This thesis examines the expansion of private maritime security provision, its regulation and implications for national and global security. The main research question addressed is: How are private maritime security companies (PMSCs) regulated in the context of the contemporary trend towards international security privatisation? However, further questions stem from this: Is the complex framework of the PMSCs’ business model adequately regulated? To what extent could the existing practices and regulatory framework affect international security in governance and policy, strategic, social and commercial terms? Qualitative research methods were used, strongly supported by empirical data collection – available due to extensive professional experience and personal engagement of the author with the private maritime security industry. Using a case study of PMSCs’ operations off Somalia from 2005-2013, and a plethora of selected data from primary sources and semi-structured interviews, the paper argues that there is need for more effective regulation of PMSCs and the establishment of international standards. Following an analysis of the current conceptual framework of private security, focussing particularly on maritime security, in the context of contemporary academic literature and professional practice, the paper provides a detailed theoretical justification for the selection of the methodology used. After broadening and deepening the analysis of the privatisation of security ashore, the concerns raised are then transferred to the maritime domain. The situation becomes even more complicated in the high seas due to inconsistencies between flag states’ regulations, the unregulated vastness of the oceans and the reluctance of any international body (such as the IMO) to undertake the essential task of regulating PMSCs. Building on this, an analytical framework that enables the integration of maritime security and contemporary piracy into the contemporary paradigm of global security is developed. An historical overview of piracy then demonstrates that modern piracy is an ancient phenomenon with contemporary local characteristics. The maritime crime’s causal factors remain more or less the same throughout human history and, the paper argues, PMSCs serve as a short term response to address the symptoms rather than the root causes. Given that PMSCs have so far been used primarily as measures against Somali piracy, activities in this specific region provide an appropriate case study. The development of a typology of piracy offers a deeper understanding of the regional distinctiveness of the phenomenon, which is essential to acquiring a holistic picture of the operational environment in which PMSCs are deployed. The above considerations are used as a basis for analysing the complexities of the PMSCs’ business model, in legal, operational and ethical terms. The questionable practices involved in these are not fully regulated by national states. Hence, their contract and deployment raise ethical, legal and operational concerns. In the penultimate chapter, these are further assessed in terms of the extent to which the existing regulatory framework and PMSCs’ practices affect international security in governance and policy, strategic, social and commercial terms. The research indicates that states are increasingly outsourcing the monopoly they have exercised in security provision - a trend that has also expanded the private sector’s activities and business at sea. However, the lack of international laws and the consequent unstandardized plethora of flag states’ regulations has meant that the burgeoning private security services are dependent on the global market to regulate themselves. States’ reluctance and/or inability to regulate these companies has allowed controversial practices to persist and the lack of an international body responsible for their regulation and vetting on a worldwide basis has inevitable consequences in terms of global security. The overall outcome of this thesis is an elucidation of the potential implications of the privatisation of maritime security - both positive and negative. Most significantly, it suggests this could present a significant threat to international security in the near future.

This dissertation contributes to the long-standing debate between those who argue that the enclosure of the commons was as a precondition to foster economic growth and those who defend common property regimes can be efficient and sustainable. Exploiting historical evidence from 19^th century and early 20^th century Spain, this research shows that the persistence of the commons in some Spanish regions was not detrimental to economic development, at least relative to the institutional arrangements they were replaced with. On the contrary, during the early stages of modern economic growth, the communal regime not only did not limit agricultural productivity growth, but indeed constituted a crucial part of the functioning of the rural economics in a number of ways. On the one hand, these collective resources complemented rural incomes and, subsequently, sustained households' consumption capacity. The reduction in life expectancy and heights in the provinces where privatisation was more intense, as well as the negative effect on literacy levels, strongly supports that the privatisation of the commons deteriorated the living standards of a relatively large part of the population. On the other hand, the communal regime also significantly contributed to financing the municipal budget. Deprived from this important source of revenue, local councils became unable to adequately fund local public goods and ended up increasing local taxes. Lastly, the social networks developed around the use and management of these collective resources facilitated the diffusion of information and the building of mutual knowledge and trust, thus constituting a vital ingredient of the social glue that hold these rural communities together. All things considered, the persistence of the commons in some regions provided peasants with cooperation mechanisms different from the market and made the transition to modern economic growth more socially sustainable.

