The thesis examines care-seeking for first births in low-income settlements of urban India. Care-seeking is framed as a dynamic, social process. The thesis shifts the research focus from non-use of maternity services to a more holistic notion of care-seeking strategies, and examines how they are shaped by patterned social relationships and their content. The study combines a prospective, qualitative design with multiple household perspectives. Seventy-seven in-depth interviews were conducted in 16 households. Matched data were collected for primiparous women and other household members, and interviews were conducted prospectively during pregnancy with a follow-up after birth. The study was conducted in Indore, a large city in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh, where a range of maternity care providers operate in a complex urban health system. This population could be characterised as strategic care-seekers, aware and discriminating across the range of care options available. Managing perceived risks was central to strategies, but solutions differed due to variation in perceptions of risks and their management. The notion that childbirth requires medical management was dominant. Yet, health facilities were also regarded as a potential source of risk. Strategies were plural and contingent, combining different providers across and within sectors, giving households control and flexibility in dealing with unfolding circumstances. Local narratives apportion responsibility for care-seeking to the household in which the woman is staying for the birth. The value placed locally on household-level ‘responsibility’ contrasts with the focus on women’s autonomy in the literature on maternal health. A corollary of responsibility is blame in the event of an adverse outcome, which impels households to seek care that meets expectations among their social ties. The thesis generates new insight on an issue that has previously been examined largely with static approaches, underpinned by individual rational actor assumptions. Findings reveal care-seeking strategies that go beyond a decision on whether or not to use a health facility. This partly derives from a complex urban health system providing choice, but it is also a response to the challenges households face in negotiating the health system to receive care they perceive to be ‘safe.’ The findings have implications for the policy goals of increasing births with a skilled attendant and improving quality of care.

Taking Bermondsey as a case study, my thesis examines how two groups of inhabitants - long-term residents and early gentrifiers - respond to and contest changes in urban space brought about by gentrification. Bermondsey is a gentrifying neighbourhood in London that has rapidly changed in social composition over the past thirty years. The research involved two aspects. Firstly, an historical analysis of the area's social, political and spatial trajectories. Viewed through this lens I argue that the character of the area's gentrification stems from the extent of its integration into the cultural and economic functions of the adjacent City of London. Secondly, indepth interviews with members of the two inhabitant groups are also used to understand how they experienced change brought about by gentrification in the context of their everyday lives. The research found that long-term residents did not regard the presence of gentrifiers as a direct threat to their housing security. Rather there was segregation between the two groups and protection provided by a large social rented tenure. A third group - 'low-status incomers' - were, however, seen as a threat both to long-term residents' access to social housing and to their (nostalgic) notions of community. I identify a form of intra-class rivalry, differing from the inter-class rivalry between lower income residents and gentrifiers that the literature typically describes. Instead of housing, I describe how public space was the crucible of tensions over gentrification, demonstrated by long-term residents' negative experiences of the public realm on new-build gentrification schemes. This prompted their withdrawal to familiar neighbourhood spaces, a form of 'internal displacement'. I also found a loss of 'place' displayed by early gentrifiers. Through their political practices, such as lobbying for affordable housing, they aimed to mitigate against the excesses of the gentrification they helped initiate. Despite their own housing security, they felt threatened by the arrival of later gentrifiers with divergent consumption preferences and social ideals. The analysis therefore shows how experiences of gentrification among different inhabitant groups are not fixed but open, ambiguous and layered, with different groups representing real and imagined threats to each other in ways not necessarily typified in the existing literature.

This thesis explores the depiction of ecclesiastical restorers in narrative sources in England between c.1070 and 1130. It examines the way in which contemporaries wrote about churchmen who were engaged in restoring the English Church, particularly the actions which were attributed to them. While a great deal has been written about ideas of Church reform from the time, little has been done to set out who might actually be considered a restorer. Narrative sources offer a window through which to assess the themes which most concerned writers of the time. The thesis focuses upon chronicles and saints' Lives to delve into these themes, as it seeks to identify the criteria by which writers assessed churchmen who attempted to restore the Church. Certain common trends will be identified. However, it will also be argued that different contexts and commentators honed the image of the restorer so that the needs of communities and their particular members shaped ideas of the figures under discussion. The examination is split between four chapters, each addressing an important aspect in the depiction of the restorer. Chapter One looks at the importance of material restoration, through the recovery of lost lands and the rebuilding of churches. Chapter Two looks at how writers depicted restorers correcting morals in England and improving monastic customs, particularly saints' cults. Chapter Three explores the notion of ‘right order' and how it was important for churchmen to ensure that the correct hierarchy was restored. The fourth and final chapter examines the personal characteristics expected of a restorer, such as industry, prudence and learning, as well as descriptions of saintly restorers. Finally, the conclusion tests its findings against writing from different times and places, namely other European writing from the late eleventh and early twelfth centuries and tenth-century England.

