The aim of my thesis is to investigate the reason for why and how the language and concept of civil society was used to enhance positions of power by reformists in Iran. In particular, this thesis examines how reformist public intellectuals used civil society to craft their vision of Iran’s sociopolitical future. Special focus is placed upon reformist public intellectuals as agents of change, due to their particular role in introducing new ideas to a wider public audience. Their role as critical thinkers and figures affiliated with a political movement for reform provided them with a unique position on the boundaries between civil and political society. In contrast to reformists, this thesis also examines how conservative figures with different underlying values appropriated the language and concept of civil society for their own ends. Ultimately, it is argued that although civil society is a politically charged concept that can be employed to serve different objectives, it leaves behind a residue of pluralism and an opening up of the public sphere.

This study provides a case study of women’s political representation in the National Parliament of Pakistan, where a particular form of the quota approach has been adapted in a highly gendered political context. By examining the experiences of Pakistani women parliamentarians, this thesis contributes to key academic literature on gender quotas and political representation that has received a considerable attention from feminist scholars. The aim of this thesis is to explore the extent to which women’s formal representation is translated into substantive change for women. This is an empirical case study, primarily based on qualitative analyses of face-to-face in-depth semi-structured interviews of 20 women parliamentarians (out of 76) and proceedings of the parliament of the last three years (2008-11). By adapting Anne Phillips’s (1995) The Politics of Presence in entirely new and novel way, one of the major contributions this study claims to make to the theoretical literature is to analytically examine the effects of quotas from various aspects of political representation: descriptive, substantive and symbolic representation and from a broader perspectives than has hitherto been seen. It also addresses a major gap in the literature on the reasons why some quota women act more often than others in legislatures, and what factors contribute to the silence and suppression of Pakistani women leaders. It is argued that women’s presence in the political spheres is important, but that it is vital to take the particular context into account when judging whether women can and do act for women. This thesis shows that representation depends on various factors which can positively or negatively contribute towards substantive change. It also demonstrates that quotas may challenge existing gender dynamics and have various effects on women’s representation within and outside parliament. However, some gender and human rights issues may be difficult to tackle, especially those challenging the powerful feudal and tribal political elite (mainly men).

The aim of this thesis is to shed light on the distinctive role of the European Union (EU) as a state-builder in the case of the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPTs). The thesis engages with distinctive literatures on liberal peace, peacebuilding, state-building, the EU and conflict resolution as well as Security and Judiciary Sector Reform. By synthesizing these literatures this research will try to test the EU effectiveness in the state-building project in the OPTs by reference to two main case studies: the EU’s initiatives in the domains of Security Sector Reform (SSR) and Judiciary Sector Reform (JSR) while at the same time addressing issues of the broader governance agenda and the rule of law. Thus, the broader liberal peace and peacebuilding literature will help contextually to understand how state-building has been used as a tool for implementing the liberal peace, the distinctive literature on state-building will help to identify the ‘core’ state functions that institutions established should be able to run and the literature on conflict resolution will help to identify all tools and mechanisms that the EU has at its disposal in order to ‘build’ states. By drawing on these literatures, this thesis will set three criteria on which the effectiveness of the EU as a state-builder will be tested namely generation of legitimacy, coherence and regulation of violence/ability of enforcement. The thesis is mainly empirically-oriented (drawing on almost 100 interviews that were conducted with EU, Israeli and Palestinian officials) and will focus on the two civilian missions that the EU has deployed in the OPTs (EUPOL COPPS and EUBAM Rafah) in order to help the Palestinian Authority reform its security sector as well as initiatives in the domains of judiciary sector reform and the rule of law (Seyada Project). The main argument of the thesis is that the EU has approached the state-building project from a technical aspect without linking it with clear political decisions and objectives. As a result, while initiatives in the domains of SSR and JSR have helped the PA improve the situation on the ground this was done at the expense of democracy and political objectives that would contribute to the ending of the Israeli Occupation.

