In Part Two I present a series of analyses of nineteenth century discourses. In Chapters Five and Six my focus is on texts which describe the history, geography and ethnology of Africa. I establish evidence of the prevalence of racist accounts of the continent during the period and argue that the texts exemplify contradictions between different racist ideologies. I also argue that these contradictions are related to a historical shift between two distinctive ways of constructing social collectives. In Chapter Seven I pursue this argument further through discussion of the nineteenth century discipline of phrenology. I show that Scottish theorists and practitioners of phrenology made a significant contribution to the development of scientific racism, and that the biological determinism which is fundamental to the phrenological project corresponds to a distinctive way of constructing social collectives. I explore the history of the discipline and its relationships to orthodox science and to Christianity in this context. In Chapter Eight I offer an analysis of some aspects of the significance of racism of the construction of collective categories identifying populations within Scotland. I pursue this analysis in two directions. First, I cite and analyse nineteenth century histories of Scotland which refer to the "racial" composition and "racial" qualities of the population of Scotland. Second, I discuss scholarly and governmental literature which describes the contemporary Irish and Highland populations of nineteenth century Scotland. In the final chapter I summarise the results of the analyses presented in Chapters Five to Eight, and conclude by drawing out the implications of these results for the problems raised in Part One. I pursue the issue of the construction of Scottish "national identity" through discussion of recent debates concerning nineteenth century Scottish politics and culture, and I suggest that this area could be more fully researched by taking account of the significance of imperialism and racism.

Over the last three decades, and most recently during the Brexit debate, migration has increasingly been framed as a security issue in the UK and beyond. Amidst what has become a divisive and at times toxic debate on migration, the importance of developing a nuanced understanding of the security-migration nexus, particularly regarding the construction of immigration attitudes, is more pressing than ever. While research has determined a series of variables that impact on immigration attitudes, the influence of elite cues has been underexplored and restricted to political elites and political parties. Moreover, the analysis of the content of migration cues espoused by UK elites has been underdeveloped. Drawing on and extending the Copenhagen School’s securitization theory and applying a mixed-methods approach, the aim of this thesis is to contribute to our understanding of how immigration attitudes are shaped. Using discourse analysis, the central migration frames from the four largest UK-wide parties (Conservatives, Labour, Liberal Democrats and UKIP) are identified, between 2005-2015. The thesis then expands on this limited set of actors to include a previously neglected, but potentially highly influential group – religious elites – and conducts a discourse analysis of elite migration messaging for the two largest UK faiths (Anglicanism and Catholicism). Unsurprisingly political elite cues present migration in predominantly negative terms (securitizing frames). This is in contrast, however, to the predominantly positive migration cues (desecuritizing frames) from religious elites. Nevertheless analysing discursive constructions of migration alone cannot determine whether these elite cues are having any effect on public attitudes. Therefore, quantitative analyses using data from the European Social Survey are introduced to connect elite discourse to immigration attitudes – in securitization parlance, to ‘bring in the audience’. The findings from the statistical analyses broadly support the argument that elite cues can influence immigration attitudes, and therefore contribute to the de/construction of security issues. Overall this thesis enriches our understanding of the drivers of immigration attitudes, the discursive de/construction of migration as a security issue and the role of non-traditional elite actors in the de/construction of migration as a security issue. More broadly, the thesis also speaks to the strengths and limitations of securitization theory both theoretically and methodologically.

Climate change and the continuing changes that accompany it require society and its broader institutions to evolve continuously. Today’s continual atmospheric damage requires a commitment to ecological considerations that show consistent and meaningful carbon reductions. The success of global carbon mitigation depends entirely on the capabilities of individual governing bodies agreeing and delivering upon their climate ambitions. However, delivering impactful progress on emissions is a considerable challenge. Although there has been significant research as to what climate mitigation goals should encompass, the policy path and resulting incremental changes needed to achieve them require additional scholarly attention. This thesis analyses the role of institutions as they adapt to support societies addressing climate change. Adopting a historical institutional approach provides a pathway for understanding the coordination of information, individuals, institutional adjustments, and their role in the carbon policy process. By focusing on the impact of ecological modernisation ideas, this work addresses the ambiguity that lies between contradicting approaches to climate governance and instead, analyses the incremental changes needed to support societies as they address climate change. Systemically gathering policy tools from 1992-2012, this research empirically examines the nature, ambition, and achievements of mitigation policy in the EU and US as they transition to a low-carbon future.

