This thesis concerns the current ruling party, the AKP (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi - Justice and Development Party) in Turkey. Its aim is to examine the emergence and consolidation of the AKP, as well as to determine whether or not this has shaped the evolution of the party system in Turkey. This research draws on a qualitative research approach, through interviews with 36 key informants from political parties, NGOs, grassroots organizations and through gathering data in the literature produced by parties and other statutory and voluntary agencies, as well as through the collection of descriptive statististics related to socio-economic structures, migration, occupational categories, macroeconomic indicators and collections of election surveys. The finding reveal that the AKP did not emerge as an Islamist party, but because of its promises of economic stability and growth, and of further integration into the EU and USA-led global order. The thesis shows that more so than its religious discourse, the AKP’s electoral success was based on the party’s adapting a hybrid, progressive and pro-EU position during its first tenure in government. Second, this research demonstrates how the political conjuncture up to 2002 and long-term economic factors provided favourable circumstances for the AKP’s emergence. The study’s findings also reveal that the consolidation of the AKP is mainly attributable to its economic and social agenda, and the utilization of the public purse and other state resources (e.g. social and health care benefits) as a means of catering for its target constituencies. In addition, they demonstrate that once AKP’s consolidation was completed (2010) the party’s discourse gradually became more conservative and nationalist, giving way to more authoritarian policies. Nonetheless, as long as economic performance and conditions remain unchanged, the AKP continues to appeal to its social base. Consequently, this thesis demonstrates that the gradual drift in Turkish society towards moderate Islamic and traditional values was not the main factor in the AKP’s rise to power. Rather, this shift can be viewed as the feedback effect of the consolidation of the AKP process into societal structures and norms. Hence, this work highlights the AKP’s impact on the structure of the party-system and the role of its policies in transforming Turkish society. Lastly, this study contributes to the foundation upon which further research on Turkish politics and the party system can continue, by exploring the dual effect of the AKP’s ruling tenure: factors leading to the AKP’s emergence and its feedback into Turkish society and politics.

As a new emerging industrializing nation, industrial pollution is a challenge in Ethiopia. To address the problem, the government has introduced different laws, policies, strategies and established environmental organizations at federal and regional levels. However, the government has not performed well in this regard due to various barriers militating against sustainable industrial pollution control and management. Partly this is due to organizational weaknesses, lack of effective implementation of standards as well as the absence of expertise and capacity building. The aim of this research is to investigate the practice of industrial pollution control and management in Ethiopia with particular emphasis on two selected industries. For the practical investigation a methodology that combines semi-structured interview from key informants in industrial pollution, together with documentary and observational data has been employed. The findings of the research show that the magnitude of industrial pollution is rapidly increasing in the country. This is particularly the case in the textile and leather industries. It is also more severe in urban centers where most of the industries are located. The problem is most operating industries in Ethiopia do not have waste treatment plants. They simply discharge their untreated effluent to the nearby rivers or drainage facilities in violation of the established standards. Even for those industries with treatment plants (including the two case study industries) the treatment plants are not functioning properly due to cost implications; and they discharge their effluent to the nearby rivers with nominal treatment. Thus, they are sources of damage to the environment and the nearby communities. The main barrier to industrial pollution control has been the application of weak form of sustainable development policy and lack of institutional regulations—including laws and organizational implementing mechanisms. This is manifested through lack of political will on the part of the government to enforce the existing industrial pollution control laws; lack of capacity (resource and personnel) and coordination among the environmental organizations. On the part of the affected community there is lack of awareness and organization to protect their constitutionally enshrined right—the right to clean and healthy environment. Similarly there is also lack of corporate social responsibility on the side of the two industries subject of the study.