La loi du 23 juin 2006, entrée en vigueur le 1er janvier 2007, poursuit trois objectifs principaux, de simplification, de sécurisation du règlement des successions et de protection des héritiers. Elle comprend deux volets le premier sur les successions et le second sur les libéralités. Cette loi est une nécessaire adaptation aux nouvelles évolutions démographiques et sociologiques (allongement de la durée de la vie, augmentation du nombre des familles recomposées et présence d'enfants non communs) et permet d'augmenter la liberté de partage du disposant, notamment dans la transmission des entreprises, un véritable problème en france. Cette loi, objet de plusieurs décennies de réflexion, fournit de nombreux outils modernes, mais présente toutefois des lacunes, soit que le législateur ne semble pas être allé jusqu'au bout de sa réforme et que les outils sont incomplets, soit que ces derniers sont déjà concurrencés par d'autres outils existants. Ces lacunes devront être complétées pour que la loi du 23 juin 2006 reste, pour longtemps, une loi toujours moderne et bien adaptée aux transformations rapides de notre société. / The law of June 23rd, 2006, which entered into force on January 1st, 2007 has three main objectives, simplifying and securing inheritance agreement and protection of heirs. It consists of two components: successions and liberalities.This law is a necessary adaptation to the new demographic and sociological changes (increased life expectancy, increasing numbers of reconstituted families and step-children), increasing the freedom to share, which is, especially in the transmission of companies, a real issue in France.This law, the subject of several decades of thinking, provided many modern tools, but it does have some gaps, either because the legislator has not gone far enough with the reform and the tools are incomplete, or that they are already in competition with other existing tools. These deficiencies must be completed so that the law of June 23rd, 2006 remains for a long time, a law still modern and adapted to rapid changes in our society.

This Thesis shall analyze the development, resp. the actual changes made in the structure of the European financial supervision system. The analysis is done with a view to the deepening economic integration of the Member States of the European Union, whereby in the Thesis the European supranational financial supervision is perceived as a necessary result of the supranational economic cooperation. However, it is also to be borne in mind that the structure of the European financial supervision is or - at least so far - it has been very imperfect, because the Member States of the European Union were willing neither to institutionalize the cooperation in the sphere of the supranational financial supervision nor to hand over any supervision competences to the supranational level. The Thesis takes into account, in particular, the impacts of the world financial crisis and its influence on the European financial supervision structure. However, with a view to the fact that the Thesis analyzes the long-term development of the European financial supervision as well as incentives, obstructions and goals of the particular former reform steps undertaken in this field, in addition to the impacts of the world financial crises the Thesis also analyzes other decisive factors. As for other factors that - from our...

This sociolinguistic diploma thesis focuses on the implementation of spelling reform in Austria. Practical research is based on the theory of language management. The thesis describes also developmental path to the spelling reform through the entire 20th century. The work aims to shed light on the issues and barriers associated with the implementation of spelling reform, i.e. the last phase of language management. Regarding methodology, it was conducted qualitative research using semi-structured interviews with participants in the process. Representatives of secondary schools and newspapers were chosen for the research. The obtained data is analyzed in comparison with the discourse concerning the spelling reform in the German-speaking area. Keywords Language management, language planning, spelling reform, Austria, secondary education, print media

