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Kabré, Patoinnéwendé. "Three Essays in African Political Economy." Thesis, Université Paris-Saclay (ComUE), 2016. http://www.theses.fr/2016SACLX102/document.
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Le travail de thèse s’articule autour de trois chapitres.Le premier chapitre « Electoral Institutions and Political Polarization: An Experiment on Approval Voting in Benin » s’intéresse au rôle des institutions politiques dans la division des sociétés africaines. L’idée principale étant que les institutions politiques pourraient influencer la formation des groupes à l’intérieur des sociétés. Certains systèmes de vote (pluralité, système majoritaire) par leur règle tendent à forcer les électeurs à choisir un camp et pourraient potentiellement conduire à des divisions sociales, ethniques ou religieuses. Les autres règles de vote qui permettent aux électeurs de voter plusieurs candidats à la fois, devraient en théorie éviter ces inconvénients, et ainsi aboutir à une moins grande polarisation politique. Ce chapitre fournit des preuves expérimentales de cette théorie. Nos données proviennent d'une expérience sur le vote d'approbation qui a eu lieu lors de l'élection présidentielle de 2011 au Bénin, un pays démocratique d’Afrique occidentale, multi-ethnique avec un paysage politique caractérisé par une forte fracture nord-sud au niveau sociale et politique. En parallèle au vote officiel (scrutin majoritaire), nous avons proposé le vote par approbation aux électeurs, dont règle leur permet de voter pour plusieurs candidats à la fois. Les résultats montrent que ce système de vote augmente le score de plusieurs candidats consensuels. Nous avons également trouvé que le vote ethnique ne disparait pas et pourrait même augmenter. Dans le chapitre 2 « L’impact du clientélisme électoral: Analyse d’une expérience de laboratoire », nous nous intéressons au clientélisme, son lien avec la modernisation et son impact sur les résultats des élections. Nous avons effectués des expériences de laboratoires dans deux endroits différents (France et Burkina Faso). Les résultats obtenus montrent un effet significatif des campagnes d’achat de vote et de promesses électorales sur le score des candidats dans les deux pays. Mais les campagnes clientélistes sont plus efficaces en Afrique car ils permettent l’élection du candidat clientéliste. Le troisième et dernier chapitre « Quels sont les facteurs qui influencent le consentement à l’impôt en Afrique du Sud Sahara : Une analyse empirique avec des données d’enquêtes d’opinion», fournit une analyse des facteurs déterminant le consentement à payer la taxe des citoyens en Afrique du sud Sahara. En utilisant les données de 29 pays, nous avons montré que la qualité des services publiques, le milieu de résidence, le niveau d’éducation, la confiance aux institutions, la transparence du système fiscal sont des facteurs important dans les décisions des citoyens de consentir à payer la taxe. Nous avions également montré que la présence de ressources naturelle dans un pays, ainsi que le nombre d’habitant dans un pays jouent un rôle dans le consentement à payer la taxes des citoyens. Aussi l’importance accordé aux facteurs déterminant est différent selon la particularité des pays (peuplé ou pas, possédant ou pas des ressources naturelles)This work is organized in three (3) chapters. the first chapter, « Electoral Institutions and Political Polarization: An Experiment on Approval Voting in Benin » coauthored with J-F Laslier, K.Van Der Straten and L. Wantchekon, focus on the institutions ‘s goal in the division of societies. The main idea is that political institutions can shape political preferences and influence the formation of groups within societies. Some system such Simple plurality and runoff majoritarian voting systems tend to force voters to “choose sides,” potentially exacerbating political, social, ethnic, or religious divisions. Voting rules that allow voters to simultaneously select several candidates should, in theory, avoid these drawbacks, and might thus lead to less polarized political outcomes. This chapter provides experimental evidence in support of this insight. Our data originates from an experiment on Approval Voting that took place during the 2011 presidential election in Benin, a democratic, multi-ethnic country in western Africa, with a political landscape characterized by a strong social and political north-south divide. In contrast to the official runoff rule used in Benin for this presidential election, we proposed Approval Voting to voters, whereby they can vote simultaneously for several candidates. We find that this electoral institution leads to an increase in the overall support for more consensual candidates. We also find that, under Approval Voting, like under Proportional Representation systems, ethnic voting does not disappear, and might even increase. The second chapter continue in the logic of voting motivation by doing some laboratory experiment about electoral clientelism. We focus on the vote buying and electoral promises. We wanted to show the impact on electoral clientelism on the election outcome in one way and in the second way, see if there is a link between modernization and clientelism. We did experiment in two different places (Burkina Faso and France) show that the impact of electoral clientelism is more relevant in Africa countries than in developed countries. The third chapter investigates on tax compliance in Africa by using data from about 29 African countries. The goal is to analyze the citizens’s behaviors when they have to contribute to public funding by paying tax. We want to know which factors may motivate people have a compliance attitude with tax. The main contribution of this research is the effect of country population and the existence of natural resources. We found that citizens living in countries with natural resources are less willing to pay taxes than citizens living in countries without natural resources. Also, we showed that the population matters. Indeed, in the most populated countries, fraud is higher than less popular countries. We then establish for each group of countries the factors for which they should act to have a tax compliance of their citizens. This can help countries to have a great public finance and become more independent from foreign aid
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Benkenstein, Alex. "The Global Political Economy of Mining in Selected African States." Thesis, Stellenbosch : University of Stellenbosch, 2009. http://hdl.handle.net/10019.1/1934.
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Thesis (MA (Political Science. International Studies)()--University of Stellenbosch, 2009.Many African countries present the observer with a paradox: though richly endowed with mineral wealth, these countries are among the least-developed in the world. Mineral resources have historically been an important source of revenue for the state and one finds great diversity in the strategies that states have employed to access this wealth. These strategies range from direct participation in mining activity by means of state-owned companies to more indirect methods such as taxes levied on mining activity, with approaches varying not only among states, but also over time as historically certain strategies with regard to state involvement in mining have come to predominate. This study develops a typology of public/private sector configurations in the mining sector. The typology consists of three models, a direct participation, market-led and sustainability model. This typology serves as an analytical tool to investigate the impact of mining codes on sustainable development. The study concludes that in many cases the investment-oriented mining code reform undertaken by African states in the 1980s and 1990s has had a negative impact through the social and environmental costs associated with mining. Increasing recognition of these costs has resulted in the emergence of a sustainability model.
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Ayers, Alison Judith. "The constitution of African democracy through the global political economy." Thesis, University of Sussex, 2003. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.404772.
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Randall, Duncan J. "The State, emergent capitalists and their social networks : the case of Indian and African business in South Africa." Thesis, University of Oxford, 1999. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.313578.
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Bobiash, Donald J. "South-South aid : West African case studies." Thesis, University of Oxford, 1988. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.302945.
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Smith, Gary James. "Globalization and the political economy of post-apartheid South Africa : the possibilities and constraints for an African state." Master's thesis, University of Cape Town, 2003. http://hdl.handle.net/11427/8584.
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Bibliography: leaves 103-112.There have been many perspectives and arguments put forward to describe the current state of post-apartheid South Africa's political economy. These have generally tended to depend on which side of the ideological spectrum one resides. Due to the chronic levels of poverty and inequality that South Africa faces, debates on economic policy have become fundamental to the new regime. Many have become perplexed and frustrated by the ruling party's approach to this debate. This is as the broad democratic movement was always thought to favour social policies when presented with political economic thesis. Whilst others believe that government has played too great a role post-1994 and should take more of a back-seat in favour of the market. The result has been a debate which has moved beyond the ideological stand-offs of the past, to a new arena of contradictions and practical analysis. What is clear is that the ANC has fundamentally shifted its economic philosophy since the context of liberation and struggle. This research seeks to make sense of this evolution and to present a theme of pragmatism and convergence.
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Ibironke, Olabode. "Between African writers and Heinemann educational publishers the political economy of a culture industry /." Diss., Connect to online resource - MSU authorized users, 2008.
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Nel, Philip Rudolph. "Japanese investment in the South African economy : prospects for the future." Thesis, Link to the online version, 2005. http://hdl.handle.net/10019/318.
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Wily, Elizabeth. "The political economy of African land tenure : a case study from Tanzania." Thesis, University of East Anglia, 1988. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.329472.
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Clarke, Nikia R. "Of people, politics and profit : the political economy of Chinese industrial zone development in Nigeria." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2014. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:194625ba-9a35-408c-851c-9f2078547de5.
