The world’s demand for energy has steadily increased in recent years, driven by economic and population growth, coupled with the need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. However, using fossil fuels to meet the energy demand has led to various environmental and social problems, including air pollution, climate change, and geopolitical conflicts. As a result, there has been a growing interest in shifting from fossil energy to green energy sources, which offer a cleaner, and often more cost-effective alternative. This essay will explore the opportunities and challenges of transitioning from fossil energy to renewable energy, with a focus on the economic, environmental, and social implications of this shift, throughout the current state of renewable energy technologies and their potential for widespread adoption, as well as the political and regulatory frameworks that facilitate or hinder this transition. The essay also provides an empirical literature overview of the costs and benefits of transitioning from fossil fuels to renewable energy, including the impact on the environment and employment. I argue that while the transition to renewable energy will not be easy, it is necessary to ensure a sustainable future for our planet and future generations

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Development aid currently given by developed countries is increasingly criticised in terms of its effectiveness and because dependencies are created or reinforced between the donor and receiver. This study focuses on aid given by non-governmental organisations. In the meantime, a new legal form has beenintroduced for private companies that follow the principles of steward-ownership, which means that the generated profit needs to serve a purpose and is self-governed. These principles ensure a more responsible and sustainable way of business making.This study seeks to determine the influence of the steward-ownership tenets on the efficiency and selfsustainment of aid projects, the role of steward-ownership in decision-making processes in project management and tries to understand how steward-ownership manages dependencies within aid projects for sustainable development. This study focuses on Nepal, a state which heavily relies on aid from other countries and where it thus is essential to make it as effective as possible. For the study, one steward-based company was the object of focus, as it is based in Germany but establishing social enterprises in Nepal. The empirical research was carried out with ten semi-structured interviews. The sample consisted of four Nepalese employees, four German employees, one follow-up with a German employee and finally, one interview with a journalist who served as an expert about current aid and its problems. The qualitative study used directed content analysis with open coding. Five propositions were formulated and discussed based on an analytical framework derived from the literature and relevant theories.It was found that steward-ownership plays an essential role in project management. An influence on the internal corporate structures of the company itself was discovered as well as in the implemented projects and social businesses in Nepal. Moreover, the findings indicated that the principles of steward-ownership affect the management of dependencies, especially concerning knowledge transfer and developing symmetric relationships by ensuring an equal distribution of responsibility and voting rights. The findings of this study contribute to research conducted on aid development and finding ways towards more sustainable development. However, further research is necessary to identify the cause-and-effect relationship between steward-ownership and the mindset of all stakeholders. The changes in internal corporate structures and work processes through the incorporation of steward-ownership could not be specified in perfect detail due to the limitations of this study.

Firms use former government officials (FGOs) on the board of directors to create external linkage with the government. I examine investors’ perception of FGOs on the board of directors and how institutional environments affect it. Using a large sample of 23,444 hand-collected observations from 31 non-U.S. countries, I show that political directors (PDs) are associated with improved investors’ perception. Drawing from political science literature, I theorize and show that former senior bureaucrats (SBDs), but not former ministers (MDs) or government advisors (ADs), drive the improved investors’ perception. Furthermore, I show that stronger institutional environments, measured by economic freedom, lead to less improved investors’ perception of PDs. Here too SBDs drives my results associated with and economic freedom, but not MDs or ADs, lending support to my initial findings.

It is argued that Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) has close ties to local religious traditions. At the same time, the international community has agreed on eliminating FGM. Therefore, this thesis investigates the friction between a local tradition and international pressure. Using the method of qualitative content analysis, the thesis analyses the reports from three different international non- governmental organizations (NGOs) to examine how they have designed their programme for eliminating FGM. Three organizations were selected on the basis of their attitude towards religion, as FGM is closely linked to local religious traditions. The results of the reports are analysed using a coding scheme based on theories of religion as a social construction, approaches to human rights and power structures. This paper discovered that an NGO's relationship to religion influences who participates in the programme, and that all of the organizations recognized that they require assistance from local actors to gain access to local communities to implement social change. Findings show that each organization fills a gap the others fail to access. Together, the three development programmes include a large local population as well as national agencies.

Recent Structural Adjustment Program (SAP) reforms promoting Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) carried out by the Sierra Leonean government has attracted foreign investors into its extractive industry. Access to natural minerals in the country has been ensured through land leases, and the government of Sierra Leone has obtained the opportunity to accumulate revenues through participation on the global market. However, despite increasing state revenues the country remains underdeveloped and unindustrialized, and faces great challenges in promoting public development within state borders. This study aims at illuminating structures of the global economic system and domestic social fabric which may hinder public development in Sierra Leone. Such structures have be illuminated through the application of a qualitative approach including field work, participating observations and open-ended interviews in Kalansogoia chiefdom during May and June 2013. The findings of this study suggest that the international structure of dependency, and domestic formal; informal; informal institutions; and social networks structures hinder public development within Sierra Leone.

