A research report submitted to the Faculty of Humanities of the University of Witwatersrand in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Masters of Arts in International Relations, 2017 / The international community's dynamics have undergone significant changes since 1990s. Famine, economic, security, and ethnic and religious animosities have greatly contributed to the emergence of conflicts globally. Preventive approaches, tools and structures in dealing with emerging conflicts rapidly became global trend. Early warning systems (EWS) were such preventive tools that bodies such as the African Union (AU) and the three regional economic communities (RECs) in Southern and West Africa and the Horn of Africa adopted to prevent conflicts on the African continent. [Abbreviated Abstract. Open document to view full version] / XL2018

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What triggers political unrest under International Monetary Fund (IMF) programmes? Why do we see unrest - protests, strikes, and riots - in some countries under IMF programmes and not in others? This thesis argues that IMF labour conditionality in an immobile labour market compounded by intrusive fiscal conditionality and blocked democratic channels result in unrest. Where labour is immobile in the borrowing country, IMF labour conditionality decentralising the market creates large-scale grievances among the labour groups. Immobile labour groups substantially lose income and benefits under those measures due to high wage differentials and varied labour protection measures across sectors. Moreover, uncertainty and risks increase, while the opportunities to return back to employment or to maintain the existing income and benefits diminish. When the political authority is unable to address the rising grievances due to tight fiscal conditionality and blocked democratic channels, we observe political unrest under IMF programmes. Where labour is mobile, on the other hand, it is easier for workers to switch between sectors and jobs when the economic crisis hits their sector. The labour groups respond to the internal crisis and the external impact by increasing mobility and switching to the sectors that are still growing despite the crisis. Labour conditions do not give rise to a similar degree of uncertainty and risks compared to immobile markets. Hence, programmes are implemented without large-scale unrest. The study tests this theory in a global sample of 117 countries between 1970 and 2013 and investigates the impact of mobility and IMF conditionality on unrest with a data set originally compiled and coded for this study. It then delves into two extreme cases, Greece, 2010 and Turkey, 2001. While Greece had extreme immobility and received intrusive labour and fiscal conditionality in 2010, Turkey is located on the opposite end of the spectrum, with very high levels of mobility, the limited number of labour conditions, and greater fiscal space. We see that while Greece witnessed large-scale unrest in 2010, Turkey implemented the programme smoothly. Finally, the study applies the theory into three shadow cases, Ireland, 2010, Latvia, 2008, and Portugal, 2011 and demonstrates that the varied degrees of mobility and conditionality and fiscal conditionality result in different degrees of unrest.

Nesta pesquisa procuramos estabelecer as bases teóricas e práticas da Internacional Situacionista e de dois de seus principais teóricos, Guy Debord e Raoul Vaneigem. Para aprofundar a compreensão, fomos em busca das origens desse grupo no Letrismo, na Internacional Letrista e Movimento por uma Bauhaus Imaginista, em uma tentativa de estabelecer uma trajetória. O início, no Letrismo, se estabelece como vanguarda artística, para logo quebrar com a perspectiva de uma proposta estética e realizar um aprofundamento de caráter marxista na crítica à cultura e ao urbanismo, na forma metodológica do desvio e da deriva e na construção de situações, a partir dos anos da Internacional Letrista. O processo de Decomposição da cultura faz com que alguns grupos se reúnam em uma nova internacional, desta vez Situacionista, com uma proposta inicial de revolução cultural, na e contra Decomposição. O envolvimento de Guy Debord com outros teóricos marxistas como Henri Lefebvre, radicaliza uma crítica da vida cotidiana e tira do foco uma discussão sobre cultura. O resultado é desenvolvimento do conceito de espetáculo, forma mais desenvolvida da sociedade produtora de mercadorias, e a centralização da questão do fetiche na crítica. Uma possibilidade de debate entre uma práxis revolucionária da vida cotidiana e a centralidade do fetiche da mercadoria nos parece necessária no momento atual da Geografia. / This research sought to establish the theoretical and practical bases of the Situationist International and two of its leading theorists, Guy Debord and Raoul Vaneigem. To deepen understanding, we were in search of the origins of this group in Lettrism, Lettrist International and the International Movement for an Imaginist Bauhaus, in an attempt to establish a trajectory. The beginning, in Lettrism, establishes himself as the artistic vanguard, soon to break with the prospect of an aesthetic proposal and make a deeper exploration in the marxist ideas, in order to make a critique of culture and urbanism with the methodological form of the detournement, the dérive and the construction of situations, since the years of the Lettrist International. The process of Decomposition of the culture causes some groups to join in a new International, Situationist this time, with an initial proposal of cultural revolution, inside and against Decomposition. Guy Debord\'s involvement with other marxist theorists such as Henri Lefebvre, the radical critique of everyday life takes the focus from the discussion about culture. The result is the development of the concept of spectacle, most developed form of commodity-producing society, and centered on the critical question of the fetish. A possibility for discussion between a revolutionary praxis of everyday life and the centrality of the fetish seems necessary at this moment in Geography.