With the creation of the Sunshine Policy and its outcome on inter-Korean relations, numerous scholars began highlighting the cultural factors of norm and state identity as a means of understanding and explaining changes to the inter-state relations on the Korean peninsula. Previous studies pay attention to the changing character of the military conflict between three states including the Republic of Korea, the Democratic People Republic of Korea and the United States. In following the concepts drawn from the constructivist tradition, this thesis argues that the problem of previous constructivist studies is not inappropriate concepts such as norms and state identity, but the shortage of attention paid to the process of transformation in state identity. Therefore, this thesis draws more attention to constructivist traditions because of their significance when regarding concepts relating to norm and state identity in analysing inter-Korean relations.

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The major motivation behind this thesis comes from an interest in the processes of depoliticisation and re-politicisation in economic management. The focus on the interaction between the national state and the global social relations positions the main problematic of the thesis within critical international political economy (IPE). This interaction is investigated in the context of the specific case study of Turkey. Given the fact that the existent literature on depoliticisation largely builds on the experiences of the advanced capitalist states and their managers, the thesis aims to contribute to this body of literature and assess the applicability of the conceptual framework in a different domestic political setting. On the other hand it aims to build on and contribute to the critiques of the existent literature on Turkey in the sense that the latter is often portrayed within an exceptional outlook and treated as a stand-alone case. The second chapter provides a critical overview of the literature on the conceptualisation of state and social relations in Turkey. The third chapter reviews the place of the state and the political and defines (de)politicisation not only as a governing strategy of the state managers to manage capitalist social relations but also in broader terms; as open-ended process in so far as its effects extend beyond the governmental realm. Chapter four proceeds to demonstrate the applicability of such a framework in the Turkish case through an evaluation of governing tactics and strategies in the post-WWII context. The subsequent three chapters explore the evolution of crisis and restructuring of social relations for the periods 1994-2001, 2002-2005 and 2006-present in an attempt to investigate the effects of the governing strategy and process in material and perceptional terms.

This thesis investigates the politics of privatization and contentious collective action in the water sector in the Philippines. It examines the complex interplay of diverse forces in the everyday politics of water in Metropolitan Manila with a particular emphasis on organized urban poor communities and non-governmental organizations. The thesis illustrates how these groups engage with regulatory agencies, multilateral institutions, transnational corporations, informal water venders, and local machine politicians to play key roles in shaping the regulation of water provision in the developing world. Thus, to understand the material realities and lived experiences of the urban poor in cities like Metro Manila, close attention must be paid to patterns of contestation, competition, and collaboration among a diverse array of actors, across local, national, and international levels of analysis. Using Karl Polanyi’s insights on the socio-political consequences of market extension as a point of departure, I show that although water privatization and social resistance can be understood in terms of a ‘double movement’, Polanyi’s framework is insufficient for more detailed analysis. Hence, I develop new analytical tools to examine the nature of water privatization-related mobilization in the Philippines. Examining the micro-politics of the urban poor in their collective action for water at the local level, I argue that privatization has engendered countervailing power in the water sector that is neither fully transgressive nor completely contained, and steeped in local and historical legacies of radical resistance in the Philippines. At the policy level, I show how NGOs and local community groups undertake what I term “regulatory mobilization” to influence the new rules of the service delivery game, as well as to deliver much- needed basic services to urban poor communities. Depending on how local and sectoral politics are conflated, such regulatory mobilization may sometimes not only result in obtaining subsistence goods, but may also occasionally project countervailing power in the policy sector, and influence formal regulatory frameworks in surprising ways.