Este presente trabalho tem o objetivo de reconstruir a história do Movimento pela Emancipação do Proletariado (MEP), organização política que compôs o segundo momento da chamada Nova Esquerda, em meados dos anos 1970. Fazendo parte do tronco que tem em sua raiz a POLOP (Política Operária), o MEP compartilhava da visão que defendia o caráter socialista da revolução brasileira, uma vez que o Brasil possuía uma economia plenamente capitalista, embora atrasada e dependente dos centros metropolitanos da economia-mundo. Do ponto de vista teórico, o MEP seguia as formulações da Teoria da Dependência e as contribuições de autores como Caio Prado Júnior, Moniz Bandeira, Florestan Fernandes e Chico de Oliveira, dentre outros, para encontrar uma teoria da Revolução Brasileira. A partir dessas referências, a organização desenvolveu atuação clandestina contra a ditadura militar. Organizava-se com moldes no marxismo-leninismo e enxergava na classe operária o principal sujeito da revolução. Por fazer oposição ao regime, a organização foi vítima da máquina repressiva, sofrendo com prisões e tortura. O MEP desenvolveu atuação militante entre estudantes, professores, no meio operário e em bairros da periferia de grandes cidades e editou o jornal Companheiro. Além disso, atuou desde o início na fundação do Partido dos Trabalhadores. Em 1985, ao lado da Ala Vermelha do PCdoB e da Organização Comunista Democracia Proletária (OCDP), fundou o Movimento Comunista Revolucionário (MCR). / The present study aims to rebuild the story of Movimento pela Emancipação do Proletariado (Movement for the Emancipation of Proletariat - MEP), a political organization that integrated the second moment of the so called New Left, in the mid- 1970s. Stemming from POLOP (Política Operária), MEP shared a vision that advocated the socialist character of Brazilian Revolution, once the country had an enterely capitalist economy, albeit backward and depending on the metropolitan centers of the world economy. From a theoretical standpoint, MEP had followed the statements of Dependency Theory to develop a Brazilian Revolution theory based on the contributions of scholars like Caio Prado Júnior, Moniz Bandeira, Florestan Fernandes and Chico de Oliveira, among others. From these referencies, the organization have developed a clandestine practice against the Military Dictatorship. Grounded on Marxist-Leninist principles, MEP considered the working class as the revolution protagonist. As opponents of the regimen, the organization members were victims of the repressive apparatus, suffering persecution and torture. MEP developed a militant work between students, teachers, the labor movement and on the outskirts of big cities and edited the Companheiro newspaper. Furthermore, MEP participated in the Workers Party (PT) foundation. In 1985, along with PCdoB red wing and the Organização Comunista Democracia Proletária (OCDP), founded the Movimento Comunista Revolucionário (MCR).

O presente trabalho busca contribuir na discussão do tema do desenvolvimento e subdesenvolvimento da América Latina, a partir de duas das mais importantes elaborações teóricas já feitas sobre o assunto, o estruturalismo da Cepal e a teoria da dependência. Busca-se fazer uma revisão crítica e sistemática sobre o surgimento, a evolução, e os desdobramentos analíticos e normativos dessas duas grandes escolas do pensamento latino-americano. Em especial, visa explorar as continuidades e rupturas teóricas e metodológicas, em primeiro lugar, entre as interpretações estruturalistas e as interpretações da escola da dependência, e em segundo lugar, entre as distintas vertentes desta última. Argumenta-se que, em ambos os casos, o padrão de continuidade é muito mais proeminente do que se supôs no debate inicial ou de que presume boa parte da literatura especializada, tanto em relação às virtudes, isto é, pensar o desenvolvimento periférico de acordo com suas especificidades histórico-estruturais, quanto, sobretudo, em relação às suas insuficiências, vale dizer, a determinação econômica dos fenômenos políticos e sociais. / This study aims to contribute to the discussion on the issue of the Latin America development and underdevelopment, from two of the most important theoretical frameworks ever made on the subject, the Eclac\'s structuralism and the dependency theory. We seek to perform a critical and systematic review of the emergence, evolution, and the analytical and normative ramifications of these two major schools of Latin American thought. In particular, it´s intended to explore the theoretical and methodological continuities and discontinuities, firstly, between the structuralist interpretations and interpretations of the dependency school, and secondly, between the different approaches of the last one. It is argued that, in both cases, the pattern of continuity is much more relevant than it was assumed in the original debate and even by much of the specialized literature, whether concerning its virtues, that is, to think the peripheral development according its historical-structural specificities, and, above all, in relation to its shortcomings, i.e., the economic determination of political and social phenomena.

