This thesis analyses the situation of refugees from Bosnia-Herzegovina that arrived in Britain as part of an organised programme. It represents a contribution towards the theoretical understanding of refugees, and develops and refines the theories of other authors. The author used field research methods based on techniques developed in ethnographic studies to generate empirical evidence on the social organisation of Bosnian refugees in Britain. Throughout the thesis it is argued that the situation of the refugees can only be understood through an examination of the influences affecting the refugees, before, during, and after their arrival in Britain. At every stage of the refugees' experience, control over the course of their lives has been taken away from the refugees. The war that took place in Bosnia-Herzegovina became constructed as an ethnic conflict, although there was no strong Muslim identification before the war. The programme removed options over country and place of residence, and created a measure of dependency. Longer term policies of community development, originally designed to meet the perceived needs of labour migrants, have been directed towards the refugees and imposed a model of organisation. Combined with temporary protected status, this has removed control from the refugees and prevented the formation of a new collective or individual positive life project. Refugees from Bosnia-Herzegovina represent a new type of refugee in Joly's typology. This is a type of refugee that had no collective project in the country of origin, and also no collective project in the country of exile, and that is unable to make a decision on return because of the constraints around them.

This thesis provides an account of the way in which meaning associated with the term ‘fair trade’ is negotiated within a number of discrete, yet interrelated communities, in a way which influences stakeholder understanding of the concept – and as a result, structures the way in which public procurement strategies integrate fair trade governance into their operation. Building from the identification of ‘fair trade’ governance as a means to embed the intra-generational social justice concerns of sustainable development within the public procurement system, the thesis investigates how the ambiguous meaning of fair trade is reconciled in discourse and practice. Specifically focusing on the case study of Scotland – where Local Authorities are involved in a complex network of state and private governance initiatives – investigation reveals that despite various influences to the contrary, fair trade is strongly conflated with certification administered by the dominant global fair trade certifying body, Fairtrade International (FLO). However, exceptions are argued to demonstrate an active negotiation of this domination over meaning. In particular, one Authority has purchased ‘fairly traded’ Kilombero rice – produced by members of the National Smallholder Farmers Association of Malawi (NASFAM) – as part of its fair trade strategy, by accepting claims of fairness not on the basis of external certification, but on trust from a socially orientated import organisation. Extending the study along the supply chain, investigation reveals that while the producer organisation sees fair trade as beneficial to their overall objectives, they identify significant limitations with the FLO approach. For this reason they have pursued World Fair Trade Organisation (WFTO) accreditation in order to back their claims to fair trade operation. As such, the dominance of FLO certification is seen to be actively contested as part of a wider dynamic in which different approaches vie to influence the understanding, and therefore the praxis of stakeholders.

This study explored the views and perceptions about agency social work in England. At its core is the first known case study of adult services social work teams in a rural local authority. The case study took place over the period 2008- 2010 and used qualitative methodology to capture perspectives from agency and employed social workers, agency and employed managers and agency and employed administrative staff. Agency social work was seen to have developed from a background of deteriorating conditions in local government employment and in the absence of effective and flexible workforce planning. Labour process theory provided a meaningful framework to help explore the phenomenon of agency social work within a public sector increasingly dominated by markets and managerialism. A directional tendency towards a degraded workplace was noted despite some perceptions of upskilling in respect of agency social workers. A range of explanations regarding the motivation and the experiences of agency social workers was found that largely supported previous case study findings from urban local authorities. The roles carried out by employed social workers under the care management system were indistinguishable from those of agency social workers, several agency social workers having remained in post for periods of two years or more. No ways of working were identified as being particularly tailored to a rural context. The antipathy toward agency social workers noted in previous case studies was largely absent in the rural case study and agency social workers were not perceived as part of the private sector. Issues regarding the cost-effectiveness of agency social work and its affect on service users and carers were inconclusive. Recommendations for further research were made and agency social work was seen as being likely to remain as a core feature of modernised social work while vacancies remain high and alternative models for contingency workforce planning remain absent.

