Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Farmers Political activity Australia'

The thesis studies the political participation of Thai farmers and focuses on two main factors, namely the domestic and the external impacts, which inform the case studies of rice, sugarcane, and potato farmers groups. Overall, the research has established that farmers groups have felt the impacts of domestic factors far more strongly than external factors. Furthermore, through comparative studies in relation to the case studies of rice, sugarcane, and potato farmers groups in Thailand, differences emerged between these three Thai farmers groups, in terms of the degree to which domestic factors impacted on their political participation. The theories of Western interest groups are reviewed, in order to examine their applicability to explaining farmers groups formation in Thailand. The concepts of 'collective benefits' and 'selective incentives', which were used by Mancur Olson have been adopted as the main theoretical framework. With reference to this, the research has established that selective incentives have played a highly significant role in Thai farmers groups formation, and concludes that the problems of mobilisation, which relate to rice, sugarcane, and potato farmers groups, have been solved primarily through the provision of a range of selective incentives by the farmers groups themselves. In order to classify the differing levels of political participation of Thai farmers groups, the analytical framework provided by Grant Jordan, Darren Halpin, and William Maloney has been utilised. Accordingly, the rice and potato farmers groups are classified as 'potential pressure participants', whilst the sugarcane farmers group is classified as an 'interest group', which has enabled an examination of their political participation through the Western concept of the policy network/community framework. In order to make the Western policy network/community framework more applicable to the policy-making process in Thailand, the specific, dominant characteristics of the Thai political culture, namely the patronage system and the operation of both vote-buying and corruption are included in the analysis. This conceptual stretching does not significantly affect the original concept of the framework and the way in which it was intended to be applicable, because it already includes informal relationships such as those, which exist within the policy network/community framework. This understanding is an important aspect, which forms a part of the theoretical contribution to the discipline of international political economy and to the arena of Thai political studies. The policy network/community framework provides a new conceptual lens in the study of the political participation of Thai farmers groups. Accordingly, these arguments promote the opportunity to consider alternative frameworks in the analysis of the political participation of Thai farmers groups, and group participation across civil society more generally. The study of the political participation of Thai farmers has utilised empirical evidence, which illustrates the successes of farmers' interest groups in both Japan and the United Kingdom, in order to explain the relative successes and failures of Thai farmers. In contrast to the experiences of Western and notably Japanese farmers groups, in many respects Thai farmers are largely excluded from the policy-making process, with the only exception in Thailand being certain sugarcane farmers groups. The thesis concludes that the political participation of farmers groups in Thailand has generally been affected by domestic impacts rather than by external impacts, and that their influence in domestic policy-making has been, and is likely to remain for the foreseeable future at least, somewhat limited.

This doctoral dissertation seeks to investigate the reasons that lay behind the rise, success and decline of the Italian-run migrant workers� organisation FILEF during the 1970s in Melbourne by reviewing and discussing some significant historical events. It does so in light of the existing literature, archival data and a string of oral accounts gathered from former and current key FILEF members and collaborators. It is hereby offering a better understanding of an otherwise poorly researched area of the Italian-Australian left-wing grassroots organisations in post-war Australia. The thesis has been divided into two parts, including introduction and conclusion. Part One (Chapters 1-5) reviews the historical and political background (in both Italy and Australia) that favoured the establishment of FILEF in Australia, including Melbourne, in the early 1970s; Part Two (Chapters 6-9) presents an analysis of the historical development and socio-political role of FILEF Melbourne between 1972 and 1980. Chapter One reviews the theoretical context, the representation of the history of FILEF in previous publications, primary and secondary sources, the research strategy and methodology. Chapters Two and Three anchor the history of FILEF Melbourne to their respective background in Italy and Australia. That is, Chapter Two examines the post-war Italian emigration and its politicising by the Italian Left; Chapter Three focuses on the postwar emigration of Italians to Australia and outlines a profile of the Italian-Australian community. Chapter Four maps the route of the Italian-Australian Left in the 1950s and 1960s, that is from Italia Libera to the Lega Italo-Australiana. Chapter Five reviews the circumstances that led the establishment of the PCI in Australia respectively. Chapter Six examines the origins and grassroots activism of FILEF in Melbourne in the 1970s, especially by looking at three areas of activity: migrant press, migrant welfare and migrant politics. Chapter Seven researches the vulnerability of FILEF to the pressures of conservative quarters by recounting the �Italian communist move in� (1975) and the federal funding cut (1976) episodes. Chapter Eight, thoroughly revisits the Salemi case (1977), while Chapter Nine explores the effects of the case and Salemi�s deportation on FILEF towards the end of the 1970s.

