Ethnic interest organizations have not been considered a salience influence on foreign policy. Traditionally, democratic theory suggests foreign policy should be determined by the will of the general population, rather that the limited and segregated interests of minority groups. Specifically in Canadian foreign policy, ethnic groups have also had limited access to decision-makers because of increased centralization of Canadian foreign policy. In contrast, the literature on Canada-India relations suggests there is an important foreign policy impact by the large, economically progressive Indo-Canadian Diaspora which has actively attempted to improve relations between these states. This dissertation addresses this obvious contrast, showing how the community has overcome the challenges traditionally associated with ethnic groups and foreign policy. Centrally, the research finds that Indo-Canadians have been active and successful foreign policy participants, influencing implementation, perceptions-editing and direct foreign policy between the two countries. This is determined by two characteristics: first, the Harper government’s decision to actively improve economic relations with New Delhi has opened important cess points for the Indo-Canadian community. Give their intimate knowledge of India’s business and economic environment, the Diaspora has been involved in various overseas missions, consultations and networking between the Canadian government and various stakeholders. Second, ethnic group influence is determined by the community’s internal organization, including the composition of their membership, financial resources and political strategies. With these characteristics, the dissertation assesses three interest organizations: the Indo-Canada Chamber of Commerce (ICCC), the Canada-India Business Council (C-IBC) and the Canada-India Foundation (CIF). By conducting a within-case analysis, it finds that each organization has a niche role within Canada-India relations – in Diaspora representation (ICCC), business and trade relations (C-IBC) and policy-related advocacy (CIF). Centrally, this dissertation speaks to the evolving relations between the state and society in Canadian foreign policy. It offers a challenge to earlier work in this field, resulting in theoretical, methodological and policy-oriented advancement of a nascent body of literature, suggesting avenues for further investigation.

This paper explores Alexanderplatz during the Weimar Period in Berlin. It is looked at from three different perspectives: historical urban plans, Alfred Döblin's novel Berlin Alexanderplatz, and Rainer Werner Fassbinder's 1980's film adaptation of Berlin Alexanderplatz. Through these three mediums, an argument forms that Alexanderplatz functioned as both a major transit space for movement of transportation and pedestrians, but also the transit space for the movement of ideas and information.

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.

Northeast Brazil is a region characterized by economic poverty and human misery. Poor ecological conditions contribute to the nature of the dilemma, but another factor in the apparent cultural stagnation of the Northeast, may be the persistence of values and social practices traditionally aligned with the colonial sugar plantation system. Thus, this thesis represents an examination of the continuity of a given pattern, the man/patron relationship. This pattern is a contemporary parallel to the master/slave relationship which was the key to understanding of the social system of the colonial period. An historical overview reveals the nature of the traditional system, which proceeded to decline in the late nineteenth century. A review of present day conditions of the rural worker in the Northeast indicates numerous aspects of the colonial system which remain almost as they were. This review is followed by several case studies which particularly reveal various manifestations of the man/patron pattern in contemporary situations other than those associated with the remaining sugar industry. The information presented in the case studies was collected in 1968-69 when the author was living in Recife on a Fulbright-Hays grant. The case studies do not represent conclusive documentation but, rather, provocative evidence that certain aspects of the traditional social system, namely the man/patron pattern, persist in a con­temporary society which is no longer solely dependent on nor dominated by the production of sugar. Furthermore, the thesis implies that the continuity of traditional cultural patterns may, in fact, obstruct efforts of economic and social development.

No description available.

Uncertainty surrounding volcanic activity can lead to socio-economic crises with or without an eruption as demonstrated by the post-1978 response to unrest of Long Valley Caldera (LVC), CA. Extensive research in physical sciences provides a foundation on which to assess direct impacts of hazards, but fewer resources have been dedicated towards understanding human responses to volcanic risk. To evaluate natural hazard risk issues at LVC, a multi-hazard, mail-based, household survey was conducted to compare perceptions of volcanic, seismic, and wildfire hazards. Impacts of volcanic activity on housing prices and businesses were examined at the county-level for three volcanoes with a “very high” threat designation from the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS); LVC, (caldera system), Mount St. Helens, WA (stratovolcano), and Kīlauea, HI (shield volcano). A negative relationship was found between volcanic risk perception and preparedness. Additionally, the perception that housing prices declined after volcano alerts was confirmed by econometric modeling.

