Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Great Britain Strategic aspects'
To see the other types of publications on this topic, follow the link: Great Britain Strategic aspects.
Create a spot-on reference in APA, MLA, Chicago, Harvard, and other styles
Consult the top 50 dissertations / theses for your research on the topic 'Great Britain Strategic aspects.'
Next to every source in the list of references, there is an 'Add to bibliography' button. Press on it, and we will generate automatically the bibliographic reference to the chosen work in the citation style you need: APA, MLA, Harvard, Chicago, Vancouver, etc.
You can also download the full text of the academic publication as pdf and read online its abstract whenever available in the metadata.
Browse dissertations / theses on a wide variety of disciplines and organise your bibliography correctly.
1
Thacker, Scott. "Reducing the risk of failure in interdependent national infrastructure network systems." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2015. https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:02e7313c-0967-47e3-becc-2e7da376f745.
Full textAbstract:
Infrastructure network systems support society and the economy by facilitating the distribution of essential services across broad spatial extents, at a range of scales. The complex and interdependent nature of these systems provides the conditions for which localised failures can dramatically cascade, resulting in disruptions that are widespread and very often unforeseen. This systemic vulnerability has been highlighted multiple times over the previous decades in infrastructures systems from around the world. In the future, the hazards to which infrastructure systems are exposed are set to grow with increasing extreme event risks caused by climate change. The aim of this thesis is to develop methodology and analysis for understanding and reducing the risk of failure of national interdependent infrastructure network systems. This study introduces multi-scale, system-of-systems based methodology and applied analysis that provides important new insights into interdependent infrastructure network risk and adaptation. Adopting a complex network based approach; real-world asset data is integrated from the energy, transport, water, waste and digital communications sectors to represent the physical interconnectivity that exists within and between interdependent infrastructure systems. Given the often limited scope of real-world datasets, an algorithm is presented that is used to synthesise missing network data, providing continuous network representations that preserve the most salient spatial and topological properties of real multi-level infrastructure systems. Using the resultant network representations, the criticality of individual assets is calculated by summing the direct and indirect customer disruptions that can occur in the event of failure. This is achieved by disrupting sets of functional service flow pathways that transcend sectorial and operational boundaries, providing long-range connectivity between service originating source nodes and customer allocated sink nodes. Kernel density estimation is used to integrate discrete asset criticality values into a continuous surface from which statistically significant infrastructure geographical criticality hotspots are identified. Finally, a business case is presented for investment in infrastructure adaptation, where adaptation costs are compared to the reduction in expected damages that arise from interdependency related failures over an assets lifetime. By representing physical and geographic interdependence at a range of scales, this analysis provides new evidence to inform the targeting of investments to reduce risks and enhance system resilience. It is concluded that the research presented within this thesis provides new theoretical insights and practical techniques for a range of academic, industrial and governmental infrastructure stakeholders, from the UK and beyond.
2
Breton, Steven Daniel. "Imperial sunset : grand strategies of hegemons in relative decline." Thesis, McGill University, 1996. http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=26724.
Full textAbstract:
This thesis investigates the economic and military policies hegemons pursue while experiencing relative decline. Based upon the rising costs of leadership associated with hegemony, this thesis establishes that both systemic and domestic environments equally influence the hegemon's policy-making. Furthermore, the paper contends that hegemons do practice strategic planning during relative decline, in an effort to adjust its commitments and resources to the environment. Relative success or failure in maintaining the international system and thus adjusting for decline depends on how decision-makers compensate for two prevailing variables: threat of challengers and availability of allies. This study offers a predictive theoretical model for interpreting the dynamics of grand strategy formulation, compensating for the influences of the domestic environment three historical case studies, the Dutch Republic, Britain and the United States, test the accuracy and validity of the model. This thesis finds that periods of strong leadership, void of threat, while augmented by external balancing best support a hegemon's relative decline.
3
Khalid, Amr. "Aspects of Islam and social coexistence : the case of Britain." Thesis, University of Wales Trinity Saint David, 2010. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.683357.
Full text
4
Decker, Tim. "Strategic standards." Access to citation, abstract and download form provided by ProQuest Information and Learning Company; downloadable PDF file, 298 p, 2008. http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?did=1456294811&sid=15&Fmt=2&clientId=8331&RQT=309&VName=PQD.
Full text
5
Wiedner, Rene. "The side effects of strategic change : an in-depth case study of an attempt to 'liberate' the English National Health Service." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 2015. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.709463.
Full text
6
Pendleton, Colin F. "Aspects of bronze age metalwork in northern East Anglia." Thesis, University of Nottingham, 1992. http://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/10980/.
Full textAbstract:
The bronze age metalwork of northern East Anglia is well known, both for its quality and quantity. The main concentration occurs along the south-eastern fen edges which are recognised as one of the primary centres of metalwork in Britain. Due to the 'wet' nature of the fenland the metalwork from the area has formed one of the main supports for the belief, over the last 25 years, in a practice of bronze age wetland ritual or votive deposition. The main theme of this work examines this important issue. The fenland material has not been isolated but is put into a regional context by the examination of other finds from northern East Anglia. Although mainly using metalwork this study is principally concerned with the meaning of the metalwork assemblage rather than individual artefact analysis. Central to the work is the collation of important information on items reported earlier, together with a wealth of hitherto unrecorded material. Closely related is a detailed analysis of the locations of finds. An attempt is also made to resolve some of the problems that are basic to artifact research, such as the reasons for the distribution of finds and their interpretation. Several problems are highlighted by these studies, such as the need to research other contemporary material and analyse the effects of both depositional and post-depositional processes. In East Anglia the most important of these, which has probably caused enormous variation in the distribution of finds has been arable agriculture, some of the effects of which are examined and analysed. Whereas previous studies have been dependent on material not necessarily representative, accurately provenanced or numerically significant, this work provides, for the first time, a relatively sound basis, allowing some significant re-evaluations of the practices, organisation and settlement patterns of society in bronze age East Anglia.
7
Cordiner, Tom Stuart. "Zionism and aspects of British political culture since 1945." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 2013. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.648164.
Full text
8
Chalmers, Malcolm G. "Nuclear weapons and British defence policy : an examination of nuclear aspects of British foreign and defence policy 1940-1990." Thesis, University of Bradford, 1987. http://hdl.handle.net/10454/4220.
Full textAbstract:
This thesis is an attempt to understand the role of nuclear weapons in Britain's defence and foreign policies. It works from the assumption that decisions in relation to nuclear weapons, can only be understood in the context of a broader overview of the British state's policies since the 1940's. In turn Britain's nuclear policies have made a decisive impact on defence policy as a whole and have had an important effect on international developments. It is hoped that this thesis will contribute to a better-understanding of the causes and effects of the nuclear weapons policies adopted by the UK since the 19401s. The thesis will focus on the politics and political economy of nuclear weapons and British defence policy. This central concern has required that a number of other important aspects of the subject have been given only peripheral consideration. The thesis does not attempt to provide a detailed technological history of Britain's nuclear force. Nor is it intended to provide particular new insights on the nuclear decisionmaking process. Rather it seeks to explore the underlying factors which have shaped both the technology and the perceptions of decision-makers. There is no shortage of historical accounts of Britain's nuclear force. The unique contribution which it is hoped that this thesis makes, however, does not lie so much in its subject matter as in the way that this subject matter is approached. In my view that approach is sufficiently different from those of previous works in this area as to be both original and of some interest to other scholars in this field.
9
Frei, Gabriela A. "Great Britain, international law, and the evolution of maritime strategic thought, 1856-1914." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2012. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:306f9554-9b0a-4d0e-938e-9a5b515d7c6e.
Full text
10
Carter, Sara. "The role of farms in rural business development." Thesis, University of Stirling, 1997. http://hdl.handle.net/1893/2203.