This thesis looks into the relationship between the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) since the PRC regained its IMF membership in 1980. It initially analyzes the China-IMF relationship with socialization theoretical framework, attempting to explore how the IMF has socialized China into accepting neoliberal international economic norms. The research borrows Alastair Johnston’s ‘microprocesses’ of socialization to assess the processes of IMF socialization via financial assistance, technical assistance, and surveillance and policy advice for China. The research shows socialization has taken place to a moderate degree, as IMF programs have had some impacts on China’s domestic economic and financial liberalization. Yet no evidence shows the IMF has convinced China to fully redefine its economic principles and norms. Socialization turns out to be an inadequate analytical approach to analyzing the China-IMF relationship in the long run. The research continues with a supplementary theoretical framework: principal-agent theory. Principal-agent theory overcomes some of the technical deficiencies in socialization theory, and helps us understand more thoroughly China’s role in the IMF and the governance of international financial economy in general in the long run. China is regarded as the principal, and the IMF as China’s international organization agent. Driven by its objective of acquiring a larger influence in the governance of international financial economy, China delegates several tasks to the IMF so that the Fund can accomplish these tasks more efficiently than if China took other cooperative or unilateral approaches. China-IMF interactions are assessed following a four-stage analytical approach based upon the key concepts of principal-agent theory. China’s and the IMF’s institutional features and functions are examined as important factors of the China-IMF relationship. They include China’s preferences regarding IMF operation, China’s role in IMF governance, and China’s impact among IMF staff. Based on this examination, the consequences of China’s delegation of tasks to the IMF are assessed. This dissertation indicates that the IMF plays a limited role in assisting China to access larger influence in the governance of international financial economy, because of the IMF’s westerndominated staffing rules, unbalanced governance structure, preference deviation from China, inadequate resources, and China’s incapability to facilitate strict controls on the IMF. The thesis contributes to the so far thin literature on the China-IMF relationship with selected case studies such as IMF Article IV Consultation for China, China’s role in IMF quota and voting share reforms, IMF staff with Chinese nationality, and so on. The research provides a model for analyzing the relationship between China and international organizations with a combination of socialization and principal-agent theoretical frameworks. Last but not least, it extends the research subject of principal-agent theory in international organization Studies to include an emerging market economy state as the principal, which correctly implies the increasing influence of emerging market economies in the governance of international political economy.

This thesis studies the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)’s capacity to rule in contemporary China by examining (a) its quest for popular legitimacy and (b) its search for party cohesion. In explaining the CCP’s ruling basis, a plethora of political science and economics literature has pointed to China’s economic growth. Conventional wisdom considers ideology to be obsolete and the political reform to be too limited to take any substantive effect in China. This thesis argues that ideological adaptation and the institutionalization of power succession play crucial roles in maintaining the CCP’s popular legitimacy and party cohesion. China’s economic success is certainly important, however, it also creates a fundamental dilemma of the CCP’s rule. If a communist party is not to deliver communism and class victory, why is it there at all? There is a potential contradiction between generating economic success by utilizing quasi capitalist economic policies on the one hand, and the fact that this is a communist party that supposedly justifies its rule by being the vehicle to deliver a communist society on the other. This thesis shows how the CCP has been constantly revising its ideological basis for justifying – if not legitimizing – its rule. By studying the CCP’s ideological discourses, the mechanism of ideological promotion, and their effectiveness, this thesis makes a valuable contribution to the relevant literature. In addition to ideology, the institutionalization of power succession is also crucial to the CCP’s rule. During Mao Zedong’s rule, an un-institutionalized power system had caused endless fierce power struggles within the party, which indirectly led to economic stagnation and social unrest. Thirty years of institutionalization has made leadership transitions in China more stable, transparent, predictable, and smoother now than ever before. By offering a large amount of first- and second-hand data on China’s leadership transition, this thesis shows how the institutionalization of power succession helps to maintain regime stability and legitimacy.

This thesis is an historical study of biopolitical relations between racism and biometric identification in Japan since the late nineteenth century to the present day. Adopting Foucault’s historical method, it challenges progressive accounts of the history of racism and that of biometrics. During the nineteenth century, practices of biometric identification emerged as constitutive of the knowledge of race wherein imperial power relations between superior and inferior races were enabled. Progressive accounts proclaim that colonial practices of biometrics were not scientific but politically intervened, which has since been discredited and replaced by a ‘true’ science of biometrics as individualisation. Contra progressivist claims on postraciality, the thesis concretely historicises the ways in which subjectification and control of race is conducted through the interplay between the epistemic construction of race and the technology of identification in each historical and geographical context. It analyses three modalities of racial government through biometrics in Japan: biometrics as a biological technology of inscribing race during Japanese colonialism; biometrics as a forensic technology of policing former colonial subjects in post-WWII Japan; and contemporary biometrics as an informatic technology of controlling a newly racialised immigrant population. The thesis concludes that despite a series of de-racialising reforms in the twentieth century, biometrics persist as a biopolitical technology of race. Neither racism nor biometrics as a technology of race is receding but they are continuously transforming in a way that a new mechanism of racial government is made possible. Race evolves, it is argued, not in the sense of social Darwinism but because the concept of race itself changes across time and space wherein a new model of racism is empowered. The thesis contributes to existing literature on the biopolitics of security and biometrics by extending the scope of analysis to a non-Western context, explicating historical relations between racism and biometrics, and problematising biometric rationality at the level of racialised mechanism of knowing and controlling (in)security. It also makes contributions to Foucaultian studies by advancing the analysis of biopolitical racism beyond Foucault’s original formulation and by offering a critique of rationality in the field of biometrics.

