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The participation of Arab members of the World Trade Organisation in the decision-making and dispute settlement systemsBen Slimane, Mariem January 2019 (has links)
This thesis will look at the implications of multilateral, regional and bilateral trade agreements entered into by the countries of the Middle East and North Africa. The countries included in this study are those that are members of both the Arab League and the World Trade Organisation. The twelve countries looked at have joined the WTO as relatively recent members, and are also involved in a parallel effort to increase bilateral trade agreements. The outcome of this dual approach has been mixed. On the one hand, it has been permitted by Article XXIV of the GATT either as encouragement towards the fostering of regional trade which might in turn increase overall trade according to some authors, or as a more pragmatic measure aimed at minimising obstacles to potentially global membership of the WTO. This thesis will argue that increased trade links have been shown to increase trade volume as has been encouraged by Article XXIV of the GATT. On the basis of regime theory an increase in trade would be viewed as absolute gains, and Arab members of the WTO in order to reap the maximum benefit from their membership at the organisation in the form of absolute gains should increase their participation in the organisation, in conjunction with the pursuit of regional and bilateral trade agreements to the extent these do not conflict with each other and subsequently affect the positive benefits they might otherwise have presented. To date, only Egypt, Morocco, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and the United Arab Emirates have been active participants in a WTO dispute as respondents. Qatar is the only Arab member of the WTO to have been a claimant. The reasons behind this lack of participation are multiple and range from a lack of financial means to enable any meaningful presence or active representation in the WTO, a reticence to engage in what is seen as a costly and highly specialised legal setting, a cultural reticence towards legal confrontation as a means to resolve disputes, and political and economic considerations that might make the MENA members of the WTO hesitant to become embroiled in a trade dispute that might result in undesirable consequences with important trade partners. There is further nuance, however, to add to the general observation that Arab WTO members are not actively participating in the organisation. There is evidence of some increased form of activity, essentially on part of the Gulf countries, as third parties to disputes. This pattern of behaviour could be significant if it marks a conscious approach to increasing participation in the WTO through observation prior to active participation in a relatively low risk manner. The new levels of activity could alternatively mark a policy of forming trade alliances through coalitions and supporting trade partners in their own disputes. There is also, however, more recent evidence of the participation of the Gulf countries in dispute settlement, but against one another which could be viewed in a positive light as an overall increase in participation, or in a negative light considering this might potentially annul any positive moves observed recently in terms of concerted action should this affect regional trade and consequently, the level of absolute gains achieved. With regards to decision-making, there is evidence of Arab country membership to various working parties, some quite active and influential. It is difficult, however, to determine exact levels of participation of the Arab countries within these working parties in the absence of freely available records of meetings for all these working parties. With regards to bilateral trade agreements, these have given rise to legal difficulties for the Arab members of the WTO as their numbers increase, leading to an already existent risk of clashing legal obligations. In addition, the lack of a coherent global approach to the negotiations of these extra regional agreements have proven problematic in light of the generalised imbalance of negotiation power between the MENA signatory and its often economically more influential trade partner. Regional trade agreements have overall lead to little increase in trade, with the exception of the Gulf Cooperation Council which despite past success appears threatened by mounting regional tensions. Whether regional trade, and nascent cooperation between Arab countries will be able to survive both within the WTO and outside the organisation is yet uncertain. What remains evident, however, is that an alternative to the previously individualistic approach to trade in the MENA region is preferable if these countries are to improve the flow of trade both with their regional and global trade partners, and that a concerted and long-sighted policy is necessary if the Arab members of the WTO are to adopt overlapping trade obligations so as to reap the benefits of WTO membership, in conjunction with regional and bilateral trade in the pursuit of absolute rather than relative gains.