Full textAbstract:
In recent years the rural enterprise has become a key theme in small business research. Despite an extensive and increasingly sophisticated literature analysing rural firms, the research effort has largely excluded agnculture. This exclusion reflects a wider separation of agriculture and industry which is apparent not only in scholarship, but in the political, social and economic institutions which surround the farm sector. Although there have been persuasive arguments for a more multi-disciplinary approach to the analysis of rurality and calls for comparisons to be drawn between farms and other small businesses, few such attempts have been made and the analysis of rural business development remains charactensed by disciplinary polarity. This thesis seeks to redress this by analysing farms using conventional small business paradigms and methodologies. Three specific issues were examined: the extent to which farms conform to small business norms; the engagement of farms in additional business activities; and the differences between farms undertaking additional business activities and those maintaining monoactive approaches. The results reveal similarities between farms and other rural enterpnses and demonstrate the continued importance of farms as creators of employment and wealth in rural areas Importantly, farms are shown to have a hitherto, unrecognized role in accommodating and fostenng rural small firms in non-farm sectors. The study supports the view that multiple business ownership activities may have been under-reported in the small business research literature. Tins analysis suggests that additional business activities are best viewed as a continuum, from the diversification of existing assets to the establishment of independent and separately registered firms. Policy liberalization, demand side changes and shifts in the demographic profile of farm owners are expected to increase the number of faims engaging in additional business activities. These factors are also expected to increase the smulanties between farms and other rural enterprises. The thesis concludes that there are benefits to be gamed from the inclusion of the farm sector in small business analyses. The sector is dominated by family owned, small businesses that have largely survived the transition through generations. As such, the sector offers small business researchers a unique opportunity to analyse issues at the centre of small business debate Moreover, it is argued that a small business approach to the analysis of the farm sector offers a particularly relevant, but hitherto absent, insight into the future development of rural areas.
11
Baker, Nigel. "Towns, tenements and buildings : aspects of medieval urban archaeology and geography." Thesis, University of Nottingham, 1990. http://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/11087/.
Full textAbstract:
This thesis will argue that the most effective way of understanding the physical development of medieval towns, particularly the larger, more complex, towns and those which lack extensive and detailed contemporary documentation is by a structured integration of the data derived from the archaeological investigation of individual sites with detailed town-plan analyses following the methodology introduced and developed by Conzen. This will be demonstrated by two case-studies, designed to explore the Interaction of the different sources of evidence at two different scales of investigation. The first case-study is a detailed analysis of the plan and development of the whole of a large medieval town,(Worcester), the second is a study of a single street (Pride Hill) in Shrewsbury. The analysis of Worcester illuminates, in particular, the boundaries and internal layout of the late 9th-century burh, suggesting that it was an extension to the pre-existing Roman earthwork circuit and incorporated an area subject to regular town planning, possibly following Wessex models, and an area of irregular settlement that included the bishop of Worcester's haga recorded in 904. The defences were, it is argued, partly dismantled for the extension of urban settlement. The Shrewsbury case-study examines an unusually concentrated building pattern of halls behind the street frontage, and sets this in its contemporary context by an analysis of the contemporary plot-pattern, identified in part by its association with surveyed medieval undercrofts. The earlier history of the area is explored through further analysis of the plot-pattern which predates and is cut by the town wall. It is suggested that the area in question was, like other sectors of the early medieval urban fringe, possibly subject to some type of regular land-allotment for grazing and access to the riverbank. Issues, illustrating the mutually-illuminating character of town plan analysis and urban archaeology, arising from the two case-studies, are discussed. These include the role of archaeology in reconstructing morphological change, the problems of the chronology of urban extensions, archaeology and the interpretation of cartographically-recorded features, and the role of plan-analysis in establishing a contemporary spatial context for individual and multiple archaeological investigations in early medieval towns.
12
Jordan, Steven Shane. "The Technical Vocational Education Initiative (TVEI) and the making of the enterprise culture." Thesis, McGill University, 1996. http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=40371.
Full textAbstract:
This thesis is situated in the history of British debates over the relationship of technical and vocational schooling to capitalism. It analyses the impact of 'new vocational' policy initiatives on English education from the 1970s, using an approach termed 'historical ethnography.' Using this methodology, it draws on ethnographic studies of the Technical and Vocational Education Initiative (TVEI) between 1985 and 1992.My argument is that TVEI represents the most recent manifestation of a long history of educational policies that have systematically produced and ordered the social relations of class in an educational form. In this vein, I argue that the technical and vocational curriculum can be seen as an integral site within the English educational State for the production and formation of class relations within schooling. TVEI, I assert, was central to such a process through its capacity to concert and co-ordinate the social relations and practices of secondary schooling around the concept of enterprise, which acted as an organising device for management/administration, teaching, learning, and most crucially, the formation of individual subjectivities. Understood this way, we can see how TVEI effected reforms that contributed to the formation of clusters of social relations that produced class in new ways.
I show how this process emerged under TVEI through my ethnographic studies of enterprise, school-based management, business studies, and assessment. What each study reveals is how TVEI worked to effect a generalised shift in the culture of schooling away from the post-war social democratic politics of education, to that of a 'managed market' and enterprise culture. In this respect, I argue, TVEI prefigured many of the reforms that were to flow from the Education Reform Act (1988).
13
Gray, Peter William. "The strategic leadership and direction of the Royal Air Force Strategic air offensive against Germany from inception to 1945." Thesis, University of Birmingham, 2010. http://etheses.bham.ac.uk//id/eprint/746/.
Full textAbstract:
This thesis examines the strategic leadership, and the high level direction, of the Royal Air Force’s contribution to the strategic air offensive against Germany. It takes the conceptual thinking, the organisational aspects and the leadership required to bring it into being, from its inception in the First World War through to 1945. The thesis uses modern understanding of strategic (or senior) leadership as an analytical tool. The realm of strategic leadership is complex, and ambiguous, and the senior leaders required high levels of intellectual capacity to cope with the survival of the force and its subsequent rapid to meet the rising threat from Germany. The senior leaders, political and military, acknowledged that their methods of warfare must be just, and the thesis examines the legality and morality of the planning and conduct of the offensive. A key facet of strategic leadership is the setting of the vision and purpose of the enterprise and the thesis examines the challenges that arose from the competing views on how the offensive should be waged. Genuine strategic leadership requires dexterity in working at the interfaces with other organisations, or Allies, and the thesis examines the complexities of the Combined Bomber Offensive and Overlord.
14
Cassidy, Robert M. "The uptonian paradox and the Cardwellian conundrum : a comparison of U.S. and British military-strategic cultures and peace operations doctrine, 1990-1995." Thesis, Connect to Dissertations & Theses @ Tufts University, 2000.
Find full textAbstract:
Thesis (Ph.D) -- Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, 2000.Typescript. Vita. Adviser: Dick Shultz. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 403-422). Access restricted to members of the Tufts University community. Also available via the World Wide Web;
15
Foster, Sally M. "Aspects of the late Atlantic Iron Age." Thesis, University of Glasgow, 1989. http://theses.gla.ac.uk/1051/.
Full textAbstract:
The Scottish Atlantic Iron Age is recognised as falling into four periods, the EIA, MIA, LIA I and LIA II. Least is known of the LIA I, the immediate post-broch period. Original analysis of the C-14 record confirms these divisions; they result as a combination of the effects of the Trondheim calibration curve but mainly the history of archaeological survival and previous excavation strategy. A large data base of pins and combs is examined and analysed, following on the earlier work of Stevenson (1955a), because these are some of the more ubiquitous and chronologically sensitive artefacts belonging to the LIA. This provides the basis for a reconsideration of the nature of LIA settlement throughout the Atlantic Province as a whole, more particularly in the study area of Orkney and Caithness. There are still severe problems in recognising LIA, particularly LIA I activity. This analysis forms the basis for a case study of Orkney and Caithness from around the early centuries of the first millennium BC to the eighth or ninth century AD. A scheme is suggested for the structural developments witnessed over this period, and on the basis of the general trends observed, a social interpretation is put forward. An attempt is made to apply Fields of Discourse, which is contrasted with previous work in this area, because of its sound methodological approach. Archaeological application of the technique of access analysis is described and used to investigate how the use of space structured and reproduced these changing social relations. The shift from locally based power sources to more centralised, in relation to Orkney and Caithness more distant, sources of authority is demonstrated, and related to the development of the southern Pictish kingdom. This change reflects the move from intensive to extensive sources of power. Other aspects of social reproduction are examined to see if they fit within this framework. On analogy with contemporary situations elsewhere and the evidence to hand, the means by which this power may have been exercised, specifically changing agricultural practice and land tenure, and the ideological power of Christianity are speculated upon.
