This PhD studies the imperative of racially transforming South Africa's economy in a way that spurs the growth of capital investment that is socially and locally inclusive. Part I explores the role of bargains among elites (“deals”) in facilitating investment. It studies deals as the basis of credible commitment and as the “arena of action” in the context of a relatively robust rule of law. What kind of deals produce capital investment and transformation, and what kind of deals produce predation and isomorphism? Using process tracing methodology, the research traces deal in platinum mining between 1994 and 2018. Part II examines the extent to which this investment is socially inclusive in alleviating local poverty, creating local employment, and reducing local inequality. This part relies on individual level census data of 20 million observations and geocoded mining data of over 400 mines to evaluate the local impact of mining investments on income poverty, employment, and inequality between 1996 and 2011. The study finds compelling evidence that “deals are the basis of credible commitment” to securing investment. The rule of law alone is important but insufficient as it leaves “residual uncertainty” for investors. The evaluation of the impact of mining investments on local communities suggests a qualification, at the local level, of the “resource curse” hypothesis. Mining brings benefits in terms of income poverty alleviation and employment. However, the high-low cycles of commodity price booms create employment volatility and exacerbate inequality. Mining investments inherently involve trade-offs that can be moved in net positive directions with good deals between business and the state, and local communities. The research thus contributes to the literature on property rights and investment, state-business relations and development, and natural resource governance for development.

In Peru, the rapid expansion of extractive activities has led to increased mobilization by peasant communities. In remote rural areas, the mediating efforts of the state between communities and corporations are often weak, and corporations have played an important role in dealing with communities’ demands and protests through different strategies. These processes are illustrative of a broader trend in which private corporations engage in governance processes by assuming state-like functions in relation to citizens. This study investigates how communities’ mobilization and scope of influence is affected by their interactions with corporations. Based on interviews and written primary sources, the study provides a detailed empirical account of the multifaceted relations and negotiations between corporations and communities in the context of two macro-economically significant Peruvian mining projects – Rio Blanco and Las Bambas. In this way, the study contributes to the empirical and theoretical debates on the political role of corporations and the implications for social movements and democratic influence. The study shows that the presence of private corporations alters the conditions for mobilization by creating opportunities as well as constraints, with significant impact on mobilization structures and framing of demands. However, communities relate to those opportunities and constraints differently, depending on how state-society relations and other forms of private dynamics have played out historically at the subnational level.

An emerging consensus in the academic literature explicitly recognises large corporations as political actors. Against this background, this research investigates how corporate power operates through political practices in international multi-stakeholder governance processes and how it is legitimised. The central focus of research is the EITI, a sophisticated and well regarded international standard for natural resource governance in which corporations from the extractive industries and institutional investors have been granted decision-making rights at the Board level. Moreover, the research aims at understanding the consequences of corporate power on the Standard's design and performance. Relying on a conceptual framework based on the writings of French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu, this thesis proposes a refined theoretical approach to corporate power by introducing the concepts of corporate symbolic authority and corporate political practice. This research was undertaken using a mixed-methods approach consisting of content analysis, interviews and participant observation. The findings suggest that companies are privileged partners in the EITI while members from resource-rich countries are effectively disadvantaged. The companies' privileged status is legitimised through taken-for-granted-assumptions portraying them as positive, responsible and exceptional agents. It rests on possession and deployment of various forms of resources, and is enshrined into EITI's principles and procedures. Thus, despite EITI's emphasis on transparency, inclusion and equality (in decision-making), the Standard ultimately reflects and perpetuates the existing power asymmetries which cause disempowerment and poverty of people in resource-rich countries in the first place. This effectively undermines EITI's impact and outcome. In conclusion, the argument is presented that by including corporations into international governance processes already influential actors not only gain direct access to decision-making, but additionally to symbolic authority. This further enhances and consolidates corporate power with substantial consequences for legitimate and effective governance at the international level. Therefore, this thesis enhances our understanding of corporate power and its deployment in multi-stakeholder governance at the international level.

My research is focused on investigating the socio-political processes taking place within Community Based Natural Resource Management (CBNRM) in Tanzania. I draw on a political ecology approach in an investigation of the politics of struggles over natural resources, their management and the benefits that can be derived from this. I bring together theories of policy processes, African politics and scale into an examination of power within two case studies of CBNRM from the wildlife and forestry sectors. I carry out a comparative analysis of these case studies, employing a qualitative methodology based on semi-structured interviews, focus groups, participatory activities, participant observation and document analysis. My research is clustered around three core themes. Firstly, I trace the process of policy reform that introduced CBNRM in both the forest and wildlife sectors, and examine the differences between the governance systems prescribed in policy as a result of these processes. The contrasts between the two sectors in Tanzanian CBNRM are important and multiple. Different policy pathways were adopted, relating to the distinct political economies of forest and wildlife resources and their politicisation within the context of power devolution for CBNRM. The prescribed governance systems in the two sectors contain important differences in the processes by which local communities can apply to participate in CBNRM, the mechanisms of revenue distribution, and the ways in which power is devolved to the local level. Secondly I examine the implementation of these prescribed governance systems and their performance in reality through an exploration of the configurations of power set out in CBNRM, and the struggles that take place around these in ‘politics of scales’ as actors attempt to benefit from CBNRM. I examine the ways the governance systems have been adopted and adapted from those set out in CBNRM policy. I argue that the distinctions between the prescribed governance systems in the two sectors produce separate contexts of re-configuration into the performed governance systems within the case studies. However, I also argue that while the contexts are specific to each sector, both the case studies revealed the same underlying socio-political process of struggles over power to both manage and benefit from natural resources. These struggles to control and benefit from CBNRM are closely linked to the unequal distribution of benefits that were witnessed in both case studies. Finally I examine the performance of CBNRM as an integration of systems of power set out in policy and hidden, often unacknowledged, local contours of power. I address the themes of how the reality of CBNRM differs from that set out in policy, examine the processes ongoing within the projects that permit and maintain elite capture and unequal distribution of benefits, and investigate the socio-political processes of corruption taking place within devolved environmental management. I argue that the struggles over power, combined with hidden aspects, especially neopatrimonialism, local moral economy and the cultural context of corruption, are central to these unequal outcomes and the capture of benefits by a small group of individuals. My research highlights that power, the politics of its devolution to the local level, the struggles that take place around it, and its subtle, hidden forms, lie at the heart of gaining further understanding of the ways in which policies develop, the unexpected outcomes they produce and the inequalities these often entail.

