I begin with a critical deconstruction of the conventional wisdom of globalisation. If the world does indeed resemble that depicted in the conventional wisdom, the claim that policy change is structurally determined at the economic level could well be sustainable. However, I show that globalisation rhetoric corresponds poorly with globalisation reality, suggesting that other causal influences on policy change must also be explored. I argue that in addition to examining the international economic conditions of domestic political change, a more comprehensive understanding of the globalisation experience emerges if we also examine the domestic political conditions of international economic change. Viewed through such a perspective, New Labour’s appropriation of the conventional wisdom of globalisation appears to be strategic. The repeated appeal to ‘globalising necessities’ has been used to displace the need for active consent to the political status quo in Britain. So long as the conventional wisdom continues to resonate within public discourse, the continued reproduction of the political status quo seems secure; even though I demonstrate that the management of the economy within the parameters of that status quo has become increasingly contradictory. Moreover, so long as the government acts in a manner consistent with the globalisation hypothesis, I show that path-dependent effects threaten to lock-in precisely those structural constraints which its globalisation rhetoric at present purportedly merely describes. As a consequence, this process of lock-in would then also inscribe the current contradictions within the government’s economic policy as a structural feature of the macroeconomic regime.

This thesis reconsiders conceptualisations of neo-liberalism by challenging established economistic and ideologistic narratives of the unfolding of the neo-liberal project in Britain. Drawing on and attempting to integrate with one another Laclau and Mouffe’s post-Marxist discourse theory and Foucault’s theory of governmentality, the thesis charts the development of a neo-liberal governmental rationality in British politics from the emergence of Thatcher onto the British political scene in the late-1970s, through the New Labour project in the 1990s and 2000s, up to the formation of the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government in 2010. The second major strand of the argument presented in the thesis is that each of these decisive moments in the history of British neo-liberalism served the crucial purpose of reinvigorating the longer-term neo-liberal governmental project by providing it with a new hegemonic basis upon which to base its popular support. The thesis begins with an analysis of Thatcherism as a chaotic, fledgling form of neo-liberal governmentality underpinned by, in Hall’s (1979) memorable words, an ‘authoritarian populist’ hegemonic project. It then considers New Labour as representing a more fully-developed, ‘advanced neo-liberal’ form of government, which simultaneously restored the electoral viability of the Labour party and provided the neo-liberal governmental project with a new, ‘technocratic populist’ hegemonic basis. The final section of the thesis focuses on the politics of the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government. The historical significance of ‘Big Society’ is theorised as both a neo-liberal technology of government and as an ideology with the dual purpose of ‘detoxifying’ the Conservative party brand and winning popular support for the further neo-liberalisation of British society.

Russian conflict management has been understood as being ‘quintessentially Russian’. This project demystifies this reading. By exploring Russia’s approach from the early 1990s to the end of Medvedev’s presidency in mid-2012, the thesis answers the following question: to what extent has Russia’s behaviour corresponded with security governance as understood in the literature and practiced by other European actors? The argument is that Russia has selectively engaged in the norms and processes of security governance developed in European conflict management. This is driven by a policy that combines the defence of its sovereignty/national interests with a declared commitment to collective decision-making and policy implementation in European security governance. The framework of security governance is employed to examine Russia’s behaviour across its regional space and the wider European neighbourhood, and to ‘map’ its behaviour in accordance with the evolution of European security governance. Using multi-case study analysis and relying on documentary evidence, supported by semi structured interviews, the thesis makes the following contributions. First, it offers a thorough empirical inspection of Russian conflict management. Second, it contributes to the debate on Russia and European security governance, and adds to the discipline of Security Studies by demonstrating the conceptual purchase of security governance.

This study investigates the impacts of neoliberal and environmental regulation policies introduced recently to improve sustainable development challenges in the growing Nigerian cement industry. The study identifies the devolution of economic responsibilities and the rising poverty in developing economies despite their resource wealth as a research gap requiring a multilevel environmental governance framework to understand and explain the process at play. I have applied the framework to the new Nigerian cement industry in Ogun state, Southwest Nigeria. The study adopted a qualitative research approach to examine the effects of privatisation of the Nigerian cement industry and environmental policy reforms on state and non-state actors’ role and relations in the governance of the sector. Semi-structured interviews were conducted among the actors identified among government, business and society stakeholders related to the industry and the case study areas. Findings reveal that the institutional and political relationships governing the interactions between state and non-state actors in the extractive sector historically indicate a multi-scalar governance approach with persistent dysfunctional institutional arrangement. Also, the political will to decentralise and devolve political roles to subnational government actors in particular and civil society organisations has hindered governance for sustainable development in the new Nigerian cement industry. The application of multilevel governance framework in this study has illuminated the complex interrelation of actors in neoliberal resource governance and the need for inclusive resource development strategies in developing economies like Nigeria. Evidence also revealed the growing relationship between community-based organisations and corporate actors without non-governmental organisations.