16
Bregman, Abigail Sibley. "The view from the classroom : English school-teachers' responses to domestic and international problems of the interwar years 1919-1939." Thesis, McGill University, 1986. http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=72832.
Full text
17
Nanabawa, Sumaiya. "A discourse analysis of print media constructions of 'Muslim' people in British newspapers." Thesis, Rhodes University, 2013. http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1006767.
Full textAbstract:
This research study aimed to examine how the identity of ' Muslim' people is constructed in British print media today, and whether or not these constructions promote or undermine a xeno-racist project. The research draws on the idea that identity is partly constructed through representation, with an emphasis on how language can be used to construct and position people in different ways. Using a social constructionist paradigm, the study further considers the role that print media has in providing a discursive field within which the construction and reproduction of racist attitudes and ideologies in contemporary global society can take place. Sixty-five newspaper articles were selected from the online archives of British newspapers, The Guardian and The Daily Telegraph using systematic random sampling. These were analysed using the six stages of Foucauldian discourse analysis outlined by Carla Willig. To provide a more fruitful account, the analysis also incorporated the methods of Potter and Wetherell whose focus is on the function of discourse, as well as van Langenhove and Harre's focus on subject positioning, and Parker's use of Foucauldian analysis which looks at power distributions. The analysis revealed that Muslims are discursively constructed as a direct politicised or terror threat, often drawing on discourses of sharia law, and Muslim-Christian relationships. They are also constructed as a cultural threat, drawing on discourses of isolation, oppressed women, the veil/headscarf, identity, visibility and integration. The analysis also showed some variation in constructions, and these extended from the racialization of Muslims to showing the compatibility between Islamic and western values. This study discusses the form these different constructions take and the possible implications these constructions might have in contributing toward a prejudiced and largely negative image of Islam and Muslims.
18
Zadeh, Sophie. "Thinking on fertile ground : a study of social representations of single mothers by sperm donation in the UK." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 2015. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.708877.
Full text
19
Fielding, Steven. "The Irish Catholics of Manchester and Salford : aspects of their religious and political history, 1890-1939." Thesis, University of Warwick, 1988. http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/34809/.
Full textAbstract:
The purpose of this thesis was to highlight an aspect of the heterogeneous character of working class culture. To this end, it investigated the Irish Catholic population of Manchester and Salford, two cities not normally associated with sectarianism, in the period 1890-1939, a time when anti-Irish and anti-Catholic sentiment was supposedly on the wane in the face of 'class' feeling. The study concluded that hostilities based on nationality and religion were a recurrent feature of popular culture. The rise of the Labour party failed to transform such deep-rooted sentiments, to some extent it made use of them. The Catholic Church used its extensive influence in order to isolate adherents from non-Catholics, thereby contributing to the prevalent - although often latent - sectarian feelings. Despite changes which helped weaken the strength of mutual mistrust, in 1939 Irish Catholics remained culturally Janus-faced: they were neither fully Irish nor completely Mancunian. Consequently, they held a contingent and variable place within the city's working class. This study utilised numerous source materials, including oral history, the local press, Catholic diocesan and parochial archives, as well as political records.
20
Horler-Underwood, Catherine. "Aspects of female criminality in Wales, c.1730-1830 : evidence from the Court of Great Sessions." Thesis, Cardiff University, 2014. http://orca.cf.ac.uk/73399/.
Full textAbstract:
This thesis draws on the extensive, underexplored records of the Court of Great Sessions for the period 1730-1830 to examine the nature and extent of Welsh women’s involvement in a range of serious crimes. Using both qualitative and quantitative methods, it provides an in-depth analysis of the characteristics of women indicted for various criminal activities, including crimes against the person and against the public peace, and offers explanations for their involvement, as far as the records allow. Information regarding the age, social position, and marital status of the female defendants has been compiled and analysed, and the extent to which these factors affected judicial outcomes is demonstrated. The broad geographical and chronological scope of this study also provides an insight into links between levels and types of crime involving women and their location, as well as changes over time. It is argued that there were distinctly gendered elements in the offences committed by women, the motivations attributed to them, and their treatment by the courts. There is no comparable study of female crime in the period encompassed by this thesis. Many historians of crime have wrongly assumed that experiences in Wales and England were the same, and both countries have often been analysed interchangeably. Welsh criminals, women included, have rarely been considered in their own right. Studies of crime in ‘England and Wales’ have too often failed to fully appreciate the distinctiveness of Wales. This thesis addresses these shortcomings, demonstrating that Welsh experiences of crime were unique in many respects. In so doing, it provides an unparalleled contribution to our understanding of female crime and gender relations in Wales during the long eighteenth century.
21
Chowne, Peter. "Aspects of later prehistoric settlement in Lincolnshire : a study of the Western Fen margin and Bain Valley." Thesis, University of Nottingham, 1988. http://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/14364/.
Full textAbstract:
The objective of this research was to examine the development of settlement in Lincolnshire during the 4th-1st millennia B.C. by a detailed investigation of two contrasting areas, the western fen margin and the Bain Valley. To understand how the fen margin settlements evolved it was necessary to study the development of the ancient landscape. This was achieved by a combination of fieldwalking, examination of aerial photographs and by recording fenland drainage sections. By studying the soils and their depositional history it was possible to relate drying out and flooding episodes to the traditional fenland sequences. The excavation of a Bronze Age and Iron Age settlement at Billingborough was described in detail and compared with similar remains from other sites. The Bain Valley was studied by a combination of survey and excavation. An area between Ludford and Tattershall was investigated by fieldwalking transects across the valley and onto the Wolds. A detailed survey of two flint scatters was undertaken. The results of two major excavations at Tattershall Thorpe were presented. One was a Neolithic settlement with associated ceramics and lithic industry the other an Iron Age defended enclosure with waterlogged ditch deposits. The two study areas were then compared, contrasted and discussed in a broader context. Results of the research suggest that a mixed agricultural economy developed on the western fen margin in the Bronze Age and a predominantly pastoral economy in the Bain Valley and on the Wolds. Early in the 1st millennium, in a period of increasing wetness and flooding, settlement patterns changed with the Witham Valley becoming the focus of attention a role it continued to play in the Iron Age. A shift towards semi-urban settlement takes place in the 1st century B.C. with the formation of major Iron Age centres. Extensive land divisions also appear at this time and it is suggested that these may relate to the territories of these centres.
22
Haynes, Kathryn. "(Sm)othering the self : an analysis of the politics of identity of women accountants in the UK." Thesis, University of St Andrews, 2005. http://hdl.handle.net/10023/14191.
Full textAbstract:
This thesis examines the politics of identity of women accountants in the UK who are mothers, by exploring the links between working in the accounting profession and the experience of motherhood. It takes a sociological approach to analyse how social, political, cultural and moral forces, in relation to accounting, motherhood and wider society, affect identity, or the self. The accounting profession is arguably a masculine enviromnent into which the accountant is socialised. Motherhood illustrates the tensions between an essentialist and a non-essentialist view of identity. The thesis explores the contradictions and juxtapositions between these two identities of accountant and mother, and the struggle of women to exercise agency within the confines of the profession. It uses a feminist methodological framework based on the subjective experience of women. As such, I present my own autobiographical account of being an accountant and mother, and the oral history narratives of fifteen other women, arguing that narrative forms an integral part of identity construction. The thesis concludes that the narrative approach and the use of oral histories has much to offer to accounting research and has important implications for our understanding of the interrelationships between accounting and motherhood. These include the emotions, transformations and constructions of identity of women accountants.
23
Gibran, Daniel Kahlil. "Strategic imperatives, British defence policy, and the case of the Falklands War 1982." Thesis, University of Aberdeen, 1990. http://digitool.abdn.ac.uk:80/webclient/DeliveryManager?pid=185747.