Bibliography: leaves 135-143. An anthropological analysis of an industrial dispute that occurred within the East Gippsland forest industry, 1997-1998 and how the workers strove to acheive better working conditions for themselves, and to share in the wealth they had created.

Bibliography : leaves 281-290.
xii, 290 leaves : maps ; 30 cm.
Title page, contents and abstract only. The complete thesis in print form is available from the University Library.
Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Adelaide, Dept. of Anthropology, 1994?

This research explores the mechanisms through which farmers in contemporary China might stage successful environmental protests by studying the Huazhen Incident. The author argues that the Huazhen farmers' success in forcing the local government to close the heavily-polluting industrial park can be accounted for by their having successfully aligned an anti-pollution frame with an anti-corruption one, employing the formal village social organizations as mobilizing structures, and creatively developing opportunities for group participation by senior villagers. These three processes empowered Huazhen farmers and constrained the repressive power of the local state as follows: First, environmental issues in Huazhen were entangled with various other social problems. Issue entrepreneurs effectively integrated farmers' multiple grievances through bridging the anti-pollution and anti-corruption frames. Secondly, Huazhen farmers creatively used formal village social organizations as mobilizing structures. By embedding a village-wide mobilization of anti-pollution protest into the village committee election process and by employing the Society of Senior Villagers to mobilize the elderly, the Huazhen protest enjoyed the support of the majority of villagers, as well as the main force of the senior villagers necessary for a breakthrough. Thirdly, farmers in Huazhen both employed existing opportunities and developed new ones, making full use of the formalistic opportunities provided by the local government. Most importantly, the farmers in Huazhen strategically explored the group-specific opportunities of the elderly for constraining state power through the weapons of the weak. During the early stages of the protest, the power of the weak forced the local government to appeal to emotion work instead of repression in order to demobilize the protesters. While officials were doing this, the elderly were protesting with a strategic dramaturgy of moderate extremism, which served to further mobilize the farmers and garner support from the general public. Confronting the moderate but persistent protests of the elderly, the local government switched to repression. Excessive repression, however, failed to control the protests. Worse still, such repression gave farmers the moral high ground. Farmers in Huazhen utilized the protest spectacle as an alternative media and turned the protest base into a direct theatre, broadcasting their protest and sensitizing the public by making them bear witness to state oppression, thereby deconstructing the official discourse of the repression. The protest of farmers in Huazhen ultimately triggered intervention from higher-level authorities, which forced the local state to make a full concession: closing the entire industrial park.
鄧燕華.
Adviser: Lianjiang Li.
Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 73-01, Section: A, page: .
Thesis (Ph.D.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2010.
Includes bibliographical references (p. 175-190).
Electronic reproduction. Hong Kong : Chinese University of Hong Kong, [2012] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web.
Electronic reproduction. [Ann Arbor, MI] : ProQuest Information and Learning, [201-] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web.
Abstracts in Chinese and English.
Deng Yanhua.

