Transboundary water management (TWM) regards how internationally shared waters are managed. Recently, TWM processes have been researched from the perspective of gender inclusivity. In line with this trend, this thesis is investigating to what extent the Transboundary Policy Dialogue for Improved Water Governance in Brahmaputra River (the Brahmaputra Dialogue) about the Brahmaputra River is gender sensitive. The Brahmaputra River is shared by China, India, Bhutan and Bangladesh. The management of the river is severely conflicted both intra- and interstate wise. Therefore, the Brahmaputra Dialogue, facilitated by the South Asia Consortium for Interdisciplinary Water Resources Study (SaciWATERs), aims at creating understanding between the different stakeholders. To measure the gender sensitivity, the Gender Sensitivity Framework is created. The framework is a toolkit that, through a set of indicators, measure gender inclusivity from both a structural and a substantive perspective. Using a descriptive text analysis method of the reports from the third and current phase of the Brahmaputra Dialogue, the investigation reveals that the Brahmaputra Dialogue is only 45% gender sensitive. While the work ways of the Brahmaputra Dialogue generally are gender inclusive, the Brahmaputra Dialogue content wise lacks some key aspects of gender awareness. One such aspect is that the concept of “gender” is broader than women’s vulnerabilities to masculine decision-making.

There is near unanimous agreement in the scientific community that global mean temperatures will increase by several degrees Celsius by the end of the century. This could lead to dramatic consequences, especially for the poor in the developing world. In many countries climate change will manifest itself through reduced rainfall, greater temperature variability, a rise in sea levels, and a higher frequency of weather shocks. These effects constitute threats to people’s ability to continue to live where they are living today, and more generally to their economic security, and may lead to higher levels of migration away from areas vulnerable to climate change.While environmental change may lead to an increase in migration, in most cases it may not be feasible to identify pure environmental migrants because of the complexity of the push and pull factors involved. The aim of this dissertation is to assess the extent to which households are vulnerable today to environmental change and weather shocks in selected areas of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region and in South Asia’s Sundarbans, whether households are able to cope with weather shocks and adapt to changing environmental conditions, and whether climatic conditions and weather shocks are leading to higher rates of migration. The dissertation relies in large part on the analysis of new households surveys recently implemented in areas affected by weather shocks and changing climatic conditions in seven countries: Algeria, Bangladesh, Egypt, India, Morocco, Syria, and Yemen. While the MENA countries are affected mostly by droughts, and to a lower extent floods, the Sundarbans in Bangladesh and India are affected by cyclones, sea water surges, and salinity intrusions. The ways in which households are affected by extreme weather events are very different in the MENA and South Asia regions. Yet as the dissertation demonstrates, while circumstances and contexts differ between the two sets of countries, many of the findings are actually similar in both regions. The first part of the dissertation provides background for the empirical work. After a review of the literature, a set of 10 questions are asked together with hypotheses to be tested. The second part of the dissertation provides the empirical results, with three chapters focusing on (1) household perceptions about their environment and the impact of weather shocks on households; (2) the coping mechanisms and adaptation strategies deployed by households; and (3) migration decisions, in most cases by individual household members. The findings from the dissertation suggest that individuals from households more seriously and negatively affected by weather shocks and changes in their environment are slightly more likely to migrate temporarily, but not permanently. This is possibly due to the cost of migration and the fact that environmental change and weather shocks may result in large losses in income and assets for vulnerable groups, making migration less affordable for them. Thus, some population groups may well be in a situation of "relative trappedness" in comparison to other households less affected by weather shocks and changes in their environment._____________La communauté scientifique est quasi unanime sur le fait que les températures mondiales moyennes devraient augmenter de plusieurs degrés Celsius d'ici la fin du siècle. Cela pourrait avoir des conséquences dramatiques pour les populations, en particulier pour les pauvres dans les pays en voie de développement. Dans de nombreux pays le changement climatique va se manifester par une diminution des précipitations, une plus grande variabilité de la température, une élévation du niveau de la mer, et une fréquence plus élevée des chocs climatiques. Ces effets constituent des menaces pour la capacité des populations de continuer à vivre là où elles vivent aujourd'hui, ce qui pourrait par conséquent entraîner des mouvements migratoires importants.Cependant, même si les chocs climatiques pourraient mener à une augmentation de la migration, dans la plupart des cas il n’est pas possible d'identifier des migrants environnementaux dits purs en raison de la complexité des facteurs influençant la migration. Dans ce contexte, l'objectif de la thèse est triple. La thèse cherche à évaluer (1) dans quelle mesure les ménages sont vulnérables aujourd'hui aux changements environnementaux et aux chocs climatiques dans certaines régions de l'Afrique du Nord, du Moyen-Orient, et de l’Asie du Sud (Sundarbans) ;(2) si les ménages sont en mesure de faire face aux chocs climatiques, et (3) si les conditions environnementales et les chocs climatiques conduisent à des taux de migration plus élevés parmi les membres des ménages les plus affectés comparativement aux ménages moins affectés. La thèse repose en partie sur une analyse de nouvelles données d’enquêtes auprès des ménages mises en œuvre dans des zones touchées par les chocs climatiques dans sept pays :l’Algérie, le Bangladesh, l’Egypte, l’Inde, le Maroc, la Syrie et le Yémen. Alors que les pays du Moyen Orient et d’Afrique du Nord sont touchés principalement par des sécheresses, et dans une moindre mesure par des inondations, la zone géographique dite des Sundarbans au Bangladesh et en Inde est touchée principalement par des cyclones.Bien que les chocs climatiques dans les deux régions soient différents, la thèse montre que les implications pour les ménages sont similaires. Les groupes vulnérables sont fortement et négativement affectés par les chocs climatiques et ils ne sont souvent pas capables de faire face et de s’adapter efficacement à ces chocs. De plus, il semble que les ménages les plus affectés n’aient pas de taux de migration permanente parmi leurs membres plus élevés que les ménages moins affectés, même si les taux de migration temporaire sont légèrement plus élevés. En ce sens, il apparait que les groupes vulnérables pourraient être en termes comparatifs pris au piège (« relative trappedness ») dans les zones vulnérables aux chocs climatiques comme d’autres études l’ont suggéré. / Doctorat en Sciences / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

