D. Litt. et Phil / The study focuses on the role of social capital in socio-economic development in developing political economies. While the concept of social capital originated as a sociological construct focusing on social relations, the theoretical debate has recently developed towards a grounding in political science, political development and political economy. Despite these advancements, a universally accepted definition has not been arrived at. However, there is consensus regarding the elements of social capital, which include norms, networks, institutions, relationships, civic engagement, membership of voluntary associations, trust, reciprocity and altruism. Dimensions of social capital include the structural and the cognitive, and types include bonding, bridging and linking social capital. This study examines the role of linking social capital, specifically in facilitating the relationship between state and society, aimed at mutual benefit. Social capital is regarded as a resource, particularly in communities with limited or no access to other, more traditional forms of capital. Operationalisation of social capital is examined by means of a comparative and analytical review of existing indexes, case studies and surveys. In this regard, initiatives in both developed and developing political economies are examined. The study emphasises the multi-disciplinary nature of social capital and propagates its value in socio-economic development. Empirical data that confirm the relationship between social capital and economic growth are presented. Initiatives to contribute to the development of conceptual frameworks and to increase and improve qualitative data are assessed, in order to determine the contribution of social capital to socio-economic development. In this regard, particular emphasis is placed on the important contribution of the World Bank’s Social Capital Initiative. The literature emphasises the interdependence of politics and economy and the study highlights the need for a political economy approach to socio-economic development. In this regard, the development initiatives of various multi-lateral development agencies are examined. The focus is on the current trend to follow a political economy approach to country strategies, programmes and projects aimed at achieving socio-economic development. The study concludes that social capital is a valuable element in this regard and argues that political economy analysis tools are well placed to integrate social capital in a multi-disciplinary approach to address poverty and socio-economic development challenges.

In sub-Saharan African countries that have made democratic transition from military rule and military-backed authoritarian regimes, state elites have embarked upon strategies aimed at demilitarising the new democratic political process. Demilitarisation of the state and politics has become an imperative because it is decisive for consolidating democratic politics and for ensuring improvements in public safety and security. Yet the process of such demilitarisation in these countries has often generated a paradox, whereby the reduction of the political influence of state institutions of violence has been associatedw ith rising civil militarism and the prevalenceo f organised violence in the wider society. In these circumstances, taking cognisance of the dangers of civil militarism and other forms of private violence is a priority for designing and implementing demilitarisation strategies and other security reforms in post-authoritarian African states. Reformminded political elites and external supporters need to be sensitive to these dangers or risk perpetuating the shell of electoral democracy that cannot deliver the goal of human security in the region. This dissertation explored how the current approach to demilitarisation is related to the problem of civil militarism by examining the case studies of Nigeria and South Africa. It explains that given the condition of the state in Africa, demilitarisation of politics after transition from military or military-backed authoritarianism contributes to the emergence of civil militarism. Based on this finding, it argues for a comprehensive approach to demilitarisation as a strategy that caters to both state and societal violence in order to mitigate the risks of civil militarism in the process.

A fundamental question to both historians and development economists is why countries today are able to reach and maintain such starkly different economic outcomes. Popular explanations include geographic and climatological features, short-term policy decisions, and economic institutions. This paper looks at the importance of violence and social pressure in the transformation and conservation of political and economic institutions in Russia. It finds that several major historical legacies including serfdom, Mongol dominance, Orthodoxy, and authoritarianism significantly influence both the past a present institutional setting. Furthermore, such legacies have proven to be major obstructions to the emergence of economic liberalism.

Announced in 2013, the One Belt One Road(OBOR) Initiative is considered the most important geopolitical development strategy of the 21st-century in the country. The Chinese government aims to promote trade and investment with more than 63 OBOR countries. In this paper, I analyze the impact of One Belt One Road Initiative on China’s foreign direct investment for a period of 2003-2015 with a country level panel data. Other determinants frequently used in the FDI literature such as market size, geographical distance, resources, trading effects and political risks are also considered in the model. The empirical results show that OBOR policy is positively associated with China’s outward FDI flow. I believe the research result indicates a policy related trend for Chinese firms’ overseas investments.

This paper examines one of the most controversial items of the new GOP tax bill, the Mortgage Interest Deduction. The paper seeks to identify which groups would feel the greatest financial burden if the deduction is limited in the future tax code. The author identifies potential declines in mortgage interest rates and expensive home values as two key motivations behind the lobbying efforts for this deduction to remain untouched. Using data on mortgages originating in 2016, the author estimates a decline in mortgage interest rates between .039 and .043 percent for every $1,000 borrowed above the 2016 MID limits for taxpayers. The paper then goes on to discuss interest rate volatility implications for Mortgage Servicing Assets. The paper ends with a discussion on the downward pressure the new tax reform may have on expensive home values.

