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.

America’s victory in World War II came from a number of successes such as production of war materiel, technological advances, and national mobilization on levels not seen before or since. America went into the war behind the Axis Powers both militarily and economically. The Great Depression had a devastating effect on merchant ship building in the United States during the 1930’s. In response, the U.S. Congress passed the Merchant Marine Act of 1936, which created the U.S. Maritime Commission whose mission was to modernize and build ships for the looming world war. Originally slated to build fifty ships a year for ten years as a part of the New Deal attack on a sagging economy, the Maritime Commission ended up building over 5,000 ships by the end of 1945. This paper examines the critical role of the civilian United States Merchant Marine in the struggle against the Japanese Empire.

Extratropical cyclones (ETCs) are a common feature of mid- and high-latitudes which, on a large scale, are a primary mechanism by which heat and moisture are transported from equator to pole. ETCs also exert a major impact at smaller scales. Communities along the western coast of Alaska face many types of impacts generated by the winds associated with ETCs, including storm surges, sea water intrusion into fresh water stores, and coastal erosion. Such “strong wind events”, which can occur independent of an ETC, can also generate hazardous sea states and associated impacts on shipping. With no roads, coastal Alaska relies heavily on marine and air transportation. Hazards posed to marine and air travel are often related to two main types of weather: wind and fog. Consultations with stakeholders in the marine transportation community have indicated more precisely specific aspects of poor weather, such as high wind events, that are problematic, including the idea that the periods between strong wind events, defined as lull periods, represent an important metric when planning travel between points of safe harbour. Three separate studies of storminess metrics in the North Pacific and Alaskan regions are presented. The first study presents both a comparison of two storm identification and tracking algorithms and an evaluation of the general characteristics of extratropical cyclones for the North Pacific as portrayed in two reanalyses. The second study applies a modified wind event identification algorithm to reanalysis data to evaluate the spatial climatological patterns of wind events in the circum-Arctic. The third study tests the statistical relationships and predictability of two measures of storm activity - cyclone track density (TDEN) and wind event frequency - in the North Pacific using teleconnection indices exhibiting local influence. The first study showed that the general patterns and trends of cyclone characteristics are similar between the two methods, though with increased values of cyclogenesis density, cyclolysis density, and track density when using the relative vorticity based method. A comparison between storm tracks for NCEP1 and the 56-member ensemble of the Twentieth Century Reanalysis v2 (20CR) shows distinct differences between the 20CR and NCEP1 mean climatology for main storminess indicators. The second study evaluated the spatial and temporal characteristics of wind events and introduced a novel indicator that characterizes periods of favorable weather between strong wind events that last 48-hours or longer, termed lull events. Lull periods were found to be an important consideration for northern marine operations – both economic and subsistence. Additionally, combinations of lull and wind event indicators, termed lull/storm winds (LSW), were analyzed and showed that preferred areas of wind events and lull events are not always spatially coherent. The third study tested the statistical relationships and predictability of two measures of storm activity - cyclone track density (TDEN) and wind event frequency - in the North Pacific using teleconnection indices with local influence for the winter period of 1950 - 2012. Two statistical modeling techniques are applied to evaluate linear and non-linear methods of prediction for the region. For both measures of storm activity, the North Pacific index, Niño 3.4 index, and the AO index were found to be the best predictors. Using a 23-year hindcast period (1980 – 2012), the region of highest wind event anomaly prediction skill is located in the western Bering Sea, with hindcast correlation values as high as +0.5 and root mean squared skill scores (RMSESS) 25% higher than climatology. Highest TDEN predictive skill from the 23-year hindcast is found in the southeast region of the North Pacific, near the California coastline, with correlation and RMSESS as high as +0.7 and 25 - 30%, respectively. / Graduate

In the northeast Pacific, salmon are an integral part of ecology, economics and culture. Nearshore areas, where juvenile salmon reside upon leaving their natal streams, are important habitat during a critical time where growth can determine overall survivorship. With the rise in human development in coastal areas, these valuable habitats are becoming increasingly modified, however, the ecological ramifications are not fully understood. This study focuses on two types of anthropogenic influence including shellfish aquaculture, which modifies intertidal areas by adding structures such as intertidal fencing and anti-predator nets, and plastic marine pollution in the form of microplastics. We beach seined at sites within an area extensively modified for shellfish aquaculture (Baynes Sound) to examine juvenile salmon abundance, condition, feeding intensity and prey at aquaculture and non-aquaculture areas. In addition, we also beach seined, and along the east coast of Vancouver Island to determine the incidence of microplastics in juvenile Chinook salmon and their nearshore environments. No significant differences were found between areas in the abundance, diets, condition or feeding intensity of juvenile Coho and Chinook. Chum had different prey and a higher condition and feeding intensity at aquaculture sites, suggesting that species such as Chum feeding on more benthic prey items have a higher probability of being impacted by shellfish aquaculture modifications and in this case we observed positive effects. Microplastic analysis showed juvenile Chinook salmon contained 1.15 1.41 (SD) microplastics per individual while water and sediment samples had 659.88 520.87 microplastics m-3 and 60.2 63.4 microplastics kg-1 dry weight, respectively. We found no differences in microplastic concentrations in juvenile Chinook and water samples among sites but observed significantly higher concentrations in sediment at our Deep Bay site compared to Nanaimo and Cowichan Bay. These differences may be due to site bathymetry and oceanographic differences facilitating settlement at the Deep Bay site and/or may be a result of differential plastic sources in the area including shellfish farming and a marina. Shellfish aquaculture had negligible or positive effects on juvenile salmon abundance, diet, condition and feeding intensity and Chinook microplastic concentrations were relatively low compared to literature values. Although fitness consequences and ecosystem-wide implications must be addressed in the future, it appears shellfish aquaculture and microplastics are not immediate threats to juvenile Pacific salmon along the east coast of Vancouver Island at this time. However, continued monitoring programs and larger-scale studies should be implemented as shoreline modification and plastic use continues to increase. / Graduate / 2017-08-14

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 paper is focused on an analysis of current regionalism in Asia-Pacific region and on evaluation of creation of relatively wide and relatively deep regional integration. Possible benefits of this integration concept can be exemplified by development of Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) whose member states have substantially different interests due to historic and socioeconomic reasons. However, ASEAN was able to overcome these different interests by a specific integration model which is based on mutual trust, consensual decision-making and gradual changes. As a result, natural suspicions were eliminated to some extent and member states were able to deepen their integration. Main powers in the region noticed its success and they began to strive to develop closer relations not only with ASEAN, but also with other regional powers through ASEAN structure.

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