There has been a general shift in the location of steel production over the last 15 years away from developed countries towards developing countries. The shift is similar to those documented in their industries like cars and textiles, but the reasons for the shift are different partly because steel is not produced by multinational corporations. This thesis examines part of the shift in steel production. specifically its decline in the United States and its expansion in Brasil. An analysis of changing class relationships around steel production over the most recent cycle of accumulation is conducted for each country. The importance of indigenous class forces in determining the course of industrial development is emphasized. in contrast with most of the radical literature on industrial development which considers third world growth to be externally imposed. The thesis makes two major contributes to the literature. First a theory of international development which is consistent with realist-marxist principles is provided. This theory also integrates the economic and political branches of marxist theory through an analysis of competition, a subject relatively absent from most marxist analyses. Secondly, research at a concrete level is conducted which illustrates the strengths and usefulness of the realist-marxist theory. By analyzing an industry (steel) that in its institutional organization and physical structure is different from other industries that have been examined empirically, different kinds of social relationships are found to be important in determining the pattern of international development. An explanation of the shift in steel production is provided therefore which also demonstrates practically the realist argument that causes of Industrial development are both abstract and specific: specific to places, times and branches of production. Most of the existing radical literature on international development identifies only causes that are specific to certain cases. / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Climate change presents a wide range of concerns that can jeopardize international security. Among those concerns are neo-Malthusian worries of diminishing natural resources. Predictive models suggest that rainfall and temperature anomalies have the potential to reduce water basins, crop production, increase land degradation among other perils that threaten human security. This concern is particularly true in sub-Saharan Africa given the region’s strong dependence on rain-fed agriculture. Despite strong claims from various world leaders and scientists of a direct climate-conflict nexus, little empirical evidence has been devoted to find a systematic causal pathway of this kind. What is more, the literature not explored the relationship between climate change and low-intensity forms of social unrest. Therefore, contrary to most of the literature that explores a direct climate-conflict relationship, this dissertation contributes to the literature along two lines. First, it explores the relationship between climate change and socio-political unrest. Second, rather than simply assume a direct relationship between climate shocks and conflict, this dissertation examines: a) the effects of climate change on food scarcity, and the impact of that scarcity, in turn, on the likelihood of social unrest and conflict, and b) the effects of climate change on land degradation, that the impact of that degradation, in turn, on the frequency of communal violence.

A idéia de que a formação de laços de cooperação e a organização em associações podem contribuir para a melhoria da qualidade de vida de populações pobres tem adquirido força entre teóricos e atores políticos. Parte deles argumenta que o Estado tem historicamente agido contra a possibilidade de organizações autônomas emergirem em comunidades de baixa renda, mas exemplos recentes mostram que atores estatais também podem incentivar e apoiar estas comunidades para que se auto-organizem, o que pode ser decisivo para que elas se desenvolvam em termos sociais e econômicos. A presente dissertação pretende estabelecer o quadro teórico e histórico no qual se insere um exemplo significativo de como o Estado pode, em parceria com setores organizados da sociedade civil, estimular a organização coletiva das parcelas mais pobres e menos organizadas da população, a fim de promover seu desenvolvimento. Este exemplo vem do programa Incubadora de Cooperativas, da Prefeitura Municipal de Santo André, município da região do Grande ABC, São Paulo. Os limites e possibilidades de uma política pública de fomento ao cooperativismo como estratégia de desenvolvimento são considerados com base em duas abordagens principais: de um lado, os debates sobre o papel de governos para o estímulo à participação dos cidadãos e sua organização em associações dentro de um quadro de redefinição das relações Estado-sociedade civil; de outro lado, o contexto de construção do que vem sendo chamado economia solidária, que aqui caracterizamos como uma diversidade de experiências coletivas de organização econômica, onde as pessoas se associam para produzir e reproduzir meios de vida segundo relações de reciprocidade, igualdade e democracia. Com base nos avanços, dificuldades e desafios do caso da Incubadora de Cooperativas de Santo André, procuramos refletir sobre o potencial apoio do Estado em relação às formas de economia solidária. / The idea that building cooperation ties and organising in associations may contribute to improve the quality of life of the poor has been growing among social scientists and political agents. Part of them argue that the state has historically worked against the possibility of autonomous organisation rise among poor communities, but recent cases have proved that state actors may also work in ways of fostering and helping organisation in these communities, what may be decisive to their development both in social and economic terms. This dissertation attempts to build the theoretical and historical frame for an interesting example of how state, along with organised groups of civil society, can foster collective organisation of poor and non-organised people in order to promote development: the Cooperatives Incubator, of the Municipality of Santo André, São Paulo, Brasil. Limits and possibilities of such a public policy as development strategy are considered according to two main approaches: the debates on the role of governments to promote civic participation and organisation, what is related to the redefinition of state-society relations; and, on the other hand, the building of what has been called solidarity economics, featured as a diversity of collective experiences of economic organisation, where people get together to produce and reproduce means of life according to relations of reciprocity, equality and democracy. Based on the progress, difficulties and challenges of the Cooperatives Incubator of Santo André, we try to point out reflections on the potential role of the state to support forms of solidarity economics.