This thesis explores implications of support and advocacy with substance-misusing women during and after pregnancy in promoting parental involvement and children’s welfare within the regulatory child care framework. It is uniquely situated in relation to social construction, juridification of family lifeworlds, relations of power, and theorisation of an enabling process informed by a rights discourse that facilitates communicative action. Chapter 1 introduces the rationale for this research and contextualises the work of the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children’s (NSPCC) Liverpool Families and Substance Support Team (FaSST) service for substance-misusing parents. It utilises observation evidence, outlining FaSST’s relationship to wider professional and agency networks. An expanded overview of chapter organisation makes the distinctiveness of this exploratory research clear; as it relates theory and practice within the previously little researched area of advocacy with substance misusing parents to promote the best interests of children’s welfare. Chapter 2 develops issues of social construction, identity, risk and relations of power vi affecting substance misusing parents within the modern state. Chapter 3 considers the development of child protection, children’s safeguarding, actuarialism and issues of governance. Chapter 4 examines Habermas’ theory of communicative action, rights discourses and how support and advocacy might develop. Remaining chapters examine research fieldwork. Chapter 5 explains the qualitative research design, research method and ethical considerations. Chapter 6 analyses data in terms of governance and risk and tentatively theorises those matters, and chapter 7 analyses data and theorises possibilities for support and advocacy. Chapter 8 formulates conclusions regarding how the FaSST has addressed parents’ concerns and promoted involvement in their children’s interests within the regulatory child care framework. It theorises support and advocacy in that context, and it identifies implications for its further development.

This dissertation examines what happens when NGOs attempt to implement systems to improve their accountability to intended beneficiaries. While NGO accountability is widely discussed in the literature, there has been very little work done on how accountability systems operate in practice. My dissertation aims to address this important gap by providing a detailed case study of one NGO’s initiative in this area using qualitative empirical data. The data relate to the ‘best case’ example of ActionAid, an NGO that has made substantial, high-profile efforts to improve its downward accountability since 2000 through its Accountability Learning and Planning System (ALPS). The case study reconstructs the evolution of ALPS and examines efforts to implement it, both at international level and within a single country setting: Uganda. The data reveal the obstacles which have hindered ActionAid in its attempts to strengthen its downward accountability. Despite positive rhetoric around ALPS and downward accountability, my findings indicate a significant disjuncture between intentions and actual outcomes. Key factors causing this disjuncture include the benefits that the organisation can reap from an appearance of downward accountability, such as enhanced external legitimacy, even if this does not reflect reality. More broadly, my case study suggests that disjuncture between aims and actual practices is a necessary feature of how NGOs function in the aid sector, in terms of accountability and also in other areas. What then can NGOs do to attempt to overcome the negative implications of disjuncture and improve their relationships with intended beneficiaries? My central recommendation is for NGOs to reflect and to recognise their tendencies to promote disjuncture, such as when they over-state achievements to donors. Frank assessments of the actual status of an NGO’s relationships with communities and of the limitations caused by the NGO’s funding structures are important steps to improving these relationships.

