Why do global governance organizations enter some economic sectors but not others? A simple model of material incentives suggests that similar organizations should make similar choices. Yet in the empirical realm of jewelry industry governance, similar organizations diverge in their response to artisanal and small-scale gold mining: certification organizations Fairtrade International and the Alliance for Responsible Mining have entered the sector, while the Rainforest Alliance has stayed out. To explain this puzzle and its implications for human development, the project proceeds in two steps. First, it enriches the simple model by taking a discursive institutional approach that traces the process by which norm entrepreneurs, organizational cultures, and network effects shape the sector entry decisions of organizations. Drawing on interview, document, and hyperlink data, the project argues that the interaction of norm entrepreneurs and organizational culture, more than network effects, explains sector entry decisions in the gold governance case. Second, the project uses the details of the certification standards to conduct a decision analysis that estimates their impact on human development. The analysis finds that certification organizations are likely to increase a miner’s income by 41%-79% over the status quo, which may lift some, though not all, miners out of poverty. It further finds that degree of environmental protection as well as which organization is best at providing it depends on the gold price and the governance context. At prices below $26,666, the Alliance is best and competition creates better or equal outcomes than monopolies. At prices above $26,666, however, Fairtrade is best, and competition creates perverse incentives for pollution reduction. This surprising finding suggests that in the realm of global governance, there can be too much of a good thing. The project argues that governance without governments can foster human development, but that better outcomes are possible in the gold mining case. It concludes by recommending that certification organizations do three things to maximize their positive impacts: 1) prevent de-certification, 2) cooperate rather than compete, and 3) aim to be irrelevant, because mining should be a transitory, not permanent, developing country livelihood.

Multinational corporations (MNCs) are facing challenges relating to the fast changing and dynamic 21st Century global business environment. These challenges raise critical concerns relating to the strategic role of successive Nigerian governments in creating a favourable macro-environment that enhances industry competitiveness in attracting and sustaining foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows - considering the fact that since independence in 1960, there has been a significant decline in the Nigerian manufacturing industry output and contribution to the nation’s gross domestic product (GDP). These developments underpin the motivation and rationale for this thesis, which aims to provide better understanding of the dynamic nature of macro-environmental factors influencing the levels of firm competitiveness in the Nigerian manufacturing industry. To achieve this aim, the thesis adopts a pragmatists paradigm underpinned by a mix of Questionnaire Survey involving 84 MNCs operating in the Nigerian manufacturing industry, and a sample size of 925 respondents comprising of 288 Top managers, 460 Staff, and 177 Clients, and Semi-structured interviews of 5 CEOs. The data from the questionnaires and interviews were subjected to factor analysis, multiple regression analysis and content analysis using SPSS and NVivo respectively. The hypotheses tests (H1, H1a-H1e) reveal that increased perceived threats from macro-environmental factors significantly reduces the levels of firm competitiveness in the Nigerian manufacturing industry. This is supported by the evidence that, on aggregate, respondents’ perceived levels of threats from politico-legal, economic and financial, sociocultural, technological and ecological environmental factors have a statistically significant negative effect on firms’ competitiveness in the Nigerian manufacturing industry. Using Beta values, politico-legal, economic and financial, and sociocultural factors are identified as the key inhibitors; and in contrast, ecological and technological factors are identifies as the key drivers, of the levels of firm competitiveness. More specifically, on aggregate: (1) Politico-legal factors has statistically significant negative effect, (2) Economic and financial factors has a negative effect but statistically not significant, (3) Sociocultural factors has a negative effect but statistically not significant. In contrast, both (4) Technological factors, and (5) Ecological environmental factors were statistically significant with positive effects, on the levels of firm competitiveness. In addition, the results for both ‘Top Managers’ and ‘Staff’ were statistically significant, while, that for ‘Clients’ were statistically not significant. For the content analysis, a process of pre-coding, unitisation and relationship between themes was adopted. The thematic findings reveals that there is an urgent need for Top managers in manufacturing firms to continuously sense and seize market opportunities, in order to sustain firm competitiveness and to attract increased FDI inflows to the manufacturing industry. The implication of these findings from a decision-making point of view, is that in the short- medium term, strategizing managers need to focus more on the factors which have significant negative or positive effects on firm competitiveness - while in the long-term, they need to evaluate the potential future impact of the factors which at the moment do not have a significant effect on firm competitiveness. Considering the fact that the holistic framework developed in this study was not tested, future research would test the framework using a mix of quantitative and qualitative data from a case study of 3-5 Manufacturing firms in Nigeria.

