The thesis analyses the provision of "Aid for Trade" as a specific form of state building intervention (SBI) in Laos and Vietnam, two countries that have received trade-related assistance as part of their global economic integration. The thesis uncovers how global economic and institutional reform agendas related to trade integration are accepted or contested within both states, as part of a highly political process characterised by strategic agency and structural selectivities of various actors involved. The thesis employs a theoretical framework to help analyse how global trade governance programmes intervene within targeted states, and how local socio-political contestation shapes the outcomes of such programmes. Drawing on Marxist state theory, SBIs are understood as contested processes which open up strategic opportunities for social forces to shape the transformation process and thereby to stabilise or challenge existing power relations. Special attention is directed towards the state as an arena of conflict in order to understand the specific forms and varying results that these interventions take. This framework allows us to grasp how dominant social forces within the Laotian and Vietnamese forms of state are able to modify or circumvent external reform imperatives, resulting in highly selective changes in trade governance, which often departs from the intention of "Aid for Trade" project managers. The thesis thereby changes conventional technocratic assumptions that believe that aid interventions are a matter of best practice and contributes to a growing research agenda which analyses development interventions within the wider political economy of the targeted state.

La Congrégation du Buon Governo, établie a Rome en 1592 avec la Bulla Pro Commissa, par Pape Clément VIII, est l’organisme administratif crée par le gouvernement pontifical pour la gestion des affaires internes. Comme l’a observé Paolo Prodi dans un ouvrage de 1982, l’Etat pontifical du 16ème siècle montre une certaine précocité dans le procès de modernisation des structures étatiques : la thèse de Prodi est que l’identité parfaite entre pouvoir spirituel et pouvoir temporel a joué – pendant une première phase – comme facteur positif vers la création des structures de l’Etat moderne.Le point de vue de l’historien du droit devrait ajouter à cette considération aussi le rôle joué par le droit canonique dans la construction des règles de l’administration moderne. Ce droit canonique qui était naturellement très bien connu par les élites de l’Etat de l’Eglise.L’étude approfondie de la Congrégation du Buon Governo vise donc à mettre à l’épreuve soit la thèse proprement historique de Paolo Prodi, soit de vérifier sur le terrain l’hypothèse de Gabriel Le Bras selon laquelle le droit administratif de l’état moderne doit beaucoup de ses mécanismes à la tradition canonique.En dépit de sa modernité, en effet, la Congrégation du Buon Governo garde des éléments de goût médiéval. Sortissant de l’idée indifférenciée de iurisdictio, elle renferme en soi non seulement la structure et l’organisation qui peuvent lui faire préfigurer un « ministère » avant la lettre, mais garde aussi fonctions et compétences de nature judiciaire.Elle est composée de cardinaux représentant le cercle des plus proches collaborateurs du Pape, qui sont appelés “ponenti”.Organisme composé pour « représenter » le pouvoir absolu du pape dans les affaires intérieures de l’état, la Congrégation doit surtout gérer les relations entre le pouvoir central et les communautés locales. Elle doit régler les conflits entre communautés, contrôler la gestion des finances communautaires, défendre l’intérêt de l’état dans les affaires d’aménagement du territoire ou les droits anciens des communes devaient se plier face au vouloir de l’autorité souveraine.C’est pour accomplir cette tâche que la congrégation s’organise dès le début sur un double registre : elle se charge de la gestion de l’administration interne pour donner exécution aux décisions du gouvernement central, mais aussi elle exerce les fonctions judiciaires dans les matières qui lui sont confiées.La fonction administrative de la Congrégation consiste notamment dans l’inspection et le contrôle des finances dans les territoires de l’État Pontifical: ainsi, lentement, l’état met un système de contrôle financier centralisé. Il s’agit d’une innovation majeure, car, dans les états d’ancien régime, les communes étaient perçues comme des sujets de droit public précédents à l’état central, et par conséquent ils étaient indépendants du point de vue économique (sauf le cas d’endettement, qui d’ailleurs n’avait pas nature publique ou administrative, mais privée). Dans le procès de soumission des communes au contrôle financier de l’état, par contre, le modèle de l’administration ecclésiastique devrait avoir joué un rôle, car, à différence des communautés de citoyens d’une ville ou d’un village, les établissements ecclésiastiques médiévaux étaient bien soumis au contrôle central de l’évêque, qui se manifestait par la pratique des visites pastorales.La Congrégation du Buon Governo connaît de relations entre les organes de l'État papal et les collectivités, et exerce son administration aussi à travers ses compétences et pouvoirs de nature judiciaire: en effet, elle-même juge en cas de désaccord concernant l'administration et des collectivités locales. / This PhD thesis aims to investigate the theme of the birth and development of modern state institutions, starting from the analysis of an organ of the temporal Church government, the Sacra Congregatio Boni Regiminis, established by Clement VIII in 1592 with the Bulla Pro Commissa a Domino, and responsible for the administration and management of the internal affairs of the Papal State until its suppression in 1847.The Papal State is in fact currently regarded by many academics as a real political laboratory/workshop, where institutional innovations intended to be placed and accepted by most of early modern States were tested.For this reason, a preliminary analysis examining the field of local administration seemed to be very useful and appropriate, as this matter shows how the Pope legitimizes his empire not only in the religious sphere, but also in the temporal one: cloaked in the spiritual robe, in the exercise of his powers, he pursues purely secular objectives.The study of a body as Buon Governo makes it possible to examine the phenomenon of the setting up of the modern state structures from a privileged point of view. This also allows us to focus on the relationship between central government and local communities.The action of Buon Governo relating to local/territorial administration testifies the reality of a body which is entrusted not only with structures typical of an actual ministry, with insightful administrative powers of supervision and control over local finances, but also with judicial competences and powers. Driven by this dual nature, the Papal temporal government thus reveals a configuration considered by Paolo Prodi as anticipatory of typical of modern states, showing an internal structure that branches out into organisms and systems capable of managing and exercising, even at the peripheral level, a very penetrating control on local realities.As mentioned, since 16th century, the Papal State has demonstrated a certain precocity in the process of institutional modernization, an ideal substrate for the birth of the Buon Governo.The work of the Congregatio Boni Regiminis is organized on a double level: it is not only responsible for the management and administration in enforcing judgments emanating from the center, but it has also judicial functions and competences in relation to the same issues.Administrative functions are principally reflected in the supervision and control of local finances: in this way the Papal State gradually put in place a system of centralized financial control.The reality just described is clearly shown in particular in the field of common properties (woods, pastures, etc.): this is in fact one of the subjects in which the Sacra Congregatio exercises both functions and powers, proto-administrative and properly judicial.The issue of the ownership of common properties becomes crucial when they are wrongly involved in the Pope Pio VII economic reform program: the aim of the motu proprio of 19 march 1801, and the subsequent ones of 1803 and 1807, is in fact to transfer to the Papal State – and in particular to the Reverenda Camera Apostolica – all debts contracted and not honored by local institutions in exchange of the assignment of all their properties (“beni comunitativi”). Among them they were wrongly included also common properties: they belong to communities, and not to local institutions.In this way, common properties, of which people and individuals belonging to a given community are owners, and towards them local institutions arise only in terms of “exponential” entity (they only have representative powers), are mistakenly included in the act of “incameramento”, coming to determine in this way a series of appeals to the Buon Governo, responsible for managing all the Apostolic Camera fiscal operations.

