This thesis explores the place of the Bondo secret society, whose precondition for membership is female genital cutting (FGC), in Sierra Leone’s post-war politics. The Bondo society is considered a repository of gendered knowledge that bestows members with significant forms of power in the local social context. Members, especially Bondo society leaders, are dedicated to the continued practice of FGC even amidst calls for its eradication. The Bondo is much sought after and overwhelmingly supported by the political elite due to the role it plays in ordering community life and its position as the depository of cultural repertoires (Swidler, 2001:24). Most women gravitate towards the Bondo who also use it to shape and reshape their identity. For example, as part of post war recovery, I argue, the Bondo was employed by political actors to legitimate and extend the hegemony of political movements. This analysis, therefore, examines the complicated interplay of power between politicians and the Bondo society members in the context of an international outcry against the practice of FGC. The thesis argues that the Bondo society leaders are keen to maintain the status quo because of the forms of power accessible to them in the local socio-economic and political context. Faced with an over-arching discourse of eradication and change concerning the FGC procedure, the Bondo society has in turn fashioned a counter-discourse framed in terms of “defending traditional culture” to forestall changes that could affect the “privileges” they access. I explore the tensions of this situation in this thesis. That is, on the one hand, the tension brought about by opposition between the FGC reform agenda and the Bondo society members’ attempts to resist change in the ritual practice. On the other hand, I am concerned with the tension in the patronage they enjoy from politicians who are caught up in a double bind situation: they simultaneously need support from Bondo members but are, at the same time, reliant on international development aid. In exploring power from below, I examine Bondo society’s community stock of knowledge and how this symbolic power is employed in Sierra Leonean politics. This does not lead to a vindication of FGC but underscores the complex social, economic and political meanings embedded in the Bondo and in discourses of power in Sierra Leone. The thesis points out that eradication advocates need to take account of the various dimensions of the Bondo society’s embeddedness in relation to both state and society.

This thesis addresses, from a comparative perspective, an important lacuna in the research devoted to German and English revolutionary literature in the period from 1819 up to the European revolutions of 1848/49. It illustrates that a major shift from a concept of political revolution to one of social revolution took place within these years which is reflected in radical literature between the ‘Peterloo Massacre’ (1819) and the failure of the bourgeois political revolution of 1848/49. Theoretically based on selected writings of the early Marx and Engels on ideology, consciousness and political and social revolution as well as on more recent Marxist theories of cultural studies, this study shows how the contemporary philosophical, socio-political, socio-economic and literary discourse on revolution must be regarded as closely interlinked. This interconnection is not limited to an ideological, but also extends to a rhetorical and even metaphorical level. However, although it foregrounds these shared textual elements, the purpose of this thesis is not to add yet another philological analysis of literary works, but rather to flesh out the shared ideological involvement of the fictional and non-fictional revolutionary discourse. Texts and authors include in the British context of 1819 Percy Bysshe Shelley and British radical journalists such as Richard Carlile. In order to analyse the shift in revolutionary discourse in the years between the French bourgeois July Revolution of 1830 and the early 1840s, texts by the literary revolutionary writers Ludwig Börne, Heinrich Heine, Thomas Lovell Beddoes and Georg Büchner are contextualised with the pamphlets and writings by the most radically socio-revolutionary among the French early socialists, Louis Auguste Blanqui, by rebellious weavers, by the Parisian German early proletarian movement as well as Marx’s earliest socio-philosophical justification of a proletarian social revolution, the “Einleitung Zur Kritik der Hegel’schen Rechts-Philosophie” (1844).