Human concern with the moral status of non-human animals can be seen to stretch quite some way back into human history. In ancient Greece such concerns were considered to be very much a part of the ethical agenda, with thinkers on the issue being divided into four main schools of thought: animism; vitalism; mechanism; and anthropocentrism (Ryder 1989, chapter two). The leading light of the animist school was the renowned mathematician Pythagoras (circa 530 BC), who asserted the view that animals, like humans, were in possession of immaterial souls which, upon death, would be reincarnated in another human or animal body. In accordance with his beliefs, Pythagoras practiced kindness to animals and adhered to a vegetarian diet. Vitalism, of which perhaps the most famous exponent was Aristotle (384-322 BC), held to a belief in the interdependence of soul and body. Aristotle accepted the idea that human beings were animals, but he considered them to be at the apex of a chain of being in which the less rational existed only to serve the needs of the more rational. Mechanism held that both humans and animals were purely physical machines, and neither was in possession of the sort of soul that the animists and vitalists posited. Finally, anthropocentrism asserted that everything in the world has been created for the good of humans but, unlike the vitalism of Aristotle, rejected the idea of the essential ‘animality’ of humankind.

This thesis seeks to conceptualise a model of inclusion for people with disabilities in deliberative democracy, which on one hand addresses a gap in deliberative democratic theory and on the other hand provides practical insights for its practitioners. Despite its critical and emancipatory roots, in practice deliberative democracy has traditionally left people with disabilities outside deliberative decision making processes. The thesis identifies the root causes of this exclusion as deliberative democracy’s convergence with liberalism which leads to the construction of the deliberative citizen as a liberal citizen, its neglect of the embodiedness of deliberation and normalisation of able-bodiedness, and finally its neglect of the spatiality of deliberative sites in both micro and macro levels. The proposed model of inclusion seeks to reclaim the emancipatory quality of deliberative democracy by replacing the dominant liberal conceptualisation of deliberative citizenship with a caring citizenship. It highlights the embodiedness of deliberation and suggests instrumentalising the embodied appearance of the disabled in deliberative sites as a claim for recognition and voice. It proposes a way to translate the presence of the disabled in deliberative sites into preference. Finally, it highlights the role of the spatial arrangements in a deliberative site as a factor that contributes to inclusion or exclusion.

Mega-events such as the Olympics or Commonwealth Games are truly global events. Yet, the way in which these are utilised as a form of events led regeneration, gives these an increasingly local dimension; not only are Games taking place amidst the existing urban setting, but so too are their associate exceptional security features. Mega-events can also be considered representative of a new (in)security situation in which experts have been reactivated to operate on behalf of citizens; associations of invisible and omnipresent risks such as terrorism, have given executive authority to state agencies to define risks and develop responses, a situation which contradicts the last decades drive towards more community focused policing and empowerment. The cumulative and contradictory situation is that as global risks and security have become more embedded at the local level, there is an increasing of social distance between security expert and lay citizens. In short, local residents who encounter security within the context of their everyday environment are stripped of any contextual basis on which to understand associated risks and make sense of the attentive security measures. This situation places a greater emphasis on how risk and security is symbolically 'communicated' between experts and citizens, and how aspects of reassurance and deterrence are balanced amidst this backdrop. Existing literature in mega-events has tended to focus on security in a 'wide and shallow' sense: 'wide' in that they outline a whole range of security features and governance arrangements, but 'shallow' in the way that they do not take into account how these features are perceived at a deeper, local level. In this way, there is no real legacy to the security legacies. This thesis aims to address this issue by drawing on Glasgow's hosting of the 2014 Commonwealth Games. Qualitative interviews were used to gain the perspectives of both security experts from key stakeholder organisations responsible for delivering a safe and secure Games, and lay citizen’s perceptions and experiences of these arrangements. Using a semiotic theoretical lens, which includes key concepts from the work of Giddens, Baudrillard, Eco and Goffman, the analysis considers 1) How particular security related narratives are 'framed' by experts during the mega-event and how these were understood by residents in relation to local contexts, biographies and experiences. 2) The totalising and globalising claims of late modernity and mediated forms of risk are identified in relation to local understandings of place. In particular, why it is that certain events or places, legitimise the use of exceptional security and continue to licence executive state authority. 3) The sending and receiving of different forms of security as 'control signals' is analysed in relation to how overt displays of security are experienced; how they influence one’s position of reassurance, safety and ontological (in)security, and how they may enhance or defray trust in the institutions responsible for providing security. It is discovered that instances of miscommunication between state and citizen are rife, a situation exacerbated by the social distance created through existing governance arrangements and an overreliance on symbolic security. The thesis concludes by arguing that the governance of security at mega-events is not the best way of doing things and that the appropriation of issues of risk and security by experts creates new sources of insecurity among citizens. It calls for the enlisting of communities into the governance of security as a way of overcoming such limitations.

