The widely accepted external incentives model of conditionality (EIM) argues that the rewards promised by the EU need to be credible for target states to comply with costly EU conditions. Accordingly, compliance should come to a halt or decline significantly in countries where the credibility of accession – the most powerful reward used by the EU – is very low. The case of Turkey appears therefore to present a puzzle, since the current AKP government is still complying with costly EU conditions despite the negative signals from the most powerful member-states and the EU general public. This thesis first establishes that there is indeed a puzzle. The quantitative and qualitative data gathered on formal and behavioural compliance demonstrates that credibility is not a necessary condition for compliance. There are absolutely no signs of decline in compliance, which challenges the EIM’s credibility assumption. The second part of this thesis moves to consider why the Turkish authorities continue to comply under diminished credibility. It finds that the AKP makes strategic use of EU conditionality. Firstly, compliance with EU conditions serves to curb the powers of the Kemalist/secularist establishment and thereby to secure the party’s continued presence. Secondly, compliance helps the government to appear as a Western, reformist, moderate and neo-liberal party to the electorate so as to widen its domestic support. Moreover, lock-in effects of Turkey’s already established pro-European foreign policy, together with issue-specific costs/benefits, also inform the AKP’s decision to comply, albeit to a lesser extent. Finally, this thesis analyses the role of the EU-related bureaucracy as a separate, but limited, actor in the compliance process. In contrast to the political leadership, strong organisational lock-in effects and a high level of social learning motivate bureaucratic agents’ further compliance, which suggests there is a specific bureaucratic politics of compliance at work in Turkey.

On 27 April 1994 the most hated flag in Africa was lowered, signifying the end of the Apartheid regime. As the world watched the transformation of South Africa taking place – without the bloodshed that the state‟s direst cynics had predicted – words like "miracle" and "inspirational" abounded. Since then, the world has continued to watch South Africa‟s transition to democracy and even those who were its greatest supporters have begun to ask questions about the quality and quantity of democratic reforms. The increasing centralisation and monopolisation of power by the African National Congress, declining rates of formal participation by citizens and considerable failures in service delivery are major factors contributing to the concerns about the long-term prospects for democracy in South Africa, especially given the record of democratic failure across the rest of the continent. While significant contributions have been made to the study of South African democracy – both theoretical and empirical – there are few, if any, that have sought to combine both these methodologies and hence the scholarship is not, in my view, paying the dividends it should. This research thus explores contemporary politics in South Africa, examining its assets and liabilities in order to provide a clearer picture of the state of democracy in the country. It does so by measuring practices in South Africa in terms of the role accorded to participation in three conceptions of democracy: liberal representative accounts, deliberative accounts and what I term the "categorical" account. In so doing the research will show that although concerns about democracy in South Africa are justified, if we shift our focus from the instrumental value of participation to its categorical one we may find a way to ensure that the miracle continues.

Scholars have proposed and investigated a view of social relations as social networks and therefore the role of public policy in creating new networks and new social and economic relations. Are different incumbent institutional settings a relevant variable to explain different regional policies responses to Regionalization and Europeanization? I will address this question with regard to the regional policy that was initiated in Italy in 1950 and that represented the country’s attempt to improve its economic and geographic cohesion. The hypothesis is that, within a devolution process, different adaptation to regionalization and Europeanization pressures are correlated to “path dependence” from incumbent institutional settings. Specific attention is dedicated to the role of “paradigms” in the processes analysed. This, in turn could generate different devolution outcomes, in terms of discrepancy between formal and effective outcomes. Devolution is analysed in terms of institutional change and policy (regional policy) change. Institutional change is operationalized in terms of changes in polity and administrative variables, and policy change is investigated through variables representing formal (policy issues, i.e. design and responsibility) and effective (financial, i.e. uses and sources) dynamics under the two different pressures for change identified: regionalization and Europeanization of regional policies. The research proposed is pertinent and important in the context of European integration where national policies have been restructured due to, on the one hand, regionalization—i.e., the transfer downward to the sub-national level—of policies formerly handled at the national level and, on the other, “Europeanization” or the transfer of policies upwards to the European level. This thesis investigates the dynamics of the “paradigm and policy shift” that took place within Italian regional policy between 1950 when the policy began and 1992 when the policy was officially terminated due to a dual transfer of the policy upward to the European level with the co-financing of cohesion policy and the transfer downward to the role of the regions as management authorities for the operational programmes that were responsible for the bulk of Italian regional funds.

