Syftet med denna studie är att undersöka jämställdhetsfrågors aktualitet och betydelse i den sydafrikanska politiken. Detta görs med förhoppningen att kunna säga någonting om landets potentiella jämställdhetsutveckling, och om huruvida en sådan utveckling kan påverka den generella utvecklingen i ett land som är viktigt för regionen både ekonomiskt och inom jämställdhetsområdet. Studien undersöker därför Sydafrikas tre största partiers valmanifest inför de lokala val som hölls i augusti 2016 – ANC:s, DA:s och EFF:s - för att ta reda på hur jämställdhetsfrågor behandlas, alternativt icke behandlas. Undersökningen genomförs med hjälp av kvantitativ och kvalitativ innehållsanalys. Resultaten påvisar att valet, ur en partipolitisk synvinkel, inte genomsyrades av jämställdhet eller av en jämställdhetsinriktad diskurs. Därför är undersökningen pessimistisk till Sydafrikas vidareutveckling inom jämställdhetsområdet inom den närmaste framtiden, och därmed även till dess positiva inverkan på den generella utvecklingen i landet. Detta trots ett skiftande politiskt landskap.

A research report submitted to the Faculty of Humanities, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Political Studies, 2016 / The emergence of the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) as a new and ‘radical’ political party significantly altered the shape of the political landscape in South Africa. As one of the starting points in this paper, I show how the EFF comes out of a history in the ANCYL before turning attention to public discussions on the organisation. These contemporary debates about the EFF have taken numerous forms, oftentimes in deeply polarised ways - from those who argue that the EFF is pejoratively populist or fascist to arguments that the party is a crucial left alternative. Within the context of these debates, this research paper grapples with the question of the political character of the EFF, ultimately arguing that the EFF is populist. I use, however, a framework for populism set out by Ernesto Laclau thus marking a break with most discussions on the EFF that are often theoretically limited. This research works with both the empirical and the theoretical – in doing this I utilise Michael Burawoy’s ‘extended case method’ to ground the discussion and to provide a method that encompasses the field research – I used semi-structured interviews and participant observation – with a theoretical inquiry. This research is based on the Marikana Branch of the EFF, in the North West Province. In using data from respondents, a number of conclusions about the EFF in Marikana are drawn out around the membership base of the EFF, organisational structures, the relations with other organisations as well as the class, gender and age substance of the party. These conclusions partly stand on their own in building an understanding of the EFF. They are also used in a central discussion around populism in the EFF and the building of a collective political subjectivity that is premised on the popular. In this way, this research works on two interlinked levels that feed into answering questions around the EFF as a new political formation. In line with Burawoy’s method that is used throughout this research, I also outline some of the key limitations of using Laclau’s theory of populism in understanding the EFF and how we move from these limitations through the work presented around the Marikana Branch. / MT2017

In economy, banking sector has been considered as the main issue for development. Using panel data analyzing to test the relationship between banks performance and economic freedom indexes for 9 emerging market countries in Asia, the paper¡¦s result shows that there is the positive effect between monetary freedom, business freedom, financial freedom and banks performance while investment freedom has a negative impact. It suggests that emerging market countries¡¦ government and the policy maker need to focus deeply on the operation, the efficiency of regulation and improving the economic freedom.

Freedom to compete in the market: resources, processes, and resultsHerein we analyze three concepts of market competition. Although the different aspects of freedom can be appreciated in each one of them, they make an especial contribution to some of them. We propose that the ‘neoclassical general equilibrium’ chiefly contributes to the discussion of the outcomes of an economic activity; the ‘barriers to entry’ approach calls for a study of the resources necessary to compete; and the ‘competition as a process’ approach emphasizes the competitive activity itself. Moreover, as we move from the first onwards, enriching the meaning of competition, the possibility of losing opportunities to participate in the market becomes more evident. Entry and exit are part of the competitive process. Each concept of competition responds to theories that specify or allude to certain types and distribution of economic agents’ freedoms to manoeuvre. Throughout this study, we often quote Amartya Sen with the purpose of buildingbridges between the study of competition and the approach of ‘development as freedom. / Analizamos tres conceptos de competencia en el mercado. Aunque en cada uno de ellos se pueden apreciar las distintas facetas de la libertad, también aportan especialmente a alguna de ellas. Proponemos que el enfoque de «equilibrio general neoclásico» aporta principalmente a la discusión de los resultados de una actividad económica, el enfoque de las «barreras a la entrada» invita a estudiar los recursos necesarios para competir y el enfoque de la «competencia como proceso» pone el acento en la actividad competitiva misma. Además, conforme nos movemos del primero hacia los demás, enriqueciendo el significado de la competencia, se pone más en evidencia la existencia de pérdidas de oportunidades para participar en el mercado que provienen de la propia competencia económica. Cada concepto de competencia responde a teorías que especifican o aluden a ciertos tipos y distribución de márgenes de acción y de acceso a herramientas para competir. En todo el trabajo citamos a menudo a Amartya Sen con el fin de establecer puentes entre el estudio de la competencia y el enfoque del «desarrollo como libertad»

