This study explores both formal and informal arrangements for care of orphans in the Maseru district of Lesotho. The study adopted a qualitative approach using both in-depth interviews and documentary research as the primary methods of data collection. The research findings show that care of orphans in Lesotho is predominantly in the hands of non-governmental and church based organisations. The government’s role is limited to the provision of technical support, including the formulation of policies and laws and some welfare grant provision in the form of free primary education. Care of orphans in the communities is undertaken not only by the extended family members of orphans, but also non-relation community members. It is clear however that while such informal arrangements might provide care and protection to orphan, many are struggling in the face of extreme hardship and poverty. A crisis of social reproduction is therefore increasingly apparent in Lesotho.

Yes / This study examines the institutional arrangements that define the characteristics of national legal systems that are used to protect intellectual property (IP) assets embedded in outward FDI. The focus of the study is on how the institutional underpinnings of IPR regimes affect the costs and risk of using legal arenas to enable effective use of IP assets. Following a property rights approach it is postulated that formal and informal institutional arrangements influence how IP regimes affect the transaction costs and risk associated with converting ownership rights over IP into economic rights. Informal institutions are considered to affect the behaviour of agents involved in enforcing legal rights. This behaviour influences how IP law is implemented in legal arenas and thereby impacts on the efficacy of IPR regimes to help secure economic rights from the use of IP assets. Using data on outward FDI from the USA to 42 host countries the results find that the strength of informal institutions connected to the enforcement of IP in a country directly affects outcomes and positively moderates the effect of formal legal aspects of IP law on FDI flows. The results highlight the importance of informal institutional aspects connected to the behaviour of enforcement agents when using national legal systems to protect IP rights in cross-frontier transactions.

Cette thèse propose une analyse du développement économique à partir du concept de facteur humain qui apparaît en économie institutionnelle à travers les institutions informelles. Ces dernières sont responsables du caractère spécifique de chaque structure institutionnelle nationale qui forme le cadre incitatif de l'économie. Composée de règles formelles et informelles, la structure institutionnelle représente un ensemble évolutif. L'objectif élargi de cette recherche est donc de comprendre l'évolution et le changement des structures institutionnelles en étudiant particulièrement l'impact international sur ce processus. L'objectif spécifique de ce travail est d'appliquer l'approche développée au cas de la Russie afin de contribuer à une meilleure compréhension de la structure institutionnelle russe actuelle, de son efficacité pour le développement économique du pays et de l'impact de l'ouverture économique sur son changement, et notamment sur le facteur humain russe. Avec l'adhésion de la Russie en 2012 à l'Organisation Mondiale du Commerce cette question est d'intérêt particulier car le pays s'ouvre aux nouveaux attributs de la mondialisation. En mobilisant le cadre théorique croisé entre l'économie institutionnelle, l'économie de développement et l'économie internationale, cette étude nous conduit à présenter la mondialisation en tant que processus institutionnel qui en généralisant les institutions formelles de l'économie de marché et de la démocratie à l'échelle planétaire, a ignoré le rôle du facteur humain local. Cela explique la différence des performances économiques des pays qui ont adopté les mêmes cadres organisationnels. En revanche, la prise en considération du facteur humain dans l'analyse économique permet de développer la vision plus optimiste de la mondialisation. En facilitant le contact direct entre les représentants des structures institutionnelles différentes, elle est capable de stimuler l'évolution des normes de comportement improductif vers les valeurs sociales incitant les actions productives. En appliquant ce constat à l'analyse de la structure institutionnelle russe qui a vu diverger ses institutions formelles et informelles en résultat des réformes de la transition des années 1990, il est possible de conclure que l'ouverture économique de ce pays dans les conditions actuelles favorisera le changement de son facteur humain. Compte tenu de l'incohérence entre le cadre formel et les institutions informelles russes, l'évolution de ces dernières contribuera à l'instauration de l'ordre social formel et impersonnel. / This PhD dissertation analyzes the economic development from the concept of human factor which appears in the Institutional Economics trough the informal institutions. These institutions are responsible for the specific character of each national institutional structure which forms the incentive system of an economy. An institutional framework as a composite of formal rules and informal institutions is an evolutionary set. The wider objective of this thesis is to understand the evolution and change of institutional structures by studying in particular the international impact on this process. The specific objective of this research work is to apply the developed approach to the Russian case in order to better understand the actual Russian institutional structure, its effectiveness for the economic development of the country and the impact of the economic openness on the institutional change, in particular on the Russian human factor. This impact is a highly topical question for Russia because of its greater economic openness due to its accession to the World Trade Organization completed in 2012. Within the theoretical framework formed by Institutional Economics, Development Economics and International Economics, this research leads us to present the globalization as an institutional process which generalized formal institutions of the market economy and the democracy on the global scale but which ignored the role of the local human factor. It explains the differences of the economic performance in the countries who adopted the same formal framework. In contrast, taking into account the role of the human factor in the economic development allows to develop more optimistic views of globalization. By facilitating the direct contact between the representatives of the different institutional structures, the globalization can stimulate the evolution of social norms of unproductive behavior to the social values inciting productive actions. Applying this to the Russian framework which formal and informal institutions became strongly divergent in result of the transition reforms of 1990s, it is possible to conclude that the economic openness of this country in the actual situation will favor the change of its human factor. Considering the incoherence between Russian actual formal framework and Russian informal institutions, the evolution of the last will contribute to establish former and impersonal social order.

This study aims to explore women’s perceived barriers to enter politics investigated through a Colombian case study. The Colombian case highlights a paradox common in Latin America where representation levels of women in legislatures are low, but representation in other professions is high. Research on gender and candidate selection has so far mainly focused on applying a macro, top-down perspective and describing objectively defined barriers to women’s political representation. This study changes the perspective and focuses on applying a bottom-up approach, focusing on individual women and their subjective views on barriers to enter politics. The material was collected during an 8-week field study in various locations in Colombia between July and August 2016. The findings suggest that the intersection between socioeconomic factors and gender play a large role in defining barriers to enter politics. Personal as well as systemic factors interoperate to lower both the “supply” and “demand” of candidates. The results also suggest that some professional groups are more likely to reject institutional participation, focusing political efforts on activism, and that families and political parties both serve as “gatekeepers” enabling or disabling political representation.   Key words: Gendered barriers to enter politics, political participation and representation, candidate selection, Colombia, clientelism, formal and informal institutions.

The topic of my work was The Repatriation of Czechs and Slovaks into Czechoslovakia after the First World War. I describe the years 1918 - 1923 in Central Europe, specifically in Czechoslovakia and in other new succession states after Austria-Hungary. My work is divided into 4 different chapters, introduction and conclusion. The first chapter describes the First World War and its consequences for Central European region. It also describes economic problems in succession states, the changes of territory, situation in Czechoslovakia after 1918 and it characterizes population in key countries (Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Austria and Poland) for my topic. The second chapter is focused on Czechoslovakia. It shortly explains reasons of emigration and immigration of Czechs and Slovaks before and also after the First World War. It describes factors which have big influence on repatriation in Czechoslovakia (for example land reform). The third and fourth chapters analyze materials from archives. They present a lot of very concrete examples of repatriation process (lack of housing, problems with citizenship, unemployment). It points at importance of state executive institutions for repatriation process. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Ministry Social Security and...