Full textAbstract:
This analysis proposes the thesis that in the formulation of post-war British defence policy, wider strategic developments taking place in the international environment are as important as, if not more than, domestic economic considerations, and examines the motivations that lay behind the British government's decision to recapture the Falkland Islands after their seizure by Argentine forces in April 1982. It is a first and comprehensive attempt to explore these two themes. It presents a challenge to the dominant view that British defence policy has, over the past two decades, been influenced by purely economic factors. Throughout the post-war era, defence analysts have come to accept the orthodox paradigm of British defence policy which attributes the reduction in the size of Britain's defence dispositions entirely to financial and economic pressures. While not negating the role of economic factors, this work rejects the gravamen of the orthodox paradigm and attempts to bring balance to the intellectual debate confronting British defence policy. Using the Falklands War as a case-study, this analysis demonstrates the salience of strategic imperatives and underscores the view that economic constraints can be pushed aside for what decision-makers perceive to be higher national and politico-strategic interests. It argues that while several factors may appear to have influenced the British decision to retake the Islands, only two interlocking sets are truly credible. These relate to national honour considerations and the fight for principles. Moreover, it argues that the credibility of the latter flows from the primacy of pride and prestige, thus making national honour considerations the dominant motif or explanation. The analysis begins with a review of the literature and shows the gaps which this work attempts to fill. Chapter Two examines the strategic and economic trends and developments in British defence policy prior to the Falklands War. Chapter Three presents a comprehensive picture and explanation of the Falkland Islands as an issue of long-standing dispute between Argentina and Britain. In Chapter Four, the factors that prompted the Junta to launch its attack are examined and the British response discussed. Chapters Five and Six utilize the Falklands War as a formidable case to support the major theme of this work. Chapter Seven provides a summary, and concludes with a short examination of four basic issues relating to the analysis.
24
Kroeter, Chloe Melinda. "Art and activism : promoting change through British periodical illustration, 1893-1914." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 2013. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.648341.
Full text
25
Georgescu, Ana-Luiza. "Certain tax aspects of corporate divisive reorganizations in Canada and the UK." Thesis, McGill University, 2004. http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=81470.
Full textAbstract:
A divisive reorganization involves a series of transactions having as effect and purpose the division of the trading activities carried on by a single company or group of companies between two or more companies or groups of companies. This can be achieved by a sale of assets or by a transfer of shares belonging to the corporation to be divided, which would generally give rise to taxable capital gains.The thesis analyzes the tax implications of these two approaches, with particular focus on the latter, attempting a comparative view over the UK and Canadian relevant provisions. The two substantive chapters present the UK and, respectively, Canadian rules governing the treatment of disposal of corporate assets and shares, the available reliefs from capital gains taxation, as well as the special requirements for achieving tax-free demergers. Conclusions are aimed at suggesting a more simplified approach for Canadian divisive reorganizations, with a greater degree of codification.
26
Ainsworth, James Paul. "Naval strategic thought in Britain and Germany, 1890-1914 : intellectuals, journals and the creation of strategic culture." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 2012. https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/252279.
Full text
27
Koch, Insa Lee. "Personalising the state : law, social welfare and politics on an English council estate." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2012. https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:4335c11c-c0a5-44dc-bd15-5bbbfe2fee6c.
Full textAbstract:
This dissertation offers a study of everyday relations between residents and the state on a post-industrial council estate in England. Drawing upon historical and ethnographic data, it analyses how, often under conditions of sustained exclusion, residents rely upon the state in their daily struggles for security and survival. My central ethnographic finding is that residents personalise the state alongside informal networks of support and care into a local sociality of reciprocity. This finding can be broken into three interconnected points. First, I argue that the reciprocal contract between citizens and the state emerged in the post-war years when the residents on the newly built estates negotiated their dependence upon the state by integrating it into their on-going social relations. A climate of relative material affluence, selective housing policies, and a paternalistic regime of housing management all created conditions which were conducive for this temporary union between residents and the state. Second, however, I argue that with the decline of industry and shifts towards neoliberal policies, residents increasingly struggle to hold the state accountable to its reciprocal obligations towards local people. This becomes manifest today both in the material neglect of council estates as well as in state officials' reluctance to become implicated in social relations with and between residents. Third, I argue that this failure on the part of the state to attend to residents' demands often has onerous effects on people's lives. It not only exacerbates residents' exposure to insecurity and threat, but is also experienced as a moral affront which generates larger narratives of abandonment and betrayal. Theoretically, this dissertation critically discusses and challenges contrasting portrayals of the state, and of state-citizen relations, in two bodies of literature. On the one hand, in much of the sociological and anthropological literature on working class communities, authors have adopted a community-centred approach which has depicted working class communities as self-contained entities against which the state emerges as a distant or hostile entity. I argue that such a portrayal is premised upon a romanticised view of working class communities which neglects the intimate presence of the state in everyday life. On the other hand, the theoretical literature on the British state has adopted a state-centred perspective which has seen the state as a renewed source of order and authority in disintegrating communities today. My suggestion is that this portrayal rests upon a pathologising view of social decline which fails to account for the persistence of informal social relations and the challenges that these pose to the state's authority from below. Finally, moving beyond the community-centred and state-centred perspectives, I argue for the need to adopt a middle ground which combines an understanding of the nature and workings of informal relations with an acknowledgement of the ubiquity of the state. Such an approach allows us to recognise that, far from being a hostile entity or, alternatively, an uncontested source of order, the state occupies shifting positions within an overarching sociality of reciprocity and its associated demands for alliances and divisions. I refer to such an approach as the personalisation of the state.
28
Wickramasinghe, Kremlin. "Quantifying the impact of policies addressing sustainable and healthy diets." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2015. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.711872.
Full text
29
Abbott, Stewart. "The Isle of Wight, c.1750-1840 : aspects of viewing, recording and consumption." Thesis, University of Southampton, 2006. https://eprints.soton.ac.uk/210921/.
Full textAbstract:
The main areas of Picturesque Travel during the second half of the long eighteenth century were the Lake District, Wales, Scotland and the Isle of Wight; of these locations the Isle of Wight has been the least reviewed. This study examines Island-centred historical and topographical material published 1750-1840 in conjunction with journals and diaries kept by contemporary visitors. The available archive is examined within a framework of the developing aesthetic theories of the period that surrounded the picturesque and rise of antiquarian interests, supported by more recently proposed systems of analysis. The systems and practices of viewing the Island are considered. Foremost here are the kinds of hierarchies used by the topographers in their descriptions; were they based on man made constructions, landscape qualities or status of the individual? Further to this, the study examines the ways in which contemporary diary and travel notes inform us of the Island and conclusions that can be drawn of the attractions and alterities that the Island presented to such a wide and varied group of people. Viewing, Recording and Consumption are common threads that run throughout this discourse. The Island is identified as a location of alterity; which provided alternative social conditions for visitors and residents from the mainland. The rural cottages, villas and mansions, built as retreats during this period are considered within this context. This study, which is not exhaustive, will begin to correct the recent neglect of academic interest and show that the Island could have a higher profile within eighteenth century cultural studies.
30
al-Haddad, Haitham. "A critical analysis of selected aspects of Sunni Muslim minority fiqh, with particular reference to contemporary Britain." Thesis, SOAS, University of London, 2010. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.680163.
Full text
31
Urk, Felix van. "Function-focused implementation fidelity for complex interventions : the case of Studio Schools." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2016. https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:5c73b308-efbf-48aa-91b1-f8c06b7eb885.
