Thesis (Ph.D.)--York University, 2007. Graduate Programme in Communication and Culture. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 288-307). Also available on the Internet. MODE OF ACCESS via web browser by entering the following URL: http://gateway.proquest.com/openurl?url_ver=Z39.88-2004&res_dat=xri:pqdiss&rft_val_fmt=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:dissertation&rft_dat=xri:pqdiss:NR29324

Thesis (DTech (Philosophy (Human Resources Management))--Cape Peninsula University of Technology, 2007 / With the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1998 and the fall of the famous Berlin Wall, the final victory or triumph of capitalism over its alternatives, heralded a neoliberal economic system known as globalisation, which was postulated to address the problem. of humankind, including workers, on a global scale. This postulation· led many nations to rush to infuse themselves into the capitalist global system, which is reflected by the opening up of borders to the transnational juggernauts of globalisation. However, a few years into the euphoric global capitalist triumphalism, globalisation and internationalisation seems to have produced some negative consequences for human resources and industrial democracy, both in the North and South. As capital proceeds with its accumulation, expansion and profitability, unemployment has burgeoned, as the government's power to create lasting employment has been supIne owing to the privatisation of the public sector, retrenchment in the private sector, as a direct result of automation, re-engineering, outsourcing and the disastrous effect of global competition, which has eroded labour unionism. In the present state of affairs, labour has been requested to bear the burden of global capitalist hegemony, and the pro-globalist argument, that in the long-run the benefit of globalisation would yield a trickle-down effect to the worst affected workers, has turned a mirage, while the discontentment of the average working class and the majority who have lost out In the global economy, is the cause of renewed widespread global tensions. The current state of affairs has had a polarising effect on people's view, and has resulted in the development of two schools, namelythe pro-globalist and the anti-globalist camps. With the former persistently asserting that globalisation and internationalisation have positive repercussions for workers and industrial democracy, the latter strongly opposes the above assertion. The author of this study aligns more with the latter's view. Therefore, the aim of this research is to prove, beyond reasonable doubt, that there is actually a negative functional relationship between globalisation, internationalisation, human resources and industrial democracy, and to postulate some ameliorating mechanisms, which could enhance· the putative negative relationship, so that a higher human, social and economic order is realised

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Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Chicago, Dept. of Political Science. / Includes bibliographical references. Also available on the Internet.

In recent years, industrial relations scholars have begun to discuss the �revitalisation strategies� unions are using to rebuild lost density, power, and political leverage. This thesis studies the role international activities play in the revitalisation of Australian unions. Rather than assert the importance of international activity, or emphasise the value of certain forms of international activity, the thesis seeks to understand why unions choose to engage in particular forms of international activity. International activity in Australian unions takes on a remarkable diversity of forms. The analysis of international activity therefore requires a theory that is capable of describing these different forms of international activity and then explaining why they exist. However most scholars have not examined the role of union agency in choosing international activity. Within industrial relations, there is very little existing theory or research on which to base the kind of analysis proposed for the thesis. Most theories are ideologically driven, prescriptive accounts that either promote or challenge particular institutions or ideas about international activity. The problem is that they deal with international activity as an abstract kind of response to universal pressures of globalisation. These kinds of arguments serve well to articulate the need for unions to �think globally�, but are ill suited to the task of the thesis, which is to explain particular forms of international activity in particular unions. The questions about international activity that the thesis intends to answer form a point of connection between industrial relations and the related discipline of labour geography. In making the connections between labour geography theory and the analysis of union international strategy, the thesis argues for labour geography as a political economic foundation for industrial relations in the tradition of Hyman�s Marxist theory of industrial relations. This provides a critical theoretical perspective and conceptual vocabulary with which to criticise and extend industrial relations research on international activity. The result is a spatialised theory organised according to topics of interest in industrial relations research that can be applied to the study of Australian international activity. The thesis is evenly divided between developing this theory and research on international activity in the Australian union movement. Empirical analysis begins with a study of the international activities and policy of the ACTU, distinguishing different kinds of international activity. By treating the international activities of theACTU as representative of the Australian union movement as a whole, the thesis identifies three functional levels of international activity: strategy-sharing, regional solidarity, and global regulation. The chapter also examines the material and discursive construction of the international scale within the ACTU. The thesis also analyses the international activities of three Australian unions,the TWU, LHMU and CFMEU. While all three unions engage in each level of international activity, the review of their activities shows differences in the focus of each union. The thesis suggests that the explanation for these different ratios depends in part on the spatial structure of the industries that the different unions organise. The kind of research undertaken in this thesis has little precedent. The work of the labour geographers on international activity does not deal with union revitalisation strategy, and the research from industrial relations on the strategic aspects of international activity have not latched on to labour geography. This thesis argues that unions scale their activities internationally for particular reasons, some of which are structural and can be specified up front, and others that are historically contingent and can only be explored on a case-by-case basis. In examining this �politics of scale� the thesis redefines many of the issues in the discussion of international activity and proposes a new conceptual background for industrial relations generally.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 2001. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 371-407).