Nesta pesquisa procuramos estabelecer as bases teóricas e práticas da Internacional Situacionista e de dois de seus principais teóricos, Guy Debord e Raoul Vaneigem. Para aprofundar a compreensão, fomos em busca das origens desse grupo no Letrismo, na Internacional Letrista e Movimento por uma Bauhaus Imaginista, em uma tentativa de estabelecer uma trajetória. O início, no Letrismo, se estabelece como vanguarda artística, para logo quebrar com a perspectiva de uma proposta estética e realizar um aprofundamento de caráter marxista na crítica à cultura e ao urbanismo, na forma metodológica do desvio e da deriva e na construção de situações, a partir dos anos da Internacional Letrista. O processo de Decomposição da cultura faz com que alguns grupos se reúnam em uma nova internacional, desta vez Situacionista, com uma proposta inicial de revolução cultural, na e contra Decomposição. O envolvimento de Guy Debord com outros teóricos marxistas como Henri Lefebvre, radicaliza uma crítica da vida cotidiana e tira do foco uma discussão sobre cultura. O resultado é desenvolvimento do conceito de espetáculo, forma mais desenvolvida da sociedade produtora de mercadorias, e a centralização da questão do fetiche na crítica. Uma possibilidade de debate entre uma práxis revolucionária da vida cotidiana e a centralidade do fetiche da mercadoria nos parece necessária no momento atual da Geografia. / This research sought to establish the theoretical and practical bases of the Situationist International and two of its leading theorists, Guy Debord and Raoul Vaneigem. To deepen understanding, we were in search of the origins of this group in Lettrism, Lettrist International and the International Movement for an Imaginist Bauhaus, in an attempt to establish a trajectory. The beginning, in Lettrism, establishes himself as the artistic vanguard, soon to break with the prospect of an aesthetic proposal and make a deeper exploration in the marxist ideas, in order to make a critique of culture and urbanism with the methodological form of the detournement, the dérive and the construction of situations, since the years of the Lettrist International. The process of Decomposition of the culture causes some groups to join in a new International, Situationist this time, with an initial proposal of cultural revolution, inside and against Decomposition. Guy Debord\'s involvement with other marxist theorists such as Henri Lefebvre, the radical critique of everyday life takes the focus from the discussion about culture. The result is the development of the concept of spectacle, most developed form of commodity-producing society, and centered on the critical question of the fetish. A possibility for discussion between a revolutionary praxis of everyday life and the centrality of the fetish seems necessary at this moment in Geography.

Σκοπός της παρούσας διδακτορικής διατριβής είναι να καταγραφούν οι συνέπειες της υποχρεωτικής λογιστικής μετάβασης, από τα μέχρι πρότινος και για πολλά χρόνια εφαρμοζόμενα Ελληνικά Λογιστικά Πρότυπα (ΕΛΠ) στα ΔΛΠ/ΔΠΧΠ. Κινούμενοι προς αυτή την κατεύθυνση η παρούσα διατριβή αρχικά μελετά το θεωρητικό υπόβαθρο των ΔΛΠ/ΔΠΧΠ και των ΕΛΠ και αναλύει, ταξινομεί και σχολιάζει τις διαφορές τους. Στη συνέχεια, προκειμένου να αποκαλυφτούν οι συνέπειες της υποχρεωτικής λογιστικής μετάβασης και να αναδειχτούν οι ανωτέρω διαφορές, πραγματοποιήθηκαν δύο ξεχωριστές εμπειρικές έρευνες. Στην πρώτη, μέσα από την πραγματοποίηση εξισώσεων παλινδρόμησης, εξετάστηκαν οι άμεσες συνέπειες της υποχρεωτικής υιοθέτησης των ΔΛΠ/ΔΠΧΠ, διερευνώντας την επιρροή τους στις οικονομικές καταστάσεις των εισηγμένων εταιριών του Χρηματιστηρίου Αθηνών. Στην δεύτερη εμπειρική ανάλυση, πραγματοποιήθηκε έρευνα πεδίου με ερωτηματολόγια στις εισηγμένες επιχειρήσεις του Χρηματιστηρίου Αθηνών, καταγράφοντας τις απόψεις των άμεσα θιγόμενων από την εξεταζόμενη λογιστική μετάβαση. Και για τις δύο εμπειρικές αναλύσεις που έλαβαν χώρα, εξετάστηκε το κατά πόσο οι συνέπειες της εφαρμογής των ΔΛΠ/ΔΠΧΠ είναι ομοιογενείς για όλες τις επιχειρήσεις. / The present PhD thesis intends to present the consequences of mandatory transition from Greek Accounting Standards (GAS) to IAS/IFRS. The study initially examines the theoretical background of IAS/IFRS and GAS and analyses, classifies and comments on their differences. Then two independent empirical investigations were carried out in order to reveal the above mentioned differences. The first one examined, with the use of regression analysis, the direct consequences of the mandatory transition by exploring its effect on financial statements of listed companies in the Athens Stock Exchange. The second one recorded the opinion of the listed companies toward IAS/IFRS by using questionnaires as a research instrument. Both empirical investigations examined whether IAS/IFRS mandatory implementation has similar effects on all companies.

The sphere of services started to develop very actively in the last century. Nowadays this sector of economics gained the dominant positions: currently those services compound more than two thirties of the World’s Gross National Product (GNP). Approximately seventy percent of the GNP is obtained in sector of the services. Moreover, this sector is growing much faster (16 percent per year) than trade in services (7 percent per year only). Currently more than seventy percent of the employees are working in the sector of the services, and this part practically contains all the development of employment. According to the data of the Statistic Department of Lithuania and the Bank of Lithuania, during period 2000 – 2006 the services became the key in economical sector in the structure of the Lithuanian economy, and it compounds the biggest part of surplus. Despite this fast development of the sector of the services, many problems that limit this market are rising up, for example, obstructions for Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises (SME), the problems with innovations, the efficiency of the employment, the obstacles that influence the establishment of the enterprises. It is necessary to make the comprehensive analysis of the sector of the services in order to solve those problems. The conception of the service, groups of the services traded in the international market and their accounting, the development of the services of the international market and its changes, the factors that... [to full text]