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This project approaches ongoing debates over the impact of increased Chinese engagement in African countries through the lens of production and industrialisation. Emerging market FDI into Africa is growing rapidly, and an increasing proportion of this investment is into manufacturing and productive sectors. This trend is led by the commercial expansion of private Chinese manufacturing firms across the continent. The goal of this project is to examine the differentiated impacts on African industrialisation attempts of this phenomenon. It takes as its case study industrial zone development projects in Nigeria, namely, the two official economic and trade cooperation zones being developed as large-scale FDI projects by Chinese firms, with Chinese and Nigerian government support, in Lagos and Ogun states. Analytically, four dimensions of this process are identified for study: the home country context, the host country context, the zone structures and institutions, and the firms themselves. Special attention is paid to the interface between foreign actors and the particular political economy of Nigerian manufacturing, as well as the at times substantial gaps between policy and practice in terms of industrial planning, investment and production. The thesis argues that SEZ projects in general, including the Chinese ETCZs, are industrial policy tools that operate on particular assumptions regarding the organisation of global production. As such, they incentivise the insertion of export-oriented firms into established global networks supplying international markets. However, a closer examination of industrial policy in China, the production environment in Nigeria and the behaviour of internationalising firms reveals that these assumptions are not always accurate. Thus, the SEZ institution as it is currently conceived in Nigeria is ill-suited to lend support to the trend towards Chinese relocation of producer firms, as well as to the reality of Nigerian production—both of which are predicated on domestic and regional markets as the primary driver of African industrialisation and productive sector growth.
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Harris, Andrew. "Revisiting the Political Economy of Land in South Africa : Hernando de Soto, Property and Economic Development, 1860- 1920." Thesis, University of Pretoria, 2020. http://hdl.handle.net/2263/77296.
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Land ownership remains an important and contested issue in contemporary South African politics. Drawing inspiration from Hernando de Soto’s work, especially his book, The Mystery of Capital: Why Capitalism Triumphs in the West and Fails Everywhere Else (2000), which sees equitable and private land ownership as a key factor for economic growth and development, this thesis details South Africa’s own landed past in order to better understand its political present. Its central research question asks: What role did South Africa’s land and agricultural policies from 1860-1920 play in the country’s unequal development over time? This thesis traces historical transitions in land ownership patterns from the four weak and underdeveloped settler colonies (The Cape Colony, Natal, Orange Free State and the Zuid-Afrikaansche Republiek) to the rapidly industrialising, but racialised, South African state and the eventual emergence of white commercial farming by 1920. The thesis engages with a long heritage of South African historical writing on political economy as a central methodology, from its early liberal roots with W.M. Macmillan’s writings on rural poverty in the 1920s, to more radical, neo-Marxist writings of the 1970s and 1980s. This thesis argues that the racialised land and labour policies from 1860-1920 produced a white oligarchy of landowners, which led to an unequal distribution of wealth over time and following De Soto, therefore inhibited economic growth and development. The thesis ultimately speaks to the validity of De Soto’s work, as well as the importance of land and agricultural policies in South Africa today.Dissertation (MScoSci (History))--University of Pretoria, 2020.
Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
Historical and Heritage Studies
MSocSci (History)
Unrestricted
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Carastathis, Anna. "Feminism and the political economy of representation : intersectionality, invisibility and embodiment." Thesis, McGill University, 2008. http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=105369.
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It has become commonplace within feminist theory to claim that women's lives are constructed by multiple, intersecting systems of oppression. In this thesis, l challenge the consensus that oppression is aptly captured by the theoretical model of "intersectionality." While intersectionality originates in Black feminist thought as a purposive intervention into US antidiscrimination law, it has been detached from that context and harnessed to different representational aims. For instance, it is often asserted that intersectionality enables a representational politics that overcomes legacies of exclusion within hegemonic Anglo-American feminism. largue that intersectionality reinscribes the political exclusion of racialized women as a feature of their embodied identities. That is, it locates the failure of political representation in the "complex" identities of "intersectional" subjects, who are constructed as unrepresentable in terms of "race" or "gender" alone. Further, largue that intersectionality fails to supplant race- and class-privileged women as the normative subjects of feminist theory and politics. [...]Dans la théorie féministe, l'énoncé selon lequel la vie des femmes est structurée par de multiples systèmes d'oppression qui se croisent est devenu un lieu commun. La présente thèse conteste l'accord général que le modèle théorique connu comme « l'intersectionalité » explique adéquatement l'oppression. Alors que l'intersectionalité a ses origines dans le féminisme noir comme intervention spécifique dans la loi antidiscriminatoire des États-Unis, elle a depuis été arrachée à ce contexte et consacrée à d'autres buts. Par exemple, on affirme souvent que l'intersectionalité permettrait une politique de représentation qui surmonte l'héritage d'exclusion du féminisme hégémonique anglo-américain. Je soutiens que l'intersectionalité réinscrit l'exclusion politique des femmes racialisées, cette fois comme caractéristique de leurs identités incarnés.[...]
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Odendaal, Izak. "Technology diffusion and productivity : evidence from the South African manufacturing sector." Master's thesis, University of Cape Town, 2005. http://hdl.handle.net/11427/12787.
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Includes bibliographical references.This paper builds on a growing literature on trade-related international technology diffusion. It examines whether South Africa can enhance its productivity by importing machinery and equipment that embodies foreign knowledge from trading partners that do significant amounts of research and development. The focus is on South Africa's manufacturing sector. Furthermore, the paper also examines the role of human capital in the facilitation of the effective adoption of foreign technology. Using trade data from 1976 to 2001 - imports from the European Union, industrialized countries and 'advanced' developing countries - the relationship between capital imports and total factor productivity growth and human capital is analysed using the autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) approach to cointegration. The results show that there is evidence of an equilibrium relationship between the variables; that foreign technology spillovers have taken place in the manufacturing sector, and that the effect on productivity is enhanced by the presence of quality human capital.
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Rustomjee, Zavareh Zal Rustom. "The political economy of South African industrialisation : the role of the minerals-energy complex." Thesis, SOAS, University of London, 1993. http://eprints.soas.ac.uk/29566/.
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This thesis provides an original interpretation of the trajectory of South Africa's post-war industrialisation by emphasising the role played by the economy's Minerals-Energy Complex (MEC). The MEC is viewed as a system of accumulation, encompassing a number of core economic sectors and imparting a determining influence on the pattern of industrialisation and economic performance. The development of the MEC has been mediated by relationships between English and Afrikaner fractions of capital through the state, giving rise to a conglomerate form of private and public corporate structure, straddling the mining, manufacturing and financial sectors. By examining the MEC empirically, through primary and secondary material from the inter-war period to the present day, it is shown that past debates over the rhythm of industrialisation have been based, both on a false perception of the pattern of (import-substituting) industrialisation'and on a partial and even false recognition of how industrial policy has been adopted and implemented. Contrary to conventional wisdom, there was capability in capital goods and other industries in and around the MEC but their potential scope has not been exploited through coherent industrial policy. In the 1950s, efforts at diversification were hampered by the objective of creating large-scale Afrikaner capital. Foreign disinvestment after 1961 opened new opportunities for domestic investment, while the disjuncture between large-scale English and Afrikaner capital narrowed as the former assisted the latter to enter gold mining and as further interpenetration between the two occurred. Policies of strengthening the MEC followed the gold and energy price rise in the 1970s, while the crisis of the 1980s precluded policies of industrial diversification from being implemented. Consequently, the industrial structure and institutional impetus that represent the MEC continue to guide South Africa's industrial trajectory into the 1990s.
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Loughna, Sean. "The political economy of internal displacement in Colombia : the case of African palm oil." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2014. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:b535409e-078a-49f2-918e-1a450a71ff29.
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Some 5 million people were classified as internally displaced in Colombia at the end of 2012, which represented about 10 per cent of the population and the highest number in the world at the time. Colombia differs from other countries with high levels of displacement in that it is comparatively politically stable, has effective national institutions, a relatively strong formal economy, and can by no means be described as a ‘failed’ or ‘failing’ state. The displacement literature tends to characterise the phenomenon as a humanitarian crisis and a side effect of the long-running civil war. But Colombians continue to be displaced in very large numbers despite the formal demobilization of the paramilitaries in 2006 and the diminished military capacity and engagement of the guerrillas since about the same period: the same groups that are widely regarded as being the main perpetrators of displacement. This thesis contends that displacement of the civilian population in Colombia is frequently not a consequence of violence, but rather the primary objective, where violence plays a facilitatory role. Moreover, the thesis asserts that these massive levels of displacement are substantively linked to predominantly economically-motivated logics and are regionally specific. By examining an agricultural commodity that has significantly expanded relatively recently in Colombia - African palm oil - this research examines if and how expanded cultivation may be linked to displacement. Using a political economy framework of analysis combined with empirical fieldwork, it explores the ‘localised displacement logics’ whereby land is coercively acquired by powerful local groups. The thesis concludes that the abandonment and dispossession of land from poor and marginalised groups constitutes part of an ongoing process of capitalist expansion and statebuilding in Colombia. Contrary to assertions that it is the intra-state conflict that constitutes the central obstacle to development, Colombia’s current trajectory of capitalist development may actually be a central obstacle to sustainable peace and not lead to an end to displacement.
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Ovesen, Håvard. "The political economy of wilkiality: a South African inquiry into knowledge and power on wikipedia." Master's thesis, University of Cape Town, 2014. http://hdl.handle.net/11427/6843.