This thesis explores the origin of one of the most engrossing concerns of the post-colonial Indian state, that is, its extensive, intricate, and expensive feeding arrangements for the civilians. It tracks the colonial origin of the post-colonial welfare state, of which state-management of food is one of the most publicized manifestations. This thesis examines the intervention of the late colonial British state in food procurement and distribution in India during the Second World War, and various forms of such intervention, such as the introduction of food rationing and food austerity laws. It argues that the war necessitated actions on the part of the colonial state to secure food supplies to a vastly expanded British Indian Army, to the foreign Allied troops stationed in India, and to the workers employed in war-industries. The thesis brings forth the constitutional and political predicaments that deprived the colonial central government's food administration of success. It further reveals how the bitter bargaining about food imports into India between the Government of India and the War Cabinet in Britain hampered the state efforts to tackle the food crisis. By discussing the religious and cultural codes vis-à-vis food consumption that influenced government food policies, this thesis has situated food in the historiography of consumption in colonial India. In addition to adopting a political approach to study food, it has also applied sociological treatment, particularly while dealing with how the wartime scarcity, and consequent austerity laws, forced people to accept novel consumption cultures. It also contributes to the historiography of 'everyday state'. Through its wartime intervention in everyday food affairs, the colonial state that had been distant and abstract in the perception of most common households, suddenly became a reality to be dealt with in everyday life within the domestic site. Thus, the macro state penetrated micro levels of existence. The colonial state now even developed elaborate food surveillance to gather intelligence about violation of food laws. This thesis unravels the responses of some of the political and religious organizations to state intervention in quotidian food consumption. Following in this vein, through a study of the political use of famine-relief in wartime Bengal, it introduces a new site to the study of communal politics in India, namely, propagation of Hindu communal politics through distribution of food by the Hindu Mahasabha party. Further, it demonstrates how the Muslim League government's failure to prevent the Great Bengal Famine of 1943-44 was politically used by the Mahasabha to oppose the League's emerging demand for the creation of Pakistan.

I argue that a country’s preferences in an international trade negotiation ultimately reflect the domestic distribution of power across economic sectors not only in the field of the market, but also in the field of society. Fields correspond to arenas of power. Whereas in the market societal actors have economic capital (EC), their position in society determines their identity capital (IC). The more a sector is associated to the dominant conception of national identity, the higher is its IC. Both types of capital impact a sector’s political power (PP). IC manifests itself in the phase of ratification either instrumentally, when in dispute in the political field, or structurally, if embedded in state institutions. Hence, when IC is instrumentalised, only if the coalition in government espouses a social paradigm to which a sector is mostly associated it will be able to convert its level of IC into PP. As ratification shadows negotiation, constraints in this latter phase tend to be false positives in explaining the formation of the national interest. The hypothesis on the role of IC in shaping the weight of sectors’ preferences in trade negotiations is tested along with a process of theory-building through a multi-method structured-focused comparison. For the comparison, two countries were chosen as their societies are diverse in terms of identity, yet each represents a variety of the effects of IC. Brazil and India have identity-based social cleavages that are expressed in structural and instrumental terms respectively. They are key players in the World Trade Organisation’s (WTO) multilateral system of trade, having participated of the Doha Development Round of trade liberalisation. Brazil expressed interest for liberalisation as the mostly racially-diverse sectors had offensive demands. In turn, protectionist demands prevailed in India, as defensive sectors are associated to the dominant secularist paradigm of national identity.

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In the last two decades, there has been a significant rise in women’s rights Non-Govermental Organizations (NGOs) in Nepal, working on issues ranging from economic and political empowerment to violence against women and discrimination. Most of these local NGOs rely on international funding to pursue their advocacy and project work. This brings up questions of power imbalance regarding decision-making and agenda setting in their relations with donor International Non-Governmental Organizations (INGOs) as the latter wield substantial financial control. Academic and practice-based research on power dynamics between donor INGOs in the Global North and recipient NGOs in the Global South has mainly focused on the benefits of NGO involvement in the development sector. Drawing on postcolonial, transnational feminist theories, this study uses a critical perspective to identify and explore possible power imbalances and explores the following key issues: Funding sustainability, accountability, collaboration, and cooperation between local and international women’s rights NGOs, and finally, local ownership. The inquiry builds upon empirical data from in-dept interviews with local and international women’s rights NGOs working in Kathmandu and the limited available secondarysources on the situation in Nepal. The findings point to clear power asymmetries, with local NGOs having to conform to Western standards in project design, implementation, reporting and monitoring, leaving limited space for flexibility or considering the situation on the ground. Nonetheless, this study also concludes that NGOs are not under the complete influence of their international donors, as suggested by some literature, but rather use the available space to maneuver and push their cause. Finally, based on the insights of this research and considering new initiatives that attempt to transcend the current donor-recipient power dynamics, this study identifies a handful of potential principles to guide more equitable relations between women’s rights NGOs and donors.

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