This research investigates the shifting political settlements between the Ugandan state and the Bunyoro and Buganda kingdoms after the discovery of oil between 2007 and 2018. It seeks to answer the following questions using a historically, theoretically, and empirically grounded investigation: What accounts for the Bunyoro kingdom’s failure to benefit substantially from the discovery of oil on its territory? What lessons can be learnt from the Buganda kingdom’s relative success in negotiating with the central government and developing its own political and economic capacity independently of the state? The Bunyoro kingdom, located in the oil-rich Albertine Graben region of western Uganda, has failed to access significant economic benefits from the country’s emerging oil sector despite its historical ownership of the land on which the resource is found. This dissertation combines political settlements theory and the concept of extraversion to explain this empirical puzzle. It finds that the ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM)’s imposition of an exclusive political settlement in Uganda, coupled with the Bunyoro kingdom’s limited holding power, accounts for the kingdom’s failure to derive financial benefits from the oil sector. The relative marginalisation of the Bunyoro from Uganda’s oil sector results from the NRM’s historical strategy of limiting the power of sub-state groups who are subsequently excluded from the governing coalition. The main beneficiaries of the oil industry in Uganda are political elites within the ruling NRM coalition and their close associates. The Buganda kingdom serves as a control case study and reveals the potential strategies and structural changes the Bunyoro kingdom could pursue to potentially bypass Uganda’s exclusive settlement and therefore benefit from the country’s nascent oil sector. This dissertation also engages with broader debates on the struggles between the state and traditional kingdoms since independence in sub-Saharan Africa and how this intersects with the politics of natural resource governance. Since the inception of the modern state in the colonial era, kingdoms have engaged in a complex and dialogic relationship of indifference, cooperation, and contention with successive governing regimes. Some of the kingdoms challenged and resisted, albeit unsuccessfully the colonial imposition of a central state primarily because it led to their loss of political and economic power. Ultimately, the state and the kingdoms represent dual forms of nationality forced to co-exist in the post-colonial era, and this produces a complex mix of cooperation, contestation and strategic coexistence. The management and exploitation of natural resources, including oil, is embedded in this political context, and is often associated with adverse outcomes, such as rent-seeking, authoritarian governance, and sectarian violence. Some of these dynamics have accompanied the emergence of Uganda’s new oil industry, with political contestation occurring between the state and the Bunyoro kingdom which has unsuccessfully attempted to capture a share of oil revenue.

abstract: Landscape restoration is a global priority as evidenced by the United Nations’ 2020 goal to restore 150 million hectares of land worldwide. Restoration is particularly needed in estuaries and their watersheds as society depends on these environments for numerous benefits. Estuary restoration is often undermined by social-ecological scale mismatch, the incongruence between governing units and the bio-physical resources they seek to govern. Despite growing recognition of this fact, few empirical studies focus on scale mismatches in environmental restoration work. Using a sub-basin of Puget Sound, Washington, U.S.A., I analyze scale mismatches in estuary restoration. I take a network science approach because governance networks can bridge scale mismatches. I combine quantitative social network analysis (SNA), geographic information systems (GIS), and qualitative interview analysis. Spatial network analysis reveals several areas with weak scale mismatch bridging networks. These weak social networks are then compared to ecological restoration needs to identify coupled social-ecological restoration concerns. Subsequent study investigates jurisdictional and sectoral network integration because governance siloes contribute to scale mismatch. While the network is fairly well integrated, several sectors do not interact or interact very little. An analysis of collaboration reasons disentangles the idea of generic collaboration. Among three relationship types considered, mandated relationships contribute almost 5.5 times less to perceived collaboration productivity than shared interest relationships, highlighting the benefits of true collaborations in watershed governance. Lastly, the effects of scale mismatch on individual restoration projects and landscape level restoration planning are assessed through qualitative interview analysis. Results illustrate why human-environment processes should be included in landscape restoration planning. Social factors are not considered as constraints to restoration but rather part of the very landscape fabric to be restored. Scale mismatch is conceptualized as a complex social-ecological landscape pattern that affects the flow of financial, human, and natural capital across the landscape. This represents a new way of thinking about scale mismatch and landscape restoration in complex multi-level governance systems. In addition, the maps, network diagnostics, and narratives in this dissertation can help practitioners in Puget Sound and provide proofs of concepts that can be replicated elsewhere for restoration and broader conservation sciences. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Geography 2015