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This dissertation explores how knowledge construction on the English-language Wikipedia produces hegemonic representations of South Africa. Using Wikipedia's entries on Cape Town and various places in the Free State province as case studies, this dissertation demonstrates through critical discourse analysis that there is a systematic marginalisation, underrepresentation, and decontextualisation of 'black' working class communities and spaces, which echoes their historical marginalisation. This representation is contextualised through a historical narrative of Cape Town and the Free State, and explored against a theoretical background which, borrowing from Foucault, Castells, and others, sees the social construction of knowledge as an expression of power, and the networked society as an arena for the dynamics of hegemony. While Wikipedia is often hailed as a game-changer, the knowledge it produces tends to replicate and, thanks to its ever-increasing reach, further entrench hegemonic explanations of society. This might seem counter-intuitive given its credentials as a democratiser of knowledge, but can be explained with Wikipedia's architecture, which ultimately rests upon a regime of truth established during the Enlightenment. The online encyclopedia relies on well-established institutions and discourses of knowledge as sources of its content, and these, coupled with its particular preferences for some sources and topics over others, give it a particular slant in favour of the hegemonic status quo. The discourse it produces is given further gravitas and is naturalised through an insistence upon the knowledge it presents as 'neutral'. Studies have shown that Wikipedia's values are defined by its established community of editors and that, even as Wikipedia's reach is extending, it is increasingly difficult for new users to impact upon the online encyclopedia. Arguably it is rather the encyclopedia which impacts upon them by circulating seemingly uncontested representations of their communities, or, alternatively, simply ignoring the communities altogether. In a process I have, borrowing from American political satirist Stephen Colbert, termed wikiality, hegemonic representations have a tendency of becoming true when we act upon them as such. Thus, when certain communities are presented as marginal or unimportant, it becomes even more difficult for them to break out of this mould. Meaningful participation on Wikipedia can only be achieved if the user not only has access to relevant technological capital, but also the cultural capital required to make contributions which appeal to the established core of editors. In South Africa, as a result of its political economy, large parts of the population are politically, economically, and socially marginalised. This also means that they lack the cultural capital necessary to make meaningful contributions to Wikipedia. This tends to render them the subjects of Wikipedia entries, rather than their authors, which contributes to their further marginalisation. The key to understanding the relationship between knowledge and power on Wikipedia lies in the ability of some users to capture and define reality through representation and thereby effectuating it. Reducing this imbalance to a simple question of access downplays the social, economic, and political factors which created it in the first place, and accommodates discursive practices which downplay difference and perpetuate hegemony.
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Gombe, Makaita Margaret. "Political economy of health in the Southern African Development Community(SADC) region:The effect of political instability on health outcomes and expenditure." Master's thesis, University of Cape Town, 2018. http://hdl.handle.net/11427/29565.
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This dissertation studies the effect of political stability on health outcomes and expenditure in the SADC region. The health outcomes under investigation are life expectancy at birth, maternal mortality ratio, infant mortality rate and HIV incidence. Health expenditure is captured as the percentage of total government expenditure that is allocated to public health. The study conducts a literature review on previous studies that examine these relationships, conduct exploratory data analysis and conduct empirical estimations using two measures of political stability: International Country Risk Guide’s Political Risk Services index and the World Bank’s World Development Indicator index. Additionally, further investigation is made into the effect that a country’s level of democracy has on health outcomes and public health expenditure. The empirical estimations involve a panel dataset containing 11 SADC countries over a 20 year period from 1996 to 2015. The results confirm the statistical and economic significance of political stability on all the health outcomes under investigation and on public health expenditure when controlling for heteroscedasticity and autocorrelation. Holding all else constant, a one point increase in the political stability variable is associated with an increase of 0.19% for life expectancy, a decrease of 1.39% in maternal mortality, a decrease of 2.01% in infant mortality, an increase in HIV incidence of 3.48% and an increase in public health expenditure of 2.03%, when using the International Country Risk Guide’s Political Risk Services index (ICRG). Political instability in the SADC region is characterized by destruction of social infrastructure including hospitals and roads in Angola and the Democratic Republic of Congo and lack of resources for adequate healthcare in countries such as Zimbabwe, Zambia and Malawi. Both mechanisms result in poor health outcomes in a given country in the region. Subsequently, countries like South Africa receiving refugees from politically unstable countries in the region also suffer from an overload on their health system which means resources allocated to the health sector are no longer adequate to meet the increased demand. When using the World Bank’s World Development Indicators (WB), holding all else constant, infant mortality decreases by 0.27% and HIV incidence increases by 0.40% when political stability increases by one point. The policy recommendation is to ensure strategic governance is in place to ensure that the health sector is not affected by political instability.
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Takala-Greenish, H. Lotta. "The emperor's new clothes : a political economy study of the South African textiles and clothing industry." Thesis, SOAS, University of London, 2015. http://eprints.soas.ac.uk/22808/.
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The decline of South African textiles and clothing has been explained as the outcome of different influences depending on various ideological and methodological inclinations as well as theoretical traditions. For example, the rise in labour inflexibility or costs, or increased import and cost competition, are perceived to explain both South African and global textiles and clothing trends. Though these are important features of the decline, other factors precede and contribute to the poor production, trade, or employment trends, suggesting that it is misleading to focus on a few dominant factors. Instead, exploring the nature, evolution and the background to multiple, shifting, and interconnected causes, enables the emergence of new research questions concerned with the importance of situating the industry decline within a political, historical and structural setting. The findings point to the need to reconceptualise industry evolution as an outcome of a specific labour process in South African textiles and clothing, moving away from a homogenous or cost-based categorisation of labour. It is also argued that the particular developments be seen as the outcome and an integral (albeit marginalised) part of the SA economy, rooting explanations for sector trends within a unique set of industry processes and tensions. These lead the study to challenge the relevance of existing policy and production remedies, and to argue that prominent theoretical debates around sector development, such as the GVC or the information imperfection approach, are limited in their explanatory power and in their ability to generate appropriate research questions. The research concludes that a case-driven understanding of the complexities of the industry decline opens the space for new insights in theoretical and methodological approaches to exploring and explaining textiles and clothing industry development in South Africa, with relevance for broader debates on industrialisation.
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Drew, Sarin Danielle. "The Decolonization of the Political Economy of New Media Institutions in Africa: A Case Study on the Pan-African Film Industry." Master's thesis, Faculty of Humanities, 2021. http://hdl.handle.net/11427/32626.
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This study critically analyses an alternative political economy framework to observe the decolonization of new media institutions in Africa. This is because "critically analysing media organisations and media processes in society have come from political economy perspectives." (Jansen, 2003, p. 90). This thesis has a specific focus on the decolonization of the film industry as a case study on new media institutions that are shifting given the fourth industrial revolution. A quantitative methodology was employed to conduct focus groups and interviews with key African film industry actors, this focus group took place at the Durban Film Mart, a Pan-African market for film and television content. The paper critiques the Marxist approach to the political economy of media. This is done to understand the extent that Western political economy frameworks, like Marxism, are relevant in analyzing ownership and media concerning racialized subjects as well as feminist and queer collectives. This paper posits that an Africa, Queer, Muslim, or Feminist political economy framework would explain the relationship between the film industry, industry players, and its audiences better than Marxist assumptions. In this instance, African Feminist, Muslim and Queer approaches to the political economy theory provide a subaltern lens. This study has the intention to investigate new ways in which the decolonization of the political economy of the new Media can create an ideological non-state apparatus or a consciousness industry as denoted by the Frankfurt School. This ideological apparatus would characterize and reflect societal discourses, outside of the nation-state, while creating a sphere for public engagement and deliberation that is equitable and ontologically sound. By ontologically sound, I ask what are the different assumptions about human nature concerning the political economy that can be deduced from a new lens into African media. The answer is that Africa collectives formed outside of class barriers display agency that explains media activity in the twenty-first century. Western ontology and epistemologies assume 4 that colonization robbed Africa of self-determination and agency. This ontological assumption is false. The focus group at the Durban International Film Festival provided the tightest fit to validate my claims that ideologically decolonizing the film industry is garnering public engagement and industry engagement. What are the solutions to the issues of the digital divide and geopolitics of difference that characterise limitations within the burgeoning film industry? This paper investigates to what extent do organic intellectuals, entrepreneurs or youth drive the need for capital and ownership in the industry given that the landscape is shifting. The study found that there is an impetus for decolonizing the industry and that alternative political economy frameworks are more appropriate in analyzing the new media landscape.
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Moskowitz, Alex. "American Imperception: Literary Form, Sensory Perception, and Political Economy in Nineteenth-Century American Literature." Thesis, Boston College, 2021. http://hdl.handle.net/2345/bc-ir:109138.