This thesis argues that agricultural co-operative societies under the leadership of the Irish Agricultural Organisation Society played a crucial role in building the Irish state and defining a national identity in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. By questioning widely held assumptions about a formative period in Ireland’s political and economic development, it is argued that critical ideas about the Irish nation emanated from the sphere of economics. In particular, the efforts of co-operative activists are understood as important actors in the process of building the Irish nation-state through their interventions to reorganise rural society. The co-operative movement’s attempts to organise the resources and population of the Irish countryside represented a serious modernising effort that shaped the character of the politically autonomous nation-state that emerged in the 1920s. The establishment of co-operative societies introduced new agricultural technologies to rural districts and placed local farmers in control of agricultural business. Although co-operators met with frequent frustration in their objective to restructure Irish society along co-operative lines, the study of the movement remains central to a thorough understanding of social and political conditions in the period under review. Co-operative ideas became incredibly influential amongst Irish nationalists associated with Sinn Féin. It is argued that the co-operative movement’s modernising project became embedded in the Irish countryside and enmeshed in a political economy of revolutionary nationalism. As a consequence, the co-operative movement exerted a significant influence upon those who seized governmental power after the Irish revolution, which extended beyond independence. The thesis utilises a range of local and national sources which include records for individual co-operative societies, reports and publications associated with the national movement, as well as a wide variety of contemporary literature and journalism. By applying a local approach that feeds into an analysis of the co-operative movement on a national level, the thesis presents a detailed analysis of how co-operative activists and ideas influenced the creation of Ireland’s political culture. Crucially, the work of interstitial actors is reinserted into the process of the Irish state’s development. The building of state institutions is viewed through the work of a network of co-operative experts and therefore as something that occurred outside the deliberations of official circuits of power. The thesis breaks new ground in the historiography of the development of the Irish state by analysing the important work of those involved in shaping rural social relations and institutions such as co-operative organisers, engineers, propagandists, managers and secretaries.