In recent years, industrial relations scholars have begun to discuss the �revitalisation strategies� unions are using to rebuild lost density, power, and political leverage. This thesis studies the role international activities play in the revitalisation of Australian unions. Rather than assert the importance of international activity, or emphasise the value of certain forms of international activity, the thesis seeks to understand why unions choose to engage in particular forms of international activity. International activity in Australian unions takes on a remarkable diversity of forms. The analysis of international activity therefore requires a theory that is capable of describing these different forms of international activity and then explaining why they exist. However most scholars have not examined the role of union agency in choosing international activity. Within industrial relations, there is very little existing theory or research on which to base the kind of analysis proposed for the thesis. Most theories are ideologically driven, prescriptive accounts that either promote or challenge particular institutions or ideas about international activity. The problem is that they deal with international activity as an abstract kind of response to universal pressures of globalisation. These kinds of arguments serve well to articulate the need for unions to �think globally�, but are ill suited to the task of the thesis, which is to explain particular forms of international activity in particular unions. The questions about international activity that the thesis intends to answer form a point of connection between industrial relations and the related discipline of labour geography. In making the connections between labour geography theory and the analysis of union international strategy, the thesis argues for labour geography as a political economic foundation for industrial relations in the tradition of Hyman�s Marxist theory of industrial relations. This provides a critical theoretical perspective and conceptual vocabulary with which to criticise and extend industrial relations research on international activity. The result is a spatialised theory organised according to topics of interest in industrial relations research that can be applied to the study of Australian international activity. The thesis is evenly divided between developing this theory and research on international activity in the Australian union movement. Empirical analysis begins with a study of the international activities and policy of the ACTU, distinguishing different kinds of international activity. By treating the international activities of theACTU as representative of the Australian union movement as a whole, the thesis identifies three functional levels of international activity: strategy-sharing, regional solidarity, and global regulation. The chapter also examines the material and discursive construction of the international scale within the ACTU. The thesis also analyses the international activities of three Australian unions,the TWU, LHMU and CFMEU. While all three unions engage in each level of international activity, the review of their activities shows differences in the focus of each union. The thesis suggests that the explanation for these different ratios depends in part on the spatial structure of the industries that the different unions organise. The kind of research undertaken in this thesis has little precedent. The work of the labour geographers on international activity does not deal with union revitalisation strategy, and the research from industrial relations on the strategic aspects of international activity have not latched on to labour geography. This thesis argues that unions scale their activities internationally for particular reasons, some of which are structural and can be specified up front, and others that are historically contingent and can only be explored on a case-by-case basis. In examining this �politics of scale� the thesis redefines many of the issues in the discussion of international activity and proposes a new conceptual background for industrial relations generally.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ohio State University, 2008. / Title from first page of PDF file. Includes bibliographical references (p. 282-292).