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Thesis advisor: Robert S. LehmanThesis advisor: Jennifer Greiman
“American Imperception” explores how early American writers investigated the role that political economy plays in the relation between sensory perception and knowledge. This dissertation argues that nineteenth-century American writers used literature to teach their readers to understand how economic forms and forms of economic activity fundamentally shape and train the sensorium to sense in historically and contextually specific ways. In “American Imperception,” I show how literature can make legible otherwise insensible forms of social and economic relations. The impossibility of sensing social and economic form—and the way in which that impossibility is rendered through literature—is what I call in this project “imperception.” Imperception describes the way in which literary form makes intelligible the structures of social, political, and economic life: structures that themselves cannot be sensed directly and which therefore cannot be directly represented by literature. “American Imperception” is focused on how literature interacts with social life within a capitalist modernity defined by the value form and the commodity form, and how literature formalizes the structures of social life through a specifically literary logic, transforming them into something that can be read where they cannot be seen, heard, felt, or represented. This dissertation draws on Karl Marx’s thinking on the senses and the suprasensible to consider how U.S. writers of the nineteenth-century mobilized literary form to make thinkable forms of sociality that cannot be contained by the imperceptible nature of sociality under capital. As I show in this dissertation, the political economy of social life determines what can be sensed, just as what can be sensed marks the horizon of political and social possibility
Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2021
Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences
Discipline: English
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Cross, Timothy R. W. "The political economy of a public enterprise : the South African Iron and Steel Corporation, 1928 to 1989." Thesis, University of Oxford, 1993. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.385416.
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Mulusa, L. M. "The impact of South African firms on the liberalised Zambian economy." Thesis, Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2005. http://hdl.handle.net/10019.1/20936.
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Assignment (MPhil)--University of Stellenbosch, 2005.ENGLISH ABSTRACT: While admitting that the ambitious privatization programme embarked on from 1991 to date in Zambia has contributed to unemployment largely due to the closure of privatized parastatal companies, post-privatization business conduct of investors need analyzing in order to understand why the expected economic growth and job creation in the country has never taken place. In this article the role the local political leadership, globalization and the tendency towards misplaced policy formulation play in driving the state of under development in Zambia will be analysed. The inherent weaknesses in the New Partnership for Africa’s Development which may further deny poor African countries such as Zambia, the benefits of a well timed and supported programme to provide home grown solutions for the continent’s numerous developmental problems will also be looked at. The paper will contribute towards resolving Zambia’s problems by suggesting the need to formulate policies which create a positive interface between local policies adopted to support and attract investment, and the motives driving the global players to invest in particular countries. In particular this paper focuses on the absence of good investment policy formulation, and consequently, the absence of the full economic benefit which should be derived by the economy for hosting multinational business enterprises such as the Shoprite Checkers Group.
AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Die ambisieuse privatiserings program wat sedert 1991 in Zambië gevolg word, het hoofsaaklik as gevolg van die sluiting van geprivatiseerde semistaatsmaatskappye tot werkloosheid bygedra. Die sake-optrede van beleggers ná privatisering moet egter ontleed word ten einde te verstaan waarom die verwagte ekonomiese groei en werkskepping nooit in hierdie land plaasgevind het nie. In hierdie artikel sal die rol wat die plaaslike politieke leierskap, globalisering en die neiging na misplaaste beleidsformulering in onderontwikkeling in Zambië speel, ondersoek word. Die inherente tekortkominge in die Nuwe Vennootskap vir Afrika-ontwikkeling wat arm Afrikalande soos Zambië moontlik die voordele van ’n geleë en ondersteunde program om eie oplossings vir die kontinent se veelvuldige ontwikkelingsprobleme te bied, ontsê, sal ook onder die loep geneem word. Hierdie artikel sal ter oplossing van Zambië se probleme voorstel dat beleid geformuleer word wat ’n positiewe raakvlak bied tussen plaaslike beleid wat aangeneem is om belegging te lok en te ondersteun, en die beweegredes agter wêreldrolspelers se besluite om in spesifieke lande te belê. Hierdie artikel fokus veral op die afwesigheid van die formulering van goeie beleggingsbeleid en die gevolglike afwesigheid van die volle voordeel wat die ekonomie daaruit kan put om as gasheer vir multinasionale sake-ondernemigs soos die Shoprite Checkers Groep op te tree.
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Mwinyi, Mohamed Juma. "Tracing the Development of East African Community on Peace and Security." Thesis, Virginia Tech, 2017. http://hdl.handle.net/10919/77964.
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One monumental problem the East African Community faces today is implementation of its proposed bill known as the East African Community Security Protocol on peace and security. This bill was crafted upon the basis of existing scholarship which examines security and community either from the top-down/state-centric approaches (neorealism/neoliberalism/constructivism/etc.) or as vernacular security--bottom-up. Both of these approaches are inadequate in that they still a) prioritize the state/relate to the state/central authority, b) are Eurocentric (based on/dominated by European points of views), and c) do not adequately explain security collaborations in areas such as East Africa (EA). Therefore, this thesis develop a "responsive security community" approach which does not only ties top-down and ground-up approach, but it also advocates for development of strong states before the creation of a security community. This thesis argue that different states have their very different historical backgrounds and legacies. Hence, in order to have effective security community in EA there need be responsive, human security oriented states which embrace participation and inclusion in sub-national and national level. This would ensure the protection of the vital core of all their citizens' lives in ways that enhance human freedoms and human fulfillment. To discuss this responsive community approach, this thesis analyzes the theories of security community post WW II in conjunction with the development of the East African Community Security Protocol. This thesis also employs the theories of Participatory Budgeting (PB) and ground up approach as models for strengthening state and East African Civil Society Organization Forum (EACSOF). This thesis concludes that responsive security community in EA requires strong states which combine a focus on traditional notions of security with human/individual security.Master of Public and International Affairs
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Jenkins, Dlorah C. "Examining the Influence of Economic and Political Factors Upon Access to Improved Water and Sanitation in Select African Nations, 2005-2008." Digital Archive @ GSU, 2010. http://digitalarchive.gsu.edu/iph_theses/84.
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Background:Today, 884 million people worldwide lack access to safe drinking water, and 2.6 billion are without access to improved sanitation facilities, with the majority of this burden falling upon citizens of the developing world. The purpose of this study was to determine what influence political and economic factors have upon the availability of improved water and sanitation services in developing nations, with a focus on sub-Saharan Africa.
Methods:Data from the Demographic and Health Surveys of 11 sub-Saharan African nations conducted from 2005-2008 were analyzed using SPSS 18.0. Five WASH-related dependent variables were examined: access to an improved water source, travel time to water, household water treatment, access to an improved sanitation facility, and shared sanitation facilities. Logistic regression and crosstabulated odds ratios were used to analyze the associations using both dichotomous and continuous independent variables (political stability, government effectiveness, and GNI) and dichotomous dependent variables. Chi-square analyses were performed to explore the discrepancies between observed and expected proportions of private and shared sanitation facilities.
Results: A total of 109,606 observations were included in this study. The majority of the study population had access to the improved drinking water sources (65.9%) and travel times < 30 minutes (83.3%). Most used no form of household water treatment (81.1%) and did not have an improved sanitation facility (64.1%). Rural residents had enerally less access to improved water/sanitation than urban residents. GE and GNI had the strongest positive associations with access to improved water source and household water treatment. GNI was also positively associated with access to an improved sanitation facility. Political stability was positively associated with travel time to water source. These associations varied between rural and urban settings.
Conclusion: The results of this study indicate that GNI, political stability, government effectiveness, and urban-rural setting have an impact upon water and sanitation in sub-Saharan Africa. With this information, context-specific interventions to improve and expand water and sanitation utilities/facilities in the region can be developed.
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Pretorius, Leon G. "The political economy of South African foreign direct investment in Mozambique: a case study of Mozal and its implications for development in Mozambique and Southern Africa." Thesis, University of the Western Cape, 2005. http://hdl.handle.net/11394/222.
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Philosophiae Doctor - PhDThe MOZAL aluminium smelter in Maputo is the largest-ever foreign direct investment in Mozambique. South Africa's state-owned Industrial Development Corporation (IDC) owns 24% shares in MOZAL and the Development Bank of South Africa (DBSA) and Eskom provided road and power supply infrastructure to ensure the success of the smelter. BHP Billiton is the majority shareholder, the other being Mitsubishi. MOZAL is the flagship of South Africa's foreign policy for regional integration in southern Africa and economic reconstruction in Mozambique: a practical manifestation of the African Renaissance. This thesis is a case study of MOZAL as an example of cross-border industrial development and its implications for development in Mozambique. Using an eclectic multidisciplinary Critical Global Political Economy (critical GPE) theoretical framework, a survey of relevant literature and a series of selected open interviews, it examines how development based on the assumptions of industrialisation and neo-modernisation espoused by the governments and private sector champions of MOZAL impact on class, gender, environmental and social justice in Mozambique. The research identifies the socio-economic development dimensions of MOZAL for Mozambique and how the cost and benefits are distributed among the various social groups and actors directly and/or indirectly involved with the MOZAL aluminium smelter. The main findings are that MOZAL as a private sector FDI project is a qualified success. On the positive side, it contributes to economic growth. However, the benefits to Mozambique are exaggerated and are not broadly distributed. On the negative side, it contributes to increasing the economic dependence of Mozambique on the South African economy. Instead of narrowing the development gap, the smelter has contributed to increased differentiation between companies in South Africa and Mozambique and, within Mozambique, between the Northern and Southern regions, as well as among MOZAL employees and the majority of the population in Maputo. The implications are that the development benefits from foreign direct investment cross-border industrial development projects may, at least in the short-term, lead to uneven regional integration and development enjoyed by a few.