Esta dissertação visa estudar a indústria do gás natural da Venezuela a partir da Teoria Marxista da Dependência (TMD). Mudanças estruturais acontecem nesse país desde o início do século XXI, e esse processo não pode ser entendido sem se observar o papel fundamental da energia. O termo energia refere-se, neste trabalho, ao petróleo e gás natural. O primeiro tem sido o responsável pela penetração do capital estrangeiro no país e o segundo foi historicamente tratado como subproduto da indústria petroleira. A principal mudança nessa perspectiva foi introduzida pelo atual processo político, que usa ambos os recursos como instrumento para superar a relação de subordinação aos países industrializados. Portanto, objetiva-se analisar, com base na TMD, se, dada uma ampliação da indústria do gás natural da Venezuela estarão presentes os elementos capazes de promover uma ruptura com a forma subordinada em que se inseriu o país na economia mundial. Entende-se essa ampliação como um projeto nacional que procura a diversificação da economia e a conquista do desenvolvimento, entendido nos termos expostos pela TMD. Para facilitar o uso da TMD, foram selecionados três de seus expoentes, a saber: Vânia Bambirra, Theotônio dos Santos, e Ruy Mauro Marini. No que concerne à indústria do gás natural, a mesma foi avaliada seguindo parâmetros estabelecidos no Programa de Massificação do Uso do Gás Natural da Petrobras (2004). Por fim, foram contrastados os segmentos da cadeia produtiva do gás avaliados com os parâmetros da TMD, permitindo, por um lado, elucidar o processo que contribuiu para o subdesenvolvimento no país, e, por outro, avaliar o potencial dos atuais planos da IGN para estimular a industrialização nacional e a integração regional. / This document aims to study the Venezuelan natural gas industry using the Marxist Dependency Theory (MDT). Structural changes have been occurring in this country since the early twenty-first century, and those transitions cannot be understood without observing the fundamental energys role. The term \"energy\" refers, in this research, to oil and natural gas. The first one has been responsible for the foreign capital penetration in the country and, the second has been historically treated only as an oil industry derivate. The main change in this perspective was motivated by the current political process, which uses both resources as a tool for overcoming the subordinated relationship with the industrialized countries. Therefore, the objective is to analyze, based on MDT, if an expansion of Venezuela\'s natural gas industry will change the subordinated Venezuelan role in the global economy. This expansion is understood as a \"national project\", which looks for economic diversification and achievement of development, understood in the MDTs terms. To make easier to use the MDT, three exponents was selected: Vania Bambirra, Theotônio dos Santos, and Ruy Mauro Marini. The assessing for the natural gas industry expansion follows the parameters stablished in the National Gasification Program of Petrobras (2004). Finally, the segments of the productive gas chain was contrasted with the MDT parameters, allowing to understand the process that contributed to the country underdevelopment and, evaluating the potential of current plans in natural gas industry for stimulating national industrialization and regional integration.

This thesis presents a narrative of Aboriginal economic responses in the 19th century to the colonisation of the Shoalhaven and Illawarra regions of New South Wales. It explores the competing claims of articulation theory and dependency theory about the intersection of colonial and indigenous economies. Dependency theory claims that settlers destroy the indigenous mode of production to permit the expansion of their own economic system. They exploit indigenous labour which then becomes dependent on capitalist sources of subsistence. Articulation theory, as modified by Layton (2001) to recognise the bi-directional nature of contact, posits that the rate of capitalist penetration into indigenous economies is variable and that the non-capitalist mode of production may be preserved to create a self-supporting source of labour. The contrasting theories are assessed in this thesis by determining the contribution different strategies made to Aboriginal subsistence. Historical evidence is used to assess each strategy. The main source of information is from Alexander Berry's Shoalhaven estate, where Aboriginal people lived from settlement in 1822 until they were moved to a reserve in the early 1900s. The analysis suggests that contrary to previous research, Aboriginal people gained the majority of their subsistence from fishing, hunting and gathering until 1860. Strategies that depended on the colonial economy such as farm work, trading, living with settlers and stealing made only minor contributions to Aboriginal subsistence. After 1860, European land use intensified and Aboriginal people were further alienated from the land. The contribution of hunting and gathering contracted as a result. Dependency on government assistance increased, particularly after the foundation of the Aborigines Protection Board in 1882. Fishing remained an important source of food and cash. Maritime resources were not commercially exploited to a significant extent until the closing years of the 19th century when Aboriginal people were provided with boats and nets to assist their efforts. The historical evidence demonstrates that articulation theory offers a more realistic approach than does dependency theory when analysing the intersection of colonial and indigenous economies. This is because articulation theory can predict variable outcomes. The variable outcome suggested by the Shoalhaven and Illawarra data are that hunting, gathering and fishing economies have the resilience to withstand the colonial encounter if sufficient resources are made available.