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Domination and resistance in liberal settler colonialism : Palestinians in Israel between the homeland and the transnationalTatour, Lana January 2016 (has links)
This thesis explores native resistance to settler colonialism through its focus on the ’48 Palestinians (also known as the Palestinian citizens of Israel). It innovatively brings together postcolonial theory and settler colonial studies to explore the racialised, ethnicised, gendered and sexualised dimensions of settler colonial violence, how these shape native modalities of resistance and subordination, and the ways in which the transnational is imbricated within these processes. The thesis undertakes two case studies – on the Palestinian Bedouin struggle for land rights and on the Palestinian queer movement – drawing upon archival research, other primary texts and ethnographic exploration. The case studies are interrogated in relation to the liberal-nationalist framework that dominates ’48 Palestinian discourse and resistance. The thesis radically critiques the frameworks of ethnocracy, ethnonationalism and minority studies that have been most prevalent in earlier research on ’48 Palestinians. Instead, this study builds on an understanding of resistance as diagnostic of power (Abu-Lughod 1990). It argues that the resistance of Palestinians in Israel is diagnostic of the structure of Israel as a liberal settler state, and unfolds in relation to the liminal positionality of ’48 Palestinians between (semi)liberal citizenship and colonial subjecthood. It further argues that the subjectivities and modalities of resistance of ’48 Palestinians are shaped through the racialising logics of settler colonialism, and the intersectionalities of these logics with ethnicity, gender and sexuality. Through the focus in the two case studies on indigeneity (and the fetishisation of the indigenous subject as premodern) and LGBT rights (and the folding of queer subjects into modernity), the thesis further suggests that the resistance of ’48 Palestinians is also shaped in complex and ambivalent ways by their ongoing encounters with the liberal frameworks of multiculturalism and human rights. The case studies illuminate that while these frameworks can serve as vehicles for empowerment, they can also reproduce the racialising logics of settler colonialism and further its entrenchment. This means that ’48 Palestinians constantly (re)negotiate their identities, their struggles and their political agendas within multiple circuits of power. The ambivalence of the encounter with the liberal settler state, as inclusionary and exclusionary, and human rights, as empowering and oppressive, produces native resistance to settler colonialism to be shaped and reshaped by competing political projects and hybrid modalities of resistance that include practices of self-essentialising, Bhabian notions of resistance as subversion, and a Fanonian politics of rejection as both pedagogy and a political imperative. The thesis concludes that the mobilisation of a more radical vision of decolonisation requires transcendence of both liberal settler colonialism and the liberal politics of human rights.
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The role of international actors in state secession and recognition : the case of KosovoKartsonaki, Argyro January 2016 (has links)
Although in recent years studies on secession and self-determination have increased, research on why secessions succeed remains limited. This thesis contributes to filling this gap by arguing that a secession can be regarded as successful when it results in the creation of a recognised and viable entity. In order to examine this assumption empirically, the thesis applied a process-tracing methodology to the case study of Kosovo, a case that had both an unsuccessful attempt to secede in 1991 and a far more successful one in 2008. It discovered that changes taking place at four different levels, local, state, regional and global, from 1991 to 2008, created the conditions for Kosovo to ensure international support from influential states that would promote its international recognition and would support its internal viability after it unilaterally declared independence for the second time. Finally, this thesis, recognising that Kosovo’s statehood is still contested, has expanded the initial assumption of international recognition and internal viability and concluded that a unilateral secession is successful when the extent of international recognition and internal viability renders it irreversible.
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US foreign policy towards India, 1993-2005 : a study emphasizing the importance of systematic selection and usage of documentary evidenceSilvestri, Francesca January 2018 (has links)
This thesis studies the implications of the selection of empirical evidence underpinning reported interpretations and conclusions about US foreign policy towards India. US-India relations have been investigated by a number of scholars whose work has been reported in well-regarded books and journal articles. Their studies typically rely for empirical evidence on official documents, and occasionally on interviews. In spite of their qualities, none of these studies provides explicit rational for their selection of US and Indian primary sources and about the procedures and the criteria used to identify relevant information from these sources. This shortcoming poses a risk for the validity of their conclusions. To assess the nature of this risk, this thesis reports a fresh study of US foreign policy towards India in which all publicly available US documents are used. These documents are the basis of a Qualitative Content Analysis (QCA), the results of which feed into the subsequent analysis. The substantive results of this research are compared with those in the existing literature. This comparison reveals, in addition to obvious similarities, important differences that can be attributed to unsystematic and incomplete use of empirical material in the existing literature. These differences, that emanate from a more explicit and systematic approach to evidence, provide grounds for a reassessment of the significance of many factors influencing US foreign policy towards India. This study identifies relevant factors that have so far been overlooked in the existing literature, and that need to be included in accounts to understand widely documented changes in this area of US foreign policy. Substantively, this thesis highlights the vital importance of the Clinton period in understanding the foreign policy of the United States, a period which had not been examined in sufficient detail by existing studies. Contrary to what most of the existing literature suggests, elements of continuity between the Clinton and the Bush administrations are particularly important to explain the evolution of US foreign policy towards India. In spite of the change in the presidency from Democrat to Republican, President George W. Bush (hereafter Bush) continued to hold the same level of commitment shown by his predecessor in developing closer strategic ties with India, making it a priority of his foreign policy. This aspect is particularly important to furthering a more thorough understanding of US relations with India.