The resource curse literature, which links natural resource abundance with negative political and economic outcomes, is largely based on large-N cross-national studies. This thesis examines the effects of oil production on women’s political participation at the sub-national level, comparing the 36 states in the Nigerian federation, of which some are oil-producing. Shedding new light on the negative effects of oil production at the local and community level, and exploring the gender-related dimensions of the resource curse, I argue that the effect of oil varies across different forms of political activity: while oil production may have a negative impact on women’s legislative participation, it can also have a positive impact on non-formal types of political participation, specifically protest and NGO activity. I further suggest that the underlying trigger for both of these effects is oil’s impact on women’s work, which is manifested differently at national and local levels. The analysis is based on a mixed-methods approach that combines quantitative and qualitative tools, including original datasets on oil production and legislative participation, women’s protests, and women-led NGOs across Nigeria’s states. The combination of evidence offers a wide-ranging repertoire of the impact of oil on women. Drawing on historical evidence and women’s testimonies, this thesis suggests that oil production has negatively affected women’s labour force participation in Nigeria, while women’s work in oil-producing states has been further diminished due to environmental degradation and regional militarisation. The extremely low levels of female legislative participation in Nigeria at both the national and state levels are linked with the negative impact of oil on women’s work. Analysing a dataset of press reports and a directory of Nigerian NGOs to compare oil and non-oil producing states in the Nigerian federation, this thesis finds strong evidence for the impact of oil on women’s non-formal political participation at the local level, in oil-producing states. Thus, evidence from Nigeria suggests that oil production may have a dual effect on women’s political participation – undermining formal participation while increasing non-formal participation,a finding that adds to our understanding of the resource curse, women’s political participation, and the link between the two.

This thesis investigates how collective action is achieved in the governance of transnational common pool resources, taking the example of the electromagnetic radio spectrum as a global common. The thesis asks what determines variation in operational and collective choice property arrangements in common pool resources such as the radio spectrum. The radio spectrum represents the totality of radio frequencies used for wireless communications around the world. It is a transnational resource that exhibits properties of other common pool resources: a) high rivalry in consumption and b) difficulty in excluding non-contributing beneficiaries from its use. This study demonstrates that the presence of a public actor – even one with established authority at transnational level such as the Commission of the European Union – cannot fully explain variations in the configuration of property arrangements in the radio resource. Instead, this study finds that private actors in the electronic communications industry – i.e. service operators and system developers – define rules of access and rules of use in the transnational radio resource, by means of negotiating the configuration of technology systems used to extract value from the resource. In addition, this study finds that industry actors are able to define common operational rules to access and use a transnational frequency pool even in complex situations of heterogeneous economic interests and heterogeneous technology capabilities. They reduce uncertainty in these complex situations by increasing participation in decision-making and by developing mechanisms of information exchange and mutual monitoring in industry associations. When industry actors agree these common rules of management, and reinforce them with common rules of exclusion, they are more likely to negotiate operational arrangements based on principles of common exclusive property rather than individual exclusive property in the transnational radio resource. These findings are derived from the analysis of four case studies, which trace the development of operational rules in five radio frequency bands across time. By revealing the central role of industry associations in defining property arrangements in transnational commons such as the radio spectrum, this research seeks to contribute to the debate about the nature and scope of private transnational governance of common goods.

This thesis examines the impact of the Estates Action (EA) programme in the UK, and Developpment Social des Quartiers (DSQ) programme in France, on run down, post war, marginalised estates. Its focus is the housing management aspects of the problems on the estates. It examines the methodological problems associated with comparative studies of housing estates, then sets out a comparative analysis of the origins, development, and nature of the estates under consideration. The origins and structure of the DSQ/EA programmes are explained, and a descriptive evaluation is given of their impact, based partly 12 detailed case studies. There is considerable use of primary documentary sources, and interviews with both local and national government officials, including with over 100 housing and other agents on the estates. It also draws on published reports and other material. I argue that there are a number of factors, shared in both counties, which create the problems: - the physical state of the estate itself - poor management of the estate - failure to carry out the necessary infrastructural works to accompany construction - the encouragement of low cost home ownership as the natural and desired tenure - the need to fill the empty properties with anyone who would pay rent, allied with social and racial "dumping". The provision of EA/DSQ resources to the estates was due to wider imperatives than simply housing problems of voids or disrepair -rather it was the problems of high pockets of unemployment, rising crime rates, and the notion of "social exclusion". Successful aspects of the programme include physical rehabilitation, new devolved management, and better infrastructural provision, although these were often quickly subject to vandalism. Less successful were the attempts to reduce residualisation by tenure mix or social engineering of allocations. Voids were tackled by a variety of imaginative solutions, and the programmes increasingly included measures to tackle the underlying problems of crime and economic marginalisation. The most effective remedies were those which involved wholesale remodelling of estates, with demolitions and the introduction of new homes, including new tenures. This type of solution is most likely to be effective in the worst estates; though the less radical measures will be effective in the less problematic areas. Note: Throughout this thesis French expressions are generally translated, and where appropriate the original is given between square brackets; for example: APL Housing Benefit [Aide Personalise a Logement] In addition, any price comparisons made at an assumed exchange rate of £1 =F10, irrespective of the year of comparison.