The incidence of violence and the configuration of areas of instability, which have accompanied rapid urbanisation processes in the global South, have led to a wide range of responses by state authorities at different levels. These responses include attempts to control, prevent and/or manage various forms of violence and crime. An emerging literature on urban security aims to improve our understanding of public security provision in volatile urban contexts in the global South. This literature has so far been dominated by policy-oriented and state-centric analyses, as well as by critiques of the way neoliberal governance is shaping responses to urban instability. These analytical approaches tend to ignore the political aspects and governmental consequences of security provision in fragile cities. This thesis argues that Foucault’s work on governmentality and ethnographic methodologies offer analytical and methodological tools that can help us address limitations in predominant analytical frameworks and contribute to fill gaps in the literature. The thesis develops an alternative critical approach to the study of urban security using those tools and employs it to investigate security provision in Medellin. This alternative approach focuses on the way security shapes governing processes in particular contexts and on their implications for those who are most vulnerable to urban fragility. Moreover, the thesis uses this innovative approach to investigate the security strategy implemented in Medellin since 2002, as part of what has come to be known as the ‘Medellin Model’. By exploring this particularly relevant case, this thesis highlights the significance of undertaking empirical explorations of the rationality of security strategies in different urban contexts and the importance of taking into account people´s differentiated experiences of security provision. Furthermore, this thesis argues that this alternative approach helps us understand the way power is exercised for particular purposes and on particular subjects in an attempt to deal with urban violence and insecurity. It also argues for the inclusion of these dimensions in contemporary studies of urban security in the global South.

Este trabalho discute a História da Bolívia à luz da logística nacional. Procura demonstrar que o maior ou menor êxito da construção do Estado esteve relacionado inicialmente às vias de transporte (internas e com o exterior) e, posteriormente, à energia (combustíveis) e à capacidade produtiva. Busca evidenciar que o desenvolvimento econômico (pólos dinâmicos da economia) e a própria construção de um centro de decisão econômica (soberania) são em grande medida tributários dos limites impostos pela logística nacional. O trabalho procura investigar o quanto a logística nacional influenciou a formação social, a competição inter-estatal e a própria revolução nacional na Bolívia. Assim, examina-se, sucessivamente, a formação da sociedade boliviana, o papel da Guerra do Chaco, a Revolução Nacional (1952), o separatismo e a integração regional tendo como pano de fundo esse denominador comum – a logística nacional. Por fim, entende que as promessas não cumpridas de cidadania e soberania da revolução nacional boliviana, inconclusa, têm sua redenção no processo de integração regional – realizado a partir do paradigma do Estado logístico. / This work discusses the history of Bolivia in light of the national logistics. Seeks to demonstrate that the greater or lesser success of state building was related initially to inland transport and communication (internal and external), and then to energy (fuel) and production capacity. Seeks to show that economic development (dynamic poles of the economy) and the actual construction of a center of economic decision (sovereignty) are largely tributary by the limits imposed by national logistics. The work aims to investigate how national logistics influenced the national social formation, the inter-state competition and the national revolution in Bolivia. Thus, it examines, successively, the formation of Bolivian society, the role of the Chaco War, the National Revolution (1952), and separatism and regional integration with the background of this common denominator – the national logistics. Finally, it considers that the broken promises of citizenship and sovereignty of the Bolivian national revolution, unfinished, have their redemption in the process of regional integration – made from the paradigm of the Logistic State.

