Sverige kan inom kort komma att stå inför sitt största och mest kostsamma byggprojekt genom tiderna - en höghastighetsjärnväg med målet att sammankoppla landets tre största städer. Höghastighetsjärnvägen kommer med säkerhet att ha stor inverkan på den fysiska miljön och på förutsättningarna för fortsatt tillväxt - både i regionerna som kommer innefattas i systemet och i regionerna som utelämnas. Denna uppsats belyser beslutsprocessen inom Sverigeförhandlingen, den förhandlingsprocess med bl.a. kommuner på vilken framtida politiska beslut ska baseras.Genom en djupgående dokumentstudie och flertalet intervjuer med processens nyckelaktörervisar denna uppsats att många av de argument som framhärdas av projektets tillskyndare är svåra att belägga. Mest problematisk framstår sättet på vilket de negligerar uppenbara spänningar som projektet sannolikt kommer resultera i - framförallt spänningar avseende förhållandet mellan nationell tillväxt och tilltagande geografisk polarisering. Vår studie understryker behovet av tydliga målsättningar i infrastrukturplaneringen för att kunna fastslå vilka åtgärder som har förutsättningar att generera de största samhälleliga nyttorna. Den typen av tydliga och transparenta målsättningar är någonting vi hävdar att Sverigeförhandlingen har misslyckats med att ställa upp. / Sweden is potentially facing its largest infrastructure project in modern days - a high-speed railway with the main goal of connecting the nation’s three largest cities. The high-speed railway is likely to have a great impact on the physical environment and on the precondition for continued growth - both in the regions which will be included in the railway system, and the regions that will not. This thesis sheds light on the process of decision making within Sverigeförhandlingen, a negotiation process with local governments on which future national political decisions will be based.Through a profound literature review and several interviews with key actors involved in theprocess, this thesis proves that many of the arguments used by the project’s advocates are difficult to substantiate. Most problematic seems to be the way in which they neglect obvious tensions that the project is likely to result in - especially tensions concerning the relationship between national growth and increased geographic polarization. Our study emphasizes the need for distinct goals in infrastructure planning in order to ascertain which measures generate the greatest societal benefits. This is something we argue that Sverigeförhandlingen has failed to do.

Diese Doktorarbeit trägt durch eine Analyse der chinesischen Landgenossenschaften zum Verständnis von Politik und Prozessen im Ko-Management natürlicher Ressourcen bei. Im Mittelpunkt dieser Arbeit steht die Frage wie der lokale Kontext und Haushaltscharakteristika mit der Implementierung von Landgenossenschaften interagieren. Ich adressiere diese Frage in drei empirischen Forschungsartikeln. Im ersten Artikel untersuchen ich die Wirkung verschiedener lokaler Kontextvariablen in verschiedenen Dörfern auf den Anteil der Landflächen, der von einer Landgenossenschaft verwaltet wird. Es wird gezeigt, wenn lokale Eliten, wie Regierungsbeamte, Dorfkader oder gebildete Menschen, Genossenschaftsvorsitzende sind, ist der Anteil von Land, der an die Genossenschaft übertragen wird, deutlich größer. Im zweiten Artikel wenden ich uns der Haushaltsebene zu und untersuchen Bestimmungsfaktoren der Mitgliedschaft in einer Genossenschaft und die Auswirkungen der Mitgliedschaft auf die Allokation der verfügbaren Arbeitskraft. Ich stelle keinen allgemeinen Effekt von Genossenschaftsmitgliedschaft auf die Wahrscheinlichkeit der außerlandwirtschaftlichen Berufstätigkeit des Haushaltsvorstandes fest. Im dritten Artikel analysieren ich, wir den Zusammenhang zwischen Partizipation in Entscheidungsprozessen und Haushaltseinkommen aus Landgenossenschaften. Ich zeige, wohlhabendere Mitglieder und solche mit Mitgliedschaft in der kommunistischen Partei haben eine höhere Wahrscheinlichkeit an Entscheidungsprozessen teilzunehmen. Genossenschaftsmitglieder weniger von ihrer Mitgliedschaft profitieren, wenn sie nicht in Entscheidungsprozesse involviert sind. Zusammenfassend zeigt diese Dissertation, dass der lokale Kontext einen Unterschied in der Implementierung von Landgenossenschaften macht. Um die Genossenschaften zu fördern sollten politische Entscheidungsträger die Heterogenität der lokalen Bevölkerung. / This thesis contributes to the understanding of politics and processes in the co-management of natural resources through an analysis of Chinese land cooperatives. The focus of this work is the question of how local context and household characteristics interact with the implementation of land cooperatives. I address this question in three empirical research articles. In the first article, I examine the effect of different local context variables in different villages on the share of land area managed by a rural cooperative. It is shown that when local elites, such as government officials, village cadres or educated people, are co-operative chairmen, the proportion of land transferred to the cooperative is significantly larger. In the second article, I turn to the household level and examine determinants of membership in a cooperative and the impact of membership on the allocation of available labor. I do not state any general effect of cooperative membership on the probability of the head of household's non-agricultural employment. In the third article, I analyze the connection between participation in decision-making and household income from land cooperatives. I show that wealthier members and members of the Communist Party are more likely to participate in decision-making. Cooperative members benefit less from their membership if they are not involved in decision-making. In summary, this dissertation shows that the local context makes a difference in the implementation of land cooperatives. To encourage cooperatives, policy makers should consider the heterogeneity of the local population.

