The major limitation of many studies on declining industries is the presumption that industrial decline is associated with the final stage of the industry life cycle. These studies often define the sample of their study as those firms where their dominant products are subjected to technological obsolescence and are experiencing a persistent decline in the demand of their products. Conversely, the current study identified factors that the cause of the shrinking in demand of the UK industries was not generally obsolete technology. The decline of UK industries was partly due to severe low cost import penetration that stimulated the shift in demand from the UK manufacturers to the cheaper imported products from the over-seas low cost manufacturers.

This thesis investigates in deindustrialization process, its decline impacts and restructuring process in socio-spatial context. Both deindustrialization and restructuring processes are evaluated regarding a muti-layer conceptualization of the problem. Zonguldak Case is chosen to investigate in the deindustrialization process taken place in the mono-centric local economy dependent on coal mining, the decline impacts of this process on the whole urban set-up including labour households, the city, other economic activities and industrial, regional and urban restructuring process in response to these impacts. The study discusses diverse restructuring attempts concerning local dynamics and local characteristics of Zonguldak.

Saturday Night and Sunday Morning marks the tenth anniversary of the Bradford riot of Saturday 7 to Sunday 8 July 2001. The day began with a peaceful demonstration against a banned Far Right march but ended in one of the most violent examples of unrest in Britain for 20 years. More than 320 police officers were injured as they battled rioters who hurled missiles and petrol bombs, pushed burning cars towards them and torched buildings. Criminal acts of looting characterised the final hours. Riot damages amounted to GBP7.5 million. In the aftermath, nearly 300 arrests took place and nearly 200 were charged with riot leading to prison sentences of four years or more. Images of the riot, and of a smaller disturbance which followed on one of its traditionally 'white' estates, have haunted Bradford ever since. Nine years later, in August 2010, Bradford faced another Far Right provocation. The English Defence League came in force to demonstrate against Bradford's Muslim population. Bradford braced itself. However this time, Asian lads mostly stayed off the streets and the police worked with the council, communities and local activists to keep order against the threat of violence. Saturday Night and Sunday Morning traces Bradford's journey over the decade, beginning with the voices of rioters, police and others interviewed after the 2001 riot and ending with those of former rioters, citizens, police and politicians following the EDL protest. The authors argue that while 2001 reflected a collective failure of Bradford District to address a social legacy of industrial decline in a multicultural context, 2010 revealed how leadership from above combined with leadership from below restored its confidence and opened up possibilities for a new era in Bradford's history and prospects. Saturday Night and Sunday Morning is written by two authors from the University's renowned Department of Peace Studies who balance research with an active commitment to peace, economic regeneration and social justice in Bradford.

The present thesis aims to increase our understanding of the causes of separatism. The inspiration for this topic comes from the fact that separatist conflicts can become extremely destructive, and thus a better understanding of why they emerge may help us prevent much human suffering by pointing to ways in which separatism can be avoided. More specifically, the thesis aims to explain the link between separatism and regional development disparities. The argument presented is that inter-regional economic conflicts (such as about inter-regional fiscal redistribution) easily emerge between regions at different levels of development, and that under certain conditions, particularly prolonged recessions and austerity, such conflicts can become an important driver of separatist aspirations. This can happen in both poorer and richer regions. The thesis further argues that this entire process can only be fully understood if we analyse society through a class prism. Given that regional development disparities often lie at the root of inter-regional economic conflicts, one of the ways of avoiding such conflicts – and thus also separatism – would be to equalize regional development levels. In order to do so, however, we first need to understand why regional disparities emerge and persist. Focusing on capitalist countries, the thesis argues that the disparities emerge as a natural consequence of the operation of oligopolistic markets, which are the dominant market form in capitalism. Regional development policies are explored at length, and it is argued that they are generally insufficient to overcome the tendency of markets to produce regional disparities. All the topics in the thesis are explored at the general level and for a larger number of countries, but the main in-depth case study is of regional disparities in the United Kingdom and how they relate to Scottish separatism.

This research uses the ‘demand-side thesis’ to examine the decline of the Dundee jute industry. In particular, it examines the effect of international competition and the strategic response of the industry during the inter-war (1919-1939) and the post-war (1945-1960s) period to counter this challenge. The strategic response is studied by examining strategies employed at the firm and the industry level. Strategy at the firm level is studied in the form of capability development using the capabilities approach. The thesis also makes an attempt to redress the issue of determinism in the capabilities approach which suggests that the pattern of capability development is governed by path-dependency. By drawing on the techniques employed in the history literature, this research identifies strategic options that were being considered by firms at the time of capability development and examine why certain alternatives were not pursued. This will bring to light aspects other then those associated with path-dependency that played a role in the pattern of capability development. The capabilities developed by firms during the two periods are compared and contrasted in order to understand the pattern over this period. These findings are juxtaposed with the British cotton textile industry, a related sector, to examine the effectiveness of the demand-side thesis in explaining the decline of the jute industry in particular and the textile industry in general. This thesis makes contribution to three areas of literature: First, the thesis helps to further develop the demand-side framework by introducing a new case (Dundee jute industry) and developing a better understanding of strategic response within the jute and textile industry in general. Second, this thesis contributes to the theoretical development of capabilities approach in two specific areas: a) it helps to address the issue of determinism inherent in the capabilities approach through the notion of path-dependency. This was done by also examining the strategic options that were available to firms while developing their capabilities and underlining the reasons for not pursuing them. b) the analysis sheds new light on the nature of branching of capabilities in an industry over a long period. Third, this research makes significant contribution to the existing literature on the business history of the Dundee jute industry, which is sparse. The contributions can be categorised into four key aspects which have not been examined in the current literature: a) period (inter-war and post-war), b) issue (systematic examination of the Dundee jute industry’s decline, strategic response and role of collective strategies), c) method (detailed study of individual firm’s strategies), and d) cross comparison of industry’s experience with related sectors (for example, the cotton industry). Focusing on these issues has helped to throw new light on the challenges, especially technological, facing the industry in developing its strategic response.