家族、移民和革命，是考察中國的僑鄉社會，尤其是民國時期的僑鄉社會所不可或缺的三大元素。傳統的華人華僑研究，多把華僑與國民黨的革命活動聯繫起來，以突出華僑對國民黨革命的重要性。然而，這些研究往往忽略了華僑跟共產黨領導的革命的繫連。在當代的潮汕地區，爲了吸引華僑投資家鄉與促進僑鄉的文化旅遊發展，部分僑鄉重構鄉村參與共產黨革命的歷史，建立起「紅色僑鄉」。
「紅色僑鄉」這個文化標籤的建立，成爲僑鄉、僑居地與國家之間的文化、政治關係的象徵符號。本文主要以廣東澄海後溝村為個案研究，由此討論僑鄉社會如何塑造自身的歷史與文化。本文嘗試指出，第一次國共合作破裂之後，共產黨在鄉村中秘密動員、組織農民階級對抗「地主階級」，鄉民參加革命能夠起到協調地域社區權力結構中力量的不平衡的作用。自20年代中后期在僑鄉社會中形成的關係網絡延續至抗日戰爭及解放戰爭，與海外移民網絡共同影響著鄉村的宗族和地域社會。當代僑鄉的紅色革命形象，是國家自上而下的意識形態工程所塑造的，也是地方家族、移民在追尋自身利益與政治認同的結果。
Lineage, migration and revolution are three major elements to study emigrant communities in China, especially in the Republican period. Traditional studies on overseas Chinese focus on the relationship between overseas Chinese and KuoMinTang’s revolutionary activities and highlight the importance of overseas Chinese to KMT revolution. However, these studies often ignore the relationship between overseas Chinese and revolutionary activities led by Chinese Communist Party. In the Chaoshan region, some of the emigrant communities, in order to attract overseas Chinese investment and develop cultural tourism, attempt to establish a "Red Emigrant Community" status through reconstructing the history of village’s participating in CCP’s revolution.
"Red Emigrant Community", or Hongse qiaoxiang, is a cultural label linking emigrant communities and the State. This thesis, using Hougou village as an example explores how emigrant communities shape their own "red" history and culture. After the first cooperation of KMT and CCP, CCP secretly began to mobilize and organize peasants against landlords in villages. Villager’s participation in revolutionary activities could be seen as a balance of power in the local community. Together with their overseas networks, emigrant communities’ revolutionary networks, which were formed in the 1920s and continued through the WWII and the Liberation, influenced villages’ lineage and regional structures. Red Emigrant Community is not only a top-down National projects. It is a result of pursuing interests and seeking political identity by local lineage and overseas Chinese.
Detailed summary in vernacular field only.
Detailed summary in vernacular field only.
王惠.
Parallel title from added title page.
Thesis (M.Phil.) Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2014.
Includes bibliographical references (leaves 170-187).
Abstracts in Chinese and English.
Wang Hui.

This thesis provides an account of the responses of the tobacco growers of Myrtleford to the closure of the domestic tobacco industry, the growth of an illegal tobacco (known as chop-chop) market and the role that regulatory and policy measures have played in the history of the industry. Within the framework of neoliberalism, Individuals are perceived as having the capability and potential to be self-sufficient and 'enterprising' in creating their capital. In the case of Myrtleford tobacco growers, a neoliberal model fails to recognise the extent to which human agency can be constrained by structural forces. Such constraint not only prevented the tobacco growers from becoming economically self-sufficient but also harmed their capacity to rebuild their lives. This thesis brings together sociological and regulatory literatures to examine the history of the regulatory policy arrangements underpinning the domestic tobacco industry. Pierre Bourdieu's theory of field and habitus is applied to frame the research with various theories operating within it. The field of tobacco growing is a complex social environment in which government, the tobacco manufacturers, the anti-tobacco movement and the tobacco growers struggle for resources using different types of capital to maintain their power. The administration, change and removal of regulation and policies reveal transformations and power struggles for different types of capital between actors in the field of the domestic tobacco industry. The thesis employs a narrative approach to demonstrate how regulation and agricultural policy have affected the lives of tobacco growers. The development of the chop-chop market is analysed through the narratives of growers. These narratives show how different market layers are developed that represent different behaviours and relationships between buyers and sellers. Engagement in different layers involved the growers and the broader community in using their social capital and reinventing their habitus in the field of chop-chop tobacco. This model sets up a further analysis using a motivational postures framework to understand why people became active participants in the chop-chop market. An integrative analysis of market response and motivational behaviour of a collective illuminates the processes that lead to the growers' disempowerment, which is often neglected in the development and implementation of regulation and policy programs. It goes beyond formal analyses constrained by what the law says and what economic modeling predicts will occur to reveal the complex problems that arise within communities and how new social arrangements create social distance between a collective and the authorities. The last part of the thesis takes a psycho-social approach to show how collectives manage regulatory and policy changes through focusing on the justice of respect. To demonstrate the potential of a justice of respect framework, a critical evaluation of processes and outcomes of the growers' Co-operative identifies how a culture of disrespect developed that failed growers and further exacerbated the growers' disempowerment. The research concludes by arguing that if those holding economic and political power adopted a justice of respect approach, they might enable collectives to maintain their dignity and resilience in times of policy change, and have a better chance of earning trust and thereby eliciting cooperation in the future.