The increasing gap between the demand and supply of wood products is linked to large-scale forest conversions to agricultural land and high population growth. Fast growing tree species like Eucalyptus have been popularised and planted by many farmers in different parts of Ethiopia to reduce the enormous supply gap. The objective of the study was to examine the value chain and identification of upgrading options for Eucalyptus poles and fuelwood in Sidama zone, Hawassa Zuria District, southern Ethiopia. The study applied value chain analysis, the theory of access, value chain governance and upgrading as well as gross margin to explores explicitly Eucalyptus products and their lines, chain actors, their function and interaction, estimate cost and value-added distribution, identify the role of Eucalyptus pole and fuelwood for actor’s livelihood strategy, mechanisms and structure of access to benefit and governance type, explore supporting and enabling environments along the value chain and finally to identify options for upgrading the value chain. For the collection of primary data key informant interviews, in-depth interviews, focus group discussions, market assessment and direct observations were used and complemented by secondary data. A total of 49 actors along the chains including tree growers, middlemen, transporters, wholesalers and retailers of pole and fuelwood, workers, brokers, as well as the customers for instance constructors and carpenters, were interviewed. SPSS and excel solver was used to analyse the data and presented in graphs, tables, and descriptive texts. The results of the study revealed that tree growers, workers, middlemen, transporters, Tulla and Hawassa wholesalers and retailers of the pole, large fuelwood wholesalers and retailers, small fuelwood retailers and consumers are direct actors. Government, brokers and service providers were considered to be indirect actors in the value chain of Eucalyptus poles and fuelwood from Chefasine kebele. Among the different products produced in the kebele, Eucalyptus poles were the most traded (85%) products at Tulla and Hawassa towns followed by fuelwood (5%) traded mostly at Tulla town along the chain. The chain has two major lines for pole (line one: Chefasine to Tulla and Line two: Chefasine to Hawassa) and one major line for fuelwood. Very limited processing takes place at the tree growers’ level for both pole and fuelwood and the major proportion of value addition occurs at the middlemen level for line two of pole and fuelwood, and at Tulla pole wholesalers and retailers’ level for line one of Eucalyptus poles. Production, processing, marketing and consumption were the four main functional activities along the chain. The trade of Eucalyptus products was financially profitable for all actors in the chain. However, the benefit distribution was unequal and commercialization margin was increasingly distributed towards the downstream actors for poles while for fuelwood, middlemen grasped the higher benefit and commercialization margin. Eucalyptus was the second profitable livelihood option next to homestead agroforestry but was the first profitable as compared individually with khat, coffee, enset and other activities. Apart from income provision, Eucalyptus was used for conservation of degraded land, construction, firewood, shading, and a form of saving among other uses in the study area. The income from Eucalyptus was also among others used for education fees, house renting and purchase household consumption goods (food, cloth, equipment) and others. Supporting services were almost non-existent for Eucalyptus production and marketing. Access to finance, market information, relationships building, capital, labour opportunity, license and Eucalyptus products were the means of controlling and maintaining market dynamics. Market types of value chain governance with a low level of horizontal and vertical coordination as well as low level of explicit coordination was observed for the value chain of Eucalyptus poles and fuelwood. Disease, lack of market information, lack of support, lack of road access, lack of storage space and limited technologies as well as inadequate land were the major constraints identified from the focus group discussion and Participatory Innovative Platform (PIP). Organising tree growers for marketing and information sharing, organising traders for storage, provision of market infrastructures, easing credit access, training on silvicultural management, technologies adoption, implementing the existing policies and enforcing rules and regulations were some of the options identified for the upgrading of the product's chain.