The post-war history of the Electricians' union has been a very stormy one indeed. During the 1950s, when the union was controlled by the Communist Party, there began a stream of allegations from within the union and from the press that the leaders of the ETU were engaged in electoral malpractice. Eventually, in 1961, the High Court did find that some ETU leaders, who were also members of the Communist Party, had used `fraudulent and unlawful devices' to secure the re-election of the Communist General Secretary of the union in 1959. Following the trial the ETU was expelled both from the TUC and the Labour Party, but they were re-admitted in 1962 after a new right-wing leadership was elected to office. Since 1962 the right-wing has enjoyed an uninterrupted control of the Electricians' union. Its opponents claim that this control has been maintained because, under the name of reforms, a huge reshaping of the union's internal democracy has occurred which has been effective in undermining any oppositional challenge and has placed more and more power in the hands of the Executive Council. The thesis is an examination of these two periods of the union's history, and the different strategies pursued by the Communist and right-wing leaderships. It details the rise of the Communist Party in the ETU, and considers the allegations of ballot-rigging that led to the 1961 trial. It examines the remodelling of the union in the 1960s, charts the rise of the organized opposition to the leadership in the 1970s, and considers the controversial `strike-free' agreements that the union has negotiated in recent years. However, the thesis attempts to do more than just chronicle particular episodes in the post-war history of the Electricians' union: it also attempts to understand this history by the use of two broad theoretical approaches. Firstly, the union's internal history is considered in the light of the wider political and industrial factors that have shaped and re-shaped that history. In other words, the union's democracy cannot be understood by solely examining its internal workings, `external' factors also have to be considered. From this perspective it is argued that the ballot-rigging and bureaucratic manipulation that took place under the Communist leadership cannot be understood simply in terms of a faulty electoral process open to abuse by unscrupulous men. Rather, those factors that allowed the CP to legitimately take charge of the union in the first place, and those which compelled some members of the ETU to eventually abuse the unions' electoral process, were intimately linked to the post-war industrial climate and in particular the political and industrial strategies of the Communist Party. Similarly, the remodelling of the union's democracry in the 1960s, and the history of the union up to the present day, has to be understood not just in terms of an authoritarian leadership, but by reference to the particular circumstances that allowed the right-wing to take control of the union, and the political and industrial policies that underlay the reshaping of democracy in the union. Secondly, throughout the thesis there is an engagement with Robert Michels' `iron law of oligarchy'. Michels' theory was expostulated in his Political Parties (1911) and can be summed up in his famous dictum `who says organization, says oligarchy', and in his assertion that in the trade union movement the `authoritative character of the leaders and their tendency to rule bureaucratic organizations on oligarchic lines, are even more pronounced than in political parties'. This theory is critically considered in the context of the actual workings of the post-war Electrician's union. Overall, the thesis attempts to do a number of things: to give a particular account of the major episodes in the union's post-war history, which range from the ballot-rigging of the 1950s to the `strike-free' deals of the 1980s; to explore the relationship between the political and industrial policies of the CP and right-wing leaderships and the union's democracy; to offer a critical appraisal of Michels' `iron law of oligarchy', and, finally, as the union faces expulsion from the TUC, to consider the future prospects for democracy in the EETPU.

This thesis undertakes a sustained engagement with theoretical debates within and between the fields of human rights and environmental sustainability, which, it is argued here, inevitably come together in the context of globalisation. At issue in this thesis are questions about the nature of and rationale for human rights, the necessary and sufficient conditions of environmental sustainability, the impact of globalisation on human rights and environmental sustainability, and the interaction between them. The aim of the thesis is to interrogate a variety of arguments about human rights and environmental sustainability in order to assess their coherence and consistency, and to evaluate competing perspectives. The central questions animating this inquiry are, to what extent can environmental threats to human security be conceptualised as a human rights issue, and do human rights provide an adequate and appropriate framework in terms of which to respond to the environmental impacts of globalisation? The thesis begins by examining the impact of globalisation on human rights and environmental sustainability. There follows, in chapter 3, a detailed analysis of possible justifications of support for universal human rights, looking at philosophical foundations, the idea that there might be an overlapping consensus on human rights, and the idea of human rights as a sentimental education. Chapter 4 focuses on criticisms that have been levelled at the contemporary human rights regime and evaluates a proposed alternative, Thomas Pogge’s idea of an institutional model of human rights. Thereafter the focus of the thesis shifts to environmental sustainability. Firstly, chapter 5 investigates definitions of environmental sustainability and proposes an evaluative framework for assessing different models of economic organisation. Secondly, chapter 6 looks at the political changes that might be appropriate to an environmentally sustainable society by examining green (re-)interpretations of the concepts of citizenship, democracy, and justice. In chapter 7 the two fields of inquiry are reintegrated, firstly by addressing the question of whether rights or sustainability can or should be prioritised at the expense of the other, and secondly by considering the plausibility and merit of the idea of claiming that there are environmental human rights. The conclusion advanced in the thesis is that human rights do not provide a sufficient framework in terms of which to respond to the environmental impacts of globalisation, however, a renewed understanding of human rights, informed by a sense of the social and ecological embeddedness of human life, may be a fruitful feature of an environmentally sustainable society. Moreover, it is argued here that human rights and environmental sustainability share some illuminating features, in that support for each is most coherently justified in terms of a sentimental concern for the fate of others, though informed by a sense of the social and ecological embeddedness of human life. This informed sentimentalism is ultimately held to be a stronger motivation to act in defence of human rights or environmental sustainability than rational self-interest in the context of globalisation.