The emergence of mobile money and other new forms of payment has changed the sovereign foundations of money. Starting as a DFID funded project in Kenya, mobile money has now spread to many countries including Malaŵi. This thesis looks at the regulatory issues that mobile money poses, and the risks that this alternative form of payment poses to the financial system. The thesis argues that the traditional regulatory architecture of supervising the financial services is ill-suited to supervise mobile money. There are essentially two models of mobile money: telco-led and bank-led. The first is an innovation by telecommunication operators and utilises the small messaging service. There is no requirement to own a bank account. The bank-led model is linked to a bank account. The regulatory approaches to these two models are different. Unlike the telco-led, the bank-led model is under prudential regulation. This has manifested itself in the way the services have developed. The telco-led model had thrived while the bank-led model has fizzled indicating that for mobile money, less regulation may be an enabler. Mobile money is now considered a key developmental tool to achieve financial inclusion among the poor, rural based, unbanked, and underbanked. As opposed to traditional additive forms of financial inclusion, mobile money, especially the telco-led, is transformative. It employs a different approach where the consumer does not have to have a bank account or even travel to a bank to access financial services. In Malaŵi, the financial regulatory framework largely embodies the command and control model. Mobile money, however has largely been regulated using light-touch, with regulation following innovation. This thesis proposes an approach based on the concept of really responsive regulation. This approach, is best suited to embrace mobile money as it passes through the different phases of its evolution.

Nigeria’s federal system of government is grossly problematic. It is characterized by an inordinate concentration of powers and fiscal resources in the central government. Not only is this centralist division of powers antithetical to the idea of federalism, it also fosters the dictatorship of the central government vis a vis the other levels of government. Furthermore, it indirectly entrenches the domination of the minority ethnic groups by the larger ones. So centralized is Nigeria’s ‘federal’ arrangement that it is, perhaps, better described as a unitary contraption designed to perpetually establish the hegemony of the central government. As we shall later see in this thesis, the existing division of powers among the levels of government in Nigeria has been the source of protracted acrimony, conflict, and rancour threatening to tear the federation apart. Through theoretical analysis, this thesis examines the suitability of the existing power allocation structure for a country like Nigeria. The thesis argues that the ethnically diverse character of the Nigerian federation and the age-long clamour for autonomy by the constituent units of the federation make the existing division of powers absolutely untenable and unsuitable for Nigeria. This thesis thus proposes a complete abrogation of the existing constitutional framework for the division of powers among the levels of government in Nigeria, and its replacement with a restructured federal framework that is popularly designed by the Nigerian people and cognizant of the country’s diversity. Further to this, the thesis advocates a division of powers that entrenches state and local government autonomy without compromising the unity of the Nigerian federation. It is argued that only a framework such as this will conduce to the federation’s peace and stability, and help to stem the secessionist tide currently rocking the country.

A considerable amount of literature examines the impact of the Internet and social media on the practice of democracy in liberal democratic contexts and on the democratization process in nondemocratic contexts. However, little is known about the rise and implications of using the Internet and social media platforms for democratization process in a hybrid political system, like that of Iraqi Kurdistan, which combines elements of both democracy and authoritarianism. This study asks: how does the rise of the Internet and social media platforms influence democracy and democratization in Iraqi Kurdistan? To this end, the study assesses both the relationship between the use of social media platforms by citizens, politicians, electoral candidates, and political parties, as well as political participation and political communication, which are selected as important elements of democratization. It specifically examines the use of social media through three case studies: the Slemani protest movement in 2011; political discussion between citizens and party leaders of two political parties, the Patriotic union of Kurdistan (PUK), and the Kurdistan Islamic Union (KIU); and the 2013 parliamentary elections. The study is based on original qualitative interviews with activists, politicians, and party leaders, and an analysis of relevant social media content in the Kurdish language, especially on the social media platform, Facebook. The thesis finds that social media platforms facilitate political participation and political communication in terms of reducing the constraints for organizing and coordinating collective action. They also facilitate political discussion between party leaders and citizens, and provide more access to relevant information for citizens. Furthermore, they expand the scope of freedom of speech by providing opportunities to discuss political issues and other issues of common interest, and facilitate the dissemination of information by electoral candidates and reduce campaign costs. However, the thesis argues that the increasing ease of political participation and political communication, as a result of social media usage, should not be equated with democratization. This is because those in power also use social media but in ways that are counter-productive to democratization. For example, security forces use social media to monitor and gather information about citizens and social movement activists; Political parties and their leaders also use online and social media platforms to distribute pro-party propaganda and to launch online attacks on political rivals, spreading a culture of hatred, violence and nondemocratic values, rather than promoting the discussion of policy issues and government decisions. Election candidates use online resources primarily to win a seat in parliament and empower their campaign rather than engaging with voters in a way that generates productive, healthy, rational, and deep political conversation.