Post-conflict reconstruction (PCR) policies often highlight gender issues during the agenda setting stage, but they largely fall off policy agendas as PCR processes advance. Interestingly, Rwanda is a counter-example to this trend. In 1994, Rwanda experienced a horrific genocide that caused a complete breakdown of the state. At that time, a new government, the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) under the leadership of Paul Kagame, came into power. During the PCR period, gender policies were deemed a priority by the new government and this resulted in gains for women in several areas. The fact that Rwanda has a majority female parliament, for example, has resulted in significant international attention to Rwanda. Much of the credit for these gains and for putting gender issues on the PCR agenda has been given to the RPF and Kagame. However, is political will (as it is often described) a sufficient explanation for the post-conflict gender policy focus? I argue that it is not. By situating this research within a theoretical framework that draws upon feminist theoretical propositions, literature that questions the PCR dynamics of international aid and political outcomes, and Rwanda-specific literature, a fuller explanation of Rwanda’s PCR gender policy focus emerges. The evidence suggests that whilst political will was undoubtedly important, it is only one of five key factors: a majority female population, grassroots actions on the part of women, international aid, and the 1995 Beijing Conference on Women were also drivers behind this policy focus. However, these factors have largely been rendered invisible within PCR analysis on Rwanda. In this research I seek to explain why these factors were critical to setting the stage for a PCR gender policy focus and how this policy focus has been subsumed under a highly political agenda over the last two decades.

Health care systems in many countries around the world have been subject to major reform initiatives since 1980s and 1990s. The main rationale for reform was an increasing need to control costs in health care as the countries struggled to adapt to the global economic conjuncture and deal with their financial problems. The movement to reform health care arose in that context and spread amongst health care experts and policy makers. The aim of this study is to understand how reforms were initiated and what forces drove them. This topic is addressed through the case studies of change in health care policies in Turkey and the Czech Republic, both of which having experienced the influence of global economic trends, yet are defined by fundamentally different economic, political and social conditions. The findings of the study support that health policy ideas were diffused to the two countries via international policy networks; domestic contexts facilitated the diffusion. Interest groups were important actors in both countries, but the role played by various groups differed in the two countries. Finally, the countries appear to have tendency to converge to a certain degree with regard to their health financing system. Key words: Health care reform, policy diffusion, globalization, Czech Republic, Turkey.

There is increasing evidence to suggest that Corporate Community Involvement (CCI) has gone beyond philanthropy towards more innovative approaches in addressing complex social problems. One example is particularly evident in developing countries where corporations organize the local community in their operational areas into community-based organizations (CBOs), such as self-help groups, and enable them to tackle social problems by themselves. In this thesis, I explore this emerging CCI mode, termed Corporate Instigation of Community-Based Organizations (CICBO), by focusing on the contexts in which such engagement is conceptualized, the process through which it is put into practice and the outcomes of such engagement. I adopt an institutional perspective, grounded in the umbrella concept of institutional work that highlights the recursive relationship between institutional environment and organizational actions within which a new CCI mode emerges. An analytical framework is built around the constituent components of institutional work (e.g., enabling conditions, agency, actions and consequences) that allows for a process-oriented exploration of the emergence of a CCI mode as an organization-level institution. The framework is employed to examine three key aspects of CICBO: company motives to initiate the mode and the contextual factors that influence those motives, the micro-processes through which the mode emerges, and its outcomes at multiple levels. In doing so, my study presents an alternative theoretical perspective on CCI, one based on institutional work. At the same time, it also contributes to the bottom-up theorization of institutional work. This research is interpretive in nature. A case study method is utilised for in-depth investigation of the CICBO mode of two oil and gas companies in India, the Oil India Limited and the Cairn India Limited, applying multiple qualitative research techniques such as interviews, focus group discussions and document analysis. The empirical findings provide valuable insights on the antecedents, processes and consequences in the emergence of the CICBO mode in particular and broader CCI discourse in general. This situates my research among the few studies that contribute to the processual understanding of CCI. The study identifies a legitimacy crisis at the community level arising from incompatible institutional arrangements, recognition of future business threat or opportunity, and a company’s habitual orientation towards community engagement as the key drivers for CICBO. However, prevalence of such a contingent environment alone is not enough to manifest the CICBO mode. As an intelligent and reflexive actor, the company reflects on its past, assesses the present, projects itself into the future, and assigns different levels of importance to each of these factors. As observed in the study, CICBO emerges when securing future business interest is associated with ensuring long-term social legitimacy through effective solutions to critical social issues. This finding makes explicit the connection between strategic motives and subsequent framing of CICBO as the solution to achieve them. CICBO aims to create a community-level practice of CBO-oriented collective problem solving. It focuses on gradually building important community capital in a way that enables the community to maintain the practice without company support. This signifies a dual institutional creation work where the activities for creating community-level practice in the field occur under the umbrella of a temporary CCI practice that is created in parallel. The company’s intention to continue the support for a limited time only reflects its commitment to community empowerment, rather than inflicting further dependence. CICBO unfolds through iterative phases of conceptual (design) and operational (implementation) activities, where a stable template gradually emerges through repeated incorporation of ongoing learning. As such, the emergence of CICBO depicts high interactions among company, community and other social actors. In particular, the process highlights diverse roles of the local community as the initial adopters of the CBO-oriented practice, supporters in the promotional activities, part of the maintenance mechanisms, and most importantly eventual upholder of the practice. The findings identify the ability of CICBO to create shared values for the CCI actors and potential for community empowerment. More importantly, the success of CICBO is observed to inspire various social actors including other organizations and the wider community to engage in similar and complementary practices, resulting in widespread diffusion of CBO-oriented activities. The findings bring new insights for practitioners, policy makers and communities, particularly in developing countries, who seek to design and implement similar practices as effective and sustainable solutions for complex social issues.