This thesis is about the power of the regional policy actors in two European Union countries: Poland and the Czech Republic. Aiming to answer the question of whether their regions are powerful enough to decide on the directions of their development, this thesis describes power struggles between regional policy actors at European, national and sub-national levels. A particular analytical approach is developed which takes into account the following aspects of power: legal credentials, social capital, financial potential, decision-making ability, executive capacity and political potential. Therefore, the thesis is a major contribution to the reduction of the knowledge gap in multi-level governance (MLG) theory in terms understanding of the domestic factors influencing regional engagement in EU policy-making. Moreover, in the light of the opinions that only together with other theoretical approaches may MLG offer meaningful explanations, the author places the deliberation about MLG within the framework of power, offering an innovative and coherent approach to MLG analysis. This thesis aims to answer three major questions: Are the regions in a position to drive their own development and do they have enough power to do so? How has their power to influence regional development been changing for the last few years? If the regions are powerless, who is leading the process? The Polish and Czech regions had no power in the period 2002-2006. In comparison, the 2007-2013 period has seen a major capacity enhancement; both political and decision-making power allow the Polish and Czech regions to be serious players in the domestic arena. The only major difference between Poland and the CR is the level of executive power, which has been significantly reduced in the latter country by the Cohesion Regions. Nevertheless, the governments act as gatekeepers, trying to secure their power. The EC offers major developmental resources but also encourages the regions to adjust to pre-selected objectives in order to maximise the use of financial assistance. The regions still do not have full discretion to drive their development; the EC conditionality is vast in the CEE and its impact is proportional to the EC’s unprecedented financial power. The idea that guided the methodological design was to present the regional policy-making process from different angles. The best way to achieve this was to run a quantitative Delphi Panel, supplement its findings by qualitative semi-structured interviews, and cross-check the conclusion with information available in the literature.

This thesis examines the transition between working-class radicalism and labour politics in two provincial English constituencies, Bristol and Northampton, between 1867 and 1918. By combining local case studies with a textual analysis of empirical material and a conceptual approach to ideology, it offers fresh insights into popular political change in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Britain. Its central argument is that, contrary to the prevailing historiography on labour politics and identity, a distinctive sense of class could shape working-class radical and labour strategies, languages, identities, and ideologies continuously between 1867 and 1918. In particular, it demonstrates that before the mid-1880s, working-class radical activists in Bristol and Northampton exhibited a non-adversarial sense of class that shaped their perceptions of the social order, their interpretations of radical ideology, and their relationships with both mainstream liberals and middle-class radicals. It also suggests that while working-class radicals came to use 'labour' to describe themselves and their organisations from the mid-1880s, this was primarily a rhetorical move rather than one reflecting a substantive change in their political identity. Over the next thirty years, labour activists in both Bristol and Northampton remained fiercely committed to the dominant strategy, the non-conflictual conception of class, and the political ideology that had long shaped local working-class radical traditions. In these constituencies, the Victorian tradition of working-class radicalism left an indelible mark on twentieth-century labour politics. This study has important implications for our understanding of political and ideological change in modern Britain. Firstly, confirming the existence of a decidedly working-class radical movement makes it easier to understand the rise of a class-based labour politics in late Victorian Britain without having to account for either discontinuities in popular politics or the re-emergence of a dormant class consciousness within the British working class. Secondly, establishing a line of continuity between working-class radicalism and later labour politics helps us to explain some of the tensions that characterised progressive politics in the Edwardian era. Finally, seeing working-class radicalism as a distinctive ideology with its own conceptual framework enriches our understanding of non-liberal progressive thought in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century.

This dissertation studies political dynasties in democratic countries. Dynasties are common in all professions. However, for the profession of politics, in which succession depends no longer on dynastic succession but on running successful electoral campaigns, understanding how and why political power can be bequeathed is particularly important. Factors such as name recognition (the voter demand side) and political networks (the elite supply side) are potential explanations of the continued presence of dynasties in parliaments. This dissertation studies both the voter demand side and the elite supply side of the phenomenon. I first discuss the related literature on political dynasties, political selection, political quality, and the personal vote. Voting for dynasties can be rational, and the presence of dynastic legislators perfectly legitimate. Political dynasties may thrive in electoral systems that encourage personal voting, such as is used in Belgium. In a first paper, I show that in the Belgian 2010 General Election voters preferred dynastic candidates. Institutional changes may change such (dynastic) elite equilibria. In a second paper, we exploit the constituency-level variation in the franchise extension associated with the Second and Third Reform Acts in Britain. However, we find no effect of these reforms on the position of dynasties or the aristocracy in politics. Changes to the political career of legislators may also affect their chances of establishing or continuing a dynasty. The third paper studies dynasties in the UK House of Commons. I employ random variation in tenure length introduced by winning vs. losing a first re-election by a narrow margin. Surprisingly, I find no effect of tenure length on an MP’s chances of establishing a dynasty in the nineteenth century. However, selection into cabinet is more likely if the MP had a relative in the cabinet before.