The rise of Chinese economy has favoured the growth of several financial centres in China. This phenomenon has drawn much attention to several scholars who focus on the relationship between Hong Kong and Shanghai. With a few exceptions, the relationship among Beijing, Hong Kong, Shanghai and Shenzhen have not been satisfactorily revealed, while financial competition and cooperation among them are also far from clear. This thesis examines the financial systems of Hong Kong, Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen to show their strengths and weaknesses. Financial markets, such as the stock market, bond market, funds market, insurance market, futures and derivatives market as well as the foreign exchange market are all included in this study. In addition, other important players (banking industry and multinational corporations) in the financial system are covered. This study shows that Hong Kong’s strengths lie in its stock, fund, insurance, financial futures and options, foreign exchange and its related derivatives markets, banking industry as well as the attractions of multinational corporations; whereas it is weak in parts of the stock market, the GEM, bond, PE/VC funds and commodity futures markets. Beijing is an important player in the banking industry, stock, bond, private equity fund, VC fund and insurance markets. However, it is not so developed in regard to foreign currency bond, fund (excluding PE and VC funds), financial futures and options, foreign exchange and related derivatives markets, foreign banking and the attractions of multinational corporations. Shanghai is considered to be at a similar level of ranking as Beijing. It is the capital centre of China and has the no.1 fund market in the Mainland although weaker than that of Hong Kong. Shanghai is also strong in foreign banking industry and the attraction of multinational corporations. Whereas Shanghai is weak in its banking industry (excluding foreign banking), bond market, PE/VC funds, financial futures and options as well as foreign exchange markets. Shenzhen is the weakest financial centre, with its advantages in the SME board, ChiNext and VC funds. Another finding of this study reveals that, except for the previous studies on financial centre competition and cooperation in China, there are still some potential areas such as the financial cooperation between the HKEx and SSE, the GEM and ChiNext as well as the financial competition of the private equity fund industry between Hong Kong and Beijing for the financial competition and cooperation of Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen and Hong Kong. The research findings of this thesis have both theoretical and political implications. Theoretically, the study reflects the significance of an information hinterland as well as law and finance theory in the Chinese financial market and also proves the importance of Beijing as a financial centre in China. Empirically, this thesis offers some implications for policy marking to enhance the better development of these financial centres. Specifically, Mainland China should further promote its regulatory and legal quality in order to provide better regulation and supervision on the financial system. In addition, it should put more effort to promote the development of industries that perform well in Hong Kong, Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen. / published_or_final_version / Geography / Master / Master of Philosophy

This study is about how independent voters make their vote decision in presidential election focusing on electoral behaviour in South Korea. The main argument of this thesis is that voters are not very rational in voting choice when party constraints are absent. Both qualitative and quantitative approaches are employed in this study and provide a comprehensive analysis of voting behaviour of independent voters in the new democracy. In particular, the use of focus group interviews and in-depth one-to-one interviews conducted during the 2002 Korean Presidential Election provides detailed analysis of electoral behaviour in Korea. Korean voters have developed party identification, a long-term psychological attachment with a particular political party, under the institutional underdevelopment of the political parties in the new democracy. Regionalism is the predominant factor to explain partisan alignment in Korea, but ideological self-identification also accounts for the partisan alignment in new democracy. Over the last 10 years, party identification has markedly weakened in Korea, a 15 year old democracy, in contrast to experiences of other new democracies. This weakening of party identification is largely due to changes in political interest and dissatisfaction with political processes in new democracy. My findings confirm that the increase of independents and the process of partisan dealignment are closely related to a decline of electoral stability. But an increase of independent voters who are free from party constraints has not lead to an increase of rational voting behaviour in Korean presidential elections. Although independent voters are most interested in short-term considerations, such as candidate evaluation, issue stands and government performance, their voting choice is not politically rational. Independent voters are more likely to make vote decision based on insufficient information and heavily rely on candidate image rather than substance in their voting choice. Many independent voters cast their ballot based on the candidates' affective dimensions, such as integrity, empathy and appearance, rather than cognitive dimensions, such as competence to solve the nation's urgent problems.

