This thesis deals with leadership and political allegiance in three Yemeni communities in Israel. The general question which is raised is this: what are the main factors which affect the form and functioning of leadership in these three immigrant, ethnic communities? The answer which is elaborated in the body of this thesis is as follows : there are two main sets of influences which are interrelated in different ways in each one of the three cases. The first set of influences derives from the internal structure of the community and from the structure of its relations with the wider society; the second set derives from conceptions of leadership, authority and allegiance, which have been moulded by the past. The first community, Shaarayim - now a Yemeni quarter of a town - is examined in detail with respect to its internal structure, organization and composition, its relations with other sections of the local community and the wider society, and its history; the functioning of leadership and allegiance is analysed against this background. The other two communities - Rosh iia'Ayin, a Yemeni township, and Zellafon, a cooperative village - which are of more recent origin than the first community, are considered in lesser detail, simply as suggestive cases for comparison. The social life of the Jews in Yemen 3 is discussed in order to throw light on the forces which have fashioned their conception of leadership and authority. Comparison of the three communities as they are at present, and analysis of the past, show the nature of the connexic, n between the two sets of factors, and demonstrates the extent to which, and the manner in which, circumstances can encourage or inhibit the persistence of traditional conceptions which influence conduct.

Spurred by the ageing transition, many governments have made wide-ranging reforms, dramatically changing Europe's pensions landscape. Nevertheless there remain concerns about future costs, while unease about adequacy is growing. This study develops a comprehensive framework to assess pension system sustainability. It captures the effects of reforms on the ability of systems to alleviate poverty and maintain living standards, while setting out how reforms change future costs and relative entitlements for different generations. This framework differs from others, which just look at generosity at the point of retirement, as it uses pension wealth - the value of all transfers during retirement. This captures the impact of both longevity and changes in the value of pensions during retirement. Moreover, rather than focusing only on average earners with full careers, this framework examines individuals at different wage levels, taking account of actual labour market participation. The countries analysed cover 70% of the EU's population and include examples of all system types. Our estimates indicate that while reforms have decreased generosity significantly, in most, but not all, countries the poverty alleviation function remains strong, particularly where minimum pensions have improved. However, moves to link benefits to contributions have made some systems less progressive, raising adequacy concerns for women and those on low incomes. The consumption smoothing function of state pensions has declined noticeably, suggesting the need for longer working lives or additional private saving for individuals to maintain pre-reform living standards. Despite the reforms, the size of entitlements of future generations should remain similar to that of current generations, in most cases, as the effect of lower annual benefits should be offset by longer retirement. Though reforms have helped address the financial challenge faced by pension systems, in many countries pressures remain strong and further reforms are likely.

Climate change is the most important issue of our time due to its potential to very seriously disrupt the life sustaining systems of planet Earth as well as its intersec-tions with other important challenges facing humanity. The United Nations Frame-work Convention on Climate Change is the key platform upon which the political process of international climate change politics takes place. The aim of this work is to produce an analysis of the role of transnational climate change advocacy networks in this political process and their internal power dynamics and thus contributing to the understanding of a crucial aspect of this political process. To advance this aim, this thesis engages with two objectives. First, a detailed ethnography is developed which serves to illustrate the political work of the environmental advocacy NGOs involved within this process, especially those that are members of Climate Action Network International (CAN-I). This approach is suitable to uncover the internal dynamics and structures of that NGO network as well as its complex and multi-layered relationships within the larger political configuration of the UNFCCC treaty process. Secondly, the investigation is advanced by analysing this ethnography through the lens of a critical theory of the public sphere. In particular, this analysis features more contemporary conceptualisations of the public sphere which stress the multiplicity of the public sphere concept including notions such as internal and external public spheres, counterpublics, and nested public spheres. Owing to this research design, the thesis has a degree of hybridity: it is expressly both an empirical thesis, with strong empirical flavour imparted by the focus on the detailed ethnographic account, as well a theoretical thesis offering an original contribution that is advanced throughout the thesis. The main theoretical thesis and contribution is that the theory of the public sphere is appropriate to analyse the political practice of civil society engagement on a transnational level if it is further developed to allow for greater degree of multiplicity and a broader conceptualisation of the notions of the “centre of authority” and the translation of the public opinion.