South Africa
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Normann, Andrew J. "Art is Not a Crime: Hip-Hop, Urban Geography, and Political Imaginaries in Detroit." Bowling Green State University / OhioLINK, 2018. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=bgsu1503059494063247.
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Mwakalobo, Adam Beni Swebe. "Economic Reforms in East African Countries: The Impact on Government Revenue and Public Investment." Amherst, Mass. : University of Massachusetts Amherst, 2009. http://scholarworks.umass.edu/open_access_dissertations/66/.
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Moss, Todd Jason. "The political economy of global portfolio investment and financial sector development in Africa : an examination of the determinants and consequences of African stock exchanges, with special reference to Ghana." Thesis, SOAS, University of London, 2000. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.392396.
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Ngwenya, Blessed. "The South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) and its 'crisis' of independence." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2015. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:76d58422-c956-4768-b0a2-f349702c4564.
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The subject of 'independence' of the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) has emerged as a key issue in post-apartheid South African public discourse. While the importance of 'independence' has rarely been questioned, the term's meaning has been subject to fragmented understandings and vague interpretations. This thesis explores the origins of divergent conceptions of 'independence', examining how these conceptions are constructed by staff within the SABC. The central task of this thesis is to critically examine the contested concept of 'independence' a task it accomplishes by engaging with issues of power, knowledge and identity. To this end, the thesis reveals that the neo-liberal policies imposed by the Washington Consensus play a significant role in shaping conceptions of 'independence' through their power to dictate policy in countries in the Global South, including South Africa. This power, exercised through dominant Washington Consensus institutions, such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), inform knowledge and identities at a local level through the adoption of neo-liberal macro-economic strategies, such as Growth Employment and Redistribution (GEAR). As a result, there is no local without the global. The engagement with issues of power, identity and knowledge and their relationships to how 'independence' is understood ensures that meanings of 'independence' are contested and that 'independence' is not an immovable edifice. 'Independence' is only a product of an evolving matrix, in which the staff of the SABC, who are divided into four different tiers, construct their own interpretations of 'independence', shaped by their understandings of both organisational and external factors, such as politics and advertisers, in relation to their work. Using data from interview respondents and an analysis of key public policy documents, this thesis presents two key processes that influence understandings of 'independence' and, therefore, link the SABC to the larger external socio-political environment. These two key factors, the commercialisation of the SABC and the African National Congress (ANC) power struggles have helped to shape the four conceptions of 'independence' advanced in this thesis: namely, the legalistic, anti-establishment, political and professional conceptions of 'independence'. At the core of this thesis are two questions: How do staff within the SABC construct and understand the meaning of 'independence' of the SABC, and what has influenced these conceptions in post-apartheid South Africa? Consistent with these research questions, the thesis is located within the interpretive tradition, since it seeks to understand the world of the SABC through the lens of its staff. To complement the interpretivist approach, the thesis situates the SABC and its understandings of 'independence' within the wider South African context, in which the meaning of 'independence' should also be understood as being inextricably intertwined with and a product of the shifting developmental state of the macro-economic environment. The critical political economy of the media is, therefore, used as an explanatory framework for understanding how the macro-worlds of politics and economic strategies intersect within the micro-world of the SABC to shape conceptions of 'independence'. The thesis concludes by arguing that it is not a strong and domineering state that seeks to control public service broadcasting; instead, it is a weak state that does so because of a need to curtail public discourse, which might present a threat to its own existence if left uncontrolled. As a result, it is difficult to separate the SABC from the state and, for that reason, the role of the public service broadcaster (PSB) is tied to the national narrative which itself is tied to the larger global matrices of power.
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Oluwajuyemi, Kathleen O. "The Impact of Late Capitalism on Nigerian Economy and Culture: 1960-2010." DigitalCommons@Robert W. Woodruff Library, Atlanta University Center, 2018. http://digitalcommons.auctr.edu/cauetds/154.
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The purpose of this dissertation is to utilize a historical comparative analysis to examine how capitalism influenced the growth of the nation, its effects on culture, politics and the economy. The study will examine the shift of the economy under varying governments (civilian, presidential and military), as well as the economic effect of an oil economy on the politics and development of the country. This dissertation included an analysis of the historical implications of imperialism as well as the current implications of foreign interference. The research further explored the historical effects of colonialism on a newly independent nation attempting to govern and unite different ethnic groups as one nation as well as the effects the discovery of oil had on the precarious undertaking of establishing and maintaining democracy. This dissertation found that after independence the country shifted its focus in the agriculture sector from production for consumption to export for capital gains. This shift led to infrastructure development such as building roads, railways, and other essential structures for the transportation and exportation of cash crops. The downside in the shift from consumption crops to export crops was the occurrence of food shortages during the seventies. The discovery of oil in 1956 also changed the direction and strength of the economy and eventually led to an unstable and under-developed nation. This dissertation will also examine the initiatives towards development and national unity as the nation struggles to stabilize economically and politically.
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Hengari, Alfredo Tjiurimo. "A regional economic partnership agreement between SADC and the European Union within the Cotonou framework : opportunities and challenges for the political economy of regional integration in SADC." Thesis, Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2004. http://hdl.handle.net/10019.1/49851.
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Thesis (MA)--University of Stellenbosch, 2004.ENGLISH ABSTRACT: One of the most notable features of the relations between the European Union and SADC is the current reconfiguration of their trading architecture as encapsulated in the Cotonou Agreement. Such a process of change can be shown to have inevitably been the result of policy shifts, which are salient characteristics of a global political economy, whose ontology is embedded theoretically in neo-liberalism. Nevertheless, any process of change in the structure of global trading relations has the logical outcome of systemically imposing either challenges or opportunities, and in some cases both, on the participants of that structure. This study represents a scholarly attempt at creating a lucid and descriptive embodiment of the challenges and opportunities involved for SADC in the negotiation and implementation of a Regional Economic Partnership Agreement (REPA) with the European Union. These challenges and opportunities, obligatory within a REPA framework are theoretically pronounced in as far as they shape the political economy of regional integration in SADe. The process of negotiating such a multifaceted agreement with a sophisticated partner, calls for institutional and negotiating capacity. Undoubtedly, such capacity is beyond the membership of SADe. The point is also emphasized that the process of trade liberalization, ingrained in a REPA will create a complex and difficult interface with the current SADC initiatives underway to deepen regional integration. Tellingly, these would contradict the cautious developmental and bottom up approach taken by SADC in its drive for regional integration. Conversely, this study concedes that a REPA with the EU holds a number of novel opportunities for SADC because such a process would provide scope for the fundamental restructuring of the SADC economies. The competitive pressures through decreased levels of protection within a REPA can create an upward convergence of low performing industries in the region. These, amongst others are important aspects if the political economy of SADC is to move into a virtuous cycle of deeper integration and ultimate insertion in the global economy.
AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Een van die mees opvallende kenmerke van verhoudinge tussen die Europese Unie (EU) en Suider-Afrikaanse Ontwikkelingsgemeenskap (SAOG) is die huidige rekonjigurasie van handelsbetrekkinge, soos vervat in die Cotonou Ooreenkoms. Hierdie proses is die onafwendbare gevolg van beleidsveranderinge in die internasionale politieke ekonomie, met 'n. ontologie wat teoreties in neo-liberalisme gewortel is. Sodanige veranderinge in die struktuur van internasionale handelsverhoudinge. bied uitdagings sowel as geleenthede, en soms beide, aan deelnemers van sodanige struktuur. Hierdie studie is 'n akademiese poging om 'n helder en deskriptiewe blik te werp op die uitdagings en geleenthede vir die SAOG met betrekking tot die onderhandeling en implimentering van die Regionale Ekonomiese Venootskapsooreenkoms (REVO) met die EU Hierdie uitdagings en geleenthede, wat verpligtend is binne die REVO struktuur, is teoreties belangrik in soverre as wat dit die politeke ekonomie van regionale integrasie in SADC beinvloed. Die onderhandelingsproses van so 'n komplekse dokument met gesofistikeerde vennote vereis intitusionele en onderhandelingskapasiteit. Hierdie kapasiteit is nie in SAOG te vinde nie. Die punt word ook benadruk dat die proses van handelsliberalisering, wat deel uitmaak van REVO, botsend kan wees met SAOG inisiatiewe om regionale integrasie te versterk. In essensie sal dit die huiwerige ontwikkelings en 'onder na ba' benadering, wat die SAOG tans volg, weerspreek. Aan die ander kant, gee die studie toe dat 'n REVO met die EU 'n hele aantal voordele inhou, aangesien so 'n proses momentum kan voorsien vir verreikende herstrukturering van SAOG ekonomieë. Die kompeterende druk a.g. v. 'n afname in beskermingsvlakke onder die REVO, kan lei tot 'n opwaartse neiging onder tradisionele swakpresterende nywerhede in die streek. Hierdie is onder andere belangrike aspekte wat SADC in gedagte moet hou, ten einde deel te word van die deugsame kringloop van dieper integrasie, en uiteindelike deelwording van die internasionale ekonomie.
