This study examines how the uneven application of regulatory standards in oil exploration and extraction in Nigeria has exacerbated ethnic and class tensions and how the oil exploration activities have affected the individual and collective lives of the people in the Niger Delta region. Overall, the study links the individual and collective lives of Nigerians, particularly people in Obelle and Obagi communities to the political economy of global capital. Furthermore, the study explores how the expansion and activities of global capital necessarily create ethnic tension, class struggle, and gender inequality. In order to maintain the status quo, global capital creates structural inequalities that divide societies into hierarchies of the rich and the poor. The study also examines the strategies adopted by the people to ameliorate negative consequences of oil exploration in the communities.<p>In this study, the researcher posits that there is a relationship between the uneven application of international and national regulations in oil production by MNCs and environmental degradation as well as the negative effect on peoples live and means of livelihood, resulting in competition for scarce resources, which in turn have exacerbated ethnic conflict between and among communities. Consequently, the main questions addressed in the study focus on if, how, and why globalization, carried out through the activities of MNCs, affects ethnic tension, class struggle, and gender inequality. In order to address the questions, a critical ethnographic paradigm was used to explore and explain the processes of globalization that affect the peoples lives and means of livelihood. Since this studys focus is on a neglected population (Obelle and Obagi communities), a critical ethnographic paradigm was used to speak on behalf of the subjects as a means of empowering them by giving more authority to their voices. Consequently, this study has the possibility of not only speaking about the marginalization of the people of Obelle and Obagi communities and their livelihood but, also, speaking on their behalf in order to increase awareness of their present economic situation, aiming at the general improvement of their economic situation and quality of life. This study, therefore, provided the subjects an opportunity to articulate their economic problems and share their lived experiences in a region that has been devastated by the activities of oil MNCs. Data were collected and analyzed using both qualitative and quantitative methods. The specific methods used in data collection included in-depth interviews, questionnaires, and observation. Analysis of the data was done by employing a variety of methods that includes a combination of descriptive statistics based on cross-tabulation, analysis of themes that emerged from in-depth interviews, and Atlas.ti 5.0 qualitative analysis computer programme to show the relationship between variables that emerged from the study. The results obtained from the study support the hypothesis that the oil MNCs in Nigeria, in partnership with the Nigerian government, have engaged in a process of resource exploitation that has resulted in economic expropriation, political disenfranchisement, social dislocation, anomie and environmental devastation, of the people of the Niger Delta and Obagi/Obelle in particular.

On May tenth, 2004 Monsanto announced that it would discontinue breeding and field level research of transgenic Roundup Ready (RR) wheat. This decision was heavily influenced by the widespread rejection of RR wheat by Canadian prairie producers who voiced their opposition through a diverse coalition of rural and urban organizations. With six of the nine member organizations representing rural and farm groups, this research departs from the most common representation of anti-GM movements as being urban and European-centred. This dissertation contrasts the general acceptance of Monsanto’s Roundup Ready canola just five years earlier (in the mid 90s) with the widespread opposition amongst prairie producers to RR wheat. It uses an updated version of the agrarian question and the production of nature thesis to show how capitalist relations are differentiated across place and commodities. The research finds that producer resistance to RR wheat hinged on the specificities of local histories and institutions, cultural conceptions of worth and economic fair treatment, and the character of wheat as a commodity with particular biophysical properties. The research is also concerned with the ways in which producers articulated their resistance with and through discourses of consumption, while at the same time rejecting the attempts made by proponents of RR wheat to relegate them to consuming subjects, who would best register their dissent by voting with their dollars on the market. For many prairie farm organizations, the fate of the family farm is tied up with the future of wheat farming and the capacity of farmers to collectively market their wheat in international markets. Monsanto’s vision for the future of prairie wheat crossed moral and cultural boundaries for producers and organizations that understood themselves as active subjects.