The health policy change in China between 2003 and 2009 was profound. In 2003, the Chinese government changed its response to the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) outbreak from initial passivity to proactivity. Following the SARS outbreak, in 2005 the Chinese government started major healthcare reforms. During this process, the health policy direction then changed from marketisation towards being more government-led. Previous research has explained health policy change mainly from bureaucratic perspectives that considered the government playing the main role. This thesis explains how and why health policy changed by focusing on three actors outside the political system. I argue that, after the SARS outbreak, experts, the media, and international organisations influenced the health policies as a ‘Policy Entrepreneurial Coalition’ (PEC), the result of which was a combination of normal and paradigmatic policy changes between 2003 and 2009. This is a qualitative study. I conducted fieldwork in China involving semi-structured interviews of policy insiders and outsiders. The policy insiders are government officials in the Ministry of Health. The policy outsiders are: domestic Chinese experts in social science, health economics, and health; external (foreign) experts who were involved in China’s health policymaking; journalists in national media and other commercialised traditional media; and representatives of international organisations in China. I also did content analysis of both policy documents and media reports. I identified three cases: the health policy change during the SARS outbreak, the initiation of the healthcare reform, and the health policy change during the healthcare reform policymaking. This thesis makes three major contributions. First, it documents the health policy change between 2003 and 2009. Second, previous studies focused on bureaucratic bargaining during policymaking in China, but I examine roles of policy outsiders, who have conventionally been neglected in China’s policy process. Third, to explain the influence of the outsiders, I examine the policymaking process within the central government and how the policy outsiders interacted with the policy insiders. In doing so, this thesis contributes to the understanding of China’s politics and policy processes.

What is effort and why do we value it? This thesis examines various ways in which effort has been used to answer questions of distributive justice. I begin with effort’s role as the unique legitimate basis for justifying differences in the deserts people receive. This role focuses on either the burdens associated with effort, so that it is only when we try hard and suffer disutility that we deserve anything; or else it is because our effort is the only part of our person for which we can be held responsible. I then discuss the legitimacy of the demand for specifically productive reciprocal effort in light of a society’s institutional structure meeting certain thresholds of justice. I find problems with all three of these approaches because they miss important ways in which we use and understand effort in the course of our lives. I examine the uses to which we put effort, developing a more inductive approach which draws on a particular reading of the concept of burden developed in the first half of the thesis. What are the costs associated with trying hard to do something and why are they important to how our lives go? I then frame this by a particular account of a character I call the ‘craftsman’. This is someone who enjoys a particularly ‘costly’ way of living. The craftsman desires to achieve a depth in her life that is negatively affected by contemporary social and economic demands. Finally, I propose an unconditional basic income as a means to protect the craftsman and the agitator, an additional character identified in response to the discussion on reciprocity, who helps us collectively approach the thresholds identified in the third chapter.

Political theorists agree that some form of unity is necessary for culturally diverse citizens to act collectively and take collectively binding decisions. But they seldom specify what they mean by such unity; agreement on political values, an emotional bond between citizens, shared fundamental ends? Moreover, these political theorists often aim to be of practical use and intend to shape the ideas and guide the actions of political elites. But they neglect to examine how these elites already conceive unity and it is not clear whether they can, as these are the ideas they seek to shape or alter. This thesis responds to these two gaps, making three contributions: it clarifies why studying existing ideas helps political theorists to be ‘practical’; it clarifies how unity is conceived by political theorists and by political elites; and it argues that one conception of unity is not only most defensible but also plausible within two contexts. I develop my argument as follows. In chapter 1 I show that political theorists remain unclear about what they mean by unity, while often aiming to be ‘practical’; and in chapter 2 I explain why such practicality entails studying the ideas of the elites theorists intend to influence and I outline how to study these. In chapter 3 I present and analyse four hitherto implicit conceptions of unity advanced by political theorists; and in chapters 4 and 5 I show how British and Dutch political elites, respectively, conceive unity in different ways. In chapter 6 I show the implications of how political elites think about unity for political theorists, so I can argue for one of their conceptions of unity in chapter 7. I thus show that paradoxically, in a time when multiculturalism is often considered divisive, a ‘multicultural’ conception of unity proves both most defensible and plausible.