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Oppong, Nelson. "Model or mirage? : 'good governance' solutions and the politics of reform in Ghana's oil industry." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2016. https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:114b90be-0d60-4fdb-bef7-451ea86d31c6.
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Despite significant growth in the number of 'good governance' initiatives promising to generate optimum developmental outcomes in resource-rich countries, there is surprisingly little empirical information about their sector and country-specific dynamics. This thesis focusses on how external 'good governance' norms and institutions interact with domestic actors and organisations to shape the institutional landscape of resource-rich countries. This objective is pursued by means of an in-depth case study of Ghana, a Sub-Saharan African nation that has become a middle-sized exporter of crude oil since January 2011. More specifically, it scrutinises two major reform efforts designed to steer the country's oil industry towards a developmental direction: the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI), an international auditing and multi-stakeholder oversight mechanism, and the Public Interest and Accountability Committee, a home-grown citizens' oversight initiative in Ghana. The analytical lens employed in the study is based on comparative political economy and comparative institutional analysis. They are employed to make sense of the dialectic between the promise of corrective 'good governance' measures and the mirage of reform outcomes in the Ghanaian oil sector. The main argument advanced here is that 'good governance' solutions in the oil industry are essentially weak instruments, due to their inability to grapple with deep-seated instrumental politics, perverse institutional environment, and elite capture that continue to undermine reform in Ghana. This point is adduced to highlight the shortcomings of the 'good governance' agenda. The thesis draws from multiple data sources, collected through semi-structured interviews with various stakeholders, public officials, NGOs and community activists, development agencies, and oil companies. These are complemented by archival research, documentary sources, non-participant observation, and workshops.
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Winter, Brian P. "Democratic Strength and Terrorism: An Economic Approach." Scholarship @ Claremont, 2011. http://scholarship.claremont.edu/cmc_theses/106.
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There has been much literature about the economic effects of terrorism in democratic countries, but this literature often considers democracy to be a binary variable. This paper sought to explore how the effects might differ depending on the strength of a democracy. In the end, I found that the numbers of attacks and the effects of those attacks do not follow a linear path. The results for autocracies and anocracies require further analysis, but democracies have revealed interesting results. It seems that democracies as a whole have more terrorist attacks, but, within this group, the more democratic a country is the fewer attacks are carried out.
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Marcellin, Sherry Suzette. "The political economy of pharmaceutical patents : US sectional interests and the African group at the WTO : a case study in international trade decision-making and the possibility for change." Thesis, University of Warwick, 2008. http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/1049/.
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The public international backlash against the TRIPS Agreement and the global pharmaceutical industry that followed in the wake of the March 2001 lawsuit brought by 39 pharmaceutical companies against the government of South Africa prompted a critical investigation into how the current order came into being and how it might be in a process of changing. To do this the thesis follows Cox’s insight in Critical IPE that each successive historical structure generates the contradictions and points of conflict that bring about its transformation (Cox, 1995: 35). The research therefore first looks at the making of the patent provisions in TRIPS as a case study in institutional capture by the transnational drug industry (TDI), dominated by American interests. This question is developed theoretically as well as empirically by first developing a theoretical framework that explains continuity in the global political economy (GPE) as a way of intimating how the TDI was able to secure all of its demands for pharmaceutical patents under TRIPS despite the prevalence of conflict and opposition from developing countries in the Uruguay Round (UR), and notwithstanding the single undertaking of the UR package. The thesis then examines the negotiations on patents in the UR to determine the nature of decision-making and to probe the questions of conflict and contradictions in the present that provide a framework of analysis on the shakiness of the prevailing order. The thesis then looks at how, why and under what circumstances the initial ‘capture’ of TRIPS by the TDI was arguably successfully challenged by probably the weakest global economic actor, the African Group (AG) at the WTO. Specifically looking at the role of conflict in change this question probes further points of conflict and contradictions in the present to set the scene for the wide scale offensive against TRIPS as a result of its implications for access to healthcare in the poorest countries which already suffer overwhelmingly from a high disease burden. The post-TRIPS challenge mounted by transnational civil society and the AG (the two constituting a counter-society) take the thesis from its analysis of continuity in the GPE, towards theorising the circumstances under which the prevailing historical structure can at least partially be transcended to render legitimate the demands of the poor. The thesis advances its contribution, both theoretically and empirically, to Critical International Political Economy, particularly as it concerns the work of Robert Cox.
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Hussein, Jenna. "Examining Tanzania's Development Landscape." Scholarship @ Claremont, 2015. http://scholarship.claremont.edu/cmc_theses/1206.
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This thesis will examine Tanzania’s development landscape through Amartya Sen’s perspective, as per his conception of development that is put forth in Development as Freedom. Applying Sen’s conception of development to the case of Tanzania reinforces his view that development is an intricate process that is dependent on the expansion of various freedoms. It also yields unique insights about the most pressing issues that are currently impeding progress in the country. I will first clarify Sen’s framework and provide an explanation of development that corresponds with his ideals. Next, I will assess Tanzania’s state of affairs in terms of Sen’s five freedoms. I will then consider the impact of the recent expansion of technology in Tanzania, as well as discuss the question of inequality, which is a topic that Sen does not adequately address in his book. Finally, I will conclude with a discussion of the most pressing challenges that the country is facing and suggest what implications these challenges might have for Tanzania’s future.
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Ayuru, R. N. "The political of regional economic cooperation in Africa : the East African Case." Thesis, University of Leeds, 1990. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.292294.
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Danforth, Elizabeth J. "Adolescence is an Ocean: A Biocultural Investigation of Youth Food Consumption in Tanzania." Scholar Commons, 2011. http://scholarcommons.usf.edu/etd/3059.
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This study investigates adolescents' relationships with food and other community and household members' perceptions of youth and their food consumption to understand the multifactorial dynamic processes which create nutritional outcomes among urban and rural youth in central Tanzania. Youth are an important and demographically large population in developing countries. The identities created during this distinct stage of cultural production can be reflected in youths' food consumption and relationships with food. Nutrition likely affects how youth transition through a variety of states, including their growth and development stages, primary to secondary to higher education, child to parent, or unemployed to employed. Food and nutrition are in transition in many developing countries such as Tanzania. Here, many adolescents experience undernutrition, in addition to increasing access to low-nutrient, high-calorie foods and increased risk for overweight and obesity during their lifespan. Little data exists in these contexts regarding food security, food consumption and nutritional outcomes.
This study utilizes a biocultural approach which constructs adolescence as a socially distinct and culturally variable period between childhood and adulthood with unique roles and responsibilities. This framework draws upon political economy theory, with influences from political ecology, evolutionary theory and an adaptive perspective to investigate youths' relationships with food within the larger context of their lives, households and communities. This study explores the ways that gender, poverty and locality affect youth and their relationships with food through qualitative and quantitative methodology.
A mixed-methods approach is used at two field sites in central Tanzania: rural Haydom Ward and urban Singida Municipality. Methods employed in this study include semi-structured interviews, pile sorts, focus groups, a quantitative survey, food frequency questionnaire, anthropometry, and participant observation. Qualitative data help to gain an in-depth understanding of adolescent health and nutrition in urban and rural areas of Tanzania, and provide a foundation for a quantitative survey, which aims to provide an overview of adolescent food consumption, nutritional status, and health-related behaviors on a larger scale.
Youth food consumption and nutrition in central Tanzania is imbedded within a web of social, biological and environmental processes and influenced by gender, population density, school enrollment, household structure and poverty. Food security risks and consumption patterns vary by field site, where seasonality and drought negatively impact rural adolescents' health and food consumption patterns, while lack of money and increased food cost affect urban adolescents more. Boys are especially vulnerable; they report consuming less food and exhibit poorer nutritional status than girls.
School attendance offers unique challenges to food consumption. Urban schools do not offer breakfast or lunch, so most students go the entire day without a meal. In rural areas, schools may provide food through mandatory `contributions' required for student enrollment, but these enrollment requirements can act as a barrier for poorer households. Additionally, rural schools are often far from students' homes, forcing many to live at the school in rented poor-quality shacks far from markets and potable water sources.
Parents and other community members view adolescents as essential members of the household who perform important tasks in the household and community. They also construct youth as problematic, and link food insecurity to culturally problematic behaviors where food insecurity leads adolescents to migrate to larger urban areas. Here, they may experience extreme poverty, engage in transactional sex, and abuse alcohol and drugs. Adolescent food consumption is imbedded within multifactorial challenges related to education, globalization, and household and community relationships. Strategies to address adolescent health or livelihood issues in Tanzania and elsewhere must engage a holistic approach where all aspects of adolescents' lives are considered.
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MacKinnon, Aran Stuart. "Land, labour and cattle : the political economy of Zululand, c.1930-1950." Thesis, University of London, 1996. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.243290.