The literature addressing the resource curse has been extensive. Many studies have put forth theories to explain the curse, but these theories are often refuted by new studies. Recently, there has been a theory that natural resource abundance leads to decreased economic freedom, which causes slower economic growth. Many of these studies have using frequentist testing to arrive at their conclusions. Although frequentist testing is widely used, there are several drawbacks. In particular, there is no way of addressing model uncertainty. Unless a study is able to incorporate every significant explanatory variable, the results will suffer from omitted variable bias. Recently, researchers have been applying Bayesian statistics to address the problem of model uncertainty. In this study, we apply Bayesian Model Averaging (BMA) to build a growth model, and see if natural resources have a negative effect on growth. We take the implementation of BMA a step further to see if there is an indirect negative effect of natural resources on economic freedom. However, contrary to previous studies, we were not able to find a negative relationship between resource abundance and economic freedom.

The aim of the thesis is comparative analysis. I compare part of the index of economic freedom concerned business freedom and labour market, with public inquiry research of entrepreneurial costs connected with state regulation. I focus on the corruption theme and it's influence to the economic freedom. In the first part I describe basic researches of economic freedom. In the second and third part I attend to theory of labour market and business regulation. I describe situation of entrepreneurs in the Czech republic, their problems and expenses connected with state administrative and bureaucracy and also their troubles with employees hiring at labour market. The thesis come to conclusion about excessive corruption disutility, expenses of taxes and entry to business.

The paper examines significance of institutional environment for agricultural production. It adds to the extensive research of agricultural production functions. First, it reviews relevant theory of institutional economics that explains how institutions contribute to productivity in general, especially if interpreted as economic freedom. Then, a model of agricultural production is presented, which explains aggregate agricultural production using various inputs, as well as variables representing institutional environment. Results concerning elasticities of material inputs (land, labor, capital) are consistent with previous research. The paper proves some significance of institutional variables. Finally, it suggests some directions for further research.

Expanding on prior research into the state level causes of terrorism, I argue that state repression and limited state capacity reduces opportunities for non-violent political expression and increases the utility of terrorism. I also argue that economic freedom can is a form of political expression that can dissipate political grievances. While previous authors analyzed some of these variables separately using data on transnational attacks, I created a complete model incorporating the three categories of variables and tested my hypotheses using data that includes both domestic and transnational attacks. I use regression analysis for hypothesis testing and find support for the three primary contentions of this thesis and conclude that limits on political expression increase the likelihood nations will experienced increased levels of terrorism.

Air pollution (in terms of PM2.5) is severe in developing countries, and the rapid population growth accompanied by urbanization may limit their potential economic development. This paper aims to investigate if urbanization and economic freedom cause higher levels of PM2.5 in developing countries. By measuring the potential effect of economic freedom on PM2.5 with the Ease of Doing Business-score by the World Bank, a new measure is introduced to the research on socioeconomic factors’ influence on air pollution. It is done by running both fixed effects- and system GMM regressions on a panel consisting of 63 low- and lower-middle-income economies between 2010-2017. The results indicate that PM2.5 is insensitive to changes in both variables and that urbanization’s effect on PM2.5 depends on the level of economic freedom and vice versa. However, both estimators may suffer from bias, and thus, the real relationship of urbanization and economic freedom on PM2.5 remains uncertain.

Economic growth rate differs largely between different countries. There are many opinions on which factors really affect the rate of growth in different economies and this causes debates. The factors that affect economic growth include political systems, social settings, economic freedom, human capital and institutional organization. These factors affect not only productivity, but also efficiency. This thesis’ purpose is to investigate and explain the factors that affect economic growth in sub-Saharan Africa. Through use of a fixed effects regression model, a panel data investigation will be conducted, and an analysis will be presented in this thesis. By using secondary data for sub-Saharan African countries from reliable sources, the factors that affect economic growth on an annual basis from year 2006 to 2017 are examined. Growth in gross domestic product per individual (GDP per capita growth) is the dependent variable and represents economic growth. The independent variables which are believed to affect this growth are also given, and these include: population growth, foreign direct investment, level of corruption, democracy, life expectancy at birth, expected years of schooling and economic freedom. The findings estimate that some of the chosen variables, for example population growth and life expectancy at birth significantly affect economic growth and development in these countries. The rest of the independent variables have an impact on economic growth but are not statistically significant according to this study.