Full textAbstract:
This thesis is concerned with an initial assessment of the implementation of Studio Schools, a novel and highly flexible model of secondary education, in England. Responding to the methodological challenges towards evaluating a 'standard' national social programme that is encouraged to be adapted to context by local schools, the thesis also reports the development, operationalisation, and testing of a new approach towards the concept of implementation fidelity for evaluation science. The thesis commences by presenting the modern-historic foundations and challenges of the current English secondary education system that gave rise to Studio Schools, and describing the nature and objectives of the schools. This is followed by a discussion of the general challenges involved in the development and evaluation of complex social interventions and the specific challenges presented by the case of Studio Schools. The remainder of the thesis reports the development, use, and assessment of methods to overcome these challenges - with particular focus on evaluating implementation as part of process evaluations - as well as the current state of implementation in the schools. Delphi-inspired consensus methods were used in order to develop an explicit programme theory for Studio Schools where none previously existed, involving stakeholders in the theory specification process. The process demonstrated that stakeholders without a background in programme evaluation can agree to a specific and explicit theory of change after a programme was designed but prior to its evaluation. Next, a novel conceptual approach towards defining and measuring implementation fidelity was developed to translate a standard programme theory into flexible implementation measures. This approach focuses on the functions - or targeted change mechanisms - of a programme alongside its form of a given set of activities. Implementation measures were developed in the form of quantitative, paper-based questionnaires that were used to rate form- and function- focused fidelity of implementation of project-based learning (PBL) and personal coaching in schools on ordinal Likert scales. These measures were piloted and refined, and subsequently tested for their psychometric properties through the use of factor analysis in addition to established methods for determining the reliability of instruments in terms of internal consistency and inter-rater agreement. Findings show that it is feasible to monitor programme functions alongside form in process evaluations, and that the validity and reliability of measures based on this approach can be established using common psychometric methods. The measures developed earlier in the thesis were used by the doctoral candidate as well as teachers and students to rate the current state of implementation practices of PBL and coaching in Studio Schools was monitored over a period of four months in four participating schools. Ratings were based on observations made in-vivo or based on video- and audio recordings made during repeated visits to the schools. Quantitative implementation scores were calculated per rater group for PBL and coaching by aggregating ratings given to individual sessions, and were compared within and between schools. Spearman's correlation coefficients were calculated to assess correlation between form- and function-focused fidelity scores. The results of this study imply that implementation in Studio Schools likely varies substantially between individual schools and can be improved in all of them, but also suggest that the model could be evaluated for its effectiveness as long as implementation and process are carefully monitored. The additions of this thesis to the evaluation literature are considered, as well as its strengths and limitations and implications for practice and research.
32
Clegg, Mark. "The relationship between strategic culture and force protection : a study of the UK and US during the period 1999-2010." Thesis, University of Aberdeen, 2012. http://digitool.abdn.ac.uk:80/webclient/DeliveryManager?pid=206989.
Full textAbstract:
Protecting deployed servicemen makes sound military sense. For as long as war has been around, commanders and comrades have had a vested interest in preserving their own side's fighting power in order to defeat their enemies. As such, they have drawn upon technological developments and tactical agility to reduce the vulnerabilities of their own troops whilst aiming to exploit the weaknesses of adversaries. This activity, labelled force protection in common military parlance, has often been overlooked by commentators in favour of other fields of war and warfare. However, attitudes which influence each state's individual approach towards force protection stem from extremely diverse groups. Force protection transcends the traditional notions of levels of war possibly as much as any other military activity. As a function during warfare it has the potential to trouble individuals at the lowest and the highest levels of a state. Depending on one's point of view, force protection can be perceived as a purely military function or as a political imperative of paramount importance. Either view garners the attention of the domestic population which also has potential to impact on the approach to protecting deployed servicemen. Combined, the sub-cultures of the government, the military and the people form a state's strategic culture. However, these sub-cultures are often at odds and view similar problems through different lenses resulting in tensions which create a difficult backdrop for military commanders to assess. Since strategic culture is the key origin of influence for approaches to force protection, it is the natural extension that each state approaches this activity in different ways. Moreover, just as strategic culture evolves in reaction to perceptions and events, so does a state's attitude towards force protection. This study traces the period 1999 to 2010 from UK and US perspectives. It finds that both states evolved in their attitudes and approaches to force protection and indeed approached this element of war in strikingly different ways. The British approached Operation Allied Force in 1999 with a confident attitude towards force protection. UK politicians and senior commanders, backed up by a public that appeared at ease with sending British servicemen into danger, favoured tactical prowess as the means to achieve the conditions for force protection. However, this hubris was out of context as the sensitive political conditions of the US-led NATO operation demanded a 2 more technological approach; an approach which the British military struggled to match. Despite this very public experience, British strategic culture maintained its viewpoint in the early stages of the Iraq war. As UK troops set out to war in 2003, once again tactical superiority was the prescription for force protection. However, insurgent tactics, mismatched force ratios and inferior equipment all tested the UK approach. Domestic sensitivity increased during the course of this commitment and by 2006 UK politicians became more involved in the force protection dimension. As the second half of the decade progressed, with a combative domestic political landscape and UK servicemen involved in wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, political micromanagement came to characterise the British approach to force protection. This was consistent with the reports of senior UK military leaders who acknowledged the political nature of this most sensitive element of war. Nevertheless, despite such a tense domestic backdrop, British strategic culture remained unchanged as the evolving attitudes failed to manifest in shifts in behaviour. UK force protection remained the domain of military professional and tactical prowess was the favoured method of achieving it. The US journey highlights the political imperative which was placed upon force protection during the build-up and execution of Operation Allied Force. Despite widespread criticism this approach, which in practise involved politicians dictating the conduct of tactical activity, resulted in no US losses and thereby achieved one of the stated measures of success. Nevertheless, such an approach was found to be wholly unsuitable for the early stages of the Iraq war. The US initial approach to force protection was the traditional one of relying on armour, firepower and distance to remain out of the reach of one's adversaries. Insurgents were challenged to develop new munitions and tactics in order to outwit the superpower as onlookers anticipated that the US strategic community would balk in the face of rising casualties. Meanwhile, Iraqi civilians were caught in the middle of a seemingly unending fire fight as the US, tasked with providing security for Iraqis, appeared to be more concerned with their own welfare. In many ways this period confirmed the traditional narrative of US strategic culture as well as US force protection. However, as the second half of the decade unfolded, the work of figures including General David Petraeus served to turn around this losing battle. The widely-acknowledged Surge of US troops, resolute political backing by President Bush and steady support of the US public provided the conditions for US forces, armed with a fundamentally new doctrinal approach to conduct a significant shift in their approach to force protection. Although some in the US strategic community remained culturally attuned to their old ways, most acknowledged that recent successes in Iraq and Afghanistan were inextricably linked to the US approach to force protection. The year 2009 brought a change of Administration in the White House and a change of senior military commander at the helm of US and NATO forces in Afghanistan. However, despite a certain amount of domestic political turbulence and a seemingly unstoppable escalation in US casualties there appeared no signs of an alteration to the recent evolutions in the US strategic cultural approach to force protection. Force protectionism had been substituted for risk acceptance and courageous restraint.
33
Hudson, John. "Legal aspects of seignorial control of land in the century after the Norman Conquest." Thesis, University of Oxford, 1989. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:25f05e5f-5a7c-4663-aabc-8b5e0fe03afe.
Full textAbstract:
In order to reveal the functioning and development of lordship and law within society, this thesis examines the control of land and other immoveable possessions during the century after 1066. This involves subjects central to the emergence of the Common Law: how notions of property developed, how succession and inheritance evolved, how disposal of land was controlled by various interests, and how lords enforced the services owed to them. I argue that a view too narrowly restricted by modern legal definitions can miss important developments, and seek to place the various developments in their social and political context. By examining cases, I introduce the element of power as a determinant of the operation and development of law, a feature some recent writings lack. The answers to the questions posed above are thus of interest to all historians of this period, since they illuminate the distribution and functioning of power within Anglo-Norman society. I also align the changes with other developments in thought. In particular, I suggest links between the church reform movement and developing notions of land tenure. I take issue with some legal historians who argue that property, strictly defined, only emerged from the third quarter of the twelfth century. They define property as involving the tenant's secure possession of land for life; his freedom to dispose of that land; and the automatic inheritance of the land by his heir. All these required regular enforcement by the external authority of law administered by royal power. In the century after 1066, they argue, landholding was controlled by the personal relationship of lord and man, within sovereign lordships. Royal involvement was exceptional. In the later twelfth century, property emerged with a shift of control to royal jurisdiction. I argue that a similar, if limited, shift of control occurred under Henry I, particularly in relation to ecclesiastical lordships.
34
Grošelj, Darja. "Keeping up with technologies : revisiting the meaning and role of Internet access in digital inclusion." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2015. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:5f5b5b31-2428-4723-b649-b3e8efd7356f.