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Söderbaum, Fredrik. "The political economy of regionalism in Southern Africa /." Göteborg : Dept. of Peace and Development Research, Göteborg Univ, 2002. http://www.gbv.de/dms/sub-hamburg/35483584X.pdf.
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Jones, Christopher. "The Political Economy of Trade Policy in Africa." Thesis, University of Nottingham, 2008. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.518800.
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Marx, Benjamin. "Essays on political economy in Sub-Saharan Africa." Thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2018. http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/118048.
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Thesis: Ph. D., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Economics, 2018.Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.
Includes bibliographical references (pages 199-208).
The first chapter explores the disciplining effect of elections on national leaders in Sub-Saharan Africa. I first show that the completion of development projects funded by the World Bank and implemented by governments between 1995 and 2014 yields large electoral benefits for incumbent politicians. The causal effect of completion is identified from an instrumental variables strategy that exploits exogenous variation in the workload of project team leaders at the World Bank. Incumbents are rewarded for completing projects in visible sectors, namely projects providing basic infrastructure and social services, but not for completing projects in other sectors. I then show that governments expedite completion in response to electoral incentives, target their effort towards visible projects, and prioritize completing ongoing projects over initiating new projects before elections. Even in Africa's hybrid political regimes, elections incentivize politicians to deliver tangible policy outputs. In the second chapter, Tavneet Suri, Thomas Stoker and I provide evidence of ethnic patronage in the determination of rental prices and investments in one of Africa's largest informal settlements, the Kibera slum in Nairobi. Slum residents pay higher rents and live in lower quality housing (measured via satellite pictures) when their landlord and locality chief belong to the same ethnicity. We find opposite effects when residents and chiefs are co-ethnics. Our identification relies on the exogenous appointment of chiefs and is supported by several tests, including a regression discontinuity design. In the third chapter, Christopher Blattman, Horacio Larreguy, Otis Reid, and I study a large randomized controlled trial designed to combat vote-buying in the 2016 Ugandan elections. Our design allows us to estimate how the effects of the campaign against vote-buying vary with local treatment intensity. We find that the campaign did not reduce the extent to which voters accepted cash and gifts from politicians, but that it had large effects on vote shares received by candidates. Consistent with these effects, we show that the campaign diminished the effectiveness of vote-buying transactions by shifting local social norms against vote-selling.
by Benjamin Marx.
Ph. D.
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Solberg, Eirik Futsaeter. "The contours, dynamics and impacts of African football migration to South Africa." Thesis, Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2008. http://hdl.handle.net/10019.1/2129.
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Thesis (MA (Political Science. International Studies)--Stellenbosch University, 2008.This study explores the contours, dynamics and impacts of African football migration to South Africa. It argues that there has been a change in the international political economy of sport, and that this change is affecting world football migration. In addition to the study’s primary focus on African football migration, it also reviews substantial parts of the literature concerning the phenomenon of football migration, in order to explain which dynamics characterise football migration. The thesis also accounts for the incentives that motivate African football migration to South Africa, and the impact such players have on the South African domestic elite league. The study identifies which incentives exist for promoting football cooperation in the context of Southern Africa, and how football migration patterns correlate or contrast with general migration patterns to South Africa. The study makes use of two theoretical frameworks, by Paul Darby and Joseph Maguire, to understand and explain player migration. These frameworks provide an understanding of the different aspects and structures shaping player migration, and should be interpreted as complementary and not contrasting approaches. The examination of the frameworks’ theoretical deficiencies and implications provides the basis for further research in the conclusion. The conclusion argues that there exists a need to create a new theoretical framework within which future studies can be concluded. The study is motivated by the general lack of academic research on the specific subject and migration to South Africa. The latter is suggested by the body of literature, concerning African migration to South Africa, which argues for more research on the issue to get a better understanding of the current situation. This study is based on both primary and secondary sources, the latter being represented by e.g. academic journal articles and books. In addition it was necessary to conduct fieldwork to provide answers to the research questions. The study makes use of exploratory qualitative methods in order to provide a conclusion, and to answer the research questions. It can be characterised as exploratory because it will offer new insights into a specific issue which, until now, has not been researched extensively. The analysis of the data and desktop research revealed certain trends, and provides a basis for answering the research questions. The study concludes that football migration, like conventional migration, is very complex and influenced by several interwoven factors. Hence a broad scope is crucial to understand the phenomenon correctly and not exaggerate the importance of some factors above others. In the conclusion the current position of the PSL is explained in relation to the two theoretical frameworks and the work of Pierre Lanfranchi and Matthew Taylor. It is argued that the PSL, unlike most other African leagues, has managed to cope with the ‘enduring problem of African football’, and has transformed into a commercialised, commoditised league heavily influenced by corporate interests.
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Stephan, Etelle. "LABORING FOR POLICIES: THE ECONOMIC INTEGRATION OF REFUGEES IN TANZANIA AND UGANDA." Scholarship @ Claremont, 2018. http://scholarship.claremont.edu/scripps_theses/1184.
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This thesis is serves to examine the refugee policies in Tanzania and Uganda and how they have affected refugee participation in their labor market economies. I focused on two developing nations because much of refugee discourse revolves around the global north, leaving developing nations out of the conversation. This gap in discourse inspired this topic in hopes of encouraging more scholarly contributions. Considering the economic impact of refugees provides an empirical approach to humanitarian issues exposing the overlap between politics, economics, and humanity.
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Mathekga, Mmanoko Jerry. "The political economy of labour market flexibility in South Africa." Thesis, Stellenbosch : University of Stellenbosch, 2009. http://hdl.handle.net/10019.1/1532.
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Thesis (MPhil (Political Science))--University of Stellenbosch, 2009.ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The impact of globalisation can be found in every aspect of human life. Globalisation has also brought about changes in the world of work, such as the call for labour market flexibility, which has restructured the workplace. This study focuses on the implications of labour market flexibility for workers in South Africa and for trade unions, within the context of the introduction of a macroeconomic neoliberal policy in South Africa in 1996. The study examines the changing nature of employment and work in a company in the South African retail sector, namely Pick n Pay. Labour market flexibility comes about as companies try to compete and cut costs at the expense of workers. This implies a reduction of protection and benefits and has resulted in the creation of a ‘working poor’ labour segment. Trade unions have been ineffective in providing a voice and representation for the new working poor. This study argues that under conditions of economic globalisation, trade unions are disempowered and flexible labour market practices are introduced to cut costs in order to maintain market share and increase competitiveness. Economic globalisation has pressurised the South African government, and the African National Congress (ANC), to shift gradually to the right and to adopt a neoliberal macroeconomic policy. This has led to an increase in inequality, unemployment, new forms of insecure jobs and the creation of an informal economy. This study found that instead of creating jobs and alleviating poverty, the government’s Growth, Employment and Redistribution Strategy (GEAR) has resulted in retrenchments, downsizing and restructuring. The unemployed, retrenched and working poor find themselves in the ‘second economy’. The retail sector in particular makes use of labour market flexibility in order to compete for market share. Pick n Pay is an example of a retail company that increasingly makes use of flexible labour market practices. This study found that labour market flexibility has created a situation that trade unions find difficult to deal with, and that labour market flexibility has been accompanied by increasing inequality, which overlaps with race and gender identities. Furthermore, Pick n Pay maintains flexible employment under conditions of increased productivity and contrary to labour legislation.
AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Impak van globalisering kan in elke aspek van mense se lewens waargeneem word. Globalisering het verandering in die wêreld van werk teweeggebring, soos die aandrang op arbeidsmarkbuigsaamheid wat tot die herstrukturering van die werkersmag gelei het. Hierdie studie fokus op die implikasie van arbeidsmarkbuigsaamheid vir werkers in Suid‐ Afrika, en die implikasie vir vakbonde in die konteks van die inwerkingstelling van ’n makroekonomiese neo‐liberale beleid in Suid‐Afrika in 1996. Verder ondersoek die studie die verandering in die aard van indiensneming en werk in ’n Suid‐Afrikaanse maatskappy in die kleinhandelsektor, naamlik Pick n Pay. Buigsaamheid in die arbeidsmag ontstaan wanneer besighede in ’n poging om kompeterend te wees, uitgawes ten koste van werkers besnoei. Dit bring die vermindering van beskerming en voordele mee, wat tot ’n arbeidsegment van ‘arm werkers’ lei. Vakbonde kon nie ’n stem en verteenwoordiging aan hierdie nuwe segment van arm werkers gee nie. Hierdie studie voer aan dat ekonomiese globalisering werkersunies magteloos laat terwyl buigsame arbeidsmarkpraktyke aangewend word om kostes te sny ten einde markaandeel en verhoogde kompetisie te verseker. Ekonomiese globalisasie plaas meer druk op die Suid‐Afrikaanse regering, die African National Congress (ANC), om ‘n verskuiwing na regs te maak en ’n neo‐liberale makroekonomiese beleid te volg. Dit het gelei tot verhoging in ongelykheid, werkloosheid, nuwe vorme van onsekere werksgeleenthede, en die skepping van ’n informele ekonomie. Die studie bevind dat die regering se Groei, Indiensnemings‐ en Herdistribusiebeleid (GEAR), wat veronderstel was om werk te skep en werkloosheid te verminder, eerder tot meer afdankings, afskaling en herstrukturering gelei het. Die werklose, afgedankte en armwerkerskorps bevind hulself nou in ’n ‘tweede ekonomie’. In die besonder maak die kleinhandelsektor gebruik van arbeidsmarkbuigsaamheid om vir ’n deel van die mark te kompeteer. Pick n Pay is ’n voorbeeld van ’n kleinhandelmaatskappy wat toenemend gebruik maak van arbeidsmarkbuigsaamheid. Die studie kom tot die slotsom dat arbeidsmarkbuigsaamheid ’n situasie geskep het wat vakbonde verlam het, en wat met ’n verhoging in ongelykheid wat verder met ras en geslagsidentiteite oorvleuel, gepaardgaan. daarby maak Pick n Pay gebruik van buigsaame indiensnemingspraktyke onder omstandighede van verhoogde produktiwiteit, in weerwil van arbeidswetgewing
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Valsamakis, Antoinette. "The role of South African business in South Africa’s post apartheid economic diplomacy." Thesis, University of Birmingham, 2012. http://etheses.bham.ac.uk//id/eprint/3391/.
