Thesis (Ph. D.)--Miami University, Dept. of Political Science, 2008. / Title from second page of PDF document. Includes bibliographical references (p. 141-164).

As a country of origin, transit, and destination for migrants that now borders four European Union (EU) member countries, Ukraine has seen future integration possibilities with the EU become, in part, conditional upon its willingness to cooperate in controlling cross-border migration. The EU is now “externalizing” aspects of migration and border control to Ukraine through making investments in Ukraine’s capacity to selectively “manage” cross-border flows in line with EU security and economy priorities. In the context of this emerging spatial arrangement of EU externalization, this thesis analyzes how, by whom, and to what effect migration is being managed in and through Ukraine. Policies of migration and border management are now materializing in Ukraine in relation to actors and discourses that incorporate imperatives for security and development in their approaches to governance. Therefore, this thesis investigates migration and border management at the geopolitical nexus of development, security, and migrant (im)mobility. It does this with a critical concern for those migrants whose exclusion from the EU is subject to humanitarian management in Ukraine.

What triggers political unrest under International Monetary Fund (IMF) programmes? Why do we see unrest - protests, strikes, and riots - in some countries under IMF programmes and not in others? This thesis argues that IMF labour conditionality in an immobile labour market compounded by intrusive fiscal conditionality and blocked democratic channels result in unrest. Where labour is immobile in the borrowing country, IMF labour conditionality decentralising the market creates large-scale grievances among the labour groups. Immobile labour groups substantially lose income and benefits under those measures due to high wage differentials and varied labour protection measures across sectors. Moreover, uncertainty and risks increase, while the opportunities to return back to employment or to maintain the existing income and benefits diminish. When the political authority is unable to address the rising grievances due to tight fiscal conditionality and blocked democratic channels, we observe political unrest under IMF programmes. Where labour is mobile, on the other hand, it is easier for workers to switch between sectors and jobs when the economic crisis hits their sector. The labour groups respond to the internal crisis and the external impact by increasing mobility and switching to the sectors that are still growing despite the crisis. Labour conditions do not give rise to a similar degree of uncertainty and risks compared to immobile markets. Hence, programmes are implemented without large-scale unrest. The study tests this theory in a global sample of 117 countries between 1970 and 2013 and investigates the impact of mobility and IMF conditionality on unrest with a data set originally compiled and coded for this study. It then delves into two extreme cases, Greece, 2010 and Turkey, 2001. While Greece had extreme immobility and received intrusive labour and fiscal conditionality in 2010, Turkey is located on the opposite end of the spectrum, with very high levels of mobility, the limited number of labour conditions, and greater fiscal space. We see that while Greece witnessed large-scale unrest in 2010, Turkey implemented the programme smoothly. Finally, the study applies the theory into three shadow cases, Ireland, 2010, Latvia, 2008, and Portugal, 2011 and demonstrates that the varied degrees of mobility and conditionality and fiscal conditionality result in different degrees of unrest.

This research project explores the rise of Chinese cross-border finance. Cross-border investment programmes have been at the heart of China's financial liberalisation. Yet, we know little about what drives the expansion of these new market entry channels and the effects they have on global finance. This thesis explores the role that formal and informal institutions play in China's financial system, by addressing three main research goals: (1) to rethink analytical frameworks of global financial networks, by shifting the focus to channels of state power; (2) to investigate how such formal institutions shape competitive hierarchies in financial markets, both inside and outside of China; (3) to demonstrate that informal institutions such as a common cultural identity are equally important to explain behaviour and outcomes in Chinese cross-border finance. The thesis pursues this agenda through four substantive papers, each with its own subset of research goals and findings. The papers follow a three-fold structure. The thesis begins with an analytical focus on agents (micro-level), by examining the evolution of state-firm relations in Chinese cross-border finance. The first paper develops a politically sensitive framework of global financial networks, which conceptualises how bargaining dynamics within China's party-state shape competitive hierarchies in Chinese capital markets. Drawing on these theoretical insights, the second paper breaks new empirical ground, by explaining the asymmetrical nature of market access criteria for foreign investors. The third paper zooms out on the global consequences that Chinese state control has for money centres (macro-level). It sheds light on how state-firm relations shaped London's development as the first Western offshore trading centre for Chinese currency. The fourth paper shifts the attention to the role of informal social institutions in Chinese equity markets. It presents the first empirical study of how a common cultural identity with Mainland China governs the behaviour of different investor categories (group-level). The thesis distils the following findings: Bargaining conflicts inside the Chinese party-state have a decisive impact on competitive outcomes and behaviour in Chinese cross-border finance, both domestically and globally. Strategic state interests form an interdependent relationship with the resources supplied by foreign investors and domestic corporate players. Domestically, these resource interdependencies explain the asymmetrical nature of market access under China's cross-border investment schemes. Globally, the shift in state-firm bargaining dynamics from strategic alignment to an increasing bifurcation of interests explains the patchy integration of RMB finance into London's financial architectures. Informal social institutions equally shape competitive outcomes in China's capital markets. Whilst the literature identifies shared cultural identity as a source of local information advantage, this thesis finds the opposite: A common cultural background with national Chinese investors reduces information asymmetries for foreign investors but it does not equate to local information advantages. Overall, the four substantive papers add up to a multifaceted yet integrated perspective on the drivers, dynamics and consequences of Chinese cross-border finance. They clarify that the intersection of formal state governance and informal social forces is essential for understanding how the spread of neoliberal market forces unfolds across Chinese capital markets. This thesis thus affirms that space and place remain central to our understanding of financial market outcomes.