Cette thèse aborde la question de l’influence des ONG environnementales à l’aide de l’analyse économique. Elle étudie des situations dans lesquelles ces organisations interagissent avec d’autres acteurs dans le but d’influencer leurs décisions. Un premier chapitre s’intéresse à la concurrence entre différentes ONG pour obtenir le soutien de la population et l’attention du régulateur. Un deuxième chapitre étudie la relation entre activité des ONG et leurs couverture médiatique. Il met en avant les mécanismes de concurrence entre médias qui aboutissent sur différentes stratégies de couverture médiatique des activités des ONG suivant les médias. Le dernier chapitre porte sur la mobilisation d’activistes contre un projet public présentant des externalités environnementales. / This thesis focuses on the influence of green NGOs. It studies situations where theses organisations interact with other actors and try to change their behavior. The first chapter looks at the competition between several NGOs in order to get the attention both the population and the governement. The second chapter studies the relation between the NGO activities and their media coverage. It focuses on the media market forces which lead to differences in coverage of NGO activities. The third chapter focuses on activits mobilization against a public project with environmental externalities

This thesis focuses on a key component of societal relations, namely the creation and exploitation of economic leverage. It explores how, in the context of protracted territorial conflicts, relevant actors craft it and use it. Finally, it examines to what ends economic leverage is exploited, if at all. Generally, economic leverage can translate into a considerable form of power. This thesis scrutinizes how this occurs in more specific contexts post-ceasefire agreement conflict protraction, and what the finalities of the actors concerned are. It does so by focusing on a number of relevant actors, and by treating conflict protraction as the specific context in which economic power is exploited. Two cases are examined, namely those of the South Ossetian and the Abkhaz protracted conflicts. This thesis does not focus on the historical conditions and political events that caused the separatist conflicts in Georgia, but on their consequences and on the periods following the ceasefire agreements (signed respectively in 1992 and 1993), which came to a close with the Russo-Georgian war over South Ossetia in August 2008. / Doctorat en Sciences politiques et sociales / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

This thesis elaborates a decolonial international political economy (IPE) as a means of examining the condition of market emergence in Indonesia. It presents the term ‘emerging market’ as the contemporary organising grammar which positions Indonesia in relation to international capital flows. This condition of market emergence is further understood in historical colonial perspective as the latest mode of producing Indonesia as an investible site for international capital. My expansion of decolonial IPE is made in this thesis through the analysis of difference-based ‘exclusion’ and ‘translation’, both as vital elements of coloniality and as processes which relate to accumulation and dispossession in an ‘emerging market’ context. I go on to make the case for bringing urban and rural terminable sites of extraction into the same frame of analysis. These are understood similarly here as internal frontiers along which social groups are materially and discursively excluded from the national emerging market project and thus rendered expropriatable. I further analyse the repeated dispossession of these expropriatable groups along with other means of enacting ‘translations’, or enforced alterations in ways of being. These translations are by no means passively accepted and my analysis further demonstrates various means by which these are negotiated and contested. This thesis therefore makes contributions to the literature on decolonial thought and IPE, at the same time as presenting an original examination of Indonesia in its present moment of market emergence. / Doctorat en Sciences politiques et sociales / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