This dissertation examines the behavior of the exchange rate under two different scenarios. The first one is characterized by, relatively, low inflation or a situation where prices adjust sluggishly. The second is a high inflation economy where prices respond very rapidly even to unanticipated shocks. In the first one, following a monetary expansion, the exchange rate overshoots, i.e. the nominal exchange rate depreciates at a faster pace than the price level. Under high levels of inflation, prices change faster than the exchange rate so the exchange rate undershoots its long run equilibrium value. The standard work in this area, Dornbusch (1976), explains the overshooting process in the context of perfect capital mobility and sluggish adjustment in the goods market. A monetary expansion will make the exchange rate increase beyond its long run equilibrium value. This dissertation expands on Dornbusch's model and provides an analysis of the exchange rate under conditions of currency substitution and price flexibility, characteristics of the Peruvian economy during the hyper inflation process that took place at the end of the 1980's. The results of the modified Dornbusch model reveal that, given a monetary expansion, the change in the price level will be larger than the change in the exchange rate if prices react more than proportionally to the monetary shock. We will expect this over-reaction in circumstances of high inflation when the velocity of money is increasing very rapidly. Increasing velocity of money, gives rise to a higher relative price variability which in turn contributes to the appearance of new financial (and also non-financial) instruments that report a higher return than the exchange rate, causing people to switch their demand for foreign exchange to this new assets. In the context of currency substitution, economic agents hoard and use foreign exchange as a store of value. The big decline in output originated by hyper inflation induces people to sell this hoarded money to finance current expenses, increasing the supply of foreign exchange in the market. Both, the decrease in demand and the increase in supply reduce the price of foreign exchange i.e. the real exchange rate. The findings mentioned above are tested using Peruvian data for the period January 1985--July 1990, the results of the econometric estimation confirm our findings in the theoretical model.

This dissertation provides an analytical framework to study the political economy of policy reform in the Dominican Republic during the nineties. Based on a country study, I develop two theoretical models that replicate the mechanisms of policy approval in developing countries with weak democracies. The first model considers a pro-reform President who submits a tariff bill to an anti-reform Congress dominated by the opposition party. In between, two opposing lobbies try to get their favored policy approved. Lobbies act as Stackelberg leaders vis a vis a weak President. The behavior of the Congress is determined exogenously while the lobbies act strategically pursuing the approval of the reform bill and indirectly affecting the President's decision. I show that in such a setting external agents like the Press play an important role in the decision-making process of the political actors. The second model presents a similar framework. However, the President, who is a Stackelberg leader, is allowed only two choices, total reform or status-quo. I show how a lobby reacts to an increase in its rival's or its own size. These reactions depend on the President's level of commitment to the reform. Finally, I discuss the effect of variations in the size of the lobbies on the President's choice. The model suitably explains real events that took place in the Dominican Republic in the mid-nineties.