For the past 30 years the dominant approach to managing rural water services in low and lower middle income countries has been the community management approach. Yet there is increasing evidence the model is not fit for purpose as too many services fail. The next generation ideas for community management emphasise the need for continuous on-going support to communities – an approach known as the community management plus approach. This thesis tests and develops this next generation community management plus paradigm. It analyses field data from twenty case studies of ‘reportedly successful’ community management programmes across seventeen states in India. Bringing together data from 2,355 household surveys, 272 interviews and 130 focus groups it provides a synthesis that assesses the type and level of support found in successful examples of community management. The evidence from these case studies demonstrates that communities receive significant recurrent subsidy covering between 7-48% of operational expenditure. This is in marked contrast to the conventional principles of community management whereby communities cover 100% of these costs. Analysis of organisation types also shows how community management has been shaped by the devolution of governance in rural India. Many community management programmes involve a structural overlap between the local self- government institution of the Gram Panchayat and water committees. The thesis argues this represents a shift to the ‘institutionalised co-production’ of rural water services, involving both the state and private citizens in public service delivery. Overall, the research shows that successful community management in India involves continuous on-going support as per the community management plus paradigm. However this has required the nesting of the model within the broader system of local self-government which blurs the lines between public and community management.

La dichotomie « libre-échange versus protection » structure l'analyse de la politique commerciale dans les manuels de la théorie du commerce international. En analysant les impacts respectifs de la politique libre-échangiste et de la politique protectionniste sur l'allocation des ressources et le bien-être, les modèles standard, au premier rang desquels figure le modèle HOS, concluent à l'optimalité parétienne du libre-échange. La prescription normative est alors que tous les pays devraient appliquer une politique de libre-échange qui préserve les prix justes. Cependant, les analyses empiriques mettent en lumière le décalage de cette prescription normative : les politiques commerciales pratiquées incluent, dans des proportions variées entre pays, entre industries et entre biens, des mesures qui visent, de façon simultanée et sélective, la promotion des exportations, la substitution aux importations et la création d'un accès facilité aux importations. Les politiques pratiquées ne sont donc ni strictement libre-échangistes ni strictement protectionnistes, mais mixtes a priori. Ce constat a conduit au développement de modèles analysant les conséquences sur l'équilibre général de l'application de divers instruments de politique commerciale et spécifiant les différentes formes potentielles de cette politique. Notamment, il est expliqué que la politique commerciale mixte constitue une politique alternative. Les interventions sélectives qui la composent sont alors justifiées par la présence d'avantages comparatifs dynamiques qui conditionnent et orientent ces interventions vers des industries singulières dont la production est destinée au marché national et/ou au marché international. Mais l'assise théorique dont bénéficie ainsi la politique commerciale mixte n'aide pas à comprendre le processus politique au travers duquel cette politique est choisie. Elle ne permet pas d'ouvrir la boîte noire et de pénétrer le nucleus des choix politiques. L'économie politique le permet. L'explication théorique de l'objet « politique commerciale mixte » se situe à la croisée des deux approches constitutives du champ de recherche de l'économie politique de la protection : l'approche centrée sur la société et l'approche centrée sur l'Etat. Alors que la première approche explique que la politique est façonnée par les intérêts et les préférences des acteurs privés (ou groupes de) les plus puissants présents sur le territoire national, la seconde considère que la politique est fonction des institutions politiques et des acteurs politiques qui cherchent à satisfaire leur intérêt et leur préférence compte tenu des contraintes nationales et internationales auxquelles ils sont confrontés. La « politique commerciale mixte » peut donc s'analyser dans différentes perspectives selon les déterminants endogènes qu'on entend privilégier. Au final, la mixité de la politique commerciale résulte d'un compromis politique et institutionnel entre acteurs aux préférences hétérogènes, ce qui est partiellement remis en cause par les contraintes politiques et les influences idéationnelles internationales. Le compromis politique et institutionnel résulte de la division du gouvernement induite par un partage inégal du pouvoir de décision (fonction des institutions politiques) entre veto players (acteur composite possédant un droit de véto dans le processus de prise de décision politique), et de l'hétérogénéité de leurs préférences. La politique choisie, et les institutions associées, doivent satisfaire l'intérêt de chaque veto player, ce qui implique des mesures compensatrices et la prise en compte de l'héritage institutionnel. Non sans résistances, la flexibilité avec laquelle la politique commerciale mixte peut être utilisée est alors réduite par les contraintes politiques internationales et/ou, en amont, l'équilibre politique interne à la structure des préférences nationales modifié par celles-ci et par les influences idéationnelles internationales. / The dichotomy “free trade versus protection” structures the analysis of trade policy in the textbooks of international trade. By analyzing the respective impacts of free trade and protection policies on resources allocation and well-being, the standard models, first and foremost the HOS model, conclude on the Pareto optimality of free trade. The normative requirement is then that all countries should pursue a policy of free exchange to get the prices right. However, empirical studies highlight the shift of the normative prescription: trade policies practiced include, in varying proportions between countries, between industries and between goods, measures aimed, simultaneously and selectively, export promotion, import substitution and the creation of easier access to imports. Therefore, policies followed are neither free trade nor strictly protectionist, but mixed a priori. This observation led to the development of models analyzing the effects on the general equilibrium of the application of various instruments of trade policy, and specifying the various potential forms of this policy. In particular, it is explained that the mixed trade policy is a true policy alternative. Selective interventions are then justified by the presence of dynamic comparative advantages that determine and guide interventions towards specific industries oriented towards the domestic market and / or the international one. But the theoretical basis enjoyed by mixed trade policy does not help to understand the political process through which this policy is chosen. It does not open the black box to penetrate the nucleus of political choices. This is what political economy can achieve. The theoretical explanation of the object "mixed trade policy" is at the crossroads of two approaches constituting the political economy of protection: society-centered approach and State-centered approach. While the first approach explains that politics is shaped by the interests and preferences of the most powerful private actors (or groups of) present on the national territory, the latter considers that the policy is a function of political institutions and political actors who seek to satisfy their interest and preference given national and international constraints they face. The mixed trade policy can be analyzed from different perspectives as endogenous determinants that intends to promote. Ultimately, the mixed trade policy is a political and institutional compromise between actors with heterogeneous preferences, which is partially undermined by international political constraints and ideational influences. The institutional and political compromise result from the division of the government induced by an unequal distribution of power of decision (based on political institutions) between veto players (composite actor having a veto in the process of political decision-making), and the heterogeneity of their preferences. The policy chosen, and associated institutions, must satisfy the interest of each veto player, implying compensatory measures and taking into account the institutional legacy. Not without resistance, the flexibility with which mixed trade policy can be used is reduced by the international political constraints and / or, upstream, the internal political balance in the structure of domestic preferences changed by them and by the international ideational influences.