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Uneven development and the governance of agricultural commodity booms : the case of soybean in South AmericaGiraudo, Maria E. January 2017 (has links)
Issues related to food security have long been closely tied to the dynamics of the global political economy. The latest price peak experienced in the commodities market (2007-2008) greatly affected agricultural commodities, creating significant imbalances in production and consumption. This research develops an interdisciplinary approach that links together issues of natural resource governance, development, and transformations in the global political economy to explore the ways in which countries of South America govern commodity booms. In other words, this thesis examines how these global dynamics affect the ways in which food-producing states manage the wealth produced during commodity booms and how this is wealth is subsequently distributed among different sectors of society. In South America, the recent commodity boom has led to an expansion of primary production oriented towards export markets, creating imbalances in their domestic productive structures. This thesis focuses on the production and trade of soybean in three countries of the Southern Cone: Argentina, Brazil, and Paraguay. Following the boom, soybean production has come to dominate the agricultural sectors and overall exports of these countries, with some authors going as far as to dub this rapidly expanding industry the ‘Soybean Republic’. This research engages with cutting edge debates in International Political Economy, with a conceptual focus that draws from human geography and brings in space as both contingent and constituted by the changing productive and trade dynamics. By looking at the development of fixed infrastructure and dynamics of capital mobility, this research explores the patterns of uneven development that emerge from the expansion of the soybean complex, as well as the capacity of the Argentine, Brazilian, and Paraguayan states to govern the distribution of the profits emanating from it.
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Rebuilding livelihoods of the poor affected by conflict through donor-led market-based approaches : the case of LiberiaButterworth, Ruth Rutendo January 2015 (has links)
A pro-poor market-based approach has increasingly been adopted by INGOs as a livelihoods rebuilding strategy following destructive armed-conflicts. However, there remains a gap in knowledge of the feasibility of such an approach in post-conflict contexts. This research seeks to address this gap. It questions whether pro-poor and donor-led market-based approaches work within post-conflict environments and, if so, under what conditions? The results are from an analysis of case study-based data collected from twenty-one microenterprise groups from three diverse counties of Liberia, six years after the armed conflict. The research reveals that local context in post-conflict environments play an important role in the extent to which a market-based approach might achieve its underlying objectives of broad-based, sustainability and growth enterprises. On one hand, the losses and changes in the entitlement systems of the poor restrict their ability to both operate and to potentially sustain market-based livelihoods promoted through donor-led initiatives beyond the period of direct support. On the other, the extent to which conflict affects local market-systems also shapes outcomes of a post-conflict market-based approach. Shortcomings within the private and government sectors hinder application of market-based principles by increasing the role of the INGO to more than a facilitating role, thus further compromising sustainability of microenterprises. Positively, results suggest that, in spite of low income gains, a market based approach holds potential to empower direct beneficiaries through skills gains, improve their self-esteem and contribute towards peacebuilding within local communities. To further advance this field of research, future donor-led programme design and implementation needs to balance the post-conflict reconstruction urgency with context-specificity, not only that related to the target groups, but also the extent to which the wider and immediate market environment are able to support a market-based approach. Hurried actions risk exclusion of the most vulnerable groups in society through both direct and indirect factors arising from conflict. Yet, a broad-based economic development is essential in a post-conflict environment to reduce both underdevelopment and the risk to return to war.
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Policy bargaining and incompatibilities in civil wars : intervention, power-sharing, and preferencesMaekawa, Wakako January 2018 (has links)
Civil wars in which conflict parties claim a regime lead to crisis at both domestic and international levels. Such claims for new regime have been a part of the democratization process throughout history. Thus, for both domestic and international participants in civil conflicts, bargaining is often a central issue. While conflict parties face pressure to cease civil war, salient issues at stake sometimes make parties less inclined to settle. Even if parties reach an agreement, in many cases, this is only a part of the long process of ending war. The outcome might also create incompatible situations for different parties, in some cases, causing another conflict. In other cases, such an outcome simultaneously solves other parties' incompatible situations. This dissertation investigates how and when politically incompatible situations in civil wars are resolved through the process of war termination. It re-examines the arguments used for international relations and civil conflict terminations with a particular focus on the subject of bargaining over political institutions, and the changing phases of termination process. Those theories are tested by using various potential outcomes as measures of conflict terminations in civil wars over government.