Since the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, its leaders have been preoccupied with efforts to increase state capacity in order to exercise more effective control over their western frontier by controlling their minority population and generating the conditions for economic development in the area. Although these state-building initiatives have always incorporated an international component, the collapse of the USSR, the transnational characteristics of development, and China’s concern around the challenges of terrorism, separatism, and extremism have necessitated an accompanying region-building project in Eurasia. Using a synthesis of the region-building approach and the concept of regionalization, this study traces how Chinese domestic elite-led narratives about security and development generate domestic state-building initiatives which in turn produce region-building projects. Furthermore, this study assesses how region-building projects are promoted through narratives embedded in foreign policies that establish the historicity of China’s engagement in Eurasian affairs and norms of non-interference and co-development. Finally, it traces the empirical construction of regions through integrative infrastructure. By revealing the three symbiotic phases of Chinese domestic state-building and region-building, this study demonstrates how region-building projects have facilitated China’s ability to increase state capacity, control, and development in its western frontier. Furthermore, China’s region-building projects have gradually transformed Eurasia in a manner that has resulted in its eastward orientation through the usage of connective infrastructure and co-development projects that place China at the center of Eurasia. This project demonstrates how China has emerged as a dominant power in Eurasian affairs that not only exercises significant political and economic power, but more importantly, ideational power.

This article looks at contemporary Armenia, Georgia, and Azerbaijan and addresses the question of how these states, which suffer from considerable institutional weaknesses, nevertheless retain the ability to control key aspects of statehood, first of all security and a measure of central authority. It is argued that these states invest only in selected aspects of statehood. The needed resources are mobilized by a system of informal taxes, which are then invested in certain selected core functions of statehood. This form of state depends on both formal and informal institutions, which are mutually supportive.

Family law regulates the formation of marriage, divorce, marital property rights, child custody, inheritance, and spousal duties. This study aims to demonstrate how family law formation in the Middle East and North Africa reflects the struggle among social and political forces to capture the state and assert authority. The balance of power between competing social forces impacts both the timing (short-term versus long-term struggle) and type (progressive or regressive) of family law after independence. The ability of one of two competing forces, broadly categorized as traditionalist versus modernist, to capture the state is necessary for codification and is predictive of family law content. Case studies reveal that systemic shocks (e.g. revolution, social unrest, or foreign intervention) tip the balance of power in favor of traditional or modernizing forces in the post-independence state-building process and facilitate the successful consolidation of power and the codification of family law.

This paper studies the importance of acknowledging social identities in a state-building process. Kosovo is a disputed area in which several ethnic groups reside. These groups obtain extensive rights within the legal framework of the Republic of Kosovo. Although these rights are extensive and, according to some, the best laws regarding minorities in Europe there are those who do not feel an attachment to the state. Historically states have been based on single-groups in so called nation-states in which the mainstream identity of the population were synonymous with that of the state. Today the view on the state has evolved into that of a multi-cultural society in which everyone are accepted regardless of their identity (i.e. sex, ethnicity, gender and so on). The conflict of Kosovo has its base in the Albanian population within Kosovo and their struggle for recognition as a people. Their struggle throughout the 20th century culminated with the complete removal of rights by Slobodan Milošević in 1989 and the formation of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) in 1993. By the end of the 20th century NATO intervened in the conflict resulting in the adaptation of UN Security Council Resolution 1244 in which the future of Kosovo where determined. After being administrated by the international UN mission (UNMIK) for almost 9 years Kosovo declared its independence. Kosovo were to be a multi-ethnic state constituted of its many communities (ethnic-groups). Today there are few people who uses the term 'Kosovar', instead people still identify themselves by their ethnic-identity. This paper studies the importance of social identities and if the citizenship of Kosovo can fill the position as an overlapping identity bringing the ethnic-groups of Kosovo together. Although the conclusion is that the citizenship cannot fill this position today the study identifies several issues that, when resolved, severely increases the possibility for the Kosovo citizenship to fulfill this position.

This thesis aims to understand the formation of the Russian identity in the Kazakh Steppes by examining the migration flows of Russians and the affects of state policies and pattern of inter-ethnic relations between the Russians and the Kazakhs during different historical periods. Constructionist theoryhas guided the analysis of the research. The Russian identity formation in the Kazakh Steppes is examined within the contextof three consequtive historical periods that correspond to fundamental social, political and administartive re-structuring. Firstis the period of the Russiam Empire, during which the resettlement policy of the Empire shattered the traditional social structures of the native Kazakhs and entailed extensive inter-ethnic contact between the Russians and the Kazakhs. Second period corresponds to the period of the Soviet Union, which experianced the intensification of Russian settelments in the Kazakh Steppes. The soviet policy, while encouraging Russianness as a component of soviet identity, atthe same time, granted autonomy todiverse ethnic entites. The third period, which correspondes to the current era starting with the disintegration of the Soviet Union, witnessed the emergance of Kazakh State. A large portion of the Russian population in the Kazakh Steppes remained in the independent republic of Kazakhstan and face a new challenges in tearms of identity formation due to the Kazakh nation building policies.