Interroger les œuvres de Jean-Jacques Rousseau à partir de la notion de territoire permet de déterminer le sens, les bornes et l’unité de son « système » philosophique. Celui-ci s’organise autour du problème du territoire et des territoires. L’existence humaine est déterminée par le fait de la naissance sur un territoire moral et politique, fait qui est le lieu d’un hasard faisant exister d’un côté ou de l’autre d’une ligne de bipartition : d’un côté les patries, terres de liberté, d’égalité, de vertu et de félicité publique, de l’autre les territoires corrompus, où les hommes sont rendus esclaves, inégaux, vicieux et malheureux par de mauvaises institutions. Ce problème comprend quatre aspects principaux. Quelles sont les conditions de possibilité de la constitution d’une patrie ? Quelles sont les conditions de possibilité de la conservation de la patrie face au danger des relations entre territoires ? Comment vivre dans un territoire corrompu lorsqu’on est né dans une patrie ? Comment les hommes nés dans un territoire corrompu peuvent y vivre sans être corrompus et le réformer pour qu’il devienne une patrie ? Ce système s’étend des écrits du jeune Rousseau, poète et musicien, d’avant « l’Illumination de Vincennes » jusqu’aux œuvres « autobiographiques » du vieux Jean-Jacques solitaire, en passant par les ouvrages « politiques » du Rousseau de la maturité, et il englobe ces écrits dans une philosophie politique de la réforme, dont l’unité réside dans la volonté d’œuvrer à la réforme du monde par la production d’une œuvre guidée par l’amour de la vertu et visant la réalisation du bonheur et de la liberté de ses semblables. / Questioning the writings of Jean-Jacques Rousseau through the concept of territory allows us to determine the meaning, the boundaries and the unity of his philosophical “system”. This system is organized around the problem of territory and territories. Human existence is determined by the fact of being born on a moral and political territory, the fact of it being a random place making one exist on one side of a division line or the other: on one side the countries (“patries”): lands of liberty, equality, virtue and public felicity; and on the other side the corrupt territories: where men are enslaved, made unequal, vicious and unhappy by bad institutions. This problem contains four main aspects. What are the conditions which allow the constitution of a country? What are the conditions which allow the conservation of the country in front of the danger of the relations between territories? How to live in a corrupt territory when you were born in a country? How can men, who were born in a corrupt territory, live there without becoming corrupt and reform it in order to turn it into a country? This system is present throughout the writings of the young Rousseau poet and musician before the “Illumination of Vincennes’’ up to the “autobiographical” writings of the old solitary Jean-Jacques, passing through the “political” writings of the mature Rousseau and it also unifies these writings in a political philosophy of reforming, in which unity resides in the will to work on reforming the world through the production of writings guided by love of virtue and aiming at the realization of happiness and liberty of his fellow men.