Humanitarian aid faces a crisis of legitimacy in many conflicts as a result of a close relationship with Western power, which can result in both its failure and rejection. The rise of institutional humanitarian aid has been a part of the rise of Western power. Humanitarian aid has been used as a tool to advance hegemonic power and as rhetoric to justify intervention. However, power is changing. Western norms and institutions are being contested in an emerging global multi-polarity and diffusion of power, often misconceived as shrinking humanitarian space. Institutional humanitarian aid has been so intertwined with Western power that as the West declines humanitarian organisations are either retreating with the tide or being left exposed. The relationship between humanitarian aid and Western power means humanitarian space is actually a Western space. In the places where aid can be deployed – within the realms of the West's influence - its effectiveness is in question due to its incorporation into longer-term processes of liberal democratic state-building that overlooks the basics of emergency response. This is demonstrated in the findings of this qualitative doctoral thesis. Case-study research took place in South Sudan and Syria. In South Sudan, a breakdown of emergency-response capacity as a result of the incorporation of aid into a state-building agenda is demonstrated. In Syria, the relationship between humanitarian aid and Western power is a key justification for the Syrian government to limit emergency-response access. However, changing global power is challenging the conceptualisation and practice of humanitarian aid. If liberal democracy underpins current approaches to humanitarian aid, in emerging states like Brazil and South Africa – where interviews were conducted – the politics of aid are linked more to counter-hegemony, both from the state and diffused forms of power. Changes in global power may not present solutions to the challenges of humanitarian effectiveness and access, but the ongoing affiliation between humanitarian aid and Western power hampers its ability to negotiate a dynamic landscape. This research demonstrates that institutional humanitarianism must disentangle itself from Western power to remain effective and to access the most vulnerable.

While the nature of security is transforming, alliances remain at the centre of foreign policymaking in the contemporary era. Although such ideas as 'the end of alliances' and 'the end of alliance theories' have been discussed with the emergence of a 'coalition of willingness', alliances have continuously evolved in the post-Cold War and post-9.11 contexts. The forms of security are transforming by comprehending not only the traditional but also non-traditional types, consisting of peacekeeping operations (PKO), humanitarian assistance and disaster relief (HA/DR), global commons and energy security. In the face of changing and malleable international security surroundings, alliances have been reshaped. Yet, alliances remain to be treated as mere military alliances rather than political ones in the realm of IR scholarship and a negative perception of the interdependence of allies still exists, which may have limited the understanding about alliance relationships in the post-Cold War period. This PhD thesis aims to refine the theory of alliance by incorporating the neo- Gramscian account of hegemony, which is crucial to be taken into consideration. This research project is intended to go beyond the military understanding of alliances. In light of alliance politics, it is important to explore not only material but also the economic and ideational aspects of alliances. In consideration of the current circumstances, it seems that it is not only material elements that have bolstered the alliance, which underlines the importance of examining other elements such as ideology. Although some literature addresses the causes of the continuity of alliances, there have not been in-depth investigations about the durability of the U.S.-Japan alliance, particularly within the International Relations (IR) framework. Furthermore, the alliance may have become deeply embedded in Japanese society as the pillar of Japanese foreign policy, which is another aspect that shall be examined.

Concerns about terrorism, radicalisation and extremism are found within many of the discourses surrounding the safety of young people within modern British society. The current UK Counter-Terrorism Strategy, known as Prevent (2011), suggests that the education system should be responsive to these concerns and that schools in particular need to include certain counter-terrorism measures into their administrative and teaching procedures. However, despite the increased literature on these issues, very little has been done to investigate or incorporate pupils' views into the discussion. Most young people are not, nor have the desire to be, involved in terrorist activities, yet they are still witnesses to the discourses associated with the preventative measures expressed by the State and by the discourses from other sources, such as the media. Therefore, this exploratory study into their perceptions of terrorism provides a unique insight into how these discourses affect young people's views of others and of society-wide ideologies, such as religion. It does not provide suggestions for educationalists and policy makers, since it was conducted separate to State procedures, but rather provides young people with a voice in this ever-growing field of study. The research participants included pupils aged 13-15 years old, from a selection of six schools in Warwickshire, including four comprehensive and two grammar schools. The research drew on the theoretical foundations of Foucault and used Case Study Research methods to uncover the pupils' perceptions of terrorism. By exploring the pupils' language and those influential power-knowledge processes that contributed to the formulations and expressions of their knowledge, this study investigated the affects that external influences can have in the pupils' perceptions and, in doing so, it demonstrated how capable young people are of engaging with a variety of complex and sensitive issues associated with the topic of terrorism.