Mémoire numérisé par la Direction des bibliothèques de l'Université de Montréal.

Dans la plupart des pays en voie de développement, l'un des défis majeurs à révéler par les pouvoirs publics demeure la couverture des besoins des populations en services sociaux de base (Eau potable, Électricité, Infrastructure d'assainissement, etc.). A Bamako, les problématiques liées à ces services se posent avec beaucoup plus d'acuité que la ville connaît un des taux de croissance démographique et spatiale les plus importants du continent (3,5%) . Malheureusement, cet étalement n'a pu être accompagné par un développement proportionnel des infrastructures adéquates à cause de la faiblesse des ressources de l'Etat. Les difficultés énormes rencontrées par ces pays dans ce domaine ont amené la communauté internationale à initier les OMD. Au Mali, comme partout ailleurs, un impressionnant arsenal institutionnel et juridique a été mis en place à cet effet (PNAEP, Code de l'eau, PNE, PNA, etc.). Grâce à ce dispositif, même si beaucoup reste encore à faire dans le domaine de l'assainissement, les objectifs seront atteints dans le domaine de l'eau. Et pour une meilleure efficacité de la société de distribution de l'eau potable, l'Etat malien a ouvert son capital aux investisseurs privés. Après une expérience de 5 années de partenariat public-privé, marquée par un environnement économique mondial difficile et un contexte sociopolitique complexe, le bilan est diversement apprécié. Bamako et plusieurs autres centres urbains restent partiellement privés d'eau potable. Pour pallier cette présence insuffisante de l'Etat, aussi bien dans le domaine de l'eau potable que de l'assainissement liquide, des initiatives locales se sont développées à travers toute la ville de Bamako. / In the majority of developing countries, one of the major challenges the authorities have to take up is to provide the populations' basic social services needs (drinking water, electricity, cleaning-up infrastructure, etc.). In Bamako, the set of problems linked to these services comes with more severity, as the city has one of the most significant population and spatial growth rate of the African continent (3.5%)1. Unfortunately, this spreading out of Bamako did not go with a proportional development of adequate infrastructures, due to the weakness of the resources the State has. The huge difficulties encountered by these countries in this field led the international community to initiate the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). In Mali, like everywhere else, an impressive array of institutional instruments and legal arsenal has been enacted for this purpose (the National Drinking Water Access Plan, the Water Code, the National Environmental Policy, the National Sanitation Policy, etc.). Through this mechanism, the goals will be achieved in the area of water, though there is still much to be done in the area of sanitation. In order to ensure a better effectiveness of the drinking water supply company, the Malian government has even opened it up to private investors. After an experience of 5 year public-private partnership, characterized by a tough global economic environment and a complex socio-political context, assessments of the results achieved vary greatly. Bamako and many other urban centers partially remain without drinking water.

This paper focuses on the link between economic context and legislation. In 1992, an extensivemarket led reform on Swedish elementary school made it possible for corporations and othernon-governmental foundations to run schools with funds from taxes. Meanwhile, Swedensuffered from a severe recession. This paper seeks to analyse the role of the economic crisis inthe debate regarding this reform. The object of analysis is editorials in two major newspapers,government bills and excerpts from parliament debate, and the theoretical framework is acombination of Karl Polanyi’s commodification theory and Christopher Hood’s New PublicManagement definition. The results show a diversity in the use of economic arguments,depending on political position and source. Explicit justification of the reform – where therecession make a major argument – have been found foremost in government bills.

