This thesis aims to provide a more critical framework for the assessment of future technologies and therefore social directions and to help to bring an understanding to the relationship between global political economy, corporate power, ideology, science and technology. This is essential given the many issues facing contemporary society – issues of sustainability and humanity’s place in the broad ecology, of the need for a diversity of economies, societies and cultures, of the need for greater economic equality and equity across the globe. The relationship between globalisation, science and technology, democratic governance and citizens is explored using the case of genetic engineering technologies. The thesis draws on a conceptual framework provided by the theory of political economy to facilitate the assessment of the impact of a technology on society . It provides a critical framework for looking at individualised, sectoral and short term interests versus the often conflicting interests of what is termed the ‘common good’. The juxtaposition of the neo-liberal, conservative and contemporarily dominant world view with that of the more radical, political economy stance exposes the tension between these two ways of viewing human history and the future of humankind.

Restorative justice emerged in the western world as an alternative to the existing retributive penal system. An alternative that no longer relied on lawyers and judges to resolve criminal matters and community disputes, but rather empowered victims, offenders, and community members to do justice themselves. Throughout the past thirty years restorative justice has distanced itself from the traditional criminal justice system by focusing on repairing the harm caused by an offence rather than charging an offender for committing a crime against the state. This study focuses on the institutionalization of restorative justice. Specifically, this thesis conducts a content analysis of five Canada institutionalized restorative justice programs with the purpose of answering one primary research question. This question asks: are institutionalized restorative justice programs within Canada structured to reflect the core values of restorative justice? In order to answer this question, this thesis analyzes all the available textual documents pertaining to the five selected restorative justice programs for evidence of core restorative justice values and values associated with the co-opting institution, the retributive criminal justice system. This thesis concludes that yes, the five analyzed restorative programs are structured to reflect the core values of restorative justice. Although, the programs are also structured to reflect the core values of the current political ideology of neo-liberalism.

The purpose of this study was to determine the major causes of German revival as well as reasons for their radical changes from Postwar Socialism to the acceptance of a basically free market economy, and also to determine the effects of neo-liberalism on the rapid recovery.

This PhD thesis asks how ‘neo-liberal’ was the Thatcher government? Existing accounts tend to characterise neo-liberalism as a homogeneous, and often ill-defined, group of thinkers that exerted a broad influence over the Thatcher government. This thesis - through a combination of archival research, interviews and examination of ideological texts - defines the dominant strains of neo-liberalism more clearly and explores their relationship with Thatcherism. In particular, the schools of liberal economic thought founded in Vienna and Chicago are examined and juxtaposed with the initial neo-liberals originating from Freiburg in 1930s and 1940s Germany. Economic policy and deregulation were the areas that most clearly linked neo-liberal thinking with Thatcherism, but this thesis looks at a broad cross section of the wider programme of the Thatcher government. This includes other domestic policies such as education and housing, as well as the Thatcher government’s success in reducing or altering the pressures exerted by vested interests such as the trade unions and monopolies. Lastly, while less associated with neo-liberal theory, foreign policy, in the area of overseas aid, is examined to show how ideas filtered into the international arena during the 1980s. Although clearly a political project, the policies of Thatcherism, in so far as they were ideological, resonate most with the more expedient, or practical, Friedmanite strain of neo-liberalism. This encapsulated a willingness to utilize the state, often in contradictory ways, to pursue more marketorientated policies. As such, it sat somewhere between the more rules-based ordoliberalism and the often utopian Austrian School.

Restorative justice emerged in the western world as an alternative to the existing retributive penal system. An alternative that no longer relied on lawyers and judges to resolve criminal matters and community disputes, but rather empowered victims, offenders, and community members to do justice themselves. Throughout the past thirty years restorative justice has distanced itself from the traditional criminal justice system by focusing on repairing the harm caused by an offence rather than charging an offender for committing a crime against the state. This study focuses on the institutionalization of restorative justice. Specifically, this thesis conducts a content analysis of five Canada institutionalized restorative justice programs with the purpose of answering one primary research question. This question asks: are institutionalized restorative justice programs within Canada structured to reflect the core values of restorative justice? In order to answer this question, this thesis analyzes all the available textual documents pertaining to the five selected restorative justice programs for evidence of core restorative justice values and values associated with the co-opting institution, the retributive criminal justice system. This thesis concludes that yes, the five analyzed restorative programs are structured to reflect the core values of restorative justice. Although, the programs are also structured to reflect the core values of the current political ideology of neo-liberalism.

Drawing on both post-colonial literature and critical gang studies research, this study situates the advent and growth of Indigenous street gangs in the context of settler colonialism, global economic restructuring, and the turn to a New Right political rationality. While the current street gang problem is rooted in structural barriers created in the past, the turn to a New Right rationality has meant that solutions must now be individually focused, economically efficient, and created within an “at risk” framework. Interviews with workers at inner-city organizations in Winnipeg determined that youth gang prevention programs are able to act as sites of resistance to the New Right rationality by redefining what it means for youth to be considered “at risk.” In addition, short-term, program-based funding results in the inefficient use of resources, reduces the ability to create long-term, positive changes, and often does not provide the resources to effect larger structural changes.

Michel Foucault is often is taken to represent human beings as products of insidious structures of power that lie beyond control and perception. This is an unfair characterisation since a deeper reading into his work reveals reflections and even insistences on creativity, resistance and freedom as fundamental components of human experience. My aim is to unify these two aspects of Foucault's thought so as to provide a positive account of political resistance to power relations in contemporary neo-liberal society.

Thesis (Ph.D.) - James Cook University, 2005. / Typescript (photocopy) Bibliography: leaves 258-289.

Restorative justice emerged in the western world as an alternative to the existing retributive penal system. An alternative that no longer relied on lawyers and judges to resolve criminal matters and community disputes, but rather empowered victims, offenders, and community members to do justice themselves. Throughout the past thirty years restorative justice has distanced itself from the traditional criminal justice system by focusing on repairing the harm caused by an offence rather than charging an offender for committing a crime against the state. This study focuses on the institutionalization of restorative justice. Specifically, this thesis conducts a content analysis of five Canada institutionalized restorative justice programs with the purpose of answering one primary research question. This question asks: are institutionalized restorative justice programs within Canada structured to reflect the core values of restorative justice? In order to answer this question, this thesis analyzes all the available textual documents pertaining to the five selected restorative justice programs for evidence of core restorative justice values and values associated with the co-opting institution, the retributive criminal justice system. This thesis concludes that yes, the five analyzed restorative programs are structured to reflect the core values of restorative justice. Although, the programs are also structured to reflect the core values of the current political ideology of neo-liberalism.

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