This thesis examines land reclamation as an increasingly significant form of land grabbing and control. Its focus is coastal reclamation in south Bali, Indonesia, particularly in and near the culturally, economically, and ecologically important Benoa Bay. Like elsewhere in Asia and around the world, the remaking of landscapes and seascapes in Indonesia through reclamation has numerous, interconnected material, ecological, and social impacts. In south Bali, coral, mangrove, and seagrass meadows have been degraded, fishers’ livelihoods decimated, and communities’ spiritual and other connections to place disrupted. Benoa is a particularly productive case to analyze, as there have been instances of both historical and recent reclamation projects, as well as a proposed mega-project that has successfully been resisted for nearly a decade. The thesis seeks to make multiple contributions in analyzing reclamation, primarily in Bali and elsewhere in Indonesia. First, despite its quickening pace and widening extent, there is a need for greater empirical attention to reclamation’s spatiality and its entwined social, ecological, and material effects. This case study is attentive to the historical and conjunctural specificities of Bali (including the tourist-centric economy that provides capital with unique imaginaries and circulations for a spatial fix and the Balinese-Hinduism that subtends legal pluralism), but also attempts to trace trends and dynamics of reclamation more widely. Second, examining reclamation as an assemblage enables us to better understand its political economy, by identifying the many financial, technological, legal, discursive and other elements that must be made to cohere. Analyzing cases of resistance, or other failures to cohere, reveal potential weak seams and chokepoints in reclamation’s assemblage. Third, analysis of reclamation enables us to see reclaimed land as “manufactured,” and different not just theoretically from emplaced land, but distinct in its behaviors. Manufactured land behaves like a true (not pseudo) commodity. Seeing land in a commodity chain further reveals its political economy as well as opportunities to disrupt its manufacture.

Evaluation of many records is the only way valid judgments can be made on abundance and status. The necessity of obtaining exact dates, localities, numbers, and special weather conditions cannot be overemphasized. For this reason, records in supplement to this list are freely solicited. The present checklist includes all species and subspecies for which specimens exist. In some instances sight records have been adequate reason for including a species on the list when no specimen existed. Sight records for species which are difficult to identify have been admitted upon careful editing. The author has followed the policy outlined by Griscom (1922) with regard to acceptance of sight records. Answers are sought to six questions about the person reporting an unusual sighting.: (1) Is he familiar with the birds of his area?; (2) Is he aware of the importance of his observation?; (3) Has he ever seen the species before?; (4) Does he know the species with which it might be confused?; (5) Does his account show that circumstances were good for a proper identification?; and (6) Did he recognize it at once, or look it up later from memory?

<p>This thesis examines the local consequences of the restructuring of Ontario's welfare state. Changes in welfare state policies are shown to have significant impacts upon the Province's urban areas. The thesis argues that to understand the development of the welfare state it is necessary to examine the structural context in which that deveIopment occurs as weII as the actions of human agents that seek to influence policy development and to change the structures of social organisation. That is, welfare state Policy, and the restructuring of the state, are not to be seen as imposed by the state: people can influence the development of the welfare state. It is within particular locaIities that we can observe the interactions between structures and agents.</p> <p>The thesis proposes that to understand the development of the local welfare state, we need to investigate the structural context in which a locality operates; the processes at work within a locality; and the unique features of the locality itself (e.g., people's experiences of the state and their reactions to state pol icy). This study incorporates each of these dimensions to provide a comprehensive analysis of the development of the local welfare state in Ontario.</p> <p>The primary processes at work in Ontario to influence the local level or Jment of the wellfare state in the last two decades have been the deinst itutionalisation of several (previously -institutionalised populations , and the) privatisation of services which serve these people. The~e policies are shown to be the result of pressures external to the 5tate (e.g .• the demands for social services), as well as those internal pressures which have received much greater attention in UH• literature (E.g •• the state's fiscal crisis).</p> / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Globalization is recognized as a world-encompassing phenomenon, even as its benefits are debated. Sustainability, the capacity to maintain high standards of living through generations, is at stake. This paper examines the problems of sustainability with globalization from several perspectives. High statistical correlation between indices of globalization and environmental degradation (r2 = 0.977, p < .001) is found using multi-dimensional scaling software. The socially destabilizing, culture flattening effects of globalization are examined, and the terms ‘nationalism’ and ‘terrorism’ are defined. On the basis of its medial position among the indices of both globalization and environmental degradation, Chile is explored in a case study of the interaction. Conclusions regarding Chile’s vulnerabilities are reached, and the country’s environmental, social, and economic ‘weak spots’ are identified. The ethical positions of globalization and sustainability are considered, and the conclusion that there is very little that can be done to alter the nature of the interaction is drawn. It is suggested that globalization minimizes the prospects of success in efforts toward sustainability by maximizing vulnerabilities among sustainability’s components.