Social revolutions are rare but momentous occurrences in modern world history. The occurrence of social revolutions in any society acts as a triggering force creating radical cultural, political and economic transformations as well as initiating new paradigm of power, practices and systems within this society (Elkersh, 2012; Ritchi, 2012; and Holbech, 2006) Egypt experienced a radical paradigm shift triggered by, the 25th of January revolution that completely altered the organization of the state, class structures, and prominent beliefs of the Egyptian society. After the rapid overthrow of the Mubarak regime, intensive waves of post-revolution protests have soon extended to include mainly all, state agencies and most of public and private sector's organizations (Howidi, 2012; Maqbol, 2013). Although, there are a large number of post revolution studies that discussed this phenomenon from social, economic and political perspective, none of them investigate the impact of this phenomenon on business organizations. This study introduces a new theory to explain the transformations that are expected to emerge in Egyptian organizations in the context of the turbulent social and political events of the 25th January Revolution 2011. This research adopted the qualitative approach of grounded theory to collect and analyze data in order to create a theory through inductive analysis of the data. Data was collected from 22 semi structured interviews; participant observations and documentary evidence were used to enhance the rigor of the study. A coding paradigm was constructed presenting the theoretical framework of the study. Overall, the results of this study demonstrate that causes, features and consequences of the drastic transformations that emerged in Egyptian organizations in the aftermath of the 25th January 2011 revolution, display high degree of similarity with causes, features and consequences of the general socio-political changes triggered by revolutions. Evidence from data analysis demonstrates that power in Egyptian organizations was forced downward to the bottom line employees. Protesting employees were able to initiate new patterns of power and introduce new work practices aligned with their needs and demands. The findings also revealed ten underlying causes that triggered employees anger and drove them to engage in violent protests in the work place, causing destructive consequences to both Egyptian organizations and to the Egyptian economy. Finally, the results of this study demonstrate that managers and employees were not able to manage effective changes in their organizations and to utilize positive outcomes from these changes.

This research explores whether, and how, theoretical concepts from agonistic democracy could be operationalised in order to mediate conflict in multicultural, pluralist society. It highlights three central themes of agonistic democracy: political contestation, contingency and necessary interdependency. It subsequently demonstrates the various ways in which these themes are employed, delineating three distinct agonistic approaches: the ‘perfectionist’ (as encapsulated by David Owen), the ‘adversarial’ (as represented by Chantal Mouffe), and the ‘inclusive’ (as symbolised by William Connolly and James Tully). The research then considers possible tensions between agonistic assumptions and further institutional consideration, and draws on new institutionalist literature to identify which kinds of institution could be compatible with agonistic democracy. It explores these through an experiment, which employs three distinct discussion frameworks, each representing a different agonistic approach. The research combines insights from the experiment and agonistic literature to gain a deeper insight into agonistic concepts and the potential for their operationalisation. It suggests that perfectionism is valuable in encouraging unity, adversarialism is effective in reviving passions, and inclusivity is useful in enhancing interactions between conflicting citizens. Finally, the research proposes an ‘agonistic day’ and demonstrates how a synthesis of all three approaches could mediate multicultural, pluralist conflict.

What is smart power? What kind of power is it? Is it really a new form of power? How many forms, features, and shapes does it take? How can we recognize and manage it? How do scholars describe it? This MPhil thesis aims to answer these and other questions regarding the dimension of power with a specific focus on smart power. This is a first attempt to study smart power in the broader context of power analysis and therefore I will follow two approaches. First of all, I will contextualize smart power, touching on the debate of power as an academic and political concept. Secondly, the idea is to investigate how power manifests itself in the realms of international and social relations. To this end, I will address three “ideal” forms of power, notably hard, soft and – finally - smart power. We already know that hard power is commonly associated in IR with realism: it is about power politics, force, and violence. Hard power is, to a certain extent, the oldest form of power; it is connected to the idea of an anarchic, untamed international system, where countries do not recognize any superior authority. Order is the result of competition for power and wars. The possession and acquisition of resources is the key to success. Soft power is something completely different. In order to understand soft power a methodological change is required. A state, an organization or a single person can exercise power with means other than violence and force. Persuasion, example, seduction, and myth: these are the resources of soft power. It is being able to convince or persuade others to follow your example, to want what you want, rather than coercing them. Soft power is about a world in which international institutions matter, in which war is not the only way to settle conflicts and in which the ones to succeed are the most powerful, in terms of natural, economic and financial resources and are not necessarily the best equipped. And finally, what is smart power? Where does it come from? We know that smart power is a new and to a certain extent popular concept, which was coined by Joseph Nye in the USA and is used to describe a new way of dealing with and managing power. Nye conceptualizes smart power as something lying somewhere between hard and soft power, a sort of “third way” in the complex jungle of power relations. But Nye also stresses that smart power is something “beyond” hard and soft, a sort of new approach that fits particularly well into the realm of international relations and foreign politics. This is why we will analyse Nye’s approach in depth, as well as the US debate about smart power and the concrete use of this concept by the US administration. Finally, we will investigate why smart power is becoming popular in the EU as well. Here again, policy-makers seem confident about using this new concept as a political programme that involves institutions and policy reforms. To sum up, my argument is that smart power is definitely a new form of power and this MPhil dissertation aims at introducing it into the academic debate, studying it from a theoretical, scientific point of view, investigating its origins, and the historical and political context in which it gained popularity and – finally – testing its possible declination in real scenarios of international politics.