This thesis groups three papers in applied microeconomic theory that focus on political economy and the economics of organisations. The first chapter studies the equilibrium outcomes of a dynamic game of electoral competition between two policy-motivated parties. I model incumbent policy persistence: parties commit to implement a policy for their full tenure in office, and hence in any election only the opposition party is free to choose a new platform. The model gives rise to novel equilibrium policy dynamics: governments alternate in power; parties compromise, that is, starting from differentiated ideological positions, they gradually move towards proposing platforms which resemble one another; however, they never capitulate, that is, party labels matter and parties maintain distinct policy goals. The second chapter studies a directed search model of competition between sellers that control the quality of buyers' private information about goods. As better informed buyers extract more informational rents from trade, sellers may try to attract buyers by offering better information. First, I establish how the characteristics of exogenously fixed sale mechanisms determine equilibrium information provision. Information provision is higher under competition than under monopoly, yet partial information is provided for many sale mechanisms. Second, when sellers commit to both information provision and mechanisms, I identify simple conditions under which every equilibrium has full information. In these equilibria, sellers capture the efficiency gains of information provision and compete only over non-distortionary rents offered to buyers. Retaining the option to develop a currently inactive project often requires maintaining specialised stocks of knowledge. However, standard models of experimentation treat the choice of one project over another as entailing only an implicit opportunity cost. In the third chapter, I characterise the optimal experimentation policy in a model in which undeveloped projects have explicit maintenance costs and can be irreversibly discarded. Projects which in the absence of maintenance costs would be developed only after more promising projects fail are sometimes developed first and then discarded early. Maintenance costs alter optimal project development by providing incentives to bring the option value of less promising projects forward.

This study examines how the uneven application of regulatory standards in oil exploration and extraction in Nigeria has exacerbated ethnic and class tensions and how the oil exploration activities have affected the individual and collective lives of the people in the Niger Delta region. Overall, the study links the individual and collective lives of Nigerians, particularly people in Obelle and Obagi communities to the political economy of global capital. Furthermore, the study explores how the expansion and activities of global capital necessarily create ethnic tension, class struggle, and gender inequality. In order to maintain the status quo, global capital creates structural inequalities that divide societies into hierarchies of the rich and the poor. The study also examines the strategies adopted by the people to ameliorate negative consequences of oil exploration in the communities.<p>In this study, the researcher posits that there is a relationship between the uneven application of international and national regulations in oil production by MNCs and environmental degradation as well as the negative effect on peoples live and means of livelihood, resulting in competition for scarce resources, which in turn have exacerbated ethnic conflict between and among communities. Consequently, the main questions addressed in the study focus on if, how, and why globalization, carried out through the activities of MNCs, affects ethnic tension, class struggle, and gender inequality. In order to address the questions, a critical ethnographic paradigm was used to explore and explain the processes of globalization that affect the peoples lives and means of livelihood. Since this studys focus is on a neglected population (Obelle and Obagi communities), a critical ethnographic paradigm was used to speak on behalf of the subjects as a means of empowering them by giving more authority to their voices. Consequently, this study has the possibility of not only speaking about the marginalization of the people of Obelle and Obagi communities and their livelihood but, also, speaking on their behalf in order to increase awareness of their present economic situation, aiming at the general improvement of their economic situation and quality of life. This study, therefore, provided the subjects an opportunity to articulate their economic problems and share their lived experiences in a region that has been devastated by the activities of oil MNCs. Data were collected and analyzed using both qualitative and quantitative methods. The specific methods used in data collection included in-depth interviews, questionnaires, and observation. Analysis of the data was done by employing a variety of methods that includes a combination of descriptive statistics based on cross-tabulation, analysis of themes that emerged from in-depth interviews, and Atlas.ti 5.0 qualitative analysis computer programme to show the relationship between variables that emerged from the study. The results obtained from the study support the hypothesis that the oil MNCs in Nigeria, in partnership with the Nigerian government, have engaged in a process of resource exploitation that has resulted in economic expropriation, political disenfranchisement, social dislocation, anomie and environmental devastation, of the people of the Niger Delta and Obagi/Obelle in particular.

This thesis examines the confluence between pan-Islamist politics, neo-liberalism and urban development in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina. After tracing a history of the Islamic revival in Bosnia, I examine the results of neo-liberal policy in post-war Bosnia, particularly regarding the promises of neo-liberal institutions and think tanks that privatization and inflows of foreign direct investment (FDI) would de-politicize the economy and strip ethno-religious nationalist elites of their power over state-owned firms. By analyzing three prominent new urban developments in Sarajevo, all financed by FDI from the Islamic world and brought about by the privatization of urban real-estate, I show how neo-liberal policy has had unintended outcomes in Sarajevo that contradict the assertions of policy makers. In examining urban change, I bring out the role played by the city in mediating between both elites and citizens, and between the seemingly contradictory projects of pan-Islamism and neo-liberalism.

This thesis examines the confluence between pan-Islamist politics, neo-liberalism and urban development in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina. After tracing a history of the Islamic revival in Bosnia, I examine the results of neo-liberal policy in post-war Bosnia, particularly regarding the promises of neo-liberal institutions and think tanks that privatization and inflows of foreign direct investment (FDI) would de-politicize the economy and strip ethno-religious nationalist elites of their power over state-owned firms. By analyzing three prominent new urban developments in Sarajevo, all financed by FDI from the Islamic world and brought about by the privatization of urban real-estate, I show how neo-liberal policy has had unintended outcomes in Sarajevo that contradict the assertions of policy makers. In examining urban change, I bring out the role played by the city in mediating between both elites and citizens, and between the seemingly contradictory projects of pan-Islamism and neo-liberalism.

