Boston University. University Professors Program Senior theses. / PLEASE NOTE: Boston University Libraries did not receive an Authorization To Manage form for this thesis. It is therefore not openly accessible, though it may be available by request. If you are the author or principal advisor of this work and would like to request open access for it, please contact us at open-help@bu.edu. Thank you. / 2031-01-02

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Research Project (M.A.) - Simon Fraser University, 2006. / Theses (Dept. of Political Science) / Simon Fraser University. Also issued in digital format and available on the World Wide Web.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--UCLA, 2009. / Vita. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 212-228).

The thesis examines policy making, especially in the shelter sector, from a different perspective: the impact of the macro-level political economy on the micro-level intervention. To establish this relationship more precisely, a conceptual framework which explores the effects of the role and nature of the state, foreign aid (USAID), and economic reform (IMF/World Bank) is utilised. This framework is deployed to investigate the interaction between these three key elements and how they affected shifts and changes in shelter policies in Egypt from the 1950s. By 1952 the government assumed a more central role in service provision with its socialist orientation. On the macro-political level, dramaticc hanges have taken place since then, but, in effect were not mirrored with adequatere form on the structural or organisational levels, with regards to tackling the shelter needs of the country. The core of the thesis explores, from the shelter sector perspective, the role of the state as an interest mediator throughout different periods. This reveals that the shelter sector always formed an important investment priority susceptible to both internal and external determinants. Internal determinants are related to domestic priorities influenced by changes in the social structure, class interests, and resource allocation. External determinants concern the role played by international agencies in promoting development models in which the shelter sector plays an often uncertain role, or direct political pressure as a part of geo-strategic concerns. The state's receptiveness and ability to mediate is constrained by the extent to which external agendas fit or conflict with the state's development ideology, perceptions of equity, social justice and stability. Using an inductive approach, the empirical evidence is drawn from interviews with key figures in policy making as well as independent observers. The thesis argues that in order to provide a refined understanding to the housing question it has to be put in its broader socio-economic and political context. Outcomes have generally been technocratic solutions to a problem that is largely structural in nature. The gap between the political and technocratic levels of policy making and implementation is a central theme in the study. The distinctive responses to the shelter question, from both levels, over four decades in Egypt, and under a highly complex and rapidly changing political environment are reflected in the outcomes. Perceptions, priorities and criteria driving decision making of key actors, and the state's central role in mediating between external and internal interests, as well as its own, were the main themes deployed in the investigation. The findings suggest that policy making is an outcome of the interaction among the needs of the state (especially the autocratic tendencies of the leadership, and the technocrats) and external forces which determine policies according to a different agenda (geo-political): outcomes, therefore, may not be generated by a conscious policy making process, but rather, directly, from political impact. The study also suggests that structural changes in development paradigms do not appear to be the main determinant of policy shifts. A combination of short-term and specific international objectives and national interests of the state appear to be more instrumental in policy shifts and modifications in approaches.

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Public debt incurred by developing countries has become an ardently debated issue in international relations. The competing interests of creditors and debtors, combined with the increasing necessity of advancing welfare worldwide, make it difficult to establish a workable scheme that provides adequate assistance to needy countries. Foreign aid is evidently part of the solution to development problems. However, conditions imposed by international lenders bring about certain discontents. / The World Bank's negative pledge clause forbids a public borrower from securing external debt that is preferential to that of the Bank. This covenant also includes several exceptions: short-term secured banking transactions and financing, through the transfer of state-owned assets, are allowed. Moreover, only in exceptional circumstances does the Bank waive the clause's application. Thus, in order to secure foreign debt, a borrowing government is usually forced to contract financing that falls within the covenant's exceptions. / This Paper analyzes the World Bank's negative pledge clause and compares it to the provisions used in commercial lending. It also reviews the historical tendencies and current trends with respect to sovereign borrowing, and concludes that the World Bank's negative pledge clause should be amended, in order to bring it closer to commercial practice. It is argued that the amendments proposed in this thesis will enhance the Bank's dual function and role as both a creditor and a development institution.

In 1999, the World Bank launched the K4D initiative as part of its new development agenda. The Bank also established itself as the global development knowledge bank suggesting that these moves would yield more pro-poor development results. This thesis examines the Bank’s knowledge ventures and contends that they are part of the apparatus of advancing the Bank’s neoliberal agenda. The governmentality approach is used to argue that the knowledge ventures are a move away from the direct and interventionist mechanisms of control prominent in the earlier development agenda, but at the same time, representative of new, more subtle and indirect mechanisms of control. Furthermore, a close investigation of the literature published in connection to the knowledge ventures and the practical projects created as part of these ventures, reveals that neoliberal policies traditionally promoted by the Bank feature prominently in the propaganda surrounding the Bank’s knowledge ventures.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Australian National University, 2003.