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This thesis explores the role of South African business as non-state actors (NSAs) in South Africa’s post-apartheid economic diplomacy. The work is an empirical contribution to the debate within diplomacy studies asserting the importance of NSAs in diplomacy studies and that the inclusion of economic considerations in diplomacy studies is crucial. Whilst a broader agenda in diplomacy studies is increasingly being recognised by diplomacy scholars, there is limited case-based evidence of the increasingly active role being played by NSAs in diplomacy generally and economic diplomacy more specifically. The research uses a multistakeholder diplomacy framework to analyse the extent to and ways in which corporate actors engage in South Africa’s post-apartheid economic diplomacy. This study explores specific business activities around economic diplomacy, expounds why South African business adopts different strategies at different times and crucially examines how corporate actors do this. The thesis identifies three distinct modes of corporate diplomacy: consultative, supplementary, and entrepreneurial. The thesis concludes that corporate diplomacy warrants far more scholarly attention than has hitherto been the case, both in developed and emerging economies, on the basis that corporate actors in South Africa play a crucial role in economic diplomacy, both as consumers and producers of diplomatic outcomes.
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Casaburi, Lorenzo. "Essays in Development Economics and Political Economy." Thesis, Harvard University, 2013. http://dissertations.umi.com/gsas.harvard:10890.
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Chapter 1 studies the electoral response to the Ghost Buildings program, a nationwide anti tax evasion policy in Italy which used innovative monitoring technologies to target buildings hidden from tax authorities. The difference-in-differences identification strategy exploits both variation across towns in the ex ante program scope to increase enforcement as well as administrative data on actual building registrations. Local incumbents experience an increase in their reelection likelihood as a consequence of the policy. In addition, these political returns are higher in areas with higher speed of public good provision and with lower tax evasion tolerance, implying complementarity among enforcement policies, government efficiency, and the underlying tax culture. Chapter 2 uses a road-level regression discontinuity design in Sierra Leone to study the impact of improvements in rural road infrastructure on agricultural markets. We show that the improved roads reduced the market prices of local crops. These price effects are stronger in markets that are further from major urban centers and in less productive areas. We also find that these price effects are reversed in areas with better cell phone penetration. We show that our empirical findings are consistent with a search cost framework a la Mortensen, but inconsistent with other models, such as Bertrand competition, bilateral bargaining, and Cournot oligopsony. Chapter 3 present results from a randomized controlled experiment designed to study the multiple margins through which value is passed from traders to agricultural producers in the presence of interlinked transactions. Consistent with other studies, we find limited price pass-through in response to an increase in the trader resale price. However, there is a large response in credit provision. We develop a model of interlinked transactions that highlights the substitutability of price and credit pass-through across markets, and verify its predictions empirically. Calibration suggests that to ignore margins of pass-through other than price has substantial implications for welfare analysis.Economics
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Fox, Sean. "The political economy of urbanisation and development in sub-Saharan Africa." Thesis, London School of Economics and Political Science (University of London), 2013. http://etheses.lse.ac.uk/807/.
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This thesis consists of a brief introduction, which situates the work within in the intellectual history of development theory, and three papers that address important gaps in our understanding about the dynamics of urbanisation and urban development in sub-Saharan Africa. The first provides an interdisciplinary, historical perspective on the dynamics of urbanisation and urban growth in the region from the colonial era to the present day. I argue that these processes are fundamentally driven by mortality decline set in motion by improvements in disease control and food security. Viewed through this lens, the widely noted phenomena of ‘urbanisation without growth’ and very rapid urban population growth in the late 20th century are not as unusual as they have often been portrayed by development economists and policymakers. The second addresses the question of why sub-Saharan Africa has the highest rate of slum incidence of any major world region. I argue that slums can be interpreted as a consequence of ‘disjointed modernization’ in which urban population growth outpaces economic and institutional development. I trace the origins of disjointed modernization in sub-Saharan Africa back to the colonial period and show that colonial era investments and institutions are reflected in contemporary variation in slum incidence. I argue that ‘status quo interests’ and the rise of an anti-urbanisation bias in development discourse have inhibited investment and reform in the post-colonial era. The final paper presents and tests an empirical model designed to account for variation in urban protest activity across countries in the region. The model is comprised of basic demographic, political and economic factors that theoretically influence the motives, means and opportunities of potential protestors. The results of a panel data analysis are consistent with the core hypotheses, but several unexpected results emerge. More research is required to confirm these results, clarify mechanisms and account for broader trends in contentious collective action in the region.
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Zulu, Jessicah Maneya. "Political economy of port institutional and pricing reform in South Africa." Master's thesis, University of Cape Town, 2014. http://hdl.handle.net/11427/8519.
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Includes bibliographical referencesThe late 1970's witnessed many countries in the developing world shifting away from earlier models of development which were built around Import Substitution Industrialisation (lSI). These countries were experiencing economic problems which are common to the application of lSI policy particularly, high cost domestic production and overvalued exchange rates (Rodriguez, 2003). In this regard, many developing countries moved increasingly towards export-led growth strategies and trade policies which encouraged private sector competitiveness in a global economy - a model laid out in the "Washington Consensus". This model comprises a set of broad free market economic ideas which advocate macroeconomic stability, free trade, floating exchange rates and free markets to help improve economic welfare under uncertain conditions (Williamson, 2004). In the case of South Africa, also a developing country, similar challenges were experienced with the adoption of the lSI policy. Gross Domestic Product (GOP) and investment rates were low, exports of goods and services were volatile and at times negative and the external capital account had been in deficit since the 1970's (Department of Trade and Industry [DTI], 2008). Furthermore, exports were highly concentrated around mineral commodities and the tariff regime was indiscriminatingly protective of the domestic industry (DTI, 2008). The lSI policy, coupled with the sanctions against apartheid resulted in low levels of productivity and high levels of unemployment in the South African economy.
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Stephens, Jeanne Louise. "The political economy of transport in Mozambique : implications for regional development." Thesis, University of Sussex, 1994. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.239550.
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Holtzhausen, Marlie. "From Washington Consensus to relational economy : relational and human economy approaches to addressing poverty and inequality in South Africa." Thesis, University of Pretoria, 2020. http://hdl.handle.net/2263/76678.
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This research sought to examine how development occurs when it takes place from a relational approach. The relational approach forms part of a growing body of literature within development studies in search of alternative ways of understanding development. Orthodox theories tend to be resistant to alternatives that threaten their path dependency. Development-related ideological traps have also locked development policy in redundant arguments. Development theories from various disciplines continue to grapple with the multidimensionality of poverty and inequality, but they often fail to consider the central role human relationships play in approaching these issues.
This study used Relational Thinking and relational and human economy approaches in search for alternative models and methods to the neoliberal tradition and current development enterprise. Increasing global inequality and deprivations create a vital opportunity to think of new perspectives, interpretive categories and predictive models.
A case study approach was used to examine the relational dynamics of a nongovernmental organisation (NGO) called the James 1:27 Trust, which works with children and youth in Pretoria, South Africa. Relational Thinking was utilised within an interpretivist philosophy using a mixed-model approach, including the Relational Proximity Framework survey (quantitative tool) and in-depth qualitative research through semi-structured interviews and a focus group.
The research established that development studied from a relational perspective deepens understanding of the varying meanings that people give to development. It informs a relational economy in which development is seen as a circular, “messy” and often unpredictable process where belonging, pain, “family”, forgiveness and learning in an intricate, embedded network of relationships are valued beyond material resources. Development requires philosophies and measures that enable the identification of questions, problems and interventions that are not currently considered in studies on development.Thesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 2020.
DAAD-NRF In-Country Scholarship (German Academic Exchange Service and National Research Foundation). University of Pretoria’s Postgraduate Study Abroad Programme.
Political Sciences
PhD
Unrestricted