This thesis explores the moral implications of watching suffering on the media. In particular, it addresses the question of how audiences construct their moral agency vis-à-vis the suffering of distant others they witness through television news. Theoretically, the thesis takes as a point of departure the concept of mediation as media practices. Based on an underlying assumption of moral agency as discursively constructed and articulated, I have drawn an analytical framework which employs the discursive practices of media witnessing and media remembering to explore the ways audiences talk about distant suffering and position themselves in relation to it. The thesis is empirically grounded in the context of Greece and based on focus group discussions with members of the Greek audience. The empirical analysis indicates that viewers engage with distant suffering in a multiplicity of ways that are not exhausted in feelings of empathy or compassion and their diametric opposites of apathy and compassion fatigue. These forms of engagement are filtered through both the nature and extent of media reports of suffering, and discourses about power and politics entrenched within the national culture. In this context, the analysis demonstrates that viewers position themselves as witnesses vis-à-vis news reports of distant suffering in four different modes, which are described as “affective”, “ecstatic”, “politicised” and “detached” witnessing. The exploration of the practice of media remembering illustrates the construction of a moral hierarchy in the way viewers remember distant suffering, where some events are constructed as banal and others become landmarks in audience memory. Finally, the viewers’ positioning as public actors with regard to media stories of human pain is shown to be, on the one hand, conditional upon the media staging of humanitarian appeals, and, on the other hand, embedded within and limited by frameworks of understanding civic participation in public life. The thesis contributes to a growing body of literature on the mediation of distant suffering. It especially addresses the largely neglected empirical question of audience engagement with media stories of human pain, offering both empirical evidence and an analytical framework for the study of this engagement.

This thesis is comprised of three papers, each making a distinctive theoretical and empirical contribution to our understanding of interest representation within the European Parliament (EP). The papers are unified by two assumptions: first, the strategic behaviour of organised interests is significantly determined by the distribution of legislative influence, and second, the opportunity to become influential is a function of the EP’s decision-making rules. Each paper addresses a different aspect of this opportunity structure, which together provides a coherent explanation of the link between lobbying and the EP’s decision-making process. In so doing, insights are provided into the distribution of legislative influence within the EP and the legitimacy of the European Union’s policy process. The first paper explains how organised interests’ strategic behaviour is considerably altered in response to changes in the political opportunity structure afforded by each phase of the committee process. The second paper presents and tests a theory of indirect lobbying of the rapporteur. Here the institutional context is shown to be such that rapporteurs come to rely upon officials from their committee’s secretariat for relatively independent policy advice. But the policy expertise required by officials to carry out this role turns out to be endogenously derived from amongst the same lobbyists whose informational submissions the rapporteur seeks to verify. The final paper draws on longitudinal survey data to assess the impact of institutional rules and European party group membership, in the context of uncertainty amongst lobbyists as to whether their most closely aligned large party group will form part of a given legislative majority. This uncertainty provides an incentive for organised interests to lobby MEPs from opposing party groups in addition to more natural allies. But crucially, in performing this action lobbyists defer to their hard-wired principle and lobby the most closely aligned members from the otherwise unfriendly party.