This thesis presents a case study of Welsh innovation policy from the period of political devolution (1999) to the present day (2014), exploring the role of regional government as a driver of innovation and economic development. It proposes a multi-theoretical framework to be employed in the study of real world innovation interventions, to illicit nuanced insights into the Wales case study, and also to test the applicability of key regional innovation theories in a weaker region context. The four regional innovation theories identified as the most prominent in both academic literature and policy, and incorporated into the conceptual framework of this study are: systems of innovation, clusters, the learning region, and the triple helix. The case study presented consists of a systematic review of Welsh innovation and related policy since devolution and in-depth interviews with key stakeholders in the Welsh innovation system. The Welsh approach to innovation is found to have evolved in three distinct phases, whereby innovation is prioritised differently relative to other policy spheres, and the dominant approach to innovation varies over time. Innovation interventions have met with varying levels of success, and, interestingly, the most prominent approaches have been, on the whole, less successful in Wales. This thesis argues that no one theory is ideally suited to the analysis and development of innovation policy in weaker regions; instead it draws on the strengths of the four key theories identified. It argues against a “one-size-fits-all” approach to innovation policy, premised on exporting models from exceptional leading regions in a manner that is geographically, historically, and culturally blind. It supports a move away from normative approaches to the study and practice of innovation policy, instead drawing on the different theoretical elements that are particularly relevant to the case in question.

This thesis examines the role of two international organisations (IOs), the OECD DAC and the World Bank, in shaping the international aid effectiveness agenda, a policy agenda encouraging reforms of foreign aid policy to improve foreign aid. With particular emphasis on a period in the 1990s, when both IOs faced criticism and the need to adapt to changing geopolitics, it argues that the OECD DAC and the World Bank contributed to shaping the aid effectiveness agenda, and specifically the policy problems the agenda highlights and the policy solutions it recommends, in ways tied directly to these IOs’ specific fields of expertise and their unique institutional interests at the time. In doing so, both IOs adapted, evolved, and expanded the mechanisms by which they exercise their authority as international expert bureaucracies, and both strategically expanded the way in which they interact with their political environment. As a consequence, both IOs helped shape the present-day ideational framework among foreign aid experts and policymakers on how more effective foreign aid is achieved, which, in turn, favours the authority of both these IOs to advice and to act in the efforts to improve the effectiveness of foreign aid. Helping to shape the aid effectiveness agenda thus allowed the OECD DAC and the World Bank to strengthen their authority as expert bureaucracies in this specialised field of policy.

This thesis is a study of environmental governance reform in China. It investigates how new governance policies and arrangements are being introduced in order to overcome problems associated with China’s sizable environmental protection ‘implementation deficit’. Using an analytical framework based on ‘good governance’ criteria of accountability, transparency, participation, and rule of law, it focuses on developments within China’s environmental state, which includes state agencies and their policies, and civil society, incorporating environmental protection NGOs, citizen activists, and the media. Based on in-depth, qualitative research, this thesis examines several aspects of environmental governance reform in China: attempts to make local officials pay greater attention to environmental issues, formal public participation legislation and mechanisms, information disclosure, and ‘private interest’ activism. This thesis identifies interactions between the environmental state and civil society as vital in establishing new, more participatory governance processes. Through acting as ‘policy pioneers’, environmental activists can consolidate governance reforms emanating from the environmental state, and promote new governance norms. At the same time, however, this thesis identifies significant obstacles to the establishment of a more inclusive ‘governance’ approach to environmental protection in China that goes beyond Party-state institutions and actors. For this reason, it challenges the argument that China’s system of environmental governance is likely to converge any further with those observed in western liberal democracies.

The thesis explores everyday resistance in post-conflict statebuilding. Despite the turn in peace and conflict studies to study everyday forms of resistance, the concept and the account of its practices remain limited. In addressing these limitations, the thesis develops an alternative account of both resistance and post-conflict statebuilding. Following the framework of James Scott, resistance is understood as the pattern of acts of individuals and collectives in a position of subordination against the everyday experience of domination. What is resisted is not an externally driven liberal intervention, but the coercive and extractive practices fostered by statebuilding. These dynamics are examined through the case of Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, focusing on the provinces of North and South Kivu. Generally studied as a paradigmatic case of state-failure, the DRC provides an insight into post-conflict statebuilding as a plural, improvised and contradictory process. In the thesis, this is linked to historical and sociological practices of statebuilding more generally, and to the specificities of the African political space. Although statebuilding claims to be a strategy to restore state authority, peace, and democracy, the result has so far been a militarised environment, a pluralisation of state authority and a deterioration of living conditions. The thesis examines discursive, violent and survival practices that deny statebuilders the claim to legitimate authority and to the monopoly of violence, while enacting alternative channels of re-appropriation based on solidarity and reciprocity. Post-conflict statebuilding does not require a special framework of resistance. It requires a historicised account of practices, which grasps their heterogeneity and gradients, and which ultimately accounts for resistance as a prosaic presence in the relations of domination that sustain statebuilding.