This study is a survey of the Kentucky State Park system as it exists today. Investigations were directed primarily to factors which influence attendance at Kentucky's parks and to the development of a formula for use in determining possible expansion rates for these parks.

Regional paleoclimatic proxies and current local climate variables and were analyzed to reconstruct paleoglaciers in an effort to assess glacier change On Mount Rainier. Despite the dry and generally warm conditions (sea surface temperatures (SST) -0.15°C to +1.8°C relative to current temperatures), the previously documented McNeeley II advance (10,900 - 9,950 cal yr B.P.) was likely produced by air temperature fluctuations. The average SST record and the terrestrial climate proxies show cooling temperatures with continued dryness between McNeeley II and the Burroughs Mountain advance (3,442 - 2,153 cal yr B.P.). The paleoclimate during the Burroughs Mountain advance was both cool and warm (SST temperatures -0.55°C to +0.5°C) and was the wettest of the Holocene. A combination of statistical and deterministic equilibrium line altitude (ELA) models was used to produce Holocene ELAs between 1,735 -2,980 m. Glacial advances were predicted 10,990, 10,170, 9,260, 8,200, 6,490, 3,450 and 550 - 160 cal yr. B.P. Two glacier flow models were produced simultaneously to constrain glacial extent through the Holocene. Model I is based on current mass balance parameters and produced lengths for the Nisqually and Emmons glaciers 3.7 - 14.2 km and 4.2 - 17.1 km respectively. Glaciated area ranged from 26 to 327 km2. Model 2 is tuned to the Garda advance and produced lengths 2.6-10.6 km and 2.3-13.9 km. Glaciated area ranged from 11 to 303 km2. The first two advances were similar in elevation and GIS-modeled extent to McNeely II moraines. The following three advances were not detected in the geologic record. The 3,450 cal yr. B.P. advance was the largest of the late-Holocene (ELA 1,800 - 1,817 m) and was ~200 m lower than the geologic record. The ELAs of the Garda advance were modeled (1,944 - 1,983 m) and are similar to previous reconstructions. North-south spatial variations in glacial extent increase during periods of recession as the southern glaciers receive more ablation than northern glaciers. Early humans could have accessed the alpine environments as high as 1,730-2,980 m. The early Holocene glacial extent allowed the highest (2,980 m) 11,150 cal yr. B.P. and lowest (1,730 m) 10,990 cal yr. B.P. alpine access. Glacial retreat (2,727 m 10,400 cal yr. B.P.) was followed by an advance (1,929 m 10,170 cal yr. B.P.) and another retreat (2,951 m 10,050 cal yr. B.P.). Ice gradually descended and limited access to 1,820 m 6,490 cal yr. B.P. Glacial extents remained largely unchanged until the historic era when paleohumans would have had access to alpine environments at 2,000 m.

Independent documentary films in contemporary China articulate a vision of Chinese politics and society that deviates from official state discourse. This thesis explores how China’s New Documentary Movement (NDM) – a spontaneous, independent phenomenon in Chinese cinema – serves as an important arena to study state and society struggles in the aftermath of the post-Mao reforms. This study first explores the politicalization of Chinese national cinema to demonstrate how the degree of control exerted over filmmaking and the documentary genre functions as a useful indicator of Chinese state-society relations. Focusing on the contentious issue of land disputes and rural rightful resistance in two documentaries – Feng Yan’s "Bing Ai" as well as Zhang Ke and Dong Yu’s "Where is the Way" – it contrasts the lived reality of displaced peasants to the official rhetoric disseminated in the state media. Also discussed is the state’s response to the NDM and its implications for greater societal autonomy in contemporary China.