This thesis investigates the role of politics in implementing educational reform in India during the period 1994 to 2011. Much of the recent research on politics and educational reform has been dominated by the analytical framework of formal political economy, but this framework has not been able to explain how reforms are successfully adopted. Also, the main focus has been on the negative role of politics, controlled by powerful interest groups and biased institutions, in constraining changes likely to benefit poor people. I focus instead on understanding the political dynamics in cases of success. In particular, why do political leaders and public officials support educational reform even though this does not suit their political calculations, and is likely to encounter resistance from teacher unions and educational bureaucracies? To understand these dynamics, I use the framework of comparative institutionalism, and examine the contested interaction of ideas, interests, and institutions, leading to success or failure. To analyse the process of reform implementation, I have selected two Indian states—Andhra Pradesh and Bihar. Both were educationally backward at the beginning of the 1990s and were confronted with a common agenda for reform established by the federal government. However, they pursued divergent trajectories over the next decade, with the former state achieving higher levels and reduced disparities in primary school participation. I compare the political dynamics in three important arenas: the management of teacher interests and their unions, educational decentralisation, and the daily interactions between poor households, schools, and the local state. I find that political strategies are important in determining variations in outcomes. In Andhra Pradesh, the political leadership found an alignment between the new opportunities provided by the federal government and its own agenda for development; it created new allies for change by reducing discretion in teacher policies, playing on interunion rivalries, and creating a local cadre of party loyalists. However, a wider agenda of development was missing in Bihar, and even successfully designed school decentralisation policies could not be implemented due to weak support from political leaders, and because of local elite capture. In both the states, however, the interaction of the poor with schools and the local state was a process of struggle, indicative of the challenges that lie ahead.

Since the early 1990s, the prominent role of 'Octobrists' – former left wing student activists from the 1970s – has become increasingly evident in parliamentary and extra-parliamentary politics. Some Octobrists have played leading or supporting roles in key moments of political transition, such as the 1992 urban middle-class movement for democracy, various social movements throughout the mid-1990s, the political reform process of the late 1990s, and the rise of the Thais Love Thais (Thai Rak Thai) government under Thaksin Shinawatra in 2001. But over the course of the past ten years, these former student activists have become increasingly divided, amidst the protracted conflict between 'Yellow shirt' (anti-Thaksin) and 'Red Shirt' (pro-Thaksin) forces in Thai politics. Octobrists have defended opposing political stances and severely attacked one another across the political divide. This thesis examines why the Octobrists have managed to remain a significant force in Thai politics, despite the collapse of left wing politics in the late 1970s, and why they have experienced deepening internal divisions and a crisis of legitimacy over the course of the past decade. This thesis argues that the Octobrists successfully exploited shifts in the structure of political opportunities over the 1980s and 1990s which allowed them to overcome constraints on their involvement in politics. These former left wing student activists successfully made use of the political skills, social networks, and progressive language which they had developed and refined since the 1970s, in order to gain access to new channels of political influence and power. Above all, they managed to reframe their earlier history as leftist failures and to craft a new political identity as 'Octobrists', as heroic fighters for democracy and against authoritarian rule in the 1970s. In examining the rise and deepening of conflicts among the Octobrists, moreover, this thesis traces the shifts in political environment which accompanied the ascendancy and entrenchment of the Thaksin government and the rise of antiThaksin mobilisation over the past decade, which undermined the loose unity among Octobrists and created new sources of tension and conflict in their midst. The thesis also shows how the notion of 'Octobrists' shifted from an effective rubric for forging a shared identity among former student activists to a rhetorical device for conflict and contestation among former comrades-in-arms.

This thesis is a history of South Korean policy towards North Korea and its general foreign policy at the time of fluctuation of relations between the allies, the Republic of Korea and USA, between 1968 and 1979. The thesis shows how American East Asian policy and South Korean people‘s aspiration for the reunification and democracy of Korea affected Park Chunghee‘s Cold War strategy. After Park Chunghee failed to find a common ideological foundation with the Americans, the South Korean leader started to re-consider the inter-Korean problem and ROKUS relations in realistic term. In the late-1960s and early 70s, Seoul shifted from antagonism toward Pyongyang to negotiation with the North Koreans in order to support American rapprochement with China. But simultaneously, the Park regime established the authoritarian state and resisted the American influence on its foreign policy. With regards to the ROK-US rift, the thesis points to their misperceptions between the South Korean and American leaders in their war in Vietnam and East-West reconciliation. In addition, this thesis also shows how South Korean nationalism and liberal movement affected Park Chunghee‘s policy. The aspiration of South Korean public for the reunification and democracy of Korea pushed policy makers over despotic rule and the aggressive policy toward North Korea.