The PhD submission centres primarily on the book Testing the Limits of Foster Care, which reports on a piece of applied social work research, and the paper Critical Times: a critical realist approach to understanding services for looked after children which examines key theoretical issues relevant to the study. Two other book chapters ‘Changing Perceptions of Children and Childhood’ and ‘Risk and Opportunity in Leaving Care’ are included as supplementary examples of the applicant’s work. In common with Testing the Limits of Foster Care, these seek to understand aspects of child welfare practice in light of wider changes in society and social policy and so are consistent with a critical realist perspective. The study reported in the book Testing the Limits of Foster Care was an evaluation of a foster care project set up to provide an alternative to secure accommodation (Community Alternative Placement Scheme). The research was concerned with how the scheme developed, the nature of the service and its capacity to help young people have good experiences and outcomes. Its purpose was to assess the potential and limitations of this form of care provision. The book outlines the development of the service, and the needs, experiences and outcomes for the first twenty young people placed within the scheme. These are compared with similar young people placed in secure accommodation during the same period. In most respects outcomes were similar for both samples. However outcomes were not viewed as directly resulting from one particular placement, but rather influenced by a host of considerations relating to the young person’s own circumstances and nature of services offered. Foster care and secure accommodation offered young people a very different kind of experience, whilst access to other services such as education and support to independent living were equally important in determining how they fared.

Travel, according to the anthropologist James Clifford (1998). is a fundamental characteristic of human behaviour. Grand tours and temporary residencies in European cities are no longer the preserve of the elite but today have become a global commonplace and one of the discourses of postmodernity. Broadened access to travel has not, however, altered the notion of being well-travelled which has continued to accrue both economic, symbolic and cultural capital. Study or work abroad has become a commonplace and at the 'same time it has undergone a degree of change, becoming a simple accessory or another commodity to add to one's curriculum vitae. In recent years interculturalists, and modem linguists in particular such as Byram (2001), Cormeraie (2002) and Kramsch (1998), have turned their attention to studies of the experience of the Year Abroad for students of foreign languages. Much of the focus in these studies has been on the accumulation of intercultural competence and on linguistic and cultural fluency drawing conceptual frames from the discipli'ne of education. The problem with this research is that it has become bound into the concerns of education and has not looked beyond the structures of pedagogy to wider cultural issues and manifestations of travel and dwelling abroad. This thesis examines the experiences of graduates working and living abroad, with an emphasis on the relationship which exists between their working contexts and cultural difference. This research makes two main contributions to the field. One' is to approach the graduates as cultural voices throughout their narratives of residency and working life abroad which can be perceived as the writing of their own identities. The other is the application of psychoanalytical theory to the graduates' readings of cultural difference and intercultural. encounter as performed throughout their narratives.

This study explores the applicability of different conceptual models to two different policy sectors in Scotland; education and health, with specific reference to SHARE a specially designed school sex education programme. The study also draws on the policy network literature to understand the way in which the interaction between organisations and actors affects the value attached to research evidence. This thesis addresses three main research questions: How has school sex education policy been developed? How is research evidence used in school sex education policy development since devolution? What factors facilitate or impede the use of research evidence? To explore these issues I carried out 21 in-depth semi-structured interviews with policy makers and researchers, all of whom had insight into various aspects of sex education policy development in health and education. Using semiotics, I also analysed four policy documents. Results The development of sex education policy in the health and education sectors appears to have different underlying objectives. In the health sector it is designed to achieve immediate action, which requires speedy decision-making, while in the education sector it is designed to build consensus, achieved through cautious and careful decision-making. In health leadership of policy development for sex education can be identified at the instigation of policies with a high turnover of actors in subsequent stages; leadership within education is controlled and maintained throughout all stages of sex education policy development. As a result, common epistemic perspectives are more easily identified amongst those developing sex education within education, than within health. These perspectives affect the way research evidence has been used in the development of sex education policy. Although research evidence has been used in different ways, the intention behind its use is nearly always political. Fast decision-making militates against the use of research evidence in the health sector, while prioritising consensus overshadows the need to be evidence-based in education. The use of research in sex education policy-making is inhibited or facilitated by external contextual factors (political and organisational priorities) and internal contextual factors (modes of decision-making, the beliefs and interests of individuals, and interaction between individuals). In addition, the dynamics of power between policy-makers and researchers need to be carefully negotiated and can also be influenced by contextual factors.

The primary focus for this Thesis is an account of the degree to which nurses and other stakeholders in one National Health Service hospital Trust have responded to the ‘clinical governance’ initiative, the effects on quality improvement and professional regulation and the practical accomplishment of legitimacy. ‘Clinical governance’ involves demonstrating that quality assurance is routine practice within every healthcare organization. A case study was undertaken, using broadly ethnographic methods. The qualitative data were obtained by documentary analysis, non-participant observation of meetings and day-to-day ward activity and semi-structured interviews. In terms of the analysis of documents and observation of meetings, new institutionalism theory was found to be useful as a framework for understanding the political and ceremonial conformity that marked the clinical governance process. Errors and inconsistencies were found in formal documentation and the Trusts’ reporting systems were fraught with problems. Nevertheless, during the same period the Trust obtained national recognition for having appropriate structures and systems in place in relation to clinical governance. A grounded theory approach was adopted in the analysis of the semi-structured interviews. Emerging themes from interview data were identified under the main categories of: ‘Making Sense,’ ‘Knowledge Construction,’ ‘Somebody Else’s Job’ and ‘Real Work.’ It was concluded that at a practice level, clinical governance was poorly understood and that the corporate organizational goals were ambiguous and seen as unrealistic on a day-to-day basis. The study concludes that what is happening is not a ‘failure’ but an unintended consequence that has resulted from an inadequate understanding of how organizations work. It is suggested that the organization has conformed to the appropriate standards in order to survive legitimately, but the ultimate impact of clinical governance on the quality of care in practice is inconsistent.