Magister Legum - LLM / When South Africa emerged from the era of isolation in 1994, it was faced with the fact that many of its laws relevant in the field of international trade and investment were outdated and inadequate. An obvious example is in the field of international arbitration. The problem is a serious one. Even thought South Africa is a developing country (one of the richest countries in Africa) and provides everything an investor wants: mainly, a reliable political and juridical system and some great opportunities of business, the same investor is also interested in how a dispute arisen between parties is settled. In this matter; one can be surprised not to see any references to international arbitration in the South African regulations.South African passed the Arbitration Act 42 of 1965 that was based mostly on the English Arbitration Act of 1950. Unfortunately, this law was designed for domestic arbitration and has no provision at all dealing with international arbitrations. This Act is perceived by those involved in international arbitration as being totally inadequate for this purpose.Given the fact that countries like Nigeria, Kenya or Zimbabwe have regulations on international arbitration prove the interests of States to give the best conditions for investors (e.g. predictability of where and how a dispute will be settled if one occurs).Focus will be on private arbitration (two private entities such as persons or corporations) and investor state arbitration and will therefore not be on the Dispute Settlement Body of the WTO which settles disputes between states. Besides, the domestic arbitration regime will be put aside to concentrate on International Arbitration. / South Africa

Since the end of Cold War there has been an increase in the number internal conflicts and with it a corresponding rise in the number of third party interventions. Third parties, motivated by humanitarian concerns and spillover effects, have sought to create stable conditions for the termination of internal conflicts and the reconstruction of shattered societies. The disarmament of combatants has emerged as a leading practice. Disarmament is based on the arrestingly simple logic that the elimination of weapons removes the means by which combatants fight, thereby forcing them to commit to peace. Despite this emergent practice, however, belligerents consistently retain, and, in some cases, acquire weapons, even after signing peace agreements. Proponents of disarmament tend to view the retention of weapons as evidence of spoiling, yet disarmament leaves actors with little recourse in the likely event that a peace process collapses and conflict resumes. I argue that actors often retain weapons because the risk of violent reversal remains high even after the signing of a peace agreement. In the likely event of the breakdown of peace, weapons can be used to help ensure survival of those who retain them. This research explores the role of weapons and disarmament in internal conflicts with reference to both historical (the American War of Independence) and contemporary examples (Israel-Palestine and El Salvador). Though not all are examples of successful peacemaking, weapons played a productive role not only securing combatants, but also by allowing them to make more credible commitments and take greater risks associated with peace. This research reveals a paradox: while weapons provide belligerents with much-needed insurance, allowing them to take risks associated with peacemaking, retaining weapons appears to magnify the likelihood that an agreement will fail. Nevertheless, belligerents have at their disposal various ways to overcome this problem. I conclude by discussing the ways in which third parties may better support such initiatives.

This study examines the effectiveness of civic organizations focusing on leadership and the role of culture in politics. The study is based on a quasi-experimental research design and relies primarily on qualitative data. The study focuses on Miami's Cuban community in order to examine the role of public initiative in grassroots civic and community organizations. The Miami Cuban community is a large, institutionally complex and cohesive ethnic community with dense networks of community organizations. The political and economic success of the community makes it an opportune setting for a study of civic organizing. The sheer number of civic organizations to be found in Miami's Cuban community suggests that the community's civic organizations have something to do with the considerable vibrancy and civic capacity of the community. How have the organizations managed to be so successful over so many years and what can be learned about successful civic organizing from their experience? Civic organizations in Miami's Cuban community are overwhelmingly ethnic-based organizations. The organizations recreate collective symbols that come from community members' memories of and attachments to the place of origin they hold dear as ethnic Cubans. They recreate a collective Cuban past that community members remember and that is the very basis of the community to which they belong. Cuban Miami's ethnically based civic organizations have generally performed better than the literature on civic organizations says they should. They gained greater access to community ties and social capital, and they exhibited greater organizational longevity. The fit between the political culture of civic organizations and that of the broader political community helps to explain this success. Yet they do not perform in the same way or in support of the same social purposes. Some stress individual agency rather than community agency, and some pursue an externally-oriented social purpose, whereas others focus on building an internal community.