La thèse présentée s'inscrit dans une période de crise économique, qui affecte tout particulièrement les institutions européennes. A l'aide de données récentes, nous tentons de cerner des continuités ou ruptures dans la perception que les citoyens ont de l'intégration européenne. Nous utilisons de nouvelles sources pour effectuer nos travaux et travaillons sur la variable dépendante afin de cibler un aspect précis du soutien à l'intégration dans chaque chapitre. Sur le plan théorique, nos travaux confirment que quelle que soit la variable dépendante choisie et la méthode utilisée, il existe une masse d'individus favorables à l'Union européenne, et les autres, qui semblent plutôt indécis. Ce clivage entre deux populations s'explique très largement par les déterminants socioéconomiques. Les individus les plu: aisés et les plus qualifiés se montrent nettement plus favorables à l'intégration européenne dans chacune des dimensions étudiées. En dehors de ce résultat bien connu de la littérature, de nombreuses limites aux explications fondées sur des variables économiques sont mises en lumière dans cette thèse. Dans le premier chapitre nous montrons que, pour distinguer les individus hostiles à l'intégration des individus indécis, il est indispensable de prendre en compte l'offre politique nationale. Le deuxième chapitre met en évidence le fait que les variables économiques n'expliquent que faiblement le soutien "affectif" c'est-à-dire le soutien diffus et stable dans le temps dont l'Union européenne a besoin pour exister et avancer. Enfin, dans le dernier chapitre, nous constatons que les variables économiques expliquent mal la dimension territorial des préférences politiques. / The present dissertation uses recent data to identify continuities and ruptures in the perception of the European Union held by European citizens. We especially question the extent to which economic drivers shape public support for the European Union. New data sources are used to carry out the empirical analysis in our study. The dependant variables in each chapters are designed to identify precise aspects o public support. From a theoretical perspective, our findings confirm that regardless of the dependent variable and the method used, a sizeable majority of EU citizens are supportive of the EU, while the other half of the European population appears as uncertain. This broa cleavage is explained to a large extend by socioeconomic determinants. Highly skilled respondents with high incomes display more pro­EU attitudes in each of the dimensions of public support considered in the empirical analysis. Alongside this result, which is already well­known in the literature, the present dissertation emphasizes several limitations to the explanatory power of economic variables. ln the first chapter, we show that, to distinguish between individuals hostile to the idea of European integration and those who are only uncertain (or ambivalent), the domestic political offer should be taken into account. Chapter two highlights the fact that economic variables do not explain affective support i.e. diffuse support, stable over time which is crucial to the legitimacy of European institutions and to ensure the continuity of the EU. Finally, in the last chapter, it appears that the theoretical frameworks applied to former member states cannot be applied to new member states.

Cette thèse analyse la fabrication de la décision publique à partir de la politique d’armement de la France de la fin de la Seconde Guerre mondiale au milieu des années 2010. Cet objet d’étude est interrogé par la problématique des trois « variétés » de la décision. Chaque « variété » des décisions prises par la France est située à une échelle d’action publique distincte : nationale, européenne et mondiale. Pourquoi la France choisit-elle d’agir simultanément dans le cadre national et de collaborer avec des acteurs internationaux en Europe et dans le monde pour acquérir du matériel de guerre ? Pour y répondre, un modèle explicatif « configurationnel » est mobilisé selon lequel l’interdépendance sociale génère un effet politique. Ce modèle explicatif est élaboré à deux niveaux. Au niveau local de l’action, l’établissement d’une « pratique » spécifique (l’autarcie, la coopération ou l’importation) conditionne le choix de la France d’acquérir un armement d’une des trois variétés de la décision. Au niveau général de la théorie, un type de « configuration » (« amalgamée », « désencastrée » ou « inclusive ») explique l’établissement de ladite pratique. Le mécanisme causal configurationnel n’est pas considéré comme la variable explicative des trois variétés de la décision mais comme une condition explicative parmi d’autres. Pour vérifier empiriquement la validité de ce mécanisme explicatif, 161 entretiens semi-directifs ont été réalisés et deux méthodes sont utilisées : le « practice tracing » et la comparaison de trois cas d’étude « les plus similaires », l’avion de combat français Rafale, l’avion de transport multinational A400M et le drone militaire américain Reaper. / This thesis analyzes decision-making within the French defense procurement sector from the end of the Second World to the present. The study examines the puzzle of three ‘varieties’ of decision evidenced within the armaments industry during this period. Each variety of decision is instantiated in a separate public sphere: national, regional and international. Why has France made procurement decisions at the national level and collaborated with international actors, both in Europe and globally, to acquire war materiel? In response, a "configurational" model is presented that posits that the varying degree of social interdependence to be found within this sector generates different decision outcomes. This explanatory model is developed at two levels. On a practical level, the establishment of a particular procurement ‘practice’ (autarky, cooperation or importation) conditions whether or not France acquires weapons at the national, regional or international level. On a general theoretical level, the type of ‘configuration’ (‘amalgamated’, ‘disembedded’ or ‘inclusive’) explains the formation of that practice. The configurational causal mechanism is not considered the independent explanatory variable of the three varieties of decision but rather an explanatory condition, among others. To empirically test the validity of this explanatory mechanism, 161 semi-structured interviews were conducted and two methods are used: ‘practice tracing’, a type of process tracing, and a ‘most-similar’ case comparison of three separate acquisitions – the French combat aircraft Rafale, the multinational transportation aircraft A400M and the American Reaper drone.