Full textAbstract:
The ways people go online have been transformed by the emergence of new mobile Internet technologies. As modes of Internet access are becoming increasingly diverse, this thesis sets out to examine how various forms of access shape engagement with online resources. Inequalities in Internet access have been neglected in the "second-level digital divide" research, which has focused on differences in skills and usage. Thus, I argue that inequalities of access have to be revisited and their role in digital inclusion reassessed. To study individuals' arrangements of Internet-enabled devices and locations holistically and as a dynamic entity, access is conceptualised as infrastructure. Theoretically, I distinguish between material dimensions of access and social practices shaping access, and draw on existing models of digital inclusion to examine the role of these dimensions and practices in online engagement. Empirically, a mixed methods research design is employed, complementing longitudinal analyses of survey data representative of the British population with 29 qualitative interviews with British Internet users. This study contributes to our understanding of material and social dimensions of access and their impact on Internet use patterns. First, the conceptualisation of Internet access as infrastructure is empirically validated. Second, quality, locality and ubiquity are established as material dimensions of access, where offline social and economic resources most strongly affect inclusion in high-quality, multi-local and ubiquitous Internet access. Third, three specific practices encompassing how users develop and maintain their access infrastructures are identified: spotlighting, distributing and being stranded. They reflect differences in roles Internet technologies play in individuals' daily lives as well as differences in availability of offline resources. Fourth, the results show that, controlling for a range of digital inclusion factors, the access inequalities have significant effects on a range of online engagement types, but are most strongly related to commercial and communication uses of the Internet. In sum, this study provides a nuanced understanding of how different mechanisms underlie the development, maintenance and engagement with Internet access, depending on whether access arrangements are shaped by digital exclusion or choice. Specifically, by outlining critical differences among all-round, mobile-mostly, mobile-only and home-only Internet users, broader policy and research implications are also discussed.
35
Slade, R. D. "Faith and peacebuilding in UK community cohesion since 2001." Thesis, Coventry University, 2012. http://curve.coventry.ac.uk/open/items/95df9d29-b654-4c08-b3af-70fe5bbdbfdc/1.
Full textAbstract:
The focus of this study is faith and peacebuilding in UK community cohesion since 2001. The central feature is a presentation of action research findings set in a collaborative relationship between the researcher and an inter-faith community dialogue project established to address divisive right wing extremism in the fieldwork locality of South Yorkshire. A decade of New Labour governance has seen community cohesion policy evolve from initial concerns regarding urban unrest to mainstream strategies targeted on violent religious extremism. Dialogue between ethnically diverse and white mono-cultural communities has been seen as the best way of helping people to get on better with each other. However community cohesion policy can be criticised for a significant failure to address issues of inequality and exclusion that are relevant to inter-community tensions. Since 2001, faith has been an increasingly prominent, albeit ambivalent, presence in UK society. Protagonists, arguing faith should have little or no role in public life, contest bitter disputes with those who perceive that an encroaching tide of secularism is attacking their faith beliefs and identity. Against this background right wing extremists have made astute use of faith identity, embedding their presence in some communities by utilising extremist discourses of Islamophobia that frame Muslims as a threat to the indigenous culture and resources of white communities. However some writers have identified the positive contribution that faith can make to public life. A commitment to social justice and addressing exclusion are examples of the resources faith can bring to addressing societal issues. Peacebuilding methodologies are similarly concerned with such issues. Processes for addressing protracted4 social conflict provide a framework within which faith and secular perspectives can cooperate to address these complex issues. The study’s action research found a strong relationship in the field work locality between electoral support of the extreme right wing BNP party and high levels of deprivation in white mono-cultural communities. Anger and resentment arising from industrial conflict and decline, and perceptions of being ignored by mainstream political parties, have been exploited by the BNP, opening a portal to hostile discourses of racism and Islamophobia. However the study’s research found that faith and faith values can bring rich and positive resources to inter-faith activity that aims to challenge divisive extremism that targets ethnic minority communities in general and Muslims in particular. In such circumstances it is usual practice to reduce hostile perceptions by arranging programmes of community interaction. However this study found that in communities where this strategy is not feasible, implementation of an intra-community dialogue framework may be effective in reducing hostile prejudice and stereotyping on which extremism feeds.
36
de, Aguiar Thereza R. S. "Corporate disclosure of greenhouse gas emissions : a UK study." Thesis, University of St Andrews, 2009. http://hdl.handle.net/10023/840.
Full textAbstract:
Two beliefs drove this dissertation to be centered on the analysis of the UK corporate disclosure (CD) related to global climate change (GCC). Firstly, GCC is the most significant environmental concern of our current age (IPCC, 2001; Stern, 2006; IPCC, 2007). Secondly, CD could illustrate the values of organizations and possibilities for changing organizations’ responsibility regarding to GCC (Gray et al., 1996; Bebbington and Larrinaga-Gonzalez, 2008; Bebbington et al., 2009). This study utilizes content analysis as its principal method and seeks to achieve its goal by way of a two investigations. The first investigation focuses on disclosures made by direct participants’ (DP) in the UK Emissions Trading Scheme (UK ETS). It captures GCC disclosures from both stand alone (SA) and annual reports (AR) during 2000 - 2004. This part of the study explores if joining the UK ETS changed GCC disclosures. This is tested on both a longitudinal and matched pair (MP) basis. An analysis using institutional theory suggests that instruments of environmental policy may influence GCC disclosures. Results showed that DP increased GCC disclosure, especially in the AR where mainstream business rationale is accepted. MP disclosures, in contrast, focus on the SA media and on different topics than DP disclosures. AR and SA both contain CD, but in this study they showed different patterns of disclosure and therefore may constitute different disclosure media. The second investigation suggests a method to compare GCC disclosure for a sample of DP and MP, using three different media: carbon disclosure project (CDP), AR and SA. Analysis shows that GCC disclosure did not provide sufficient information to compare GCC initiatives and disclosures. Despite the fact that organizations have similar characteristics in terms of sector, size and origin country, they showed different views on GCC issues and this may partially explain differences on GCC initiatives and disclosure.
37
Diaz, Martinez Elisa. "Does social class explain health inequalities? : a study of Great Britain and Spain." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2004. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:ca53a88e-0459-47d0-b13a-2525745d0d6a.
Full textAbstract:
The main research questions examined in this thesis concern the extent to which social class influence individuals' health, and how and whether individuals' occupation, education and lifestyles mediate between class and health. The conclusions drawn from the analysis of these empirical questions cast further light on the widening health inequalities seen in developed societies in recent decades. In particular, this research suggests that, employment conditions as well as educational levels are variables that need to be taken into account when planning policies aimed at tackling differences in health outcomes. Lifestyle variables, on the other hand, would appear to be almost irrelevant when explaining why the members of the more privileged social classes not only live longer than those in other classes, but also enjoy significantly better health over the course of their lives. In trying to understand the association between class and health, I define a theoretical framework that specifies the mechanisms through which class is linked to health. Social structure influences health by distributing certain factors such as material resources or some health-related behaviour that ultimately result in individuals having different living conditions. Educational attainment also affects the way these resources are employed and, therefore, lifestyles. A fundamental element of a social class is occupation: individuals' employment and working conditions also affect their health. Furthermore, the nature of a social structure has an effect on health at the aggregate level of analysis since social policies are partly the result of the structure of class interests. Four mechanisms are specified in order to systematically test this theoretical framework. Mechanisms (2) and (3), those that relate class and health through education and lifestyle lie at the heart of the empirical analysis. This analysis employs individual-level data drawn from health surveys carried out during the first half of the 1990s in the two countries selected for the analysis, United Kingdom and Spain. These countries are treated as contexts in which to test the theoretical explanation. The main results of the analysis reveal the importance of social class in determining health outcomes. Indeed, individuals from different classes enjoy distinct degrees of health. Specifically, individuals in the most privileged class categories have persistently better health than those in the other class categories. Differences exist in terms of both objective and subjective or self-perceived health. Moving on from observation to explanation, the analysis suggests that the distribution of certain resources across classes accounts for some of the variance in health outcomes. Hence, education is identified as a significant variable to comprehend part of the health inequalities in developed societies. Lifestyle, on the other hand, does not appear relevant in accounting for health outcomes. The small differences found between the United Kingdom and Spain in the mechanisms that link class and health suggest that the process through which class affects health is essentially similar in developed societies.