Food safety problems set an enormous challenge to China’s sustainable economic development. The Milk Scandal of 2008 brought public attention to the poor regulation and ineffective administration of the food industry. This highlighted the fact that food safety is relevant to the public health and the brand ‘Made in China’ in international trading. It also shows how food safety law and better environmental protection has arisen out of a crisis. The milk scandal brought an influx of foreign products into China and opened up the Chinese market to international influence and food standards that would not have been possible before the crisis began. Sustaining China’s environmental future is a work-in-progress with uncertain outcomes but there is an admission that without solving the food safety problem, China cannot achieve its sustainable economic development. This thesis examines China’s current food safety legislation in the aftermath of the milk scandal of 2008. The thesis raises the question of how China deals with its food safety crisis and regulates its food industry to cope with its sustainable economic development. It also considers how best for the Chinese and the rest of the world may be able to learn from the Chinese experience. In the aftermath of the Chinese food crisis, China found itself subject to imports from abroad. This had a two-fold effect. It brought international regulatory practices into Chinese life; the second effect was to awaken China to the demands of international trade and the need to conform to best practice. It also showed how China had to meet expectations that were informed by international experience, which China sadly lacked. A deeper analysis is that China was exposed to the dilemma of profit driven organisations failing to appreciate the role of regulation and the safety of ordinary people. The scandal exposed many institutional and organisational shortcomings while the lessons were clear for anyone who looked. Placing profits over the preservation of social order and stability resulted in short-term gains with few long term benefits. This research provides a comprehensive analysis and offers a perspective of the Chinese food safety problem from the legal, social and economic context of the problem. The causes of the food safety problem in China are complex. The food safety problem is not only caused by the defect of the food safety legislation itself. Other factors, such as environmental challenges and the irresponsible business activities, all contribute to the ineffectiveness of the food safety regulatory system. The thesis starts with the Milk Scandal of 2008 to examine the current food safety regulatory system in China. It addresses the main systemic problem, which leads to the weak implementation and ineffective administrations, and it also finds out that apart from the systemic defects, the environmental problem and the failure of the private sector all have an impact on the food safety regulatory system. Furthermore, the thesis also explores the new innovations in the 2014 Environmental Protection Law, which may potentially contribute to the food safety law in the future. The private sector has also been examined. The fact is found that Chinese companies are operated in an irresponsible way, which causes the consecutive food scandals in China. The role of corporate social responsibility is also considered to guide the business activities in practice. The interests of the stakeholders, such as consumers, need to be addressed in the decision-making. The final conclusion is China still has a long way to go to achieve its sustainable economic development. The legislation system needs to be completed and unified. The effectiveness of the administration needs to be improved and independent judiciary needs to be built up. Besides the systemic problem, the improvement of the environment and the responsible business operation also contribute to re-shaping an effective food safety regulatory system. The innovation in the Environmental Law of 2014 can also be introduced to the food safety system. The citizen-driven approach can be used as an important supplement to China’s traditional state-centred approach, to overcome the systemic weakness in the implementation of the food safety law. Many disasters in the world are discussed in terms of the experiences countries may gain from bad events. Bhopal and Chernobyl are two examples. The Chinese Milk Scandal stands in a line of disasters such as BSE in Britain that have re-oriented the regulatory map. Stakeholders and citizens have much to gain from learning the lessons of the milk scandal.

Tsoi Kwok Ho. / "September 2006." / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2006. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 139-169). / Electronic reproduction. Hong Kong : Chinese University of Hong Kong, [2012] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Abstracts in English and Chinese.