The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between wealth, wealth inequality and health. The study has a cross-national focus and employs a political economy perspective, which addresses the macro-political determinants of health. The dissertation is comprised of two sets of analyses. In Part 1, logistic regression analyses confirm that wealth, whether measured as home ownership, the value of the home, or net worth, is a significant predictor of self-rated health in the United Kingdom, the United States, and Germany. The relationship between wealth and self-rated health is weakest in Germany. Case studies of the three countries indicate that this weaker relationship may be linked to more generous welfare state provisions in Germany. In Part 2, bivariate analyses reveal that wealth inequality, whether measured as the Gini coefficient or the share of wealth held by the richest 10% of the population, is related to poorer population health outcomes in developed countries. Both unweighted and weighted correlations are strong and significant, even after controlling for a variety of potential macro-level confounders. The results are strongest for female life expectancy and infant mortality. In-depth analysis of the countries with the most equitable distribution of wealth and the best health outcomes reveals several themes: high rates of home ownership, relatively generous pensions, stronger regulatory frameworks, taxation of wealth, increased social expenditures in recent years, and social cohesion. The results of this dissertation suggest that wealth is an axis of inequality that deserves far more attention from sociologists, particularly in relation to population health. Relying on income alone to describe inequality and form public policy is inadequate for understanding and addressing the economic and health circumstances of individuals and families. The inclusion of wealth in sociological studies of health disparities will result in a more accurate picture of social stratification, and will result in better informed social policy. Finally, the use of a political economy framework allows us to better understand, and potentially change, the political and economic processes through which the distribution of both wealth and health occurs.

Foreign policy analysis stands at the crossroads of different issues and academic disciplines, including political economy and international relations. In this study, the foreign policies of Greece and Spain are analysed in the period between 1945 and the early 1990s, in the context of the world-system approach in which foreign policy is considered a part of the interaction between a single world-economy and multiple political structures (nation states). In other words, this is a study of the political economy of foreign policy. The foreign policies of Greece and Spain are analysed in the context of the world and national levels of the organisation of power and production. In this general context, the two countries are defined as the interesting but debatable category of semiperiphery states in the world-system hierarchy of states. The analysis of Greece and Spain shows that the foreign policies of both countries were strongly affected by their semiperipheral development patterns during both the "expansion-hegemonic rise" and "contraction-hegemonic decline" periods of the world-economy. The study examines the relative impact of national and international structural factors, the distribution of wealth and power, the state, external and internal economic and power elites on the foreign policies of Greece and Spain. The examination demonstrates the effect of their semiperipheral status on their foreign policy. The main theoretical contention of the study is that the world-system analysis and the concept of "semiperiphery" provide a useful framework for the study of the political economy of the foreign policies of middle income countries.

The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between wealth, wealth inequality and health. The study has a cross-national focus and employs a political economy perspective, which addresses the macro-political determinants of health. The dissertation is comprised of two sets of analyses. In Part 1, logistic regression analyses confirm that wealth, whether measured as home ownership, the value of the home, or net worth, is a significant predictor of self-rated health in the United Kingdom, the United States, and Germany. The relationship between wealth and self-rated health is weakest in Germany. Case studies of the three countries indicate that this weaker relationship may be linked to more generous welfare state provisions in Germany. In Part 2, bivariate analyses reveal that wealth inequality, whether measured as the Gini coefficient or the share of wealth held by the richest 10% of the population, is related to poorer population health outcomes in developed countries. Both unweighted and weighted correlations are strong and significant, even after controlling for a variety of potential macro-level confounders. The results are strongest for female life expectancy and infant mortality. In-depth analysis of the countries with the most equitable distribution of wealth and the best health outcomes reveals several themes: high rates of home ownership, relatively generous pensions, stronger regulatory frameworks, taxation of wealth, increased social expenditures in recent years, and social cohesion. The results of this dissertation suggest that wealth is an axis of inequality that deserves far more attention from sociologists, particularly in relation to population health. Relying on income alone to describe inequality and form public policy is inadequate for understanding and addressing the economic and health circumstances of individuals and families. The inclusion of wealth in sociological studies of health disparities will result in a more accurate picture of social stratification, and will result in better informed social policy. Finally, the use of a political economy framework allows us to better understand, and potentially change, the political and economic processes through which the distribution of both wealth and health occurs.

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