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An investigation into the role of religion in the origins, strategic development and internationalisation processes of international non-governmental organisationsFinlow, Patricia Claire January 2017 (has links)
Non-state actors such as transnational social movements (TSMs) and international non-governmental organisations (INGOs) have had an increasingly high profile in global politics in recent years through advocacy and campaigning activities which have caused them to be of growing interest to scholars. However, two aspects of INGOs have not received much scholarly attention. The first relates to religious INGOs and the lack of research regarding how religion influences this significant sub-set. The second concerns internationalisation processes as there is little research on why clusters of loosely affiliated and often diverse national NGOs choose to combine to form large INGOs and the processes they go through. Using social movement theory as a methodological framework, this research addressed both points by carefully examining the genesis and developments of two large INGOs: firstly to identify how, and with what effect, religion interacted with other factors in their working practice; and secondly, to track the reasons for internationalisation and to determine the methods they used. Underpinning the research was a detailed review of how international relations, international development and social movement scholarship conceptualise religion and religious actors. This identified weaknesses in scholarship caused by the legacy of secularisation theory as it obstructs the ability to perceive the presence of religion and to understand what effect it may have. The research, therefore, concludes with two further contributions: the first are recommendations to improve religious literacy, by presenting a more contemporary way to conceptualise religion and religious actors; and finally, there are proposals for strengthening research methodology to enable the presence and influence of religion to be identified and incorporated into scholarly analysis.
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Domestic analogy in proposals for world order, 1814-1945 : the transfer of legal and political principles from the domestic to the international sphere in thought on international law and relationsSuganami, Hidemi January 1986 (has links)
The ways in which legal and political principles obtaining within states can profitably be transferred to the relations of states are among the contentious issues in the study of international relations, and the term 'domestic analogy' is used to refer to the argument which supports such transfer. The 'domestic analogy' is analogical reasoning according to which the conditions of order between states are similar to those of order within them, and therefore those institutions which sustain order within states should be transferred to the international system. However, despite the apparent division among writers on international relations between those who favour this analogy and those who are critical of it, no clear analysis has so far been made as to precisely what types of proposal should be treated as exemplifying reliance on this analogy. The first aim of this thesis is to clarify the range and types of proposal this analogy entails. The thesis then examines the role the domestic analogy played in ideas about world order in the period between 1814 and 1945. Particular attention is paid to the influence of changing circumstances in the domestic and international spheres upon the manner and the extent of the use of this analogy. In addition to the ideas of major writers on international law and relations, the creation of the League of Nations and of the United Nations is also examined. The thesis then discusses the merits of the five main types of approach to world order which emerge from the preceding analysis. Each embodies a distinct attitude towards the domestic analogy. The thesis shows that there are weaknesses in the approaches based on the domestic analogy, but that ideas critical of this analogy are not entirely flawless, and explores further the conditions under which the more promising proposals may bear fruit.
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Rethinking agency & responsibility in contemporary international political theoryAinley, Kirsten January 2006 (has links)
The core argument of this work is that the individualist conceptions of agency and responsibility inherent in the contemporary ethical structure of international relations are highly problematic, serve political purposes which are often unacknowledged, and have led to the establishment of an international institutional regime which is limited in the kind of justice it can bring to international affairs. Cosmopolitan liberalism has led to the privileging of the discourse of rights over that of responsibility, through its emphasis on legality and the role of the individual as the agent and subject of ethics; this has culminated in the establishment of the International Criminal Court (ICC). The ICC, described by its supporters as the missing link in human rights enforcement, is a result of changing conceptions of agency and responsibility beyond borders – normative discourse has moved from state to individual, from politics and ethics to law, and from peace to justice, but I argue that it has not yet moved beyond the dichotomy of cosmopolitan and communitarian thinking. I contend that neither of these two positions can offer us a satisfactory way forward, so new thinking is required. The core of the thesis therefore explores alternative views of agency and responsibility – concepts which are central to international political theory, but not systematically theorized within the discipline. I outline models of agency as sociality and responsibility as a social practice, arguing that these models both better describe the way we talk about and experience our social lives, and also offer significant possibilities to broaden the scope of international justice and enable human flourishing. I end the research by considering the implications of these more nuanced accounts of agency and responsibility for ongoing theorising and practice.
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