38
Kell, Patricia Ellen. "British collecting, 1656-1800 : scientific enquiry and social practice." Thesis, University of Oxford, 1996. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.670252.
Full text
39
MacRae, Rhoda. "Becoming a clubber : transitions, identities and lifestyles." Thesis, University of Stirling, 2002. http://hdl.handle.net/1893/1451.
Full textAbstract:
This thesis examines how young people identify and affliate with particular club scenes and how these practices and processes relate to their transitions, identities and lifestyles. It aims to give a sense of the processes and the resources that are required to 'become' a clubber over time. The thesis engages with the recent attempts to reconcile the conceptual and empirical divisions between the two main approaches in the sociology of youth. It suggests that the work ofSchutz serves as a heuristic framework to conceptualise data, and when synthesised with other sympathetic conceptual frameworks, links disparate literature to allow for a better understanding of the role of knowledge in the transitions, identities and lifestyles of young people. This focus influenced my choice of method: the ethnographic techniques of participant observation and in-depth interviewing were employed to access participants' experiences and knowledge of becoming a c1ubber. The findings suggest that the process of becoming a clubber is a gendered, dialectical and transformational process: informed by the social heritage and locally situated experiences of clubbing participants. It is a process that manifests itself through embodied practices involving cultural knowledge and taste. Participants place one another on the basis of their participation in and identification with a clubbing lifestyle. These placements appear embedded in the social order: they call not only on old social markers but also on the increasing hierarchies of difference within and across social groups. Social competence, cultural knowledge and consumer activities are all implicated in the placement of others, and the construction of boundaries that clubbing collectives engage in. These are young people who can afford materially and socially to extend both their structural and cultural transitions. The social confidence and adept skills of exchange that 'proper' clubbers develop are resources that help them develop and create social and cultural capital of their own. Becoming a clubber requires competency, skills and dispositions: it is a process that transmits privilege and disadvantage.
40
St, John-Smith Christopher. "The judiciary and the political use and abuse of the law by the Caroline regime, 1625-1640." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2016. https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:cf332e84-3b73-4e0b-86e8-b3ea55e41ced.
Full textAbstract:
In December 1640 the Long Parliament brought accusations against Lord Keeper Finch and six judges of the three main Westminster courts. These asserted the illegality of decisions and opinions given by these judges. This thesis examines those accusations and argues that the government of Charles I engaged in a defensible process of political management of the law and the judges to legitimate its policies particularly after the suspension of parliament in 1629. This policy emerged as a response to the government's difficulties in enforcing the payment of the Forced Loan caused by its dubious legality. The policy took advantage of important features of the contemporary relationship between the law and the government and it had five features. The most senior and able lawyers were recruited as government law officers and counsel. They amassed and used a substantial and well researched body of legal authority to support royal rights. The chief justices were appointed from amongst the government lawyers and were used as political managers of their courts. New incentives were offered as rewards for the most senior judges. Judicial views on aspects of government policy were sought in advance and the Privy Council was used to by-pass the judges if necessary. These features are examined in relation to government revenue policies including distraint of knighthood fines and the forest laws, and religious policies in relation to the application of the writ of prohibition to the economic condition of the Church and High Commission. The application of this analysis to the Ship Money Case is considered. It is concluded that the judges were manipulated rather than coerced and often successfully avoided the pressure by technical stratagems. Most importantly the government showed that it generally had the law on its side. That had serious political implications but went a long way towards exonerating the judges.
41
Murphy, Richard. "Health professionals and ethnic Pakistanis in Britain : risk, thalassaemia and audit culture." Thesis, University of St Andrews, 2005. http://hdl.handle.net/10023/2802.
Full textAbstract:
The central theme or 'red-thread' that I consider in this thesis is the concept of risk as it is perceived by and affects the two sides of the medical encounter -in this instance ethnic Pakistanis and Health Professionals- in Britain. Each side very often perceives risk quite distinctively, relating to the balance between the spiritual and temporal realms. This is particularly germane in matters to do with possible congenital defects within the prenatal realm for the ethnic Pakistani, and predominantly Muslim, side of this encounter. Thus one of the factors considered in this thesis is how senses of Islam impact upon the two sides. By ethnic Pakistanis Islam is seen as central to all life decisions, whilst Health Professionals view Islam with some considerable trepidation, little understanding it or its centrality to the former's decision-making processes. This is particularly significant with regard to attitudes to health and health care. In the initial stages of the project I had thought first cousin marriage (FCM), seen by ethnic Pakistanis as desirable and by Health Professionals as putting ethnic Pakistanis at-risk to be central to the argument, but concluded that concerns around FCM were a 'red herring', merely a trope for the tensions between the two sides -at once both British and at-risk from audit culture. Although no longer central, FCM remains a viable touchstone in consideration of the two sides' perceptions of genetic risk. In this thesis the medical encounter between ethnic Pakistanis and Health Professionals is performed within the realm of the so called New Genetics. Here the respective understandings of the New Genetics are informed by the enculturation processes that shape the two sides' world view. Furthermore, I will agree with Lord Robert Winston's and others' concern that any attempt to eradicate an adaptive genetic mutation, in this instance, thalassaemia, from the gene pool is not only undesirable in the short term, but also that such eradications may have an adverse, and far reaching, effect on whole population groups in the future. The main thrust of my argument is that audit culture not only compounds risk for both sides, but also perpetuates institutional racism within the National Health Service (NHS), by promulgating what I have called the language myth. That is to say that much institutional racism is the unwanted by-product of the NHS's attempts to become more patient centred and its continuing efforts to develop systems of best practice. This professionalisation process within the NHS can be seen to impact most strongly in relation to communication -particularly the claimed language barrier between the two sides. This 'barrier' has worrying policy implications for any meaningful communication between the two sides, notably relating to obtaining informed consent from ethnic Pakistani patients -with a resultant increase in risk for the two sides and clear economic consequences for the NHS.
42
Lee, Kin-sun Alvin, and 李建燊. "A corpus study on the depiction of political parties in British newspapers." Thesis, The University of Hong Kong (Pokfulam, Hong Kong), 2010. http://hub.hku.hk/bib/B44670266.
Full text
43
Fitton, Sarah Louise. "Social value in practice : a case of flood alleviation schemes." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 2015. https://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.709198.
Full text
44
Senior, Clive Richard. "Strategic and tactical management of advanced manufacturing systems : a survey of British industry." Thesis, University of Stirling, 1990. http://hdl.handle.net/1893/21899.
Full textAbstract:
British manufacturing Abstraot Companies have been slower to automate their facilities, and computerise their information systems, than many of their overseas competitors in Europe, North America and Japan. Initially, this research studied advanced manufacturing technology, (AMT), systems theory, the UK economy and investigated the underlying reasons for and against company' s decisions to automate. Automating procedures were studied for a sample of 20 Engineering companies with particular attention paid to their; systemic approach to implementing AMT, inter-business activity communications, individual company strategies, operational tactics, and implications from previous installations. This information was supported by questionnaires targeted at UK design engineers' and equipment suppliers. Interviews with Trade Unions, financial institutions, professional institutions and Government, were also arranged. The research found that correctly implemented AMT, with the optimum balance of flexibility and complexity, improved businesses' competitiveness, although many operational efficiencies could be attained merely by rationalising existing systems. When a company implements AMT it is critical that they synchronise the equipment with additional complementary systems and manufacturing resources. However, every company has their own unique solutions due to the historical evolution of factory facilities, product ranges and employee skills. The restrictive practices adopted the financial accountants and many of the Trade Union were found to restrain the rate of implementation for AMT and the move towards total integrated businesses. The research analysis yielded a ten point model for the strategic and tactical management of advanced manufacturing systems. Finally, the work concludes by identifying "accounting systems", and procedures for "designing for manufacture", as areas which deserve further investigation.
45
Doyle, Gillian. "The economics and regulation of concentrations of media ownership in the UK." Thesis, University of Stirling, 1997. http://hdl.handle.net/1893/2180.