This thesis examines the ways in which the interwar global order came to be theorised by African writers, and those of African descent, in specific territories bordering the Atlantic. It asks how those views can inform a richer understanding of the construction of our contemporary world. In particular, it seeks to understand the centrality of race to the imperial order and to many of the oppositional projects that emerged in relation to the order. A global order perspective can, it is argued, help to explain the salience of race to the interwar world as well as its enduring power beyond that period. Using as its primary sources the vibrant black print cultures and circuits of the interwar period, the thesis examines the close concomitance of national and transnational thinking during the 'Belle Époque'; the global vision of Marcus Garvey's black nationalism in the United States; the emergence of critical theorisations of colonialism across British-controlled West Africa; the languages of race and whiteness in interwar France, from the black press of Paris to the early texts of Négritude; and the role played by Haiti, Liberia, and Ethiopia - the only independent states of the period governed by Africans or African-descended people - as instantiations of the racialised nature of interwar sovereignty, targets of both imperial designs and anticolonial activism. Interrogating the conceptual boundaries between race, nationalism, and pan-nationalism, the thesis suggests that such affinities are best understood not as abstractly-definable and opposing doctrines, but as political projects that have emerged historically in relation to global order as a whole and out of specifically enabling material conditions. As well as assessing diverse bodies of writing in terms of their contribution to international theory, the thesis explores how changes in material conditions and imperial infrastructures - particularly the spread of newspapers - facilitated a range of counter-readings of dominant discourses, imaginative acts of traversal, and other practices of oppositional power, whose consequences reach far beyond the interwar period.

Cette thèse étudie l'évolution de la CFDT, depuis sa création en 1964 jusqu'en 1988, à la veille de la chute du mur de Berlin, sous l’angle international à travers les choix effectués en matière de politique internationale. Les positions prises sur la scène extérieure, les manifestations de solidarité internationale, les relations entretenues avec les confédérations syndicales internationales et étrangères participent en effet à l’identification de la centrale au sein du mouvement syndical français en même temps qu’ils traduisent, voire explicitent, son cheminement idéologique. Cette thèse s’appuie sur les archives de la confédération, en particulier le dépouillement inédit de celles du secteur international et des sources orales collectées auprès des responsables en charge de cette politique, auxquelles ont été confrontées les archives des confédérations syndicales internationales auxquelles la CFDT est affiliée sur cette période, la CISC et la CES. Leurs études montrent l'insertion originale d'une confédération désireuse de s'ouvrir à l'ensemble du monde, n'hésitant pas à s'affranchir des barrières de son camp d'origine jusqu'à vouloir bouleverser le syndicalisme international. Peu à l'aise dans une CISC dont elle a pourtant inspiré la transformation, elle porte son regard autant vers les organisations du tiers-monde associées au mouvement des non-alignés que vers les puissantes centrales des pays industrialisés. L’action internationale nourrit ainsi l’ambition de la confédération en même qu’elle accroît sa légitimité sur la scène extérieure comme intérieure. / This thesis entends to analyse the evolution of the CFDT from its creation in 1964 until 1988, just before the fall of the Berlin's wall, though the choices made in term of international policy. Indeed positions taken in front of international events, manifestations of solidarity as relationships with foreigns trade unions and international confederations contribute to the identification of the CFDT. It reveals its development and sometimes allows a new lecture of its ideological path. This thesis is based on the archives of the confederation, in particurarly these of the international department and some interview of mens in charge of this policy. These archives had been faced to the archives of international confederations which the CFDT affiliate duringe this period, ICCTU and ETUC.The research reveals an original insertion of the confederation that wishes for opening its action across the world beyond the barriers of its original camp until to upset international syndicalism structures. The CFDT, feeling unconfortable in a ICCTU despite transformations inspired directly by its own evolution, demonstrates priorly its interest for organisations related with the Third World non-aligneted movement and powerful trade unions of industrialized countries. Therefore, the international policy of the CFDT develops its ambition and increases its legitimacy on the outdoor stage as the indoor one.