<p>This thesis conceives aquaculture as a transfer of resources within and between different parts of the world system. It is argued that due to inappropriate human-nature interactions, resources tend to flow from the South to the North, as a process of coastal colonisation. To study this resource transfer, coastal aquaculture is ap-proached from a transdisciplinary perspective, integrating natural, social, economic and spatial aspects. By combining world system theory and general systems theory, a systems view is adopted to relate aquaculture to forces of global capitalism, and analyse interactions between social and ecological processes at local and global levels. Emergy (energy memory) synthesis and participatory research methodologies were applied to two cases of aquaculture in Sri Lanka and the Philippines; monocul-ture of the black tiger prawn (Penaeus monodon) and milkfish (Chanos chanos), and polyculture of the two species together with mudcrab (Scylla serrata). The study reveals that semi-intensive shrimp monoculture in Sri Lanka generates few benefits for poor local people, and depends much on external inputs such as fry, feed and fuels, which implies negative environmental effects at local as well as global levels. Extensive polyculture in the Philippines involves more local people, and implies lower dependence on external inputs. Still, since benefits accrue mostly to elites, and mangroves are negatively affected, neither case is viable for sustainable poverty alleviation. Nevertheless, the study offers several insights into how sustainability assessment may be more transdisciplinary, and points to several factors affecting sustainability and fairness in aquaculture; the most important being mangrove con-version, local people involvement, and dependence on external inputs. Given that mangrove conversion is counteracted, extensive polyculture practices may also prove more viable in times of decreasing resources availability, and if policies are developed that favour resource efficient polyculture, and local small-scale and re-source poor farmers, instead of the global North.</p>

This thesis conceives aquaculture as a transfer of resources within and between different parts of the world system. It is argued that due to inappropriate human-nature interactions, resources tend to flow from the South to the North, as a process of coastal colonisation. To study this resource transfer, coastal aquaculture is ap-proached from a transdisciplinary perspective, integrating natural, social, economic and spatial aspects. By combining world system theory and general systems theory, a systems view is adopted to relate aquaculture to forces of global capitalism, and analyse interactions between social and ecological processes at local and global levels. Emergy (energy memory) synthesis and participatory research methodologies were applied to two cases of aquaculture in Sri Lanka and the Philippines; monocul-ture of the black tiger prawn (Penaeus monodon) and milkfish (Chanos chanos), and polyculture of the two species together with mudcrab (Scylla serrata). The study reveals that semi-intensive shrimp monoculture in Sri Lanka generates few benefits for poor local people, and depends much on external inputs such as fry, feed and fuels, which implies negative environmental effects at local as well as global levels. Extensive polyculture in the Philippines involves more local people, and implies lower dependence on external inputs. Still, since benefits accrue mostly to elites, and mangroves are negatively affected, neither case is viable for sustainable poverty alleviation. Nevertheless, the study offers several insights into how sustainability assessment may be more transdisciplinary, and points to several factors affecting sustainability and fairness in aquaculture; the most important being mangrove con-version, local people involvement, and dependence on external inputs. Given that mangrove conversion is counteracted, extensive polyculture practices may also prove more viable in times of decreasing resources availability, and if policies are developed that favour resource efficient polyculture, and local small-scale and re-source poor farmers, instead of the global North.