'Public health is the science and art of preventing disease, prolonging life, and promoting health through the organized efforts of society' (Acheson 1988 cited in Detels et al., 2009: 3). This continues to be the 'widely accepted' definition of public health (Detels et al., 2009: 3) and speaks to the active nature of public health, which is as much a social, economic and political pursuit as it is a medical practice or academic discipline. The broader public health constituency encompasses a variety of practitioners and scholars ranging from medicine to the social sciences, yet 'public health cannot succeed without the support and active involvement of the community' (Detels et al.,2009: 4). This dissertation argues that the trade union movement (as a mass social movement representing the social, economic and political aspirations of working people around the globe) is an important public health actor actively involved - though not necessarily consciously or explicitly - in working towards the World Health Organisation (WHO) goal of Health for All. Empirical research begins with an historical study of the health activism of the peak Australian trade union organisation. The study finds that through a variety of strategies - including: improving wages and working conditions; advancing the social and political status and power of working people; promoting a culture of individual and collective human rights, including the right to health; and strengthening democracy and thus social and political stability - Australian unions have contributed to a variety of public health and human development gains. The current priorities and activities of the international trade union movement are then scrutinised through in-depth interviews with key informants from international trade union organisations, the International Labour Organisation (lLO) and World Health Organisation (WHO), in order to assess the global relevance of the Australian findings. The breadth of health-related activism carried out by international trade union organisations is presented, from their global activism with intergovernmental organisations such as the ILO and WHO, to solidarity activities supporting trade union development in low income countries. Factors that constrain the trade union pursuit of Health for All, along with examples of how trade unions address and overcome these challenges, are also discussed. Whether in Australia or internationally, the main priority of unions is organising: that is, increasing the membership, strength and capacity of their organisations. Organising strength is used to pursue, fight for and defend, a large array of socially determined contributors to health, including: wages and working conditions, traditional and emerging occupational health and safety concerns, and community health concerns like HIV/ AIDS and environmental sustainability. The dissertation concludes by discussing the empirical findings in light of the emerging public health literature that expounds the importance of democracy to public health practice. This pursuit is manifest in campaigns to improve determinants of well-being including UNESCO's Education for All, and WHO's Human Resources for Health and Health for All. These aspirations are complemented by the trade union movement's own visions for worker well-being, embodied in the ILO's objective for Decent Work. The long-standing goal of WHO, Health for All, cannot solely be achieved by any of these sectors working alone. Together, however, much progress can be made.

Includes bibliographical references.
2 v. ;
Primarily a study of the reasons for the rise, after 1840, of the medical profession in South Australia. The principal argument is that the basic power and influence of the medical practitioner derived from statute. Of almost equal importance was the organised profession's adoption of, and association with, science and technology.
Thesis (M.D.)--University of Adelaide, Dept. of Public Health, 1998

"November 2004"
Includes bibliographical references (leaves 246-263)
xi, 263 leaves ; 30 cm.
A comparative study of the impact of international catalysts on women's entry into the national parliaments of Kenya and Australia and whether they have similar impacts on women's parliamentary recruitment in countries that have different terms of incorporation into the international system.
Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Adelaide, School of Social Sciences, Discipline of Gender Studies, 2005

This thesis examines the banning of a communist speaker. Lieutenant E.A.H. Laurie, at Melbourne Teachers' College in July, 1944 and argues that the decision to ban Laurie was unwarranted and politically motivated. The banning, which was enforced by the Minister for Public Instruction, Thomas Tuke Hollway, appears to have been based on Hollway's firm anti-communist views and political opportunism. A. J. Law, Principal of the Teachers' College, was also responsible for banning Laurie. However, Law's decision to ban Laurie was probably directed by Hollway and supported by J. Seitz, Director of Education.