This research involved an investigation of the alignment between performance measurement and strategy in central government agencies. A review of the literature suggested that, although the topic is of great interest and importance, it has been underresearched. The context of the existing studies appears to be based primarily on for-profits/business rather than not-for-profit/public sector domain. Moreover, the existing research is mainly normative lacking supporting empirical evidence. The objectives of this research were to (1) develop greater understanding of performance measurement in the public sector, and (2) provide supporting empirical evidence in place of the normative arguments regarding the alignment between performance measurement and strategy. This research aimed to answer the question, ‘how, in central government agencies, is the alignment between performance measurement and strategy managed?’ This interpretive multiple-case research comprised of the studies of four central government agencies in Thailand. The primary data source was interview data supported by documentation. The interpretational analyses were conducted both at intra-case and inter-case levels. This research found that public officials often regarded, ‘strategy’ as equivalent to ‘policy’ and that these terms were used interchangeably. The research also found that the existing definitions of fundamental performance measurement/management terminologies did not fit comfortably with public sector management owing mainly to their lack of practical perspectives. This research proposed refined terminologies. Additionally, the research found eight advantages of stategy-misaligned performance measurement despite the absence of their recognition in the existing literature. As a result, misalignment could be preferable in some circumstances. However, public managers were under pressure to demonstrate alignment between performance measurement and strategy thus ‘alignment tensions’ occurred in practice. In order to deal with these tensions, three strategies were identified including (1) neglecting the tensions (as in ‘do-nothing strategy’), (2) attempting to realign performance measurement with strategy (as in ‘realigning strategy’), and (3) directing attention from the alignment issue (as in ‘distracting strategy’).

The thesis examines the political economy of trade policy reform in post-apartheid South Africa. It challenges mainstream accounts of contemporary trade policy in South Africa, which have advanced a solely economic rationale to explain the policy choices made by the ANC governments since 1994. The thesis argues that, far more than these accounts concede, international and domestic political economy considerations have also played a central part in the ANC governments' calculations to undertake trade reform to the degree it has. Trade reform in South Africa has been the linchpin of a global adjustment strategy pursued by the domestic political elites by which they have sought to fulfill South Africa's global, regional and domestic political and economic objectives. At the global level, the South African state has vigorously pursued trade liberalisation in order to shed its past image of international pariah and reintegrate itself into the global economy on the basis of outward-oriented growth. Restoring South Africa's international political respectability has been as important as reversing its economic marginalisation in the international division of labour. At the regional level, the South African state has used trade policy reform as a foreign economic policy tool not only to rebuild political and diplomatic relations with African countries strained during the apartheid era - but also to advance its hegemonic ambitions, particularly in Southern Africa, as well as reinforce the region's ability to engage with the forces of economic globalisation. The extent to which South Africa's regional hegemonic ambitions can be achieved, however, lies ultimately with how adeptly the country can reconcile these regional aspirations with its domestic pressures. At the domestic level, trade reform has been deployed by the decision-making elites not only to lock in the government's austere macroeconomic policy but also to curtail the power of domestic interests that have benefited from trade protectionism in the past. In return for their co-operation, the South African state has allowed these interests, notably business and labour, enhanced institutional representation in economic policymaking. In this sense trade policy has been employed to serve domestic as much as foreign political and economic policy ends.

This PhD thesis is a study of the changing social and industrial conditions under which sugar workers in Guyana have worked, and the responses of workers and unions to these changes since 1964. It makes extensive use of original trade union and employer archives, other public and private documentary evidence and interviews with workers and union and state officials. The narrative and analysis focuses on the experience of union rivalry and the impact of state interventions in wage settlements. The sugar industry has several different unions with differing political and ideological positions, and there have been numerous instances of union rivalry and workers' discontent over union representation. Inadequate wage offers have often led to disputes, involving antagonisms between workers and management but also between workers and their union. In practice the majority of wage settlements have resulted from the intervention of a Commission of Inquiry or Arbitration Tribunal. In the late 1970s the state's imposition of wage levels provoked numerous struggles, often of national proportions, and led to legal challenges by workers and one of their unions which resulted in the restoration of collective bargaining. Such developments have had major implications for the national labour movement. The thesis considers each of these facets of worker and union experience, and thus develops an analysis of the relationships between union rivalry, workers' resistance and wage settlements in the context of highly politicised trade unionism. In particular it discusses the implications of trade union affiliation to the major political parties and shows the extent to which political affiliation helped to destroy the collective bargaining process. It argues that while trade unions are involved in political struggles, they ought not to be affiliated to political parties, since this is likely to compromise the independence of the labour movement and weakens the collective bargaining process.