There is a lack of research on the middle class in general, and especially on those who attend independent schools. This is noticeably profound in the field of educational decision-making at the ages of sixteen and eighteen. Whilst recent studies have attempted to address such issues, the focus has tended to fall on a very limited number of students attending highly selective schools, which are often based in London: and are heavily reliant on parental accounts of their offspring's decision-making. In this study, I seek to address these identified gaps, in presenting a study of student decision-making within a non-academically-selective independent school for girls, given the pseudonym 'Midham School', which is located in a town in the Midlands of England. The study draws on observational data from Careers lessons and institutional school events such as Open Days, and students' own responses given in a questionnaire and in semi-structured small-group interviews, as well as interviews with key staff members, collected over the course of one academic year. Resulting from these, a picture will be built up of the dominant discourses relating to educational decision-making within the school and home. Theoretically, the study addresses aspects of both structure and agency. Although there is a focus on the way in which individual young women draw on differing discourses in order to inform their agentic decision-making, these decisions are seen to be framed by structural factors such as social class, gender and academic ability. These factors are shown to have a defining effect on how the young women constructed themselves (and were constructed) as gendered and classed individuals through the decisions that they (and their families) made regarding their education, training and future careers.

This thesis is a qualitative sociological study into the phenomenon of gay Nazi fetishism in the Internet age, and its wider social and political implications. This sociological research is timely because of the proliferation of online groups targeted at those with fetishistic sexual interests as well as the increasing adoption of queer theory as a theoretical framework through which to analyse non-normative sexualities. Data was collected through examining a range of websites and groups targeted at gay men who enjoy Nazi fetishism. Drawing on interviews with 22 members of one particular gay Nazi fetish group, it is argued that the Internet provides real and important benefits for those exploring non-normative desires, compensating for a number of perceived offline dis-satisfactions as well as offering opportunities to enhance and experiment with sexual play. Nonetheless, this proliferation of non-normative sex does not mean that the world will necessary be a ‘queerer’ place. Not only do problematic hierarchies and exclusions operate on Nazi fetish websites, but its members demonstrate a firm (over)conformity to heteronormative masculinity. Moreover, the appropriation of Nazism for both sexual fantasy and sexual practice draws from and re-iterates its well-established and horrific history rather than, as some queer theorists assert, providing a means to re-signify Nazi regalia. I conclude that the subversive effects of non-normative sexuality should not be assumed but rather that research needs to pay closer attention to the gendered and sexual identities and political sensibilities of its practitioners as well as the ways through which they frame, experience and understand their embodied sexual practice.

This study explores the international diffusion of new technology i.e. changes over time in the extent to which world output is produced using, or world consumption is made up of products incorporating, specific new technologies. This topic has received relatively little attention in the literature. Many of the theoretical arguments developed in the literature for the study of domestic diffusion are here systematically applied to international diffusion for the first time. We propose that patterns of international diffusion derive from two related processes: inter-country diffusion or the extensive margin, and intra-country diffusion or the intensive margin. We start with a study of the relative importance of these two processes. Using data on four technologies we show that the relative importance of the intensive to the extensive margin increases over time. The same pattern was identified by Battisti and Stoneman (2003) in their study of the importance of inter- and intra-firm diffusion in domestic diffusion. The main body of the thesis is concerned with the question how (if at all) does international diffusion affect domestic diffusion? Two theoretical arguments are explored: the first uses an epidemic and the second a decision-theoretic model. The models are extensions of the seminal models of Bass (1969), Mansfield (1961) and Reinganum (1981b). Two specific hypotheses arise, namely that international diffusion affects domestic diffusion through: i) an exogenous learning effect or inter-country spillovers; and ii) a negative stock effect. The hypotheses have contradictory empirical implications. The epidemic model is tested using data on steam- and motor ship diffusion. We find evidence of spillovers however the direction of the effect is not robust across countries. We discuss the time-series properties of the data, which is rarely done in the literature, and find some problems which may partly explain the results. We then develop an international stock effect hypothesis using a decision-theoretic model based on the closed economy model of Reinganum (1981b). This allows for firm heterogeneity in production costs. We discuss how heterogeneity impacts on international diffusion patterns when some of that heterogeneity is on the country-level. Empirically we find evidence of an international stock effect in the diffusion of the basic oxygen furnace. A number of explanatory variables which capture cross-country differences in production and adoption costs are also significant.