In the past decades, European labour markets have undergone profound changes, witnessing a process of liberalisation and flexibilisation, in part through the spread of various forms of atypical employment. These new forms of employment have been argued to be of generally lower quality than standard employment, presenting several disadvantages across a range of employment-related dimensions. Nevertheless, the disadvantages experienced by atypical workers are argued to differ depending on nationally specific institutional settings, as employment regulations, welfare institutions and collective representation are commonly claimed to play a significant role in the shaping of disadvantage. Within the field of comparative political economy, a literature has emerged dealing with issues of dualisation and insider-outsider divides associated with these new forms of employment, mainly focusing on institutional divides in employment and welfare protection and political representation between standard and atypical workers and their consequences in terms of social inequalities. Authors within this literature have argued divides to be different across groups of countries within Europe. Specifically, an important distinction has been claimed to exist between Liberal countries, where divides are argued to be limited, and Southern European countries, where they are said to be among the highest. But this literature has mostly considered disadvantages from an institutional perspective, without empirically investigating whether institutional divides actually translate into individual disadvantages. At the same time, within sociology, authors have investigated individual disadvantages experienced by atypical workers under the broad concept of precariousness. Nevertheless, these scholars have not provided a systematic analysis of the relation between different institutional frameworks and individual disadvantages. This thesis aims at partly bridging these two literatures, by providing an analysis of how different institutional settings impact on disadvantages as experienced at the individual level. To do this, this thesis explores the disadvantages experienced by a specific category of atypical workers, namely temporary agency workers. It focuses on two countries which have been argued to present very different institutional divides across a broad range of employment-related dimensions. The UK is seen as the main example of Liberal country in the European context, providing limited employment protection to all workers, a fragmented system of industrial relations and a social protection system mainly based on means-testing and mostly aimed at poverty prevention. In contrast, Italy has been considered one of the European countries with the most highly segmented labour market, with high employment protection for core workers but very little for workers at the margin. At the same time, both its industrial relations system and it social protection system are said to strongly discriminate against people in atypical forms of employment. These claims are explored through semi-structured interviews with temporary agency workers in the service sector, trade unionists and other relevant stakeholders involved in atypical employment. The study demonstrates that temporary agency workers in the two countries experience partly different disadvantages. Although differences in the institutional settings can be said to contribute to explaining these differences, the analysis reveals a more complex picture. I show that institutional divides do not necessarily translate into individual disadvantages, as they interact among each other and with other factors in moulding individual experiences in a variety of ways. At the same time, individual disadvantages are present even when no institutional divide exists. Thus, the study argues that considering disadvantages only in terms of institutional divides oversimplifies a more complex and varied reality, and calls for more attention to be paid to how institutional divides are translated into individual disadvantages.

