The core of my dissertation is devoted to a re-interpretation of the history of the liberation movement in South Africa in two critical periods of its development. The first I call in short 'the 1940s' but shall be referring more specifically to the years between 1939 and the rise of apartheid in 1948; the second I call 'the 1950s' but shall refer to the years between the emergence of apartheid and the defeat of the liberation movement in 1964. Both the 1940s and the 1950s were marked by fierce class struggles which brought with them hopes of a new democratic order in South Africa; both closed on the sombre note of defeat for democracy and triumph for the forces of reaction and racism. Motivated by a dissatisfaction with prevailing interpretations, I shall explore what went wrong in these years in order to deepen our understanding of the political culture and social base of the liberation movement. I have focussed on these two historical periods because I see the basic parameters of the contemporary liberation movement as set by the class struggles which occurred within them. My central hypothesis is that, although class relations do not on the whole manifest themselves directly on the surface of the liberation movement, they have nonetheless been the crucial determinants of its pattern of evolution. My introductory chapter will be devoted to a theoretical discussion of the relation between nationalism and socialism in the South Africa liberation movement. It was written after the historical research and its ideas reflect a considerable change of mind which resulted from the research; the ideas expressed within it provide a necessary foundation for understanding what I wish to say through the substantive history. My final section will be an attempt to outline the major lessons which I draw from the history of these class struggles; it focusses on what I see as the unresolved conflict between the two traditions of 'radical liberalism' and 'insurrectionism' which run through the history of the liberation struggle and on defining what I see as the 'absent centre' of this history: social democracy or more accurately the social democratic movement of the working class.

This thesis discusses the impact of the United States' foreign economic policy on the legal and political systems of Taiwan. Its focus is the bilateral negotiations between Taiwan and the United States and the evolution of the legal and political systems on Taiwan. The widely acknowledged economic miracle of Taiwan has been combined, in recent years, with a deliberate attempt to transform the country's political structures in a democratic direction. Paradoxically, Taiwan's move towards democracy has seriously strained Taiwan / United States relations. For many years, the special relations between the two countries were characterised by Taiwan's almost total dependency on the United States both as a market for its products as well as a protector of its territorial integrity. The end of the Cold War, the new role of the People's Republic of China and the globalisation of the international economy have brought this special relation to an end. The changing nature of the relationship between the United States and Taiwan has not, however, brought an end the traditional behaviour of the United States towards Taiwan which was characterised by aggressive unilateralism. This thesis argues that in the changing context of the 1990s as the negotiating agenda between the two countries expand, the aggressive unilateralism of the United States is undermining the process of democratisation and eroding the rule of law on Taiwan. In order to comply with American pressure, the government of Taiwan is forced to resort to authoritarian measures based on the old corporatist framework that the transition to democracy is meant to supersede. Interestingly, the implications of the undemocratic consequences of these pressure do not seem to concern the United States, as short term economic advantage takes precedence over other considerations. For Taiwan, the way out of this vicious circle of external pressure - undemocratic response - external pressure is to diversify its international economic links. The problems and implications of this policy options are discussed in the thesis. The specific policy areas analysed in this thesis are commodity trade, trade in services and intellectual property protection.

The focus of this study is the political dynamics of the alliance relations between the United States, Japan and South Korea during the Cold War period. It proposes the concept of "triangular alliance security system" (TASS) as a new theoretical framework for the understanding of intra-alliance politics in Northeast Asia. It identifies the different perspectives on regional relations of the US, Japan and South Korea and it argues that the main operational principle of the US in its dealings with Korea at that time was active intervention to democratise the latter's polity, whilst the Japanese imperative was defensive intervention to preserve stability and the status quo. It also presents a new body of empirical facts concerning the US and Japanese interventions in South Korea's regime transition during 1979 and 1980, utilising primary materials from US, Japanese and South Korean sources and in-depth interviews with diplomatic actors and policy-makers. The empirical findings concerning Japanese intervention in the South Korean regime challenge conventional views of Japanese foreign policy. They suggest a much more active role for Japan in the emergence of the regime of Gen. Chun Doo-hwan, whilst the Carter administration was increasingly preoccupied with the Iran hostage crisis.