This research provides an understanding of the conditions that presage the failure of consolidated democratic political regimes through constitutional processes. In seeking to answer the question of how democracy might fail through democratic means, this study has revealed a gap in the literature on democratization. Venezuela was selected as a heuristic case study to explain this phenomenon. Heuristic case studies place less emphasis on the more configurative or descriptive elements of the case itself, and instead see the case as a point of departure for the formulations of theoretical propositions. While in-case hypotheses are possible, heuristic case studies make it an explicit research plan to tease out mechanisms that exist in a particular case study that might survive in other situations. This study demonstrates that the elements in society that act as direct participants in the establishment of a democratic political system are able to maintain their position in the new order largely through an expansion of their ability to meet popular demands through clientelistic arrangements. While these corporatist groups may serve to facilitate social mobilization during the establishment of democratic regimes, they do so only in so far as they can maintain social control of in-group membership without fully providing parts of the democratic structure, these corporatist arrangements provide for a type of unstable democratic purgatory: democracy is not fully representative, yet it is not completely unresponsive to the demands of the electorate. The condition of democratic purgatory produces a paradox whereby democracy can be undemocratic under certain conditions. The stability of these regimes allows for democratic consolidation, despite the undemocratic basis of legitimacy. While these regimes can undergo consolidation, ultimately, this condition is unstable: either these regimes must establish an endogenous basis of political legitimacy (one that is not simply a function of the corporatist/clientelistic political structure), or the democracy will suffer a qualitative decline that may result in a democratic breakdown. Furthermore, this study finds that the viability of any type of democratic regime rests upon its adaptability to ensure adequate representativeness.

In the discipline of International Relations, the term "realism" has been severed from its association with ordinary usage, and is attributed to a school of thought according to which international politics is essential1y an asocial realm of conflict and struggles for security and power among states in an anarchical environment. The two main post-war theorists associated with this approach are Hans Morgenthau and Kenneth Waltz. This thesis argues, contrary to conventional wisdom, that realism is not a meaningless term in common parlance, nor is it redundant as an attribute of thought about international politics. I argue that it has been inappropriately applied to the work of these two "grand theorists" whose approach does not merit the label. Instead, this dissertation concludes that they are more appropriately characterised as idealists. In contrast to Morgenthau and Waltz, whose work suffers from the shortcomings of (in Morgenthau's case) nostalgic idealism and (in Waltz's case) complacent idealism, I argue that what is referred to as the "Grotian" approach to the study of international politics is more deserving of the label "realism." The argument is explicitly based on the interpretation of the meaning of the terms "political realism" and "political idealism" contained in Robert Berki's book, On Political Realism (London, 1981). Consistent with the logic of ordinary usage, Berki argues that realism is an attribute of thought which presupposes that "reality" is the dialectical interplay between necessity and freedom, constraints and opportunities. Idealism, in contrast, is the ontological denial of this presupposition, and the reification of either necessity or freedom. These abstractions are then imposed upon political practice leading to an evaluative stance of nostalgia and complacency, or revolution (the "idealism of imagination"). Realism transcends the false bifurcation between these extremes. In light of Berki 's analysis, Hedley Bull's theoretical approach to international politics - which recognizes its heterogeneity as a social and "rule-governed" domain - is defended as a more realistic starting-point for thinking systematically about the source and nature of order among states than that provided by either Morgenthau or Waltz. / Arts, Faculty of / Political Science, Department of / Graduate

In Egypt, Sudan, and Ethiopia the connection to water is intertwined with culture and history. It cannot fully be captured by game theory based on the assumption of strategic action. Neither perceived threats to national security nor do fundamental value conflicts allow for ‘rational’ solution. Nor are market mechanisms adequate in explaining the behavior of actors around issues of water. The challenge in addressing a range of questions on transboundary river basins is one of a theoretical framework. To what extent are coherent explanatory models embedded in social theories helpful in evaluating the Nile case? The search for generalized rules has led to scholarship in which predictability, parsimony and simplicity is the measure of academically acceptable approaches and methodologies. In light of the complexity of the region where the Nile is located, narrow focus and false parsimony of theoretical concepts can oversimplify to the point of being misleading. There are a range of subjective meanings and values that water has in different societal contexts that are not amenable to the dominant international relations theories. This study utilizes a critical pluralist approach to assess existing IR theories in general and regime theory in particular. Critical pluralism can capture those aspects of culture; history and contexts attached to water that are not amenable to positivist social science and the dominant international relations theories.