During the late 1970s Ghana was described as a collapsed and failed state. In contrast, today it is hailed internationally as beacon of democracy and stability in West Africa. In light of Ghana’s drastic image change from a fragile and even collapsed polity to a resilient state, this thesis contributes to the statebuilding debate by analysing the social change that occurred. Grounded in a critical theory approach the thesis applies a political settlement analysis to explore how power is distributed and changed over time between contending social groups; exploring the extent to which this is embedded in formal and informal institutional arrangements. Ghana’s 2012 elections serve as an empirical basis and lens to observe the country’s current settlement. This approach enables a fine grained within-case comparison with Ghana’s collapsed post-independent settlement. The analysis illustrates that while there has been no transformation of the Ghanaian state, however, continuous incremental structural change has occurred within it, as demonstrated by a structurally altered constellation of power. While internationally propagated (neo-)liberal economic and political reforms had a vital impact on the reconstruction process of state-society relations, Ghana’s labelling as “success story” evokes the distorted idea of a resilient liberal state. The sustainability of Ghana’s current settlement characterised by electoral competitive clientelism depends on a continued inflow of foreign capital. So far the mutually beneficial interest of portraying Ghana as a resilient state by its elites and donors ensures the flow of needed financial assistance to preserve the settlement.

Debating over efficiency-enhancing but inequality-increasing reforms accounts for the routine business of democratic institutions. Fernandez and Rodrik (1991) hold that anti-reform bias can be attributed to individual-specific uncertainty regarding the distribution of gains and losses resulting from a reform. In this paper, we experimentally demonstrate that anti-reform bias arising from uncertainty is mitigated by social preferences. We show that, paradoxically, many who stand to lose from reforms vote in favor because they value efficiency, while many who will potentially gain from reforms oppose them due to inequality aversion.

Before the crisis Catalonia and the rest of Spain received high volumes of immigration - of which much was 'illegal'. This was despite formally strict controls - EU policy - and different governments in Madrid claiming to operate a legal model of migration - leading to identification of a 'policy paradox'. In the same period immigration became problematized, which in Catalonia allowed xenophobic politics to gain popular support - despite being a territory proactive at integrating newcomers. This research aimed to identify the undercurrents of these contradictions and respond to questions on the relative impact of business, state, national and electoral factors. It surveys literature on migration paradoxes and theories, develops an original conceptual framework by critically assessing a range of radical writing, performs quantitative and secondary study of the Catalan, Spanish and European economic and policy contexts (in general and regarding immigration), and analyses findings from interviews with privileged 'insiders' and observers (employers, union leaders, migrant activists and policy advisors). Policy contradictions and the problematization of immigration were identified as rooted firstly in the inherent contradictions of the capitalist state. States must ensure availability of new reserves of labour to guarantee accumulation and make savings by not having to 'socially reproduce' 'imported' labour power. Yet their abstract national and bounded character propels constant nationcraft - a process best performed invisibly and negatively by symbolically and practically excluding migrants from territory, rights and citizenship. Dynamics are further driven by the desire to be seen to preserve the 'rule of law' and guarantee the exclusivity of national 'social contracts'. Nation-building in policymaking was detected by uncovering the national-linguistic considerations behind the controversial drive to devolve immigration powers to Catalonia. Mushrooming irregularity was a result of migrant agency and the restrictive tendencies of the Aznar administration and EU. Despite the Popular Party (and EU) being notably pro-business, tensions emerged with employers who lobbied alongside unions to bring about the liberalisations introduced by the Zapatero government (2004-2011). Employers benefit from the (continued) institutional conditioning of migrant labour and irregular hiring has been tolerated - aided by a relatively informal and insecure labour market. Yet it is a mistake to see high levels irregularity simply as labour policy. The unequal and instrumental nature of European integration meant the Spanish State played a border policing role that threatened its labour needs before the crisis. This led to political 'fudge' based on varying models of irregularity-amnesty-irregularity, and reinforced pro-European and Hispanist migrant recruitment tendencies. Changes in government have reshaped policymaking (and increased or decreased related tensions) but less-democratic influences were identified in interviews and a clear political economy of immigration can be identified.