After the fall of the Berlin Wall, the area of the former German Democratic Republic (GDR) experienced a short economic and politic transformation that resulted in reunification with the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG). The original optimistic expectations of a fast and significant catching-up effect, however, soon disappeared. Even if enormously supported by West Germany, twenty years after German reunification the region has not achieved much better economic advance than the economically most successful countries in the middle and eastern part of Europe. The paper analyses the real state of the eastern German economy and its development in the last 20 years using three basic problem areas: industrial base, migration streams from the eastern to the western part of Germany and the labour market. During the course of the last 20 years, these areas has belonged to the most visible economic problems of the eastern part of Germany.

Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) has emerged as the premier policy instrument to redress the socio-economic inequalities created by the apartheid system in South Africa. BEE has evolved from a rudimentary concept that was casually coined outside government in the 1990s to being the policy instrument du jour of the post 1994 democratic dispensation. BEE has received critical attention culminating in its institutionalization through a BEE Council, an Act of Parliament, and a policy framework to facilitate its implementation. The institutionalization of this concept across government policy and practice settings, including, in particular, the government’s drive to restructure its enterprises, has accentuated BEE’s important role in the government’s reconstruction and development agenda. However, the evolution of BEE has not been a smooth journey. Its capacity and direction to respond to dire socio-economic demands has raised a deluge of questions and remarks, often negative, from many fronts. The purpose of this study is to critically examine the extent to which BEE produces the targeted results through its implementation via the restructuring of state owned enterprises (SOEs). What is also of significance is that the restructuring of SOEs and the implementation of BEE is occurring against a backdrop of a conspicuous neo-liberal drive. Whilst setting the scene with a theoretical background to the South African economy before and after 1994, the practical focus of this study is limited to the implementation of BEE using Eskom, an SOE, as a case study. Just as this study indicates a successful implementation of BEE through Eskom, questions remain as to how much widespread the benefits have been amongst the targeted previously marginalized black majority.

Available empirical data relating to quality generally and the application of quality assurance principles to language education at tertiary-level are scanty. This study explores how higher education institutions in Ghana apply QA mechanisms to enhance the teaching and learning of English for Academic Purposes. It examines how institutional contexts and cultures of the four case study institutions impact their QA processes. First, the rhetorical tensions and the apparent lack of consensus on the definition of the term “quality” are acknowledged alongside the enviable status of English as a “global lingua franca”; the relevance and pervasiveness of the EAP discipline in tertiary educational circles within and without Ghana and the resultant need for quality assurance and enhancement in its teaching and learning. One particular component of quality in higher education: the need for ensuring that programmes and services are fit for the purpose for which they were designed, and that the “clients” (students) are getting value for their money serves as the focus of the empirical research. The QA dimension of the research attempts to answer the question of whether students provide written feedback on their teaching and whether this is acted upon by the case study institutions in order to improve the EAP course. A combination of qualitative, quantitative, mixed-method approaches and documentary research is adopted to provide the framework for exploring QA and quality issues at each of the institutions involved in this study. The study first considers the quality challenges of higher education in Sub-Saharan Africa and Ghana within the context of policy. Subsequently, the unique features of each case study institution are quantified. To enhance the depth of understanding so as to establish each case study institution’s QA mechanisms and processes for enhancing EAP teaching and learning, a comparative/multiple case study approach is adopted. The blend of methods facilitated exploring the issues and the drawing of conclusions as the strengths of each complements the other. The assessment of QA practices used in the teaching and learning of EAP in the case institutions revealed a number of interesting similarities and differences in terms of institutional context, quality culture, quality assurance mechanisms, pedagogy, and curriculum designs. Based on these findings, suggestions for EAP teaching quality enhancement in the case study institutions are subsequently made. Unique practices identified in the institutions are recommended for replication in other tertiary educational institutions. Suggestions for further and future research are also made followed by a brief account of the author’s professional and personal development during the DBA programme.

