unsustainable consumption patterns. These findings have implications for the ways in which we understand and make sense of environmentally responsible consumption.

This thesis investigates everyday encounters between benefit recipients and street-level welfare agencies in an era of behavioural conditionality, marketised ‘activation’, and neoliberal paternalism. Central to this thesis is a concern with the relational dynamics that policies of ‘behavioural conditionality’ and ‘mandatory activation’ produce, explored through reflexive analysis of the researcher’s own experiences as a street-level activation worker, and thirty in-depth interviews with former colleagues, other street-level staff, and benefit recipients. Informed by relational and psychosocial theorisations of both the subject and street-level welfare organisations, the thesis looks at the interactions between symbolic/ideological representation, individual agency, and street-level organisation. Arguing that attention to the dynamic, libidinal investments of street-level employees casts familiar street-level practices in a new light, the thesis draws attention to a dynamic of illusio-disillusionment (Bourdieu, 2000) among street-level staff, re-rendering familiar practices of ‘creaming and parking’ in terms of punishment and protection. Similarly, it is argued that specific instances of support, indifference, and/or sanction do not exist as discrete experiences in the life of claimants, but as ongoing possibilities, producing a situation of ever-present surveillance and threat. In this way, conditional activation services come to resemble a protection racket, in which both the threat and means of defence are produced simultaneously. These dynamic materialisations of behavioural conditionality are situated with respect to the ideology of neoliberal paternalism, which at street-level takes the form of magical voluntarism, and the enforcement of an anti-sociological imaginary which, it is argued, results in the denial and effective privatisation of the troubles, difficulties, and needs that bring people to welfare services in the first place.