Full textAbstract:
Since the early 1990s, regulators in the UK and in many other countries have faced increasing pressure from media industry participants to liberalise media and cross-media ownership restrictions. Many countries, including the UK, have responded to this pressure by amending their domestic legislative frameworks in such ways as to remove at least some restrictions which had previously been established in order to protect pluralism. The main aim for this study has been to assess the 'economic' case in favour of de-regulating media and cross-media ownership in the UK. The principal method of investigation has been to analyse the relationship between, on the one hand, the size and vertical or diagonal structure of a selection of UK media firms and, on the other, their recent economic performance. Findings suggest that, although factors other than size will affect performance, there is generally a strong and positive correlation between the market share and the operating profitability of firms who are involved in either television or radio broadcasting, or national newspaper publishing. This correlation reflects efficiency gains through economies of scale and scope and, also, revenue advantages arising from increased market power. On the other hand, there is little evidence that previous monomedia ownership restrictions represented a threat to the economic viability of the industry or that developments in the late 1990s have introduced significant 'new' gains for enlarged monomedia enterprises. Nor is there evidence that de-regulation of monomedia restrictions would have any positive impact on the exports performance of traditional UK media firms. With regard to diagonal expansion, there is no evidence that cross-ownership between radio and television or between television and national newspapers yields important economic benefits. This thesis would argue that, taken as a whole, the de-regulation of UK media ownership in 1996 has delivered relatively few enhancements to the economic efficiency or prospects of the UK media industry while, at the same time, has engendered a considerable welfare loss through lower safeguards for pluralism. This outcome reflects serious systemic problems at the national UK level in the policymaking mechanism which is supposed to curb the political influence of media owners. This study finds that the scope - via a shift in responsibility for policy-formulation to the transnational European level - for overcoming such problems will be limited, not least because the protection of pluralism remains outside the official competence of the European Commission.
46
Withall, Caroline Louise. "Shipped out? : pauper apprentices of port towns during the Industrial Revolution, 1750-1870." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2014. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:519153d8-336b-4dac-bf37-4d6388002214.
Full textAbstract:
The thesis challenges popular generalisations about the trades, occupations and locations to which pauper apprentices were consigned, shining the spotlight away from the familiar narrative of factory children, onto the fate of their destitute peers in port towns. A comparative investigation of Liverpool, Bristol and Southampton, it adopts a deliberately broad definition of the term pauper apprenticeship in its multi-sourced approach, using 1710 Poor Law and charity apprenticeship records and previously unexamined New Poor Law and charity correspondence to provide new insight into the chronology, mechanisms and experience of pauper apprenticeship. Not all port children were shipped out. Significantly more children than has hitherto been acknowledged were placed in traditional occupations, the dominant form of apprenticeship for port children. The survival and entrenchment of this type of work is striking, as are the locations in which children were placed; nearly half of those bound to traditional trades remained within the vicinity of the port. The thesis also sheds new light on a largely overlooked aspect of pauper apprenticeship, the binding of boys into the Merchant service. Furthermore, the availability of sea apprenticeships as well as traditional placements caused some children to be shipped in to the ports for apprenticeships. Of those who were still shipped out to the factories, the evidence shows that far from dying out, as previously thought, the practice of batch apprenticeship persisted under the New Poor Law. The most significant finding of the thesis is the survival and endurance of pauper apprenticeship as an institution involving both Poor Law and charity children. Poor children were still being apprenticed late into the third quarter of the nineteenth century. Pauper apprenticeship is shown to have been a robust, resilient and resurgent institution. The evidence from port towns offers significant revision to the existing historiography of pauper apprenticeship.
47
Mahoney, Lucy. "Investigating the interactions of travel behaviour and wellbeing : mixed-methods case study of Penarth and Cardiff, Wales." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2015. https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:10c62f3c-fb19-4381-89b4-b9bd4334629a.
Full textAbstract:
Transport systems are essential to trade, globalisation, communication and other forms of interaction between people and societies (Banister, 2013). Yet they can also have negative impacts including decreased quality of life or health impacts arising from pollutants, environmental damage including climate change and a range of wider socio-economic effects (Glanz et al., 1990). Given that most car journeys are short however (57% of UK trips are under five miles), there is particular potential for active travel (i.e. walking and cycling) to both reduce the environmental externalities of modern transport systems and stimulate improved quality of life and societal wellbeing (Banister, 2013; Martin et al., 2014). Unfortunately, there is a paucity of robust evidence that examines how infrastructural interventions (i.e. those aimed at making the physical environment more conducive to active travel) actually impact on active travel levels in specific communities. In addition, there is very limited evidence of the wider effects that such interventions have on wellbeing and levels of happiness overtime. This thesis details mixed-method research undertaken in Cardiff, UK, during 2011/2012, which examined the impacts of a new piece of infrastructure - the Pont-y-Werin walking and cycling bridge - on the local community's levels of active travel and subjective wellbeing. It provides insights into the nature of constraints preventing travel behaviour change from taking place, and - through the use of the novel, 'Day Reconstruction Method' - into the consequences that different modes of travel can have for travel and wellbeing, including on moment-to-moment moods and emotions. Overall by contextualising and measuring and evaluating wellbeing, the research suggests that people experience less pleasant emotions during travel than when undertaking everyday activities, and also that for certain modes there is a decrease in happiness before and after travel compared to everyday activities. Additionally greater monitoring, evaluation and promotion of combined hard and soft measures - focusing on travel behaviour change - is needed alongside providing travellers with accessible information on the wellbeing impacts of different modes (Elvik, 2009).
48
Street, Sarah. "Financial and political aspects of state intervention in the British film industry, 1925-1939." Thesis, University of Oxford, 1985. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:aeedf404-aa82-4a7e-a1b7-feb626ffff81.
Full textAbstract:
During this period the state's interest in the film industry took several different forms. The area of films policy explored in this thesis is the economic protection of the commercial film industry against the high percentage of American films screened in Britain and the Empire. I begin in 1925 because it was not until then that active steps were taken by the government, in response to agitation from producers and those who saw film as a bond of Empire and advertisement for British goods and 'way of life', leading to the Cinematograph Films Act, 1927. This proposed, for political, cultural, moral and economic reasons, that renters and exhibitors should acquire and show a percentage of British films. There was no subsidy for producers or a heavy duty levied on American film imports. The origins, impact and character of official film policy are explored in the thesis with particular attention to financial and political aspects. An attempt is made to explain why policy was limited to film quotas together with an assessment of their impact on the industry's economic development. Details are also given on how the film industry's affairs became caught up in wider debates on tariff policy in the 1920s and in Anglo-American relations ten years later. The first three chapters deal with the evolution, promulgation and initial impact of the Cinematograph Films Act, 1927. Chapter 4 examines the deliberations of the Moyne Committee, established in 1936 to review the film industry's progress. The last three chapters analyse the three major influences on policy during the making of the 1938 Films Act: the campaigns of British film trade interests; the state of Anglo-American relations and film finance. In the final assessment the major influences that shaped policy are outlined together with conclusions on the industry's position and problems on the eve of the Second World War.
49
Polley, Martin Robert. "The Foreign Office and international sport, 1918-1948." Thesis, University of Wales Trinity Saint David, 1991. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.683112.
Full text
50
McMurray, David, and University of Lethbridge Faculty of Arts and Science. "'A rod of her own' : women and angling in victorian North America." Thesis, Lethbridge, Alta. : University of Lethbridge, Faculty of Arts and Science, 2007, 2007. http://hdl.handle.net/10133/537.
Full textAbstract:
This thesis will argue that angling was a complex cultural phenomenon that had developed into a respectable sport for women during the Early Modern period in Britain. This heterogeneous tradition was inherited by many Victorian women who found it to be a vehicle through which they could find access to nature and where they could respectably exercise a level of authority, autonomy, and agency within the confines of a patriarchal society. That some women were conscious of these opportunities and were deliberate in their use of angling to achieve their goals while others happened upon them in a more unassuming manner, underscores how angling also functioned as a canopy of camouflage within Victorian society. In other words, though it outwardly appeared as a simple recreational activity, angling possessed the ability to function as a meta-narrative for its adherents, where the larger experiences and intentions of women became subtly intertwined, if not hidden, within the actual activity itself.viii, 197 leaves ; 29 cm.