Background: In this dissertation I examine the political economy of the post-socialist mortality crisis as experienced in deindustrialising towns in Hungary. I develop and apply a relational political economy of health framework, putting emphasis on the economic institutions of post-socialist dependent capitalism in Hungary, as embedded in the semi-periphery of the global economy, their gendered implications and their cultural construction. Methods: I follow a mixed-method strategy combining quantitative and qualitative analyses. I rely on a novel dataset comprising data on settlement, enterprise, and individual levels. 260 companies and 52 towns were analysed in two waves. I group towns into severely and moderately deindustrialised categories (1989-1995); as well as into dominant state, domestic private and foreign ownership dominated categories (1995-2004). Population surveys in these towns collected data on the vital status and other characteristics of survey respondents' relatives. I assess the relationship between deindustrialisation, dominant ownership and the mortality of individuals by random intercept multilevel discrete-time survival modelling. I also investigate the health implications of the lived experience of economic transformation in four towns with diverging privatisation and deindustrialisation histories through a qualitative thematic analysis of 82 in-depth semi-structured interviews. Findings: Severe deindustrialisation is associated with a significantly larger odds of mortality for men between 1989 and 1995 (OR=1.12; 95%CI=1.00-1.26; p=0.042). On the other hand, prolonged state ownership is related to a significantly lower odds of dying among women, compared to towns dominated by domestic private ownership (OR=0.74; 95%CI=0.62-0.90; p=0.002) or towns dominated by foreign investment (OR=0.79; 95%CI=0.65-0.96; p=0.019) between 1995 and 2004. The multi-sited semi-structured qualitative interviews revealed that companies are central institutions in the cognitive maps of workers and that the fates of these companies affected the health of workers in multiple ways, whereas state involvement was perceived as a cushioning mechanism. Interpretation: Severe deindustrialisation was a crucial factor behind the post-socialist mortality crisis for men, whilst prolonged state ownership was associated with the protection of life chances for women. The indirect economic benefits of foreign investment do not translate automatically into better health. Rapid economic transformations threaten health; they should be avoided where possible, but if this is not possible, strong safety nets should be in place.

Pour assurer ses missions les États ont besoin de prélever l’impôt afin de s’assurer des ressources. Lacaractéristique des États en développement est, en matière de Finances Publiques, d’avoir des recettesbasées essentiellement sur les taxes prélevées en frontière sur les marchandises. Malheureusement dansces pays là, l’efficacité des Organisations Douanières est rarement au rendez-vous, notamment du faitd’une corruption très importante parmi les douaniers.Aussi les Organisations Internationales recommandent une privatisation partielle des missions afind’améliorer les recettes. Les sociétés privées se sont spécialisées dans cette forme de recouvrement etainsi la plupart des pays africains ont recours à l’une ou l’autre des sociétés dites de " pré-inspection ".Après des années de pratique peut-on évaluer l’efficience de cette privatisation ? L’exemple de la RCAest particulièrement pertinent pour étudier cela puisque d’une part ce pays a poussé la privatisation àl’ensemble des missions douanières, ce qui est unique au monde et d’autre part la situation actuelle de cepetit pays découle au moins en partie de l’absence d’une administration des douanes solide.Dans l’écroulement des structures administratives de ce pays, assisté depuis sa création par toutesles Organisations Internationales, ces dernières, sont-elles exemptes de reproches ? / STATES collect revenue from taxes to provide necessary financial resources to the accomplishmentof their missions. Developing states have a common characteristic namely to collect revenue mainly onimported goods. Unfortunately customs administrations of these countries are generally inefficient due toa very high level of corruption of their personnel.Faced to this situation, internationals organisations advised to outsource some of the customs func-tions in order to improve the collection of revenue. Private companies developed new activities in thisarea and today most African countries have contracted out one or several of these companies usuallycalled preshipment inspection companies. After several years is it feasable to assess the efficiency of thatoutsourcing ? CAR is an excellent and pertinent study case to perform this assessment. On one hand,this country has outsourced all of the customs fonctions, which is a unique exemple in the world. Onthe other hand, there is a strong link between the existing situation of this country and the lack of anefficient customs administration.Can we blame these international organisations, which have assisted CAR since it’s creation, for thecollapse of the administrative structures of this country ?