Independent documentary films in contemporary China articulate a vision of Chinese politics and society that deviates from official state discourse. This thesis explores how China’s New Documentary Movement (NDM) – a spontaneous, independent phenomenon in Chinese cinema – serves as an important arena to study state and society struggles in the aftermath of the post-Mao reforms. This study first explores the politicalization of Chinese national cinema to demonstrate how the degree of control exerted over filmmaking and the documentary genre functions as a useful indicator of Chinese state-society relations. Focusing on the contentious issue of land disputes and rural rightful resistance in two documentaries – Feng Yan’s "Bing Ai" as well as Zhang Ke and Dong Yu’s "Where is the Way" – it contrasts the lived reality of displaced peasants to the official rhetoric disseminated in the state media. Also discussed is the state’s response to the NDM and its implications for greater societal autonomy in contemporary China.

<p>This study is a comparative historical analysis of the link between environmental activism and state-society relations in 20th century Russia and Mexico. It explores the three main currents of environmentalism that originated in these two countries under non-democratic political systems that originated in the social revolutions of 1910 (Mexico) and 1917 (Russia) and the roles that each current has played in the process of democratization that began in the 1980s. It is based on critical evaluation and synthesis of the following theoretical fields: collective action, social movements, political regime change and democratic transition. Scholarly literature and press sources are used to corroborate and evaluate findings from in-depth qualitative interviews with environmental activists, researchers, lawyers, and journalists as well as data from participant observation conducted by the author in Russia and in Mexico. The main findings of the study are two-fold. 1) Environmental activism affects social rather than political democratization. 2) The type of environmental activism that has the most significant impact on social democratization is social environmentalism - the current that emphasizes the synergy between the struggles for social justice and civil rights on the one hand and against environmental degradation on the other.</p> / Dissertation

Located just east of Missoula, Montana, Milltown Dam stood from 1908 to 2008 immediately downstream of the Clark Fork River’s confluence with the Blackfoot River. After the discovery of arsenic-contaminated groundwater in the nearby community of Milltown, as well as extensive deposits of contaminated sediment in the dam’s upstream reservoir, in 1981, the area was designated a Superfund site – along with much of the Upper Clark Fork Watershed. This motivated the eventual decision to remove the dam, perform environmental remediation, and reconstruct approximately five kilometers of the Clark Fork River and its floodplain. This study is part conceptual and part empirical. It describes a state-and-transition framework equipped to investigate channel evolution as well as the adjustment trajectories of other socio-biophysical landscapes. This framework is then applied to understand the post-restoration channel evolution of the Clark Fork River’s mainstem, secondary channels, and floodplain. Adopting a state-and-transition framework to conceptualize landscape evolution lets environmental managers more effectively anticipate river response under multiple disturbence scenarios and therefore use more improvisational and adaptive management techniques that do not attempt to guide the landscape toward a single and permanent end state. State-and-transition models can also be used to highlight the spatially explicit patterns of complex biophysical response. The state-and-transition models developed for the Clark Fork River demonstrate the possibility of multiple evolutionary trajectories. Neither the secondary channels nor the main channel have responded in a linear, monotonic fashion, and future responses will be contingent upon hydrogeomorphic and climatic variability and chance disturbances. The biogeomorphic adjustments observed so far suggest divergent evolutionary trajectories and that in some instances the long-term fates of the mainstem, floodplain, and secondary channels are inescapably enmeshed with one another.

Food deserts are low-income areas lacking access to nutritious and affordable food. Such limited access has various implications for public health, particularly diet-related diseases such as diabetes. Among American Indian communities, diabetes is particularly rampant at nearly twice the rate of white populations in the U.S. On the Navajo Nation, diabetes incidence has been estimated to be as high as 1 in 3. According to the USDA, the majority of the Navajo Nation is considered a food desert. This paper utilizes food sovereignty as a lens for decolonization to identify the underlying causes of hunger and nutrition-related diseases within Diné communities. This paper will explore the histories of the change in the Diné diet and how colonial processes and the loss of traditional food systems affects current food and health patterns on the Navajo Nation. By expanding the scope of public health issues such as obesity and diabetes in Native American communities from food access and nutrition to power relations embedded in colonial structures that have resulted in the loss of indigenous sovereignty and power, I hope to pinpoint entry points for future indigenous researchers to develop and enact policies that will expand access to healthy and culturally significant foods on the Navajo Nation and contribute to efforts to restore food sovereignty of the Navajo Nation by rebuilding local food economies.