Despite the clinical need for children living with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) to access and adhere to antiretroviral treatment (ART), rates globally remain roughly half that of adults. Although the structural barriers to accessing HIV and health services are well studied, further research into the psychological and social factors underscoring children’s limited access to HIV care is needed to facilitate scale up amongst health service users and providers. Using a social representations theoretical approach, this thesis examines the interplay between psychological and social factors concerning children’s HIV service uptake in a community setting. A qualitative research study was conducted in Kabarole district, Uganda with 60 adults, including 15 health care workers (HCWs) and 45 adult carers of children, and 82 children (N=142). Methods of data collection were individual interviews, focus groups, a draw-and-write exercise, and participant observation in the main local health clinic setting. A thematic content analysis reveals multiple cross-cutting factors which mediate HIV service usage. For HCWs, despite challenging working conditions, the impact of ART has been positive both professionally and personally. Adult carers, however, continue to be negatively impacted by social stigma against HIV, and fears of potential negative consequences resulting from revealing an HIV-positive status influence their uptake of HIV services. For children, the pervasiveness of HIV in their society, and its negative personal and social impact, has created a sense of fatalism and resignation over potential HIV infection and future suffering. At present, the clinical practice environment does not provide a supportive space for these representations to be openly addressed by health service providers or users. Drawing from these findings, the thesis concludes that in order to increase children’s ART access and adherence, more supportive clinical and social environments will need to be jointly created by health service users and providers, through the building of social capital and increased social trust and cohesion between stakeholder groups. Failing to do so may result in continued low or even decreased HIV service usage for children, particularly in light of recent national legislation which may lead to further entrenchment of HIV stigma against socially vulnerable groups.

Worldwide, non-maternal care during the first years of life has gradually become more prevalent. However, there is little evidence about the effect of non-maternal care— especially for under-three-year-olds—on child development. Hence, this thesis explores the association between both maternal employment and type of care at different stages during children’s first three years of life and child development in Chile. My results indicate that there is evidence that maternal employment during the child’s first year of life is detrimental to child development and that delaying maternal employment initiation decreases this detrimental effect on child development. On the other hand, the type of care that the child attends during this first year of life also matters. First, children who are looked after by their grandparent during their first year of life exhibit a positive association with child cognitive and socio-emotional development relative to exclusive maternal care. Second, there is a negative association between relative care and child cognitive and socioemotional development compared to exclusive maternal care. Third, there is a positive association between centre-based care and child cognitive development and a slightly positive association with child socio-emotional development. Finally, controlling for unobserved and fixed child characteristics, I analyse whether the positive association between centre-based care at 6 to 12 months old and child development is also observed on children who entered centre-based care between the ages of 24 and 36 months old. The association between centre-based care between centre-based care and child cognitive development is also positive and there is no significant association with child socioemotional development. In each of my empirical chapters, I test whether child vulnerability define as lowly educated mothers, single parent and low income families, moderates the association between early non-maternal care and child development. Overall, the previously described associations are slightly more detrimental for more vulnerable children. In my three empirical chapters, I use a novel Chilean longitudinal panel survey with waves in 2010 and 2012. To deal with selection bias, in two out three empirical chapters I control for an extensive set of child, mother and family characteristics using OLS regressions and propensity score matching techniques. In addition, in the last empirical chapter I control for (unobserved) individual fixed effects.