The thesis studies the political participation of Thai farmers and focuses on two main factors, namely the domestic and the external impacts, which inform the case studies of rice, sugarcane, and potato farmers groups. Overall, the research has established that farmers groups have felt the impacts of domestic factors far more strongly than external factors. Furthermore, through comparative studies in relation to the case studies of rice, sugarcane, and potato farmers groups in Thailand, differences emerged between these three Thai farmers groups, in terms of the degree to which domestic factors impacted on their political participation. The theories of Western interest groups are reviewed, in order to examine their applicability to explaining farmers groups formation in Thailand. The concepts of 'collective benefits' and 'selective incentives', which were used by Mancur Olson have been adopted as the main theoretical framework. With reference to this, the research has established that selective incentives have played a highly significant role in Thai farmers groups formation, and concludes that the problems of mobilisation, which relate to rice, sugarcane, and potato farmers groups, have been solved primarily through the provision of a range of selective incentives by the farmers groups themselves. In order to classify the differing levels of political participation of Thai farmers groups, the analytical framework provided by Grant Jordan, Darren Halpin, and William Maloney has been utilised. Accordingly, the rice and potato farmers groups are classified as 'potential pressure participants', whilst the sugarcane farmers group is classified as an 'interest group', which has enabled an examination of their political participation through the Western concept of the policy network/community framework. In order to make the Western policy network/community framework more applicable to the policy-making process in Thailand, the specific, dominant characteristics of the Thai political culture, namely the patronage system and the operation of both vote-buying and corruption are included in the analysis. This conceptual stretching does not significantly affect the original concept of the framework and the way in which it was intended to be applicable, because it already includes informal relationships such as those, which exist within the policy network/community framework. This understanding is an important aspect, which forms a part of the theoretical contribution to the discipline of international political economy and to the arena of Thai political studies. The policy network/community framework provides a new conceptual lens in the study of the political participation of Thai farmers groups. Accordingly, these arguments promote the opportunity to consider alternative frameworks in the analysis of the political participation of Thai farmers groups, and group participation across civil society more generally. The study of the political participation of Thai farmers has utilised empirical evidence, which illustrates the successes of farmers' interest groups in both Japan and the United Kingdom, in order to explain the relative successes and failures of Thai farmers. In contrast to the experiences of Western and notably Japanese farmers groups, in many respects Thai farmers are largely excluded from the policy-making process, with the only exception in Thailand being certain sugarcane farmers groups. The thesis concludes that the political participation of farmers groups in Thailand has generally been affected by domestic impacts rather than by external impacts, and that their influence in domestic policy-making has been, and is likely to remain for the foreseeable future at least, somewhat limited.

This study is concerned with the United Arab Emirates (U.A.E.) development administration with particular emphasis on the effect of its social and cultural features on its bureaucracy and indigenous civil servants. The thesis analyses the U.A.E.'s political and historical background and its effects on the federal bureaucracy. It stresses that unless we understand the political and historical origins of the country, we will not be able to comprehend its administrative system. The study examines the ecology of the U.A.E.'s public administration. It identifies socio-cultural, educational and demographic variables as the three main ecological forces that play a significant role. The thesis provides a theoretical appraisal of the working of the federal administrative machinery in the U.A.E. It examines the administrative functions of the Federal Council of Ministers and the Federal Civil Service Council and identifies their weaknesses. The study explores the administrative problems facing the federal bureaucracy. Administrative inflation, shortage of indigenous skilled manpower, lack of job classification and the weakness of federal apparatuses in comparison to their local counterparts are the major stumbling blocks in the way of efficient administration in the U.A.E. Through a questionnaire based survey which obtained 312 (81%) responses the thesis empirically confirms the linkage between the indigenous employees' administrative performance and the socio-cultural variables surrounding them. It reveals that most of the irrational attitudes and behaviour of indigenous employees are not solely the result of corruption but rather of the social and cultural pressures which force them to apply particularistic approaches i.e. nepotism, favouritism,etc, in order to satisfy their familial interests over their organizational interests. Accordingly, most indigenous civil servants decline to recognize the administrative obligations of their jobs as being more essential than their familial obligations.

This study examines how the interaction between globalisation and domestic politics shaped the evolution of the ASEAN Free Trade Area (AFTA) between 1991 and 2000. Previous studies have argued that AFTA, a project of open regionalism, was adopted to attract foreign direct (FDI) investment to the region. Accurate to a degree, this dissertation argues that the concern with FDI is only part of the AFTA story, albeit an important part. The FDI explanation is unable to explain why market access and national treatment privileges were offered to national (domestic) investors from the ASEAN countries at least ten years ahead of foreign (non-ASEAN) investors in AFTA's investment liberalisation programme. The dissertation explains this departure from open regionalism, which has yet to be accounted for in the literature, by advancing the notion of 'developmental' regionalism. Underwritten by strategic trade theory rather than neoclassical economics, developmental regionalism emphasises the nurturing of domestic capital by using the expanded regional market and temporary protection or privileges for domestic capital as the means to build up domestic firms capable of meeting global market competition. Unlike existing models of the globalisation-regionalism relationship, which do not integrate domestic politics or do so in a limited way, the model of developmental regionalism considers domestic capital to be a key analytical variable, and takes seriously its location within domestic politics and society. Using documentary research and elite interviews, and guided by these theoretical insights, the study shows that AFTA encompasses the features of both open and developmental regionalism due to the political significance of both foreign and domestic capital in the ASEAN economies. While both forms of regionalism were driven by the imperative of growth, distributive concerns were weaved into the concern with growth in developmental regionalism, as governments sought to nurture those segments of domestic capital that were important in sustaining elite rule.

The end of apartheid presents South Africa with an opportunity to realise its full potential as an important member of the global political economy. This follows a period of three decades of progressive isolation from the global community. The major external challenge facing South Africa now is that the world it is trying to integrate with is much changed from the one it was previously part of. It is of vital importance that as an emerging nation it fully appreciates the nature of this changed world. The global political economy has changed rapidly over the past decade. Mikhail Gorbachev became General Secretary of the Soviet Communist Party and after 1985 he gradually introduced the process of reconstructing the Soviet economy, known as perestroika. This, together with glasnost, began a process of rapid change culminating in the collapse of communism throughout Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union and an end to the Cold War. Thus, western ideas of democracy became dominant and democratic regimes (although not necessarily liberal democratic) became the world's dominant form. Economically, the most important global trend has been that of liberalisation together with what the literature calls globalisation. Rapid advances in transport and communications technology, combined with the trend towards market deregulation have lowered the barriers between national markets; technology and skills, rather than natural resources and cheap labour have become the crucial enabling factors for competing in the global economy. This thesis contends that such a background gives South Africa little choice but to integrate into the global system if it is to secure the best conditions for its economic, social and political development. It also argues, that as a middle-income developing country or economy in transition, the parameters within which it can achieve this integration are fairly narrowly defined. South Africa is quite unique in the nature of its structural problems due to the legacy of apartheid. It remains a deeply divided society with great extremes of wealth and poverty. Its economy has a dualistic nature with a formal industrial sector and a large underdeveloped informal sector. To compete in the global marketplace South Africa must be able to attract additional production factors and resources from outside. Due to the high levels of protectionism inherited from the apartheid era there is a need for a reorientation of South Africa's trade policy. Relations with its principal trading partner, the European Union, will be crucially important here. Finally, South Africa cannot avoid its geographical location in Africa. An underdeveloped and politically unstable Southern Africa would greatly reduce South Africa's chances of successful global integration. In contrast a stable, more integrated region, would be to the benefit of South Africa, not least in creating a regional bloc able to exert greater leverage at a global level. However, given that regionalisation may not be wholly compatible with greater global integration, at least in the short to medium term, South Africa faces some difficult policy choices ahead.

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the cold war the global economy has begun to shift its centre of gravity towards the East. This, combined with the consolidation of the power of multi-national corporations and banks and the globalisation of markets at virtually all levels, has led to the emergence of massive new global players in terms of markets and production. Despite the fact that China, unlike the Soviet Union, maintained its political system, it has emerged as a major economic global power and is extending and consolidating it’s economic and political global influence into the 21st Century. Despite China’s economic influence which is acknowledged in its positive economic and political relations with its historical ideological enemies, the ubiquitous presence of Chinese made products and unprecedented domestic and international openness it remains dogged by broadly negative perceptions in the West. This study aims to address this problem through the application of the emerging theories of Nation Branding to envisage China as a brand and to investigate possibilities for the establishment of a competitive brand identity for China as a nation. Therefore, the research addresses the issue of how China can establish a contemporary nation brand and identifies the parameters for its sustainability and management in the 21st century. To this end the study has developed a working definition of the term ‘nation branding’ as a strategically managed process of applying branding techniques to nations in order to gain competitive advantages by improving the perceived image and promoting the principle values of a nation. The study underpins the application of this theoretical model with an investigation into the specificity of the historical context of advertising and branding in China in the 20th Century. The aims and objectives of the study are incorporated into the design brief for a contemporary logo for brand China and it is through the execution of the brief by the researcher as reflective practitioner in the role of art director and designer that the study consolidates the findings of the theoretical research through specific design problems. The study concludes with an evaluative reflection of the interactions between the theoretical and practical outcomes of the research in which it is proposed that addressing the highly specific design problems of brand identity development provides a focussed point of convergence for the extensive and complex issues involved in the conceptualisation of the nation as a brand. It is proposed that the study provides the conceptual tools for the development of China as a contemporary nation brand.

From this study, we find that the momentum premia are universally positive and statistically significant across 16 different momentum trading strategies in the Chinese Class A share market. By defining the time periods following UP and DOWN market states according to prior 12 or 24-month average Chinese Class A share market returns, we show that the momentum premia of different momentum strategies over time periods following UP market state eclipse those found over time periods following DOWN market state in the Chinese Class A share market for the whole sample period from January 1996 to December 2008. Furthermore, by employing 7 different factors—firm size, firm age, analysts’ coverage, return volatility, dispersion in analysts’ earnings forecast, trading volume, the quality/strength of corporate governance (free float ratio)—to gauge the degree of firm-level information uncertainty, we evidence that the information uncertainty has an amplifying effect over the momentum premium, and the amplifying effect is more pronounced over time periods following DOWN market state. The results from the sub-period analysis revolving the inception of two Chinese financial market regulatory reforms—1) July 1st, 1999 the implementation of the new P.R.C. security law; 2) July 3rd, 2003 the opening of the Chinese Class A share market to qualified foreign institutional investors (QFII) dismiss the doubt that our findings could be sample time periodspecific. Compared with the tradition FF3F model, the Wang & Xu (2004)’s version of the FF3F model, with the value effect factor of the traditional FF3F model supplanted by residual free float ratio (proxy for the quality/strength of firm-specific corporate governance), exhibits more explanatory power over the momentum premia yet still fails to fully rationalize the momentum premia found in this study. This research fills the gap in the literature and expands the understanding of the momentum premium by offering empirical evidence of the dynamics of the momentum premia amid market swings, the impact of information uncertainty over momentum premia as well as the impact of information uncertainty over momentum premia amid market swings in the context of the Chinese stock market. The results from this study can potentially provide an important reference point for international and domestic investors in adjusting investment strategies and portfolio positions, or fishing for investment diversification opportunities in a financial market with volatile market condition such as the Chinese stock market.

The main purpose of this thesis is to critically analyse the convergence of political Islam and neoliberalism in Turkey. By doing so, the research aims to construct a Gramscian historical materialist account as opposed to the mainstream centre-periphery relations approach. The mainstream centre-periphery relations approach takes the state and civil society as antagonistic autonomous entities. This consideration brings us where the Turkish politics are perceived as a terrain of conflict between Islamists and secularists. The centre-periphery relations approach has four shortcomings. First, the state and society are considered separately. Second, the market and the state; and the economy and the politics are considered separately. Third, as considered separately, the theory takes civil society as automatically progressive. Fourth, the social relations of productions are neglected. This thesis argues that the Islamists versus secularists dichotomy is not sufficient enough to explain the complexity of contradictions in Turkish politics because of the given four shortcomings. Therefore, a more complex theory where the antagonism is considered within the class struggle is needed. Antonio Gramsci’s theory of hegemony, passive revolution and most importantly the integral state provides a new window in this respect. The Gramscian historical materialism offers a holistic understanding for the relationship between the state and society, the market and the state, and the economy and the political. As part of the hegemonic struggle, civil society can be on either side of the struggle therefore it is not considered as automatically progressive in Gramscian historical materialism. As a historical materialist approach, Gramscianism considers the social relations of production as the crucial element of the analysis. The pre-2002 periods (before the Justice and Development Party came into power) were already researched by Gramscian scholars. Therefore, the neoliberal restructuring in Turkey during the Justice and Development Party era is the focal period of this thesis. There will be a specific focus on the cases of urbanisation, education, and the mass media. The conceptual framework of state-society relations is the analytical basis of this